OrissaMatters

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Notwithstanding different and rival geographical nationalities, human society has now become ‘global’.

A single factor is responsible for this. And, that is ‘industry’.

Industry has only one aim. That is ‘profit’.

Profit has two types of ‘utilization’.

When private operators – individual or corporate – own Industry, the profit goes to personal coffers for benefit of the private operator. When ‘Society’ owns Industry, profit goes to the State Exchequer for utilization in social welfare. The former phenomenon has its philosophical base in Political Economy of Capitalism and the later in Political Economy of Socialism.

Socialism as a social science has developed in seeking end of uncompensated exploitation of natural and human resources by private profiteers and with its emergence it has ushered in confidence in human beings for continued freedom from oppression.

Oppressive forces have conspired against the new order and their planted agents have sabotaged socialist countries from within in aggressive attempts at extinguishing the latest political light that shows ways for utilization of industrial profit in cause of social welfare instead of getting stored in the black chambers of individual coffers. And to their preening best, they have unilaterally declared that the world is now unipolar!

But what has happened to this unipolar world?

Amusing it is to note that the principal architect and highest leader of the unipolar world, US of America is in quagmire due to excesses of capitalism!

Anne D’Innocenzio, Business Writer of Associated Press gives glimpses of this when on Apr 29, 2008 he informs:

“Struggling with mounting debt and rising prices, faced with the toughest economic times since the early 1990s, Americans are selling prized possessions online and at flea markets at alarming rates.
“To meet higher gas, food and prescription drug bills, they are selling off grandmother’s dishes and their own belongings. Some of the household purging has been extremely painful — families forced to part with heirlooms”.

The position is so precarious that policy-makers representing the Group of Seven free-market democracies after meeting in Washington have pledged “to purge capitalism of the excess that caused the latest crisis in financial markets” and “to finish much of the groundwork within 100 days and the rest by year-end”, reports Brian Love, European Economics Correspondent of Reuters on April 13, 2008.

But, quoting Geithner he says, it is “hard to do, complicated to figure out how to do it well”.

But capitalism cannot be purged of its excesses.

Notwithstanding lexical meanings, it stands for “competition to grab profit”.

In the perception of the profit grabbers, competition ushers in free-market and free-market upkeeps democracy. So to them, democracy is synonymous with free-market.

In a free-market the operators never compete to share the profit with the peoples or to pump in the profit to the public exchequer. Competition takes place only in order to generate more and more profit and to grab the same for personal use by the operators of industries.

For an instance, Mukesh Ambani’s 27-floor skyscraper tipped to be the costliest home in the world now under construction at Malabar Hill of south Mumbai attracts attention.

It is on records before Judiciary that the plot on which the house is being built belongs primarily to an Orphanage over which the Maharashtra State Wakf Board claims to be the custodian.

The state government’s steps to cancel the deed that has helped Ambani occupy the Wakf land was stayed by the Mumbai High Court in October 2007 and now the Supreme Court has rejected a plea against the HC order with observation that the HC is competent to decide the case.

Without any prejudice to judiciary’s role in the matter, it can safely be said that had industrial profit not been grabbed by Mukesh as personal property such a naked exhibition of individual opulence mocking at the wretched existence of majority Indians could not have mattered on the soil of India.

The judiciary can nullify the land transaction deed but cannot intervene in exhibition of opulence howsoever that may mock at the people of India perishing under poverty.

This unrestrainedly displayable opulence is a strong factor of industrial competition facilitated by free-market economy.

This competition therefore is competition amongst industry owners and traders to amass personal wealth by maximizing exploitation of natural and human recourses of the country where they operate.

Thus, when a small number of individuals amass huge volume of wealth, like the top 20 ‘rich Indians’ having amassed wealth equivalent to earning of 30 crore of (middle class) people of India as reported by PTI quoting Reserve Bank of India’s former Governor, Bimal Jalan on Jan 25, 2008, citizens of the citadel of capitalism, USA, as reported by AP, “are selling prized possessions online and at flea markets at alarming rates” to “meet higher gas, food and prescription drug bills”.

It is not known as to what is perceived by leaders of free economy as “excess” of Capitalism that the imperialists want to purge out within 100 days; but this precarious condition to which the people have been pushed into is certainly an outcome of the excesses of capitalism.

And the situation is so very precarious, because any attempt to save people from unbearable cost of living would be resented to by industry owners as thereby the the quantum of profit they fetch may be affected, the policy makers also express fear that the purging would be “hard to do”, even “complicated to figure out how to do”.

