OrissaMatters

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Guillotine is a parliamentary practice. But a government escaping accountability in financial matters entirely by the means of guillotine itself is indicative of deficiency in management of democracy. It is a matter of shame that the Orissa government under Naveen Patnaik has failed to overcome its deficiency and has failed to respect the democratic emphasis on discussion than guillotine.

From commencement till date the Orissa Legislative Assembly has not been able to transact any tangible business as the government side has kept pressed a Motion on use of Hirakud water against a Motion proposed on the same subject ahead of the treasury benches and Speaker Maheswar Mohanty elected from the treasury benches to the coveted post has not acted upon the Motion proposed by the Opposition even though this precedes the official proposal.

It is clear and unambiguous that the treasury benches have been strangulating the Assembly and they perhaps do not want the House to proceed so that they can escape accountability. Now with the guillotine they have succeeded.

Success of the treasury benches in escaping accountability can have no other meaning than defeat of democracy.

An Assembly that has been hijacked as such by the government of the State to a stage where accountability cannot be clamped on it, has no meaning in living any more. It is a seer loss of time and money of the State.

So the Governor should appreciate that the current Assembly is incorrigible and hence, he should intervene in order to set it right. He should not remain a mute witness to strangulation of the Assembly by a government that he heads statutorily. He should summon the Chief minister forthwith and ask him to withdraw the official Motion nailed on the House subsequent to the Motion of the Opposition and to appropriately discuss the Motion first notified in order to develop a democratic consensus on the same and thereby to help the House proceed with normal business.

If the Chief Minister fails to comply with his advice, he should act under Article 174 (2) (b) of the Constitution to dissolve the ailing Assembly so that a healthier one may take birth.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Ever since commencement, the current session of Orissa legislative Assembly has not transacted any tangible business. Both the sides have made it collapse.

Demanding a motion adopted on votes by the Assembly, prohibiting supply of water from Hirakud Reservoir to industries as that adversely affects irrigation, the Opposition is not allowing transaction of any other business of the House; whereas the government side has placed a parallel Motion on the same issue to pledge the Hirakud water to irrigation, while desiring the motion to develop a consensus on the issue sans voting.

Both the sides are legally right in coining their respective motions and are also right in sticking to them.

But are they doing anything other than shedding meretricious tears for the farmers?

It is congress that has a Prime Minister in Dr. Man Mohan Singh who is the father of an era of importance given to industry over agriculture. Have the Congress legislators of Orissa ever questioned that anti-farmer design of their national leadership? Can they ever?

Similarly, Chief minister Naveen Patnaik is conspicuous by his eagerness to serve the non-Oriya industrialist to the detriment of Oriya marginal farmers. He is so obstinately anti-people that he never visited the victims of Kalinga Nagar massacre perpetrated by the state police to serve the purpose of private industrialists. His followers are so docile that he was never challenged for this nefarious design against the children of Oriya soil and so motivated in favor of private industry that instead of standing with Oriya farmers they are busy in dividing the farmers community into rival groups so that private industries including foreign industries like POSCO find free ways to exploit Orissa. Against this backdrop, can the legislators who pride in being followers of the BJD autocrat be ever taken as sincere in their approach to the turmoil over Hirakud water?

To me both the sides are making a farce of the demands of our farmers and in competition to continue the farce, they have made the Assembly collapse.

I have earlier discussed how failure of the Speaker to work as per The Rules has helped continuance of the impasse. Had the Speaker dared to rise over party politics and acted impartially as thr Rules dictate, the impasse could have been removed.

I have been reporting Assembly for so many decades. Never such a bad shape had the Assembly acquired.

It is high time to admit that the Assembly has collapsed. Taking into account the volume of its legislative time lost in filibustering, it would not be anti-democracy to say that the present Assembly should be dissolved to give the people of Orissa a new chance to elect a new Assembly, which, hopefully, may be a better one.

