Non-Oriya rule over Orissa must end

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

movement logoPeople do not need any particular politician to serve them, but the politicians volunteer to serve the people presenting all the areas where they can render the best of their service. So, in democracy, political leaders are political servants of the people, not their masters. But, it seems, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is considering himself as the master of the people of Orissa.

The syndrome is so putrefying that when he leaves or enters into the Secretariat, senior citizens, even celebrities, who, in supporting the Bhasa Andolan, join the silent black-flag march, are being often obstructed for 15 to 20 minutes on the road by the police!

His party men, who are his de facto factotums, should tell him that in posing the master he is making a farce of himself. If he continues to head the BJD brand political servants of the people till end of this elected term, he shall again seek permission of the people in the next election to serve them and the people of Orissa may or may not permit him to serve them.

His protégés should help him read this reality that despite the constitutional position he occupies, as a chief minister he is the chief political servant of the people, not their master.

If he needs any instance to understand the phenomenon, let him be reminded that, when his father Biju Patnaik had done the mistake of posing as the master, even his own staff in the State Secretariat had treated him like the people treat a mad dog. A journalist had saved him from fatal head injury and whatever worst could have happened by instantly dragging him out of the range of a soil-filled heavy pot of plant the employees had hurled at him as a missile. The next election saw him rejected by the people of Orissa.

Non-Oriya Rule Must End

People of Orissa had fought against non-Oriya rule during the British days and had created Orissa for the sole purpose of administration of their soil in Oriya language only.

The first Utkal Divas after independence i.e. the 1st of April, 1948 had laid down in the single resolution of the specially convened interim Assembly that the first work of the first elected Assembly must be enactment of the people’s desire that Oriya shall be the language to be used for all or any official work in Orissa and accordingly, the Orissa Official Language Act was enacted by the first elected Assembly and enforced with immediate effect in 1954. Thus the said Act is entirely meant to free the people from non-Oriya rule. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik cannot escape condemnation for having violated this Act blatantly with self-proclaimed immunity.

We, in Bhasa Andolan, want punishment to whosoever contravenes this core law of Orissa.

niyamavaliThe law suggested is very much in the website, which the government has floated. We want the same in situ or in any form the government may prefer, be enacted through the Assembly providing therein punishment for contraveners of the Orissa Official Language Act. For contravention of any law there is punishment, and it is just and proper to insert the provisions for punishment against contravention of this Act, on which, Orissa stands.

Till then, the black-flag march shall continue.

Non-Oriya rule over Orissa must end.

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