What would happen if they fail to do what they want to do?

India has examples to offer.

She had, on her soil, in the past, around six hundred persons who were Kings and Emperors who had been exploiting the people and the soil to their personal advantage and displaying their opulence in form of massive palaces, even in tombs for their spouses like the Taj. They had made bards sing their glories and made poets write scriptures equating them with Vishnu, the celestial Lord.

Where are they now?

They are no more the Lords. No more the moving Vishnus.

People of India under guidance of the Communists, who, in many kingdoms had raised armed revolutions against the kings and emperors, at the summit of freedom movement, dethroned them and threw them into the dustbin of time.

That would happen, for sure, again in respect of owners of Industry all over the world if individual opulence remains its creed than welfare of human society.

Therefore, it can be said that the decision of Group of Seven Capitalist countries at Washington to purge the excess of capitalism is perhaps the last hope for their survival.

The sooner Indian Industry and advocates of free economy understand this phenomenon, the better for them that would be.

Termination of Nepal kingdom under leadership of the Communists is perhaps the last warning to private cofferists to understand the truth that notwithstanding who owns industries, profits are the creation of community and if community is denied to have necessary benefits out of that, whatsoever office stands on the way, the community must throw that away.

If immediate rescue from the quagmire is the aim, for the capitalist seeking their system purged of excesses of capitalism, Gandhiji’s Theory of Trusteeship, if adopted whole-heartedly, may grant them a temporary reprieve.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues are briefed by bureaucrats to show how the State has been paying attention to well-being of working class, which they may vouch for from podiums on occasion of the May Day.

I am not going to details of that.

I am not going to say how the number of unemployed persons has increased many folds and how industrial workers in Orissa are not receiving the minimum wages as prescribed under the Minimum Wages Act.

I am not going to say how more and more persons from different parts of Orissa are entering into the category of bonded labors and leaving their respective homes and families in search of avenues of livelihood in neighboring and far away States.

I am not going to show how victimized workers of various factories have been spending decades in labor courts in Orissa because of absolute inadequacy of labor courts vis-à-vis profuse rush of complaint and referred cases.

I am not going to say how labor officers, all over Orissa, after failure of conciliation, are abandoning all the cases in adjudication stage even though the same cases are based on their respective reports and leaving the tortured and illiterate workers to defend their respective stands against victimization all by themselves to the total advantage of touts and the employers.

I am not going to say how newspapers and NGOs are looting the State exchequer hand-in-glove with the official functionaries in the guise of awareness campaigns against child labor and I am not going to show how private employers having caught attention for torturing child labors under their employment have not been punished for their pernicious offenses in any case during Navinraj so far.

I am going to show you some pictures of how under the scorching sun and unbearable dehydrating heat the unorganized workers categorized under the law as casual labor are blacktopping Bhubaneswar roads with boiling liquid bitumen sans shoes on their feet, sans any apron on their body, sans any mask on their nose, sans any protective glass on their eyes, sans any drinking water in their workplace. Mark them.

If, as human beings, you feel that human beings should not be treated so inhumanly, rise to the occasion and take the authorities to task for having shown such blatant disregard to human life.

Let Navin Patnaik, the autocratic chief of the mischief of democracy in this part of the globe be warned that when the labor of Orissa reduced to a state of inanity by his pro-rich administration has the courage to kick at the hot bitumen with their bare feet under the scorching sun just to elk out a day’s living, what would happen if they decide one day to deal with whosoever is responsible for their present predicament.

May Day stands witness to victory of labor over exploiters.

Starting from the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 the exploiters have adopted innumerable Ravi Shankars to pacify the exploited all over the world. But the victory march of labor is surging ahead. Whatever welfare measures are drawn up and codified in any part of the globe are because of inherent ability of labor to unite against exploitation.

Against this backdrop, again you may peruse the pictures that show how workers are exploited in broad daylight in Orissa and you may advise the present rulers not to make a farce of May Day, but to cogitate if the workforce goes on being thus neglected, what would happen one day.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Orissa is under the climate of crime.

Chief Minister Navin Patnaik has dragged this splendid and traditionally peaceful land into the hot lap of capitalism and all the crimes that capitalism generates and instigates have now engulfed the State.

Administration has gone such astray that the people of Orissa are being compelled to pay for officers who under official orders are exempted from rendering any service!

