Orissa Matters

Bishuba Milan Refreshes Orissa’s Unique Feature: Devotion to Mother Tongue and Culture

In Orissa, the famous ancient soil of Buddhism and agriculture, the Mahabishuba Sankranti is celebrated as the day of dreams for a better world to live in. It is Orissa’s New Year’s Day.

Co-operation amongst social forces to face the dryness caused by the scorching sun and transform it into preparedness for cultivation of paddy – the most staple food of Oriyas – at the end of summer, gets refreshed on this day, as Panji – the Oriya annual almanac that basically carries weather forecasts relevant to agriculture and instructions on consuming agro-products as would be suitable to individuals on the basis of their respective zodiac signs – gets launched with the blessings of the most revered son of the soil- Lord Buddha, worshipped as Sri Jagannatha at Puri.

As the summer that disinfects the soil for better agriculture starts on this day, Oriyas prepare themselves for agriculture with propitiating the Mother Earth with water sweetened by treacles and fruits that they call ‘Pana’, which also is offered to the Goddesses that symbolize Mother Earth and shared and celebrated amongst all the Oriyas irrespective of caste and status in surge of brotherhood defined by their mother tongue. The significance of propitiating Mother Earth with ‘Pana’ is so huge that the day is also known in Orissa as ‘Pana Sankranti’.

Orissa was the last land of India that the British had been able to annex, but was the first soil to have raised the battle of independence against the British, which, afraid of the “disposition” of her children, had dismembered her body and yoked the divided parts with neighboring provinces that it had already occupied and was plundering. The Oriyas had raised unprecedented objection to this mischief and had got back their Motherland in a new shape, based on the uniqueness, strength and spread of their mother tongue.

So, on ‘Pana Sankranti’ day, Oriyas also celebrate their language and brotherhood.

Presentation of ‘Bishuba Sammana’ to an eminent Oriya author by ‘Prajatantra Prachara Samiti’ in its seat at Cuttack every year on this occasion is an instance.

This year, as we have informed earlier, eminent poet Pramod Mohanty has been honored on April 13 with this ‘Samman’. Along with him, ‘Jankara Puraskara’ named after ‘Jhankara’ the journal of Oriya letters, has been awarded to Ajay Kumar Mishra, Amarendra Khatua and Giri Dandasena. Other awards of the Samiti, such as ‘Minabazar Shishu Sahitya Puraskara’ has been given to Laxmikant Rath, ‘Justice Harihara Mohapatra Smaraki Natya Sahitya Puraskara’ to Rajkishore Varadwaj, ‘Ajit Anubad Bharati Puraskara’ to Binay Kumar Das, ‘Rajiv Smaraki Lalita Nibandha Puraskara’ to Niranjana Padhi and ‘Manoj Smaraki Shishu Sahitya Puraskara’ to Abhilas Bal.

The event presided over by eminent poet Sitakant Mohapatra was addressed by famous author Gangaprasad Vimal, with Saroj Ranjan Mohanty, editor of Jhankar giving the introduction.

This being Orissa’s New Year’s Day, its Capital was formally shifted from Cuttack to Bhubaneswar on this day.

Hence the Capital Foundation Day was observed with students of 49 institutes of the city participating in a commemorative parade, with the Speaker of Orissa Assembly Pradip Amat taking the salute.

The day was celebrated in different form in different places.

Such as, about a hundred families of mutual friends, Dr.Jyoti Prasad Pattnaik, Er. Sayad Suleman Ali and others celebrated ‘Mahabishuba Milana – 2012’ at hotel ‘Dalma’ in Bhubaneswar, where two books authored respectively by Sri Satyanas and Smt. Indira Mishra were formally released.

Ekamra Hat effervesced in ecstasy as Oriya housewives joined a pageant with their traditional costumes and ornaments for selection of Shrestha Odiyani (the best amongst Oriya housewives). Kadambini, a journal for women organized the pageant.

These celebrations were just samples of how happily the day was celebrated all over Orissa.

Land to Tribal: Government’s New Device to Deceive or is Real?

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

“I am talking about millions of men whom they have knowingly instilled with fear and a complex of inferiority, whom they have infused with despair and trained to tremble, to kneel and behave like flunkeys”. ( A.Cesaire in ‘Discourse on Colonialism’ ).