The Governor, upon whom the Constitution under Article 174(2)(b) has bestowed the responsibility of dissolving the Assembly, should rise to the occasion and dissolve it so that future members would be more conscious of the importance of legislative time.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Speaker Maheswar Mohanty has declared that he will not claim his participation allowances for the days of this session when the Assembly remains so stonewalled that no tangible business is transacted. But, it is he to whom annalists may hold responsible for the continuing impasse that has kept the House stonewalled for the last five days ever since its current session commenced.

Since commencement of the current session, Orissa Legislative Assembly has failed to proceed with normal business, as the Speaker is not disposing off a Notice from the Opposition on a Motion it wants the Assembly to adopt.

The farming community has raised vociferous protests against supply of water to industries from the Hirakud Dam Reservoir (hereafter called the Reservoir) and has heightened its demand for ban on any diversion of water from power generation and irrigation to industrial use.

In fact, the Hirakud Dam was created for this specific purpose of power generation and irrigation only and the people of the area have tolerated the turmoil of displacement only for this purpose.

Diversion of water to industry has made a farce of peoples sacrifice and our people are no more willing to tolerate this onslaught. The recent mass agitation has made it clear that unless the government amends itself, the situation will no doubt go beyond controls.

The Opposition has taken a timely and appropriate step to stop precipitations. It has preferred a Motion that wants the Assembly to bind the government through a unanimous decision to reserve the Reservoir for only power generation and irrigation. Therefore it has given the notice under Rule 113-B of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Orissa Legislative Assembly, herein after called The Rules, which stipulates at Cl.(3),

The Speaker shall, at the appointed hour on the allotted days or on the last of the allotted day, as the case may be, forthwith put every question necessary to determine the decision of the House on the original question.

Section 113-A of The Rules has two parts. In Part (1) it has spelt out the conditions of admissibility of motion. These conditions are:

(i) it shall raise substantially one definite issue;
(ii) it shall not contain arguments, inference, ironical expressions, imputations or defamatory statement;
(iii) it shall not refer to the conduct or character of persons except in their public capacity;
(iv) it shall be restricted to a matter of recent occurrence;
(v) it shall not raise a question of privilege;
(vi) it shall not revive discussion of a matter which has been discussed in the same session;
(vii) it shall not anticipate discussion of a matter which is likely to be discussed in the same session; and
(vii) it shall not relate to any matter which is under adjudication by a Court of law having jurisdiction in any part of India.

The Opposition Motion does not violate of any of these conditions. Hence its notice is doubtlessly admissible.

If there is any defect in the motion, the Speaker is empowered to disallow admission thereof in whole or in part under the 2nd part of this Rule which says,

The Speaker shall decide whether a motion or part thereof is or is not admissible under these Rules and may disallow any motion or a part thereof when in his opinion it is an abuse of the right of moving a motion or is calculated to obstruct or prejudicially affect the procedure of the Assembly or is in contravention of these Rules.

But the Speaker is failing. He is neither admitting the Opposition Motion nor is he disallowing it. He is the person to decide, but he is not taking any decision. Therefore, the Assembly has remained stonewalled.

Seemingly he is in a predicament.

He is put to this predicament by the Treasury Benches on whose choice he is in the chair and whereto he shall go if under any circumstances he relinquishes. This predicament is caused by another Motion noticed apparently in retaliation to the one from the Opposition. This parallel Motion from the government side wants its disposal under Section 113-C of The Rules, where the matter, if taken in to consideration shall not be put to the vote of the House. Unless it is voted, it is not binding. Crux of the issue lies here

The Chief minister has declared through television interviews repeatedly that there shall be no supply of water to industry from the Reservoir; but Minister Raghunath Mohanty has told the Press that supply of water to industry from the Reservoir shall not affect irrigation.

Mohantys statement has helped people know the hidden agenda of the government behind the formulation of its parallel Motion. It makes it clear that water supply to industries from the Hirakud shall continue notwithstanding in what term the House discusses the official Motion.