This was earlier done in cases of noted miscreants Ramesh Behera and Santosh Mishra of Indian Administrative Service as well as Sisir Acharya and Amaresh Jaiswal of Indian Forest Service. Now it is Priyabrata Pattnaik of IAS.

But the Chief Minister protecting Priyabrata from Law is not new.

In 2000, his conduct in context of a youth congregation styled Dreamfest at the Bhubaneswar Club was so sexually offensive and crude that the Government had been compelled to appoint a single judge judicial enquiry headed by District Judge Mahendra Patnaik. His report was submitted to Chief Minister Navin Patnaik. It has been suppressed and no action has been taken as yet.

His conduct in respect of the most valuable Kandadhara mines needed special investigation when people of Orissa were sharpening their protest against POSCO.

The foreign firm was so eager to grab Khandadhar mines and was so apprehensive of not getting it in view of public protests that it was suspected to have tried to succeed in its design using the Bhubaneswar club headed by Priyabrata as a mask. The secret deal could have been unveiled had the modus operandi of Bhubaneswar Club applying for Khandahara on lease been investigated into and Priyabrata’s clandestine connection, if any, with POSCO in violation of the Code of Conduct of Government Servants could have come to light. This could not happen as the Chief Minister’s chair was occupied by Navin Patnaik.

Going into the history of such misdemeanor is not relevant at the moment. What is relevant is the conduct of Chief Minister in protecting him despite he having admitted that Priyabrata’s conduct was not becoming of an officer.

The order he has passed for posting of Priyabrata as Officer without portfolio confirms that the Government has lost confidence in the officer. To the Government he is not trustworthy.

But by posting him as Officer without portfolio, Navin has ensured that he shall continue enjoying his rank and receiving his salary sans any work and the peoples shall go on bearing compulsorily the burden of his high pay package without obtaining any service from him.

This is sufficient evidence of how the Chief Minister has supported a man whose nexus with the underworld has hit the police hard emanating directly from the lips of a contract killer who by profession is a hit man, in course of interrogation in the matter of cold-blooded murder of Judo coach Biranchi Das.

Murder of Biranchi yet unsolved and suspected assassins yet at large; it does not look correct to deal with that subject.

In our view, police should be kept off pressure so that investigation would proceed systematically. Media activism should be least encouraged in crime investigation. The media in Orissa has no criminologist on employment and no media organization has ever imparted in-service training in criminology to any journalist reporting crime. So, as we have watched, Orissa media having no education or expertise in criminology, has overwhelmed the process of investigation with uncalled for suggestions, unqualified suspicions and immature innuendoes and like mud water suits the crab, the confusion created by media has suited the assassinator of the Judo coach so far.

Therefore without any prejudice to how the prosecutors are proceeding in the instant case, we shall limit our focus on the climate of crime the CM has allowed to engulf Orissa in Priyabrata context.

This blue-eyed boy of POSCO-Navin nexus, after Acharya’s close colleague Chagala alleged that the hit men including himself were engaged by Priyabrata, had wanted to keep on records in a press conference that he neither had known nor had ever seen gangster Raja Acharya, the suspected killer of Biranchi. But in course of a mild interrogation he confessed before the police that he had met Raja a couple of days before Biranchi was murdered.

Whether or not he had hired the hit men is a matter for the State to reveal. But the people do not wait for the State to see how the needle of suspicion is sharply rushing towards him.

By posting him as an officer without portfolio, Navin Patnaik has ensured that he can freely and in opportune moments contact any functionary anywhere in the citadel of power.

In the climate of crime that Navin Patnaik has ushered into Orissa, what better method could have been invented to help an untrustworthy officer escape Law?

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Describing how Orissa had attacked and subdued the Muslim Bengal, Dr. K. R. Quanungo writes in ‘The History of Bengal, Muslim Period’ at pp.48-52, that, Tughral Tughan Khan was no doubt out-generalled by the king of Orissa who had drawn the enemy far away from their frontier and must have concealed more than one surprising party along the whole route of the enemy’s advance. A greater disaster had not till then befallen the muslims in any part of Hindustan. The Muslims, says Minhaj [the historian Minhaj-i-Siraj who had also joined the war that was, to him, a ‘holy war’], sustained the overthrow, and a great number of those holy warriors attained martyrdom.