When majority of our people is in such a pusillanimous state, tribals are distinctly different. Soft like children in heart, they are like lions in attitude. They constitute the majority amongst all segments of inhabitants in Orissa. They never hesitate to hit back on reaching the limit of endurance. Not only as Bhagavati Panigrahi had told of Ghinua in his famous story ‘Shikar’, but also as witnessed in present days, a tribal fearlessly reports to police with chopped off head of a person whose tortures he was no more able to endure. This disposition, the government knows, is conducive to spread of ultra left influence, as it also knows that Naxal activism has grown more discernibly in the tribal dominated areas of Orissa, which are worst hit by the anti-people alliance of political administration with private and foreign industries. As most correctly interpreted and established by Felix Padel (author of ‘The sacrifice of human being: British rule and the Konds of Orissa’) and Samarendra Das, this alliance has pushed the tribals of Orissa into a state of living death.

“…..seeing the sudden confiscation of the land where their ancestors lived and the collapse of their communities, no longer able to grow their own food and forced to eke a living through degrading, exhausting coolie work for the very projects which destroyed their homes, Orissa’s displaced Adivasis exist in a living death, witnessing the extermination of all they have valued” ( Anthropology of Genocide: Tribal Movements in Central India against Over-Industrialization, 2006).

Naturally, therefore, retaliation is what is logically expected of them. Howsoever the governments brand it as Maoism, the fact in reality is that tribal endurance reaching its limit, the sleeping lions in tribal hearts has started roaring. The Maoists, as per their agenda, are adding ideological strength to this roar.

Therefore the governments, both in the Center and the State, headed respectively by Manmohan Singh and Naveen Patnaik, whose priority on private industry and imperialism is more defined and discernible than on the people, are in nervousness and impatience. They have been using all possible tricks to suppress and silent the rising tribals.

When they have been using state-terror of the most heinous and monstrous type as witnessed in killing of tribals in Kalinganagar or Maikanch and seen in arrests of hundreds of them under false charges, because the industries want the treasure of ores that Mother Nature has stashed below the lands the tribals dwell, they are also assuring them with allocation of land in exchange of the land the rich men need. The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 is an instant of this mischief.

Originally moved as the Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill, 2005 in the Parliament on 13 December 2005, it had to suffer the attacks from Indian Parliamentarians that, eager to oblige the industries for reasons best known to them, were in mentality against the tribes. Eventually, it metamorphosed to “The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006” and with President’s assent on 29 December 2006, came into force. But has it given the tribals the benefits it had pronounced? Has any tribal displaced by industries and their agents in power been allotted with the alternative land of his choice? How far it is implemented?

Council of Social Development (CSD), New Delhi, had taken a stock of its implementation in 2010. A synopsis of its findings makes it clear that “all of the key features of this legislation have been undermined by a combination of apathy and sabotage during the process of implementation. ……. The testimonies made it clear that this is not merely a result of bureaucratic failure; both the Central and the State governments have actively pursued policies that are in direct violation of the spirit and letter of the Act”.

So, the spirit of the Act was being killed by the administration in nexus with the mafia when the central government had been asserting to use helicopters to shoot at the tribals opposed to displacement, in the name and design of getting rid of Maoists, as to it, the rebels in the forests were Maoists.

Manmohan Singh’s meretricious tears for the tribals threadbare exposed by the social and official audit organizations such as CSD and CAG, and by the very fact that the Act of 2006 is more violated than implemented, special funds are being addressed to development of areas where tribal disposition is adding strength to ultra left bodies, so that people in the grassroots may stay away from rebellious agendas. To further the conspiracy against the people, Dr. Singh is actively for developmental investments from corporate companies so that they shall emerge as de facto government exactly as the East India Company had emerged as the government of India.

And, his Orissa supplementer Naveen Patnaik, who, as Chief Minister, did not bother to utter even a single word of sympathy to the family members of the tribals that were brutally exterminated by his police at Kalinganagar simply because of their opposition to hijacking of their habitat by Tata, has been working upon a scheme to allocate around an acre of lands to every tribal family living in 17,974 hamlets under 118 tribal dominated Blocks shrouded by ultra left influence. On Wednesday, minds were steered into this scheme in the highest level of administration.

The contemplated scheme is aimed at assuaging the piling up anger of tribal people of Orissa over their enforced displacement and continuous threat to their natural habitats and living environment as one after one eco-systems that they depend upon for their livelihood are being handed over to private industries, shattering their every dream to live peacefully in their soil.

But the scheme shall not work. It cannot give economic emancipation to the tribals. it cannot help their habitats substituted.

