MESSAGE OF THE LAND OF LAXMIBAI

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Mass action could never have been more majestic than what has happened in U.P.

The people of this land of Laxmibai have emphatically rejected the agents of plutocracy – the Congress, the SP and the BJP -in the just concluded Assembly elections and have given clear mandate to BSP, the party of the Dalits, the economically weaker sections, united irrespective of caste and creed.

Agents of plutocracy in independent India have been doing what the East India Company of British Empire had done. That had exploited India’s natural resources, exploited India’s human resources; had divided India into two parts: the rich and the poor and had nourished the rich to such extent that inanition was the only option available to the poor that often perished under famines.

To us Oriyas, it is a matter of pride that we had first raised our voice against that set-up of exploitation.

Orissa was that unique land which the British Company had failed to annex. In fact, after it conquered the rest of India, it could be able to yoke in soldiers from all parts of the country under its dominion and then only, with the help of that massive Indian army, it could win the war against Orissa. But Orissa again was the first amongst all the States of India to have raised the revolt against the British within a decade in 1817. Mentioning of this, British historian G.Toynbee in his ‘A Sketch of the History of Orissa’ (Orissa Historical Research Journal, Vol.1 & 2) has noted, “It was not long, however, before we had to encounter a storm which burst with so sudden fury as to threaten our expulsion, if not from the whole of Orissa, at least from the territory of Khurda”. I have discussed this aspect elaborately in my book ‘Sri Jayadevanka Baisi Pahacha’ where I have also quoted from W.Forrester’s Report to Commissioner Robert Ker dated 9.9.1818 to show how the British authority of the area was sure that the people of Orissa were so uniquely patriotic in nature and so fearless in spirit that the revolution they had raise cannot be suppressed “either by military or by police”. This fact had compelled the ‘Company Government of India” to amend its manners as far as Orissa was concerned. But other parts of India continued to perish under the Britishraj. Chakhi Khuntia of Orissa, who, as Panda of Sri Jagannath, had been a spiritual guide to Queen Laxmibai of Jhansi initiated her into revolt against the British and soon that metamorphosed into the first national war of independence of India, known to history as Sepoy Mutiny, 1857.

When the whole country works up to celebrate the 150th anniversary of this revolution against imperialistic exploitation, the people of U.P., the land of Laxmibai, have paid her the most befitting tribute by rejecting the political parties that have killed the spirit of our freedom and have subjected our Motherland to imperialism, which, though modern, is equal in genre to that of the East India Company.

People have rejected the Congress, the party, that has clamped on our country a man as Prime Minister, who had sabotaged our Constitution and rendered its Preamble that embodied our resolution to build up our country as a socialist country, inconsequential, by making us a party to GATT behind our back, even keeping our Parliament in dark.

People have rejected the BJP, the party of the agents of disinvestments whose only occupation while holding office was to sale away public sector undertakings to private profiteers.

People have rejected SP, the party of caste-chauvinism and religious perversion that had its expressions in instigation of religious minority against the majority, in order only to cultivate electoral support.

When all the cards these three parties were playing were as per the game plans of plutocracy, the people of U.P. have decisively rejected them and stamped their support unambiguously in favor of the Bahujana Samaj Party, under the banner of which, the economically disadvantaged segments of society, irrespective of caste, have united.

The result of U.P. delivers a clear message that the agents of plutocracy must now be secretly shuddering at, though maintaining a brave face outwardly.