Odia Univ : Sacrilegious assault on the Aura of Satyavadi Era by Orissa CM, succumbing to a TV channel design

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The splendor of the Bakulaban at Satyavadi needs be preserved in situ , if the State Government is too much an eunuch to recover the thousands of crores of rupees from the Servants of the People Society that has, by forging the Will of Pt. Gopabandhu Das, illegally looted the money and pushed the pride of Orissa – the Satyabadi Bana Bidyalaya – to starvation death.

It is sad that, in the guise of establishing an University, styled Odia University, the Chief Minister of Orissa Mr. Naveen Patnaik has jeopardized this splendor and sans any qualms made a sacrilegious assault on the sacred aura of Satyabadi era. A TV channel – Pramey News-7 – has succeeded in its evil design to preempt the possibility of Satyavadi Bana Biswavidyalaya.

As established in my book “The Samaja in Maze of Forgery” and the website https://savethesamaja.wordpress.com , the Servants of the People Society had forged the Will of Utkalmani Gopabandhu through his press manager Radhanatha Rath and protege Lingaraj Mishra (both of whom had become editors of Samaja and Education Ministers of Orissa) and taken into illegal possession ‘The Samaja’, which the people of Orissa had built up through Utkalmani to the best of their ability. They have looted the entire profit of the paper amounting to several thousands of crores of rupees, the details of which the State Government should have determined and recovered after we established the forgery. It has not been done, because the society leadership immediately offered the CM media partnership in his political propaganda.

President of Utkalmani Newspaper Employees Association Deviprasanna Nayak has been prosecuting the Society on the basis of the exposed illegality. Instead of espousing the dispute raised by the employees, the State Government is enjoying the media partnership the Society has offered it.

What would happen if Sri Nayak wins the case? Thousands of crores of rupees would be recovered from the society and the Satyavadi Bana Bidyalaya would be restored to its lost glory as a seat of learning in the lap of nature. The new metamorphosis would be Satyavadi Bana Biswavidyalaya, because, that was the dream of the Satyavadi group. To preempt this revival, this shrewd plan to establish Odia University in Bakulabana, the original seat of the Bana-Bidyalaya has been cooked up and carried out.

When the conspiracy was on the anvil, we in these pages had warned the Government against the evil design and had stressed that the wrong be not proceeded with. We had located and shown how a vast stretch of government acquired land was available in the heart of Bhubaneswar where the Univ could be established.

Instead of heeding to this just advice, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has laid on October 9 the foundation stone of Odia University in the Bakulabana. This is a highly deplorable sacrilegious assault on the sacred aura of the Satyabadi era.

My book and the website mentioned supra carry details of the offenses perpetrated against Pt. Gopabandhu Das and his friends, each one of whom is regarded and revered as epitome of sacrifice for the people and the motherland.

All of them were highly educated persons and their mission was success of the freedom movement and transformation of our people into a brilliant nation. Therefore, instead of joining lucrative official positions, they had established the Bana Bidyalaya at Satyabadi in the pattern of Gurukula which had become an academic model in whole of India. To meet the expenses, Gopabandhu was gifted with a Press by his colleague Pt. Nilakantha Das and with the same aim the team was also publishing the Samaja as a weekly to which people of Orissa were contributing with zeal and generosity. It had become the paper of the people.

But the freedom movement became so calling at that time that, the five friends were getting less time to concentrate on business of the Press to generate funds for managing the School as they had planned.

Pt. Gopabandhu had appointed Radhanath Rath as a manager of Satyabadi Press. He was torturing him for higher salary beyond the agreed amount. And, lastly, had pushed him to premature death without any proper medical care at the summit of a period of starvation as deduced from a letter of Utkalmani to Rath dated 11.6.1928, five days before his death.

Gopabandhu had joined the Servants of the People Society and had become the topmost leader, next only to its founder Lala Lajpat Rai. So, he had made up his mind to handover the Satyabadi Press to the said society so that it can manage and improve its business to generate enough profit for perfect running of the School. Therefore, before passing away in a very pathetic condition, he had dictated his will mentioning therein why he was handing over the Press to Servants of the People Society. His Press manager Radhanath Rath and protege Lingaraj Mishra later forged his Will and hijacked the Samaja for the Society knowing well that the paper would be the major fetcher of profit, besides being the sure way to fulfill their political ambition. They continued to fetch profit and neglected the School that could no more run in the Bakula Bana.

We have exposed with irrefutable evidences the forgery by way of which the Society has aggrandized thousands of crores of rupees from the institutions that in fact belong to the School.

Instead of acting on the exposure we have made, and instead of honoring the Utkalmani and his colleagues by restoring the Bana Bidyalaya in the lap of Bakulabana, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has extended shrewd protection to the looters of the Satyabadi funds by laying the foundation stone of Odia University, a step that destroys the possibility of revival of the Panchasakha’s Bana Bidyalaya in the Bakula Bana. Only a very ungrateful nation can play this nasty trick on the sacred aura of the founders of the Satyabadi era.