Firstly, the bureaucratic conduct witnessed in the Forest Rights Act will not be – and in a corrupt environment that has engulfed Orissa, can never be – congenial to implementation of this scheme in right earnest.

Secondly, the tribals, who from birth are habituated in their own traditional, yet, peculiar process of fetching their livelihood to their satisfaction from the forest land they belong to, will not be able to use the new land in their own method, if at all they are allotted with any.

Thirdly, the new allocations will give them dry lands away from the cooling trees and streams. One acre of such dry land will never be cultivable economically and hence will be of no use to the tribals except fetching a supposedly small sum of money by mortgaging the same to land grabbers, from whom the same would never be retrieved. The planners know it and the people too.

So the scheme to provide the tribals with around an acre of land per family to justify the official acquisition of tribal lands for industry, will push them further into penury with no scope of rescue.

This is going to happen to the majority portion of our countrymen, because the governments run by collaborators of industry and imperialism are determined to handover our hills to be mined by corporate companies, who, if the central government’s scheme to make them major players in area development works, will eventually turn people dependent on them, consequent upon which, the company that would be addressed to for development of the area, will emerge as the de facto government just as the East India Company had become the government.

If constitutional authorities like Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik are not for such an undesirable scenario, it is incumbent upon them – as they run the governments – to desist from giving the corporate companies priority over the people and to frame and enforce laws for community cultivation of lands as only thereby fragmentations thereof under laws of inheritance can be stopped and scientific cultivation can commence. Instead of creating image of industries as providers of funds for development, they should frame and enforce laws for imposition of ceiling on accumulation of wealth in private hands and as Indira gandhi had done in respect to agricultural lands, should confiscate ceiling surplus wealth for use in mass development programs. Ceiling on personal wealth will also stop corruption.

To begin with, Orissa government must not proceed with allocation of a mere acre of land to each tribal family as is being contemplated. Instead, it should first earmark consolidated plots of land congenial to tribals and put that consolidate patch under their collective ownership in identified villages, to be managed by their commune democratically. As for example, if a village has 50 tribal families, a single patch of 50 acres of land, at the rate of one acre to each family as the government proposes, should be put under their collective ownership after they are educated and trained in collectively sharing the package of practices, the products and profit. This would stop future fragmentation of the one acre being proposed to be allotted and facilitate scientific management of the entire patch of land leading to higher productivity.

But for this, the government will have to be pro-people, not pro-industry. Otherwise, the new contemplated scheme would be viewed as a new device to deceive the tribals, not to serve them in reality.

Poet Pramod Mohanty Felicitated with Bishuba Samman

Famous poet, Prof. Pramod Mohanty has been felicitated with the 63rd annual Bishuba Samman, founded by Dr. Harekrushna Mahtab and Prajatantra Prachar Samiti, Cuttack.

Author of many works of poetry, such as Kramash, Debipada, Alagakuha et cetera, Prof. Mohanty has got national award from Indian Academy of Letters for his book ‘Asaranti Anasara’.

We feel proud in congratulating him for Orissa’s oldest eminent award for literature of highest order.

Italian Released, Praises Maoists, Leaves Orissa Leaving Behind Trails of Shady Deals

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Italian national Paolo Bosusco has been released by Maoists on April 12, coincidentally after Mili Panda was released from jail on judicial determination that the case against her by the State had no evidentiary support.

He was collected by the Italy Ambassador from Bhubaneswar after his arrival in company of a mediator.

Before leaving Bhubaneswar, he volunteered his praises for Maoists. They had treated him nicely to the best of their ability, and even had saved his life from malaria by diagnosing the disease and giving necessary treatment, he has said.

But, he was aggrieved that the Maoists action shattered his business of conducting trekking and adventure tours, which, in course of his 23 years of stay at Puri, had become his principal avocation, as, he was not sure, if he can come back from Italy again.

What would happen to him in his country under his country’s laws as his country’s ambassador sends him to his land we cannot say; but this much can be said that here in Orissa, his business venture styled ‘Orissa Trekking And Adventure’ was a shady venture, not registered under the laws, not run on legal permission. As a foreigner on visitor visa, he had no authority to operate a business, specifically of this type.

Before his abduction, the lawful authorities both in Orissa and the Center had paid no attention to him. Therefore, his activities were not known. In fact, behind the back of both the governments, he was doing his business. What really was he doing? Was ‘Orissa Trekking and Adventure’ a mere cover? It is also