ORIYA NEWSPAPERS BEHAVE LIKE CLASSIC PROSTITUTES

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Prostitutes don’t mind manners or language, caste or creed, color or culture, age or health and region or religion of the customer. But they have their own religion. That is, total devotion to desire of customers.

Ramayan gives us a sample in the Ravan –Rambha episode.

Rambha was the most provocative beauty amongst prostitutes of paradise. All the women of the world held beautiful because of their voluptuous thighs are called Ramboru by the name of this Rambha.

Ravan was the richest, the most powerful and able bodied monarch of his days, whose valor had made the Gods serve him as slaves. Kuver was one of these Gods.

Ravan once saw Rambha in an arbour in amorous adornment as if waiting for a customer and getting instantly aroused, wanted sex with her.

Rambha refused.

She declared that she could have happily agreed to his proposal had Kuver not booked her for the night.

She urged upon Ravan not to vitiate her rendezvous with Kuver by his advances; but when Ravan refused to pay any heed to her appeals, she invoked her celestial prowess and halted him with the curse that in spite of the immortality boon obtained from Brahma, he will instantly die if then and thereafter, at any time, he attempts to rape any woman against her will as enforced sex would tantamount to rape.

Ramayan says, because of Rambha’s curse, Ravan had not dared to rape Sita even though he had abducted her for the same purpose.

Mahabharat gives us another instance in the episode of Sati Anasuya.

There was an exquisitely beautiful prostitute namely Lakshyahira. There was a leper, whom, under the tricks of time, the noble Anasuya had married to.

And, after marriage this man declared that he couldn’t consummate his marriage with Anasuya unless he once beds with Lakshyahira.

Anasuya went to the prostitute to entice her to accept her husband for a night.

Lakshyahira was so named, because her charge for a night was at least a lakh of diamond pieces. Obviously she was not available to anybody below the top layer of the rich. Besides being a leper, Anasuya’s husband was a very poor person and was living on alms. So, it was impossible for Anasuya to obtain consent of Lakshyahira for her husband for a night.

She cried under utter helplessness.

Lakshyahira took pity and wanted to know as to how being the wife she was eager to get a prostitute for fornication with her husband.

Anasuya revealed that her marriage couldn’t be consummated unless her husband was free from his fixation for Lakshyahira.

And the prostitute, moved by devotion of Anasuya to her husband, agreed and the night was fixed.

Mahabharata has described how affectionately and dedicatedly Lakshyahira had entertained the husband of Anasuya despite he being a leper.

These two episodes show that both of the everlasting mass media called Mahapuranas of India, the Ramayan and the Mahabharat, have devoted their pages to describe how prostitutes that are totally devoted to desires of customers are held with high esteem.

Orissa’s present mass media organizations, specifically top circulated broadsheets, are perhaps inspired by the Mahapuranas.

In today’s edition, they convey the peoples that Chief Minister Navin Patnaik has, from his own pocket, provided funds for poor elders under Madhubabu Pension Scheme.

Nothing could be a greater lie than this.

Navin Patnaik has never given a single pie from his personal pocket for this program in particular and for any other scheme under implementation by the State in general.

This election, the Goebbles of Navin are using all their tricks to make peoples forget the acts of tyranny that his incumbency has perpetrated on our soil. So, clever ads are contrived and newspapers are trapped. The news media organizations are sumptuously paid to carry these ads meant to project Navin as a friend of the poor, contrary to the actual, with a motive to mislead the voters in order to pave the path afresh for foreigners like POSCO to grab our natural resources.

The ad carried by a section of broadsheet majors today is a classic instance of this mischief against our peoples.

Before publishing this ad, it was proper for them to go through the message they helped delivered. They have failed. Like the prostitute stays devoted to desires of the customer, they have devoted front-page space to spread of false propaganda in support of Navin.

Newspapers though owned by individuals are public entities inasmuch as they thrive only on circulation and revenue that circulation generates.

The public needs political education and correct information in the time of election in interest of democracy. Political education needs interpretations / analysis / editorials that may cover various views and election manifestoes vis-à-vis political economies; but information cannot be compromised with.

Information must be accurate as otherwise peoples may be misinformed and thereby democracy may be derailed.

The ad in question highlights that it is Navin who alone came to rescue of the poor peoples and consoled them with love and affection and that from his own pocket, he has provided for pension to poor elders under the scheme called Madhubabu Pension Yojana. Is it correct information?

Is there any ethics behind the media carrying the ad to cover up the reality? How the ad looks when we remember the wretchedly poor peoples of Kalinganagar whom bullets of Orissa Police in collaboration with goons of TATA had silenced and maimed; but to whom Navin had refused to visit to console? How it looks when we remember the journalists who, for reporting firsthand information of how starving peoples of Sinapalli were eating a sort of lime stone locally known as Jhinkiri to overcome hunger, were framed up by Navin’s police in false cases and were subjected to prosecution for treason? How it looks when we remember the helpless mothers that had to sell away babies they had given birth to, just to have a little money to thrive for a few days? How it looks when we remember the families that committed suicide to escape ignominy of inability to repay agricultural loans? How it looks when we remember the cries of marginal farmers whom administration has forcibly displaced to provide land to POSCO and the likes because of Navin’s obsession with industry?

If telling the peoples the truth is the minimum that the press should do, how Orissa’s broadsheets justify their collaboration with Navin’s Gobbles that he has, from his own pocket, provided funds for Madhubabu Pension Yojana?

Their conduct is clearly like that of prostitutes, who, for money, can accommodate every desire of the customer sans qualms.

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