In doing this, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has also violated the Odia University Act, 2017 that in Sub-Section (3) of Section 3 has made Bhubaneswar the seat of this University. Bhubaneswar is not Satyabadi. It is intriguing that, neither the department in its introduction nor the Chief Minister in his speech has made any justification of this deviation.

When the Bill was being considered by the Assembly, Mr. Pradip Purohit of BJP had moved an amendment to establish this University at Sambalpur instead of Bhubaneswar. The Government opposed his amendment and the Assembly decided to establish it at Bhubaneswar.

Now the question is where from the chief minister got a carte blanche to change the location of the University in blatant contravention of the Act?

The Odia University Act has not been amended to establish it in Satyabadi instead of Bhubaneswar. Hence laying of the foundation stone of this University is illegal.

It has other complications too. Odia University was conceived by Sri Gajanan Mishra , the epoch making fighter for official use of Oriya in Orissa. He had registered a Trust to establish Odia University. The same was supported through a private member’s Bill in the Assembly, which was withdrawn with the Government agreeing to bring an Act for the purpose. Thus, whatever be the colour, Misra’s endeavor for Odia University at Bangomunda of Bolangir had formed the base of whatever legislative mind was invested in the matter. And, that name is registered.

When the Ministerial Committee was constituted to suggest how the Official Language Act should work, as a member thereof, I had submitted a set of Rules to drive the Act ahead. Rule 8 of this proposed Rules is as bellow:

It was published by the Government in an official website created for the purpose under the caption: ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଶାସନ the related intro being as under:

But a private organisation under chairmanship of Dr. Debi Prasanna Pattanayak was conspiring to establish Odia Biswabidyalaya under its ownership. The Ministerial Committee had the majority of members, who, under the guise of representing the Bhasa Sangram samiti, were in fact the members of that private organisation and while accepting all my proposed Rules, they expressed resentment against Rule 8. Dr. Pattanayak stressed that the University which that private organisation was eager to ewstablish would shape up Oriya education from the primary school level to the post-graduation. I had to elaborate my aim behind my proposed University. I made it clear that the Univeriry of my perception would be only a post-PG university addressed entirely to research in matters relating to Orissa by using Oriya-centric lense. When my proposed Odia Academy would be addressed to Oriya literature, the university of my perception shall concentrate only on research on the vast literature of Oriya language. The Ministerial Committee then agreed and the entire set of Rules I had submitted was unanimously adopted. Despite this Dr. Pattanayak and his team insisted that a wider committee comprising all the vice-chancellors, all the Oriya professors and eminent intellectuals should be invited to a special meeting, which the Government had complied with. The meeting / workshop was held on 29 january 2016 and Dr. Pattanayak’s shrewd attempts notwithstanding, majority opinion was conspicuous by its rejection to such an University in private sector. The Department of Higher Education, therefore, while preparing the file, made it clear that the University would be a Government University named as Odia University.

It may be noted that to escape the impact of my proposed legislation approved by the Ministerial Committee, Dr. Pattanayak and his team had succeeded in influencing the Chief Minister to announce that the Government shall establish an “Open University”. But the Bhasha Andolan I had established to cultivate public support to my proposed legislation having made tremendus mark, the executive government dismissed the idea of “open University” and “odia University” in private sector.

Yet, Dr. Pattanayak’s organisation succeded in using the Chief Minister to give the Government venture a different name so that the name “Odia Biswavidyalaya” shall remain available to it. Accordingly, in the official Bill, the proposed University was “university of Odia Language and Literature” and the Bill was named “The University of Odia Language and Literature Bill, 2017. As the Bill was all set to be moved in the Assembly, Sri Pranab Prakash Das dragged me practically from the Assembly Lobby to the chamber of Higher Educatioin Minister Mr. Anant Das, who asked me what change in the Bill would suit my purpose as the first proposer for the Government university. I opposed the very name of the proposed university and opposed the shrewdly inserted ingredients to make the University, when operational, a grazing ground for private institutes, such as the one led by Dr. Pattanayak. In the presence of former minister Debi Prasad Mishra, Govt. Chief Whip Amar Prasad Satapathy and the Secretary HE, the Minister changed the name of the University to Odia University and also the wordings in various sections of the draft, as per my suggestion. However, while moving the Bill for consideration, Mr. Satpathy kept unchanged the official wording in one section, which calls for amendment in future.

So, by the time the Assembly took up the Bill, the Government had changed it to Odia University Bill and the Assembly agreed.

But the Private Member’s Bill for Odia University moved by Ms. Sipra Mallik was withdrawn when the Government had agreed to bring out an official Bill for the same. So, when the Odia University is to materialise, it should be established in Bangomunda of Bolangir on moral grounds. If not, it should be established in Bhubaneswar as per the Act; never at Satyavadi.

The sacred Bakula Bana should be preserved in situ for the Bana Bidyalaya to reemerge and metamorphose into Bana Biswavidyalaya, the dream of the Panchasakhas. The evil design of the Prameya News7 channel hand-in-glove with the Servants of People Society should never be allowed to succeed.

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