It is a known fact that Navin babus loyalty to industry has put the people of Orissa in pernicious jeopardy. He or his government can go to any extent to hoodwink the innocent people and therefore, the Opposition says, binding the government with a voted Motion to preserve the water of the Reservoir for only power generation and irrigation is the bare minimum necessity of the moment.

If Navin is not trying to hoodwink the farmers why he is afraid of the Motion preferred by the Opposition? It is really intriguing; specifically as the government claims that the Motion it prefers is also on the same issue with the same intension.

In fact, if the government does not want to reject the demands for use of the reservoir water only for power generation and irrigation, then it has no reason to oppose the Opposition Motion. It has no reason to be afraid of voting; because being in majority, the government side can make the Motion voted and then the credit shall certainly go to the Treasury Benches for making it binding.

The government can also reject the Opposition Motion by majority vote as being in the Treasury Benches, it has majority members in the House. So why it is reluctant to take a specific step?

Who, then, is responsible for the impasse in the Assembly? The Government or te Opposition?

On the other hand, why the Speaker is reluctant to pass a ruling in order to end the impasse?

He has two Motions on his table. Difference in language notwithstanding, both of the Motions is equal in intent. So the Speaker should pick up one and reject the other.

In this regards, he has two options to exercise. One, he should admit the notice that is received earlier than the other.

As the Opposition notice is received earlier, he should admit this and reject the official one.

The second option available to him is exercise of his wisdom in favor of result-oriented discussion.

A Motion sans voting cannot be result-oriented. If the debates on a Motion do not arrive at a determination, it would go barren and shall have no end-result. And there is no gain in engaging the House in a debate that would go barren in a very sensitive instance that craves for a binding direction from the Assembly.

In case, the Speaker ignores the Opposition Motion noticed earlier and admits the Official Resolution noticed later, as the guardian of the Rampart of Democracy, he is expected to declare as to what in his view is the majority opinion of the House so that water supply from the Reservoir would be guided accordingly.

This would tantamount to a decision of the House without voting with lot of openings for future litigations.

This would not be conducive to what in a democracy people normally expect. Therefore, it is best to avoid declaring a decision without a voting.

The issue is really serious. The Speaker ought to pay his serious attention to this. By declaring not to claim allowances till the impasse is over he is not helping democracy. He is to act. And, act very soon. The Rules have given him the required authority to allow or disallow placing of a Motion for consideration of the House. And The Rules have clearly categorized the conditions on which a Motion can be allowed or disallowed by the Speaker.

But to act according to The Rules, he is perhaps required to rise above party lines.

The Kandhamal District administration and literary organizations of the district collaborated in celebrating the golden jubilee of Orissa sahitya Akademi on 18 November 2007.

Inaugurated by the District Collector Bhabagrahi Mohapatra, the event commenced with a stress on recognition of Kui as a language in order to help the Kandh tribes entering into the mainstream of society. District Board Chairperson Smt. Kuntala Mallik was the Chief Guest.

Chairing the event, Akademi VP, H.R.Gandhi dwelt on how Oriya literature is dovetailed with folklores and folk stories prevalent in tribal belt of Orissa including Kandhamal.

Dr. Premananda Mohapatras keynote address projecting contemporary Oriya literature provided the base for Jubilee discussion wherein Dr. nalini Kumar Panigrahi and Adityeswar Mishra participated.

The Jubilee poet meet was presided over by Dr. Purna Chandra Mohanty, Principal of Phulbani Womens College. Smt. Pranati Tripathy and Sri Kishore Chandra Mishra were the coordinators.

The evening was dedicated to applied culture with active participation by the local Dance Academy, Nataraj Kala Mandir and Koel Kala Samsad. Project Director of Rural Development P.K.Rath joined as Chief guest. Sri Banamali Panigrahi and Dr. Madhusudan Mohapatra were the guests of honor.

Eminent journalist and socio-cultural analyst of Orissa Sri Subhas Chandra Pattanayak has shown in his book Sri Jaya Devanka Baisi Pahacha that the finest bard of love had never authored Gita-Govinda.

