Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Now the hidden motive is discernible. Voice has been raised through media to put Sankaracharya in charge of Jagannatha till at least the end of the Car Festival. It means, the fiasco in transfer of the so-called Brahma was designed to create a situation to help Sankaracharya gain hegemony in the management of the affairs of SriJagannatha.
Since collective wisdom of the people of Orissa had forced Gajapati Divyasingh Dev (1793-98) to evict Sankaracharya from the SriMandira system, the successive heads of Gobardhan Math, the single role of which was to train the Brahmin priests in tricks of vitiating the Cult of Jagannatha with caste-supremacist cult, have been trying to grab again the great temple of applied Buddhism.
The incumbent Sankaracharya Nischalananda, the anti-Oriya, who hates Oriyas because of their inherent aversion to treatment of Jagannatha like any other god of Hindu pantheon; and because of that, has inherent hatred for Oriya language and Oriya culture which undoubtedly is Jagannatha culture, has been trying since long to sit at the helm of Jagannatha affairs, so that whatever remnants of Buddhist origin of the greatest deity of the Oriyas are still alive could be completely destroyed.
Despite around four decades of stay in Orissa, living with Orissa’s water, air, food and salt, Nischalanand, who has never wanted to learn and speak in Oriya (journalist Deviprasanna Nayak in conversation), has been issuing threats to Orissa government in the name of religion; and taking advantage of emergence of religion revivalists in Indian power after Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee gang completely discredited the Congress, has seemingly succeeded in checkmating the Daitas – the strongest protectors of Jagannatha’s Buddhist origin so far – by using the chief administrator of the temple Suresh Mohapatra (IAS) and Gajapati Divyasingh Dev, the two agents of Brahminism, after which his protégés have started sounding that now as the State Government has mismanaged the Brahma replacement, it should abdicate its role in matters of SriJagannatha and handover the authority to Sankaracharya.
Puppet media mostly run by corporate houses and hence subservient to the exploitative class, have dumfounded the general public with anti-Daita publicity meticulously built up with calculated dexterity of shrewd scribes and executed with unprecedented ferocity of a class of aggressors, the like of which was never witnessed in Orissa.
Victims of this nefarious design are the Dayitas, the last remnants of Buddha’s Oriya origin and the protectors of the real cult of Jagannatha.
The media as a whole is involved with such shenanigans that a senior journalist has publicly posed a question: “Are they Dayitas or Daityas?” to which, dummies have promptly answered: “Daityas (demons)”!
In aggravating the situation, Gajapati Divyasingh Dev, the spiritual sovereign ruler of Oriya hearts, who, because of being the hereditary first servitor of SriJagannatha, is so dear to indigenous inhabitants of this splendid soil, that, when a child is born, in his/her horoscope the first name to be inscribed is his, has, sadly vomited innuendos against the Daitas, apparently to discredit them to the pleasure of caste-supremacists.
As expected, communalist BJP has been with Nishchalanand.
But surprisingly, the non-communal Congress has also joined the boggy of the culture-vultures to precipitate mass disliking for the Daitas, lest thereby its paralyzed grip on Orissan politics could fetch any new flow of blood.
All those politicians, except the Communists, and all those netizens except the rationalists, and all those intellectuals who are afraid of seeing beyond the legends lest the doors of the hail opens for them after death, and all those bragging sophomores, sans any knowledge on anthropocentric manners of Jagannatha, are busy in adding their strength to motivated media to denigrate the Daitas.
But these fellows have not yet used their collective intelligence, if any, to let the people know, under whose orders, agent provocateurs had entered the secluded place to disturb the so-called Brahma transfer. Motivated media as a whole is busy in diverting people’s attention from the real issue.
Keeping a close watch on behaviors of media, we reach at five highlights: (1) Gajapati Divyasingh Dev is bitterly unhappy over Chief Minister’s silence on mismanagement of Brahma transfer and has hurled allegations of incompetency at him; (2) The sanctity of Navakalevar has been violated by link of Daitas with the ruling BJD; (3) Daitas in excess numbers have entered into the secluded area of Brahma transfer and violated the sanctity of the secret function; (4) Chief Administrator Suresh Mohapatra (IAS) is squarely responsible for the mismanagement; and (5) Authority over the temple of Jagannatha needs be vested in the hands of Sankaracharya.
Media should have taken up these points to apprise the people of reality; but it has not happened. This prods us to put our views on these points seriatim.
