A British Minister, Sir Montegue was sent to India in 1917 to assess the situation of unrest arising in India after the first world-war. To express the public opinion before the British government, meetings were held all over the country. One such meeting, held in Raipur on 26 August 1917, was addressed by Pt. Shukla: there he called upon his countrymen to make sacrifices and to fight for our rights, otherwise he said we will always remain a colony of the British.