According to Sri Pattanayak, Sri Jaya Dev of the 12th Century Orissa, erroneously depicted as Sri Jayadev or Jayadeva, was not a Baishnav as he is being projected; he was a social revolutionary and proponent of Sahajayana sect of Buddhism. He had authored his love lyrics to provide a supportive literature to this cult, which was essential in his time to check spread of Brahminic apartheid in his motherland, Orissa.

The lyrics having immense Sahajia impact and being matchlessly popular, agents of Brahminism, in course of time, had tried to transform them into Brahminic literature through interpolations and by editing them in a style conducive to their own cult and by captioning the interpolated compilation as Gita-Govinda when, in fact, the poet was so much against the cult of Govinda that he had never used that name even for once in his lyrics, Pattanayak maintains.

His lyrics supporting female factor in consonance with Sahajayana were so much threatening to patriarchal political system that they were banned from the temple of Lord Jagannath by the great patron of Brahminism in Orissa, Emporer Purushottam Dev. The Emperor had replaced the lyrics of Jaya Dev with a book captioned as Abhinav Gita-Govinda of which he had claimed to be the author; but which was allegedly authored by a Brahmin namely Dibakara Mishra wherein attempts were tactfully made to transform Sri Jagannath from Buddha of Orissa to Krishna of Dwaraka in order to terminate the Buddhist flow of philosophy till then active in his abode, Sri Mandira.

People of Orissa had revolted against this conspiracy and had compelled the said Emperor to withdraw his own order and work and to restore recital of the lyrics of Sri Jaya Dev before the Lord as before.

Purusottam Dev withdrew his work but the selected Brahminic interpolations continued in the guise of orders he had allegedly received from the Lord in dreams.

Agitation of the public could somehow be managed with his son and successor Emperor Prataprudra Dev promulgating an ordinance to the effect that no other song than that of Sri Jaya Dev can ever be recited in the temple.

Unable to write off the Buddhist impacts of this revolutionary poet, Brahminism in Orissa had played a trick. It had interpolated 72 verses on his original works and given it a misleading title called Gita-Govinda, editing the same in a style to usurp him for Brahminic Vaishnavism. The Bengalis, without knowing the truth on Sri Jaya Dev, have joined the bandwagon of claiming him for Vaishnavism as well as for their homeland. In the process, the immortal love lyricist has been buried under baseless legends.

Sri Pattanayak has shown how both these segments, the chauvinist section of the Bengalis and the agents of Brahminism are wrong in their claim over Sri Jaya Dev.

The book is unique. It has completely dismantled the fort of Bengali claims over Sri Jaya Dev. It has, for the first time, exposed how the Central Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi has been misused in the matter of Sri Jaya Dev. It has, for the first time, freed Sri Jaya Dev from legends on the basis of historic perspectives. It has brought to records all the relevant but missing episodes of Orissan history for the first time through interpretative research. It has shown how Radha, now a Hindu Vaishnav deity, was created by Sri Jaya Dev as Nayika of Buddhist Sahajayan. It has shown how Orissa is the place where Buddha was born. It has shown how Buddha became Sri Jagannatha. It has shown how Sri Jagannatha is in reality the female factor. It has opened up new avenues for research on the now extinct Mahodadhi Civilisation of Orissa. It has opened up new vistas into research on extinction of Buddhism in the soil of its origin, Orissa, vis-a-vis the role of Asoka.

Over and above the most perspicacious discussion on Sri Jaya Dev and his times, Sri Pattanayaks book contains the Oriya translation of his lyrics in poetic form with the most measured meticulousness typical of the acclaimed wordsmith.
Smt. Sabitarani Kanungo,
Former Professor in Sanskrit and President,
State Selection Board, Govt. of Orissa.
Editors Note:

A more analytical book than this in the subject so far is not available.
Published originally by reputed publishers Bharata Bharati, Gajapati Nagar, Sutahat, Cuttack-753001 in 2005, it is going to be available shortly in the net.