Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
The Legislative Assembly of Orissa is in its 2nd session. It should appreciate that the Orissa Official Language Act, 1954 needs immediate amendment, as living with the fraudulently created amendments to this Act by the father-son duo – Biju Patnaik and Naveen – is an ignominy that the proud people of Orissa have been forced to suffer by electing the treacherous elements to the Assembly in the past.
Biju Patnaik had inserted Section 3A into the Act in 1963 and insertion of Sections 4 and 5 in 2016 and section 4A in 2018 was done by his son Naveen through wrongful amendment of the Act. Their sole aim was to subjugate the Oriya nation to English linguistic hegemony.
Bjiu was so averse to Oriya language that he had, in a speech in Orissa Assembly, refused to accept India as a country, as the country failed to extinguish Oriya as a language. In his view, “English was the Language of the Masters”. Before bringing the Bill, Biju had ensured that Speaker Lingaraj Panigrahi, the most acclaimed expert in the Constitution, being a former Chief Justice of Orissa High Court, was kept out of the business of amendment of the Act, which, as the Speaker, he could have disallowed, the same being blatantly violative of the provision on State Official Language under Article 345 of the Constitution of India. Biju had cunningly dragged him into “no confidence”, obnoxiously alleging in the House that, he was “violently lenient” towards the Opposition. In that beastly unparliamentary environment Sri Panigrahi had preferred to stay away from chairing the debate. When member Padma Charan Nayak had pointed out that more than 50% of the members of the House had no ability to understand the English language and therefore questioned the prudence in imposing English upon them, Biju had no ear to heed to that. “Every member should know English before coming to this House”, he had earlier roared in the floor. Despite strong objections to this Bill, Biju’s brutal majority in the House led to adoption of section 3A, the greatest fraud played upon the people of Orissa, which has jeopardised the right of the Oriyas to manage their State in their State language and has severely atrophied the Orissa Official Language Act.
Biju would have repealed the Act in 1963. But by then, he had forfeited all his credibility in Orissa. Students and the youth were in acrimonious agitation against his misrule. His avaricious treacheries against the Country during the Chinese aggression, had embarrassed Prime Minister Nehru and the Congress top leadership so severely that, he had been summoned to New Delhi and forced to resign. The Legislative wing of the Congress was asked by the Congress President to elect a new leader. And the Legislative wing had allowed him to continue as the CM till a substitute was elected. In such a situation, he had not dared to repeal the Act. And, therefore, he had contrived his mischievous amendment to render the same inconsequential. Until and unless the section – section 3A – created thus wrongfully by him, is removed from the Act, Orissa cannot be able to have Oriya as the proper vehicle to proceed. The details of this gruesome murder of Oriya mana by Biju Patnaik are documented in my book BIJUNKA CHHURA (Biju’s Knife).
Naveen Patnaik, his son, ushered in by Biju sycophants to Orissa politics, after Biju’s demise, became the Chief Minister in coalition with BJP and slowly started his design to fulfil his father’s desire to destroy Oriya language. Taking advantage of his inborn aversion to Oriya language, higher education minister Samir De, a Bengali by birth had ventured to wipe out Oriya from the courses of studies in degree colleges. ORISSA MATTERS raised the first voice against this mischief and, as people from everywhere of the State started condemning this conspiracy, Naveen much reluctantly nullified the notorious order, But he didn’t heed to our demand for dismissal of De from his cabinet for having humiliated the Oriya nation.
With this mindset against Oriya language he deliberately and arbitrarily obliterated the Ministerial Committee constituted on 31.07.2015 vide GAD-CODE-CORDES-0013-2025-18715/GA for implementation of the Act. I, as a member of the Committee, had proposed specific amendment to the Act to insert a new section namely section 4 therein to enable the Government to frame Rules to punish whosoever functionary fails to work in Oriya along with drafts for the same. But Naveenbabu rendered the Committee irrelevant thereafter. I created Bhasha Andolan, Orissa on 01.04.2016 for propounding my proposal and the silent Black Flag Campaign, which is my time-tested personal method of peaceful agitation, commenced on 13.04.2016. it created such impact and Naveenbabu’s anti-Oriya attitude was so threadbare exposed, that there was no way to escape the agitation other than agreeing to amend the Act as per my proposal. Law Department gave final vetting to the Bill and asked the GA department vide its version dated 20.05.2016 to get the Cabinet approval for its legislation. Naveenbabu stopped its placement before the cabinet and clandestinely sent a forged memorandum to the Governor for promulgation of the so-called amendment through Ordinance. Later the Cabinet called upon to approve the Ordinance approved the same in order to save the Government and Section 4 and 5 were inserted into the Act fraudulently by way of amendment in 2016.
The mischief exposed, the Black Flag Campaign continued to propound my proposal. In order to hoodwink the people, a fresh amendment was preferred in 2018. In obedience to the instructions laid down under the Orissa Government Rules of Business, the Law department pencil-corrected the Bill submitted by the GA department, which, on 14.03.2018 the State Cabinet approved vide Memo No. 1481/PA of the Department of Parliamentary Affairs. Accordingly, Section 4A was to be inserted into the Act to punish the erring government employees and officers for non-implementation of the Act. While the Bill was lying in the Assembly to be moved, surreptitiously it was replaced by a forged Bill. Thus fraudulently created Section 4A has become a part of the Act. Bhasha Andolan continued it Black Flag Campaign against this act of fraudulence.
Details of this fraudulence is published in my book Bhartsaniya Bidhanasabha (Condemnable Assembly).
People of Orissa have ousted Naveen Patnaik for his despicable conspiracy against Oriya Language. Sri Mohan Charan Majhi of BJP is the new Chief Minister. I had preferred a Memorandum to him on the 1st of July urging upon him to take prompt steps to remove the fraudulently created sections, as aforesaid, from the Act and to insert punitive provisions therein in order to make the Act inviolable. But, till now, he has taken no steps in this regard.
It would be better for Orissa if someone from the members of the new Assembly comes forward to submit a private member’s Bill for amendment of the Act to the extent as discussed in this post.