(1) When we look at the Gajapati, he has no legitimate authority to issue political comments. He is the ornamental head servitor of Jagannatha and his conduct in the context of Jagannatha is bound by protocols. Beyond that he has no legitimate role. Hence, he should not have allowed himself to issue political comments in media against the Chief Minister in a style more congenial to public prejudice against Daitas than cleansing the muddy environment, which the crabby elements have created to mislead the innocent believers. On this premise, and further to what we have said in a preceding post referred to bellow, it seems that Gajapati Divyasingh Dev has been working in nexus with Sankaracharya to create an environment for him to establish his hegemony in affairs of Jagannatha to benefit of caste-supremacists.
(2) Political membership of any Daita never hampers the sanctity of any function of Jagannatha. Daitas are not 24 hour servants of the temple. Their responsibility is legally limited and they are free to join politics as they like. Father of the present Gajapati, late Birakishore Dev was a member of Orissa Legislative Assembly from Khurda constituency by embracing Jana Congress when his uncle, my close friend Raj Raj Dev was elected to Assembly from Brahmagiri as a member of the Swatantra Party and both of them were active against Biju Patnaik, father of the present Chief Minister. No ceremony of Jagannatha was affected by their political link. On the other hand, Minister Arun Sahu’s rest in a Savarpalli with Daitas or Minister Damodar Raut’s presence on a site of identified Daru or Minister Maharathy’s driving the Daru cart may be symbolic of the State’s intimate involvement with the great festival, but cannot be termed as offenses against the sanctity of the Daru, as no such action is defined as illegal and offensive.
(3) It is admitted that four Daitas were authorized to change the secret Brahma. It is admitted that after Gajapati left the temple paying his last respects to the images to be buried after transfer of the “TejomayaDhatu”(the so-called Brahma) to new images, everybody present inside the temple system was ousted and the entrances were locked. To the shock of the four designated Daitas, around 40 persons had entered into the secluded area without any authority and any necessity. These transgressors acted as agent provocateurs to derail the schedule in blatant disregard to secrecy and sanctity of the event. As the inordinate delay continued to torment the general public, it was the duty of the Gajapati to enter into the temple as the first servitor of Jagannatha and find out the reason of delay. Then he could have seen who were the trespassers that were derailing the ceremony and should have hand them over to the police for penal prosecution. The authorized Daitas were ready to identify them. But the Gajapati did not discharge this basic duty and thereby helped the agent provocateurs hijack the day. It would be impossible now to book the said agent provocateurs.
(4) Suresh Mohapatra is the only person on whose secret orders the agent provocateurs must have entered the temple to derail the ceremony. Admittedly the temple system was subjected to “sodh” after the Gajapati had left. All persons present in the temple premises at that time were driven out and the doors were closed, guarded by temple police. The entire temple was surrounded by the police forces of the State Government. In that condition, no single person could have opened any door to enter into the temple. But around forty persons had admittedly entered. This was possible in only two situations. If the Gajapati should have wanted or if the Chief Administrator of the Temple should have wanted, the guarding police could have allowed them entry, otherwise never. In the instant case, Gajapati was not present, as, he being the most revered of all whom people take as the living form of Jagannatha, his presence could never have been suppressed. So, even though it cannot be said that he did not know of the scheme, it can never be said that the agent provocateurs had entered the temple under his orders. Then the only man who could have helped the trespassers was IAS officer Suresh Mohapatra, the chief Administrator of the temple, who was present on the spot. His secret instruction to someone at an entrance gate to allow the agent provocateurs to enter into the temple might not have marked as unusual at that time. Were he not to hide the truth, he should not have conducted the post-offense inquiry. Being in the center of suspicion and public disapproval, he should have asked someone else to conduct the inquiry and subjected himself to that inquiry too. His conduct is generating more suspicion in public mind.
(5) These sequences have paved the way for the caste-supremacists and their pet media to demand for handing over the temple system to Sankaracharya Nischalanand, the ethical enemy of the Cult of Jagannatha.
In lead article “Navakalevara:Legends and Reality”, the mischief of Brahma has been discussed and it has been further discussed how media is making the situation irresponsibly confusing in interest of hidden masters in another article captioned “Media act Instigator: People misled in matter of Navakalevara”. One may gain further insight into the clandestine conspiracy by visiting “Parasites activate their design: Sankaracharya invited to Bath and Rath festivals of SriJagannatha”.
Shamefully, a non-communal party like the Congress has allowed itself to be swayed away by the hidden agenda of Sankaracharya and his gang in discrediting the Daitas to the advantage of caste-supremacists who want to destroy the Buddhist origin of Jagannatha and dismiss Applied Buddhism from the Jagannatha system.
If, SriJagannatha is to be preserved in his original magnificence, emphasis should be put on investigation into Role of Sankaracharya-Gajapati-Suresh Mohapatra Gang. Political acrobatics should never be encouraged.
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