WITH A KERA ORIYA AS CHIEF MINISTER ORISSA’S IIT WOULD COMMENCE AT KHARAGPUR

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Orissa’s worst ever government has neglected the cause of IIT as a result of which instead of commencing on the soil of Orissa it would start functioning in West Bengal’s Kharagpur where it shall continue till people force the administration to amend its conduct.

On March 28, 2008, when the Central Government declared through a Press note that “actual establishment” of the IIT “would depend on how quickly the concerned State Government responds by allotting adequate land at suitable location”, we in these pages had urged upon the State Government to “rise promptly to the occasion and offer land for the Institute without loss of time”.

We had recalled how “Orissa had lost the National Institute of Science to West Bengal, as the State Government did not offer land for it in time”.

On enquiry, we had found that though the National Development Council (NDC) had endorsed the IIT for Orissa as far back as in December 2007, the State Government was sitting idle over it.

By that time, four of the eight IITs endorsed by NDC had already been announced, one each for Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Himachal Pradesh.

Had Orissa Government acted watchfully, we had noted, it should have already kept the lands ready to offer for the purpose.

The Chief Minister could have asked the Resident Commissioner at New Delhi to pursue the matter. The State Government keeping itself abreast of every development should have taken all steps to expedite it while keeping the necessary land ready for the Institute and also a building ready for its commencement.

We had warned Orissa Government that delay in allotment of land may mar the possibility of IIT getting started in Orissa.

And, that has happened.

Orissa IIT is not going to start in Orissa. It will start in West Bengal’s Kharagpur as Navin Patnaik’s government, busy in satisfying the land thirst of Anil Agrawal, Ravishankar gangs has failed to locate land for this most Institute IT.

It may not be out of place to mention here that a group of netizens who have acted as Orissa’s sentinels, had aired sincere concerns as the central government had first announced four out of the eight IITs endorsed by NDC in four States leaving Orissa in the lurch.

Taking the cue, Navin Patnaik, along with his sycophants had tried to divert public attention from his misrule by instigating the general public of Orissa to rise in revolt against Central Government on the IIT demand.

It is a shame that the same person has sat nonchalantly over the issue and has not bothered to allot necessary lands for the IIT as a result of which it has failed to start on Orissa soil.

Who to blame? Our people have taken a wrong decision under compelling circumstances to have a kera Oriya as our Chief Minister, who instead of treating Orissa as the motherland, has been posing as if it is his father’s fiefdom.

If you need an example to show how democracy dwindles into self-defeat when peoples do not cast informed votes but cast their votes in a flow of emotion, you can cite Orissa without any hesitation.

Orissa is the most melancholic example of self-defeat; because, being the first State in whole of India to have resurrected itself only on the basis of a very unique mass upsurge to save its beautiful and ancient language from the evil designs of non-Oriya neighbors like the Bengalis, it has fallen into the hands of a kera Oriya, whom sycophants of yester years’ political hypocrite and mafia Biju Patnaik have clamped on the gullible people as the Chief Minister of the State, who after grabbing power, has remained more busy in transferring Orissa’s lands and natural resources to non-Oriyas than in providing necessary lands to the landless inhabitants of the State and in protecting lands of even the marginal farmers from the pernicious trap contrived by non-Oriya traders and land grabbers.

You can cite Orissa as the State where a section of its advantaged inhabitants are competing in ingratiating themselves to the Chief Minister even to the extent of trying to play his Goebbles, some with an eye on prime plots under his grace and some, eager to grab, if perchance, the non-Oriya land grabbers in their avatars as industrialists or educationists or educational industrialists or industrial educationists throw aside any orts.

The situation that helped Navin grab power in Orissa has six backgrounds:

(1) The Congress government that he succeeded had almost collapsed due to subterfuge from within by ministers like Basant Biswal and Bhagavat Mohanty;

(2) IAS Officers like D.N.Padhi having played havoc with peoples’ lives in the context of 1999 apocalypse went unpunished that provoked the people to punish the Congress government for such non-governance;

(3) Sonia Gandhi’s sophomoric handling of Orissa affairs that led to jettisoning of J.B.Pattanaik when he should have been strongly supported rendered the organization rudderless;

(4) Dramatic emergence of Giridhar Gamang as substitute of J.B. only to be shown the door the moment he suspended D.N.Padhi over polythene scam followed by a more bitter blunder of posting Hemanand Biswal as CM that resembled appointment of Subedars by Mogul Badsahs and demoralized the Congress cadres to the point of no-recovery before the general elections;

(5) Meretricious tears shed by Orissa’s circle of political hypocrites over Biju’s demise sufficed to generate a sympathy wave in the gullible hearts of simple-natured Oriyas for his bereaved family; and

(6) The political factotums of Biju Patnaik, who smelled power in the wake of such sympathy, were aware of the fact that none amongst them had any credibility to be consecrated as the CM.

So, Naveen as CM is a CM by chance; but so convinced is he of his invincibility with the main rival, the Congress, taking everyday a turn towards the worse due to Sonia-Singh combine’s unbridled lobbying for USA on the one hand and on the other, the sensitive elements in its fold getting ever more disillusioned due to mother-sponsored projection of son Rahul as the final answer to its leadership quest, that he feels that there is no necessity for him to bother for the public sector in Orissa in order to retain his position.

This is why the State has not yet bothered to allot land for the IIT and consequently it has failed to start on the soil of Orissa.

We have been accustomed to insult to our mother tongue by being compelled by the political hooligans to proceed with a kera Oriya as our CM. We will have also to be accustomed to insult over commencement of the first IIT of our State on a neighboring soil just because our State government has failed to house it.

Sycophants, where have you led us!