Relying on Havel, who noted in ‘Indian Sclupture and Painting’ that the war horses and elephants sculptured at Konarka depict the “pride of victory and glory of triumphant warfare”, Dr. K. C. Panigrahi writes in ‘History of Orissa’ at pp.413-414 that King of Orissa, Langula Narasimha “began his campaigns against Muslim Bengal in 1243 A.D. His victory over the Muslims of Bengal and his acquisition of the southern districts of Western Bengal must have enormously raised his prestige in the eyes of the contemporary Hindu Rulers, and augmented his resources, which in all likelihood enabled him to undertake the construction of a stupendous structure like the temple of Konark, designed to exhibit his power, prestige, opulence, devotion and perhaps to commemorate his victory also”.

But despite this truth recorded by history, Bankim Chandra of Bengal had overreached over a Bengali claim over Konarka through throwing an article in a school textbook in Bengali that Narasingh Dev belonged to Bengal and the Sun temple was an epitome of Bengali architecture!

Bankim Chandra’s trick was just an instance of how taking advantage of the British rule in Bengal when Orissa had kept them at bay and was the last land to have been annexed by the British but the first land to have raised a revolution against them in the entire country of India, the Bengalis had tried to misappropriate every gem of Oriya culture to create for themselves a fabricated cultural heritage. Their false claims over Sri Jaya Dev, creator of Radha and author of Sahajiya love lyrics squeezed into the Geet Govind as well as on Chaurashi Siddhacharyas, authors of Charyagitis (Bauddha Gan o Doha) have been exposed in these pages, wherein their mens rea behind this cultural dishonesty has been discussed.

It has also been discussed in these pages that the sculptures of Konark, the love lyrics of Sri Jaya Dev and the Charyagitis of Chaurashi Siddhacharyas are intricately linked to and influenced by Orissa’s now extinct Mahodadhi Civilization.

The sea in Orissa region was famous as the Mahodadhi. But the Bengalis, under circumstances hinted to above, as in the aforesaid three instances, have succeeded in changing the name of Mahodadhi to Bay of Bengal.

This wrong done to history needs correction.

The Mahodadhi civilization of Orissa was so developed that in whole of India, it was only Orissa the people of which were the pioneers amongst Indians to establish their colonies and dominions in far away lands beyond Indian limits where geographical names akin to names of Orissa give ample evidences in this regard.

Dr. Nihar Ranjan Roy informs us in ‘Brahminical Gods in Burma’,

“The ancient name attributed to old Prome is Srikshetra, so often mentioned in the Mon records as Sikset or Srikset, and by the Chinese pilgrims as Si-li-cho-ta-lo; and Srikshetra is the holy land of Puri on the ancient Kalinga coast”.

“Likewise” he also informs, “the earliest colonization of the Malaya Peninsula and Java had probably been made from Kalinga, for the Hindus of the Peninsula and the islands were and are still known as Kling.”

“The two examples from Tholan, now housed in the Rangoon Museum”, he says, “are decidedly Indian in form and composition as also in execution, done no doubt locally by Indian artists or by artists trained under Indian masters. They seem to have very intimate artistic affinities with the most recent finds of Brahminical and Mahayanist divinities from Orissa by Rai Bahadur Ram Prasad Chanda, B.A., now housed in the Indian Museum.”

Melaka, one of the thirteen States of Malaysia, was founded 2 degrees north of the equator by the shore of the Straits between Singapore to its south and Kuala Lumpur to its north by an Oriya prince, probably Hamvira (known there as Hang Tuah), which as far back as the early 15th century, had become a metropolis with traders and merchants of very many nations from east and west having there their business negotiation centers. It was developed by its founder for this purpose and also as a common shelter for seafaring traders and the response was so worm that as many as 84 different languages were being spoken there at the height of its glory. Melaka is a typical Oriya word (as in MELAKA PADICHHI RAJA YOTAKA) and the place where the prince of Orissa, its founder, breathed his last and took his final rest is famous as Tanjung Keling. When people of the place mean Kalinga (Orissa) by Keling, Tanjung means to people of Orissa even today the moving throne of the king and it stands for the chair on which seated the Gajapati Maharaja of Puri visits the temple or chariots of Sri Jagannatha.

A letter received recently from Sri Ramroop Jugurnauth of Mauritius is very significant. He writes, “My ancestors came to Mauritius more than 150 years ago. I made searches for my roots and I came to know that my ancestor came from Orissa. I also have in my possession some handwritten documents in an ancient Indian language. An Indian friend of mine forwarded it to the BHU (Language Dept). There they confirmed it to be an ancient Oriya. I therefore consider myself a cut-off branch from Oriya culture”. He further writes, “My family name Jugurnauth is infact Jagganath and it itself suggests my Oriya origin”. The pictures below are pages of handwritten Oriya manuscripts preserved by his family for 150 years in Mauritius.

Be it Mauritius or Melaka, be it Singapore or Ceylon, it is Oriyas of India that had established their colonies and commercial empires because they alone had the best of ships and shipping activities.

Even the British have admitted it. Writing to W.B.Bayley, Secretary to Government in the Judicial Department, in his Report dated 3 May 1817, E. Watson, 4th Judge, Calcutta Court of Circuit has unambiguously told of the ships of Orissa that they “were by far the best that I ever saw in any part of India”.

Nowhere any of the British authorities has recognized so eloquently any marine activity of Bengal even though they had there their seat of power.

So, it was wrong on part of the British to have named the sea that was under shipping activities principally of the people of Orissa as Bay of Bengal.

This offense the British colonialists and their Bengali collaborators have committed against the people of Orissa by obliterating the ancient name of Mahodadhi and by replacing it with Bay of Bengal shall have to be changed in respect of Orissa region.

This should be the program of Oriyas on the occasion of celebration of the birthday of Madhubabu (Kulabruddha Madhusudan Das) today.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The lawyers of Berhampur have been brutally beaten up by Police as they were mounting collective pressure for establishment of a branch of Orissa High Court in that part of the State.

The lawyers of Sambalpur have already kept their demands for a branch of the High Court in their region on records.

Bhubaneswar has already witnessed a lawyers’ stir in demanding a High Court seat.

Similar demands from remote parts of Orissa have started rumbling.

But, the police assault on Berhampur lawyers has not only made lawyers of different parts of Orissa emotionally embarrassed, but also has tormented the litigant public to apprehend that it perhaps portends a judicial anarchy.

We are made to believe that stir of lawyers for a seat of High Court in their respective regions has earned stern disapproval of the High Court. But that cannot be a cause for subjecting lawyers to such a nasty treat.

If the lawyers have been building up collective pressure for a seat of the High Court in their respective regions, it is not in their personal interest, but in interest of the litigant public.

The litigant publics of Orissa are severely hit by inordinate delay in justice. Justification of delay in disposal of cases under the plea of insufficiency in numbers of judges in the High Court is itself a mockery of justice. A High Court is the highest court of justice in a state and is the controlling authority of dispensation of justice in the area under its jurisdiction. A High Court is competent to make laws as would be required in interest of justice. A High Court is competent also to issue a judicial direction to a government to carry out the judicial law it so frames. If existing judges are inadequate in Orissa High Court to dispose off cases without delay, it should formulate necessary methods to avoid delay in justice and if more judges are required it should determine the required number and make the government arrange for their appointment. Instead of doing that why should there be maintained a climate where delay in justice would be justified?

Peoples have a birthright to receive justice at the quickest possible opportunity; but in Orissa they are being compelled to tolerate enforced loss of their age and energies in waiting for the High Court decisions.

Besides O.J.C., litigants affected by decisions at lower level also prefer appeals in the High Court. The lower Court lawyer, eager to protect his/her client’s interest often prefers an appeal in the High Court.

In these or in Writ cases, whosoever prefers any litigation in the High Court, may be by own intelligence or under advice of the lawyer of the lower court, does so only through a High Court practitioner at Cuttack.

So when a case gets inordinately delayed in the High Court, the lawyer in the periphery through whom the litigant might have contacted or engaged a High Court practitioner at Cuttack is bound to be embarrassed by being required to explain his or her client the delay. On the other hand, there are brilliant lawyers in the periphery who, notwithstanding failure in the lower court, might be because of deficiency in comprehension or lack of probity on part of the concerned judge, are much more competent than many of the High Court practitioners to handle the case in the High Court, interpretation of the Law there being pivotal. In the circumstances demand for a High Court seat in Berhampur, Sambalpur and elsewhere is justified and is not averse to justice.

In fact, establishment of seats of a High Court in various regions of a State would be an act of ensuring speedy and less expensive justice to the peoples.

Demands for branches of the High Court cannot be anything other than a revolutionary expression of legal activism that aims at making justice available at doorstep.

Instead of appreciating this silent revolution, if repression goes on, judicial anarchy would spread.

Needless it is to elaborate that judicial anarchy cannot be preferred to legal activism as long as democratic sovereignty remains the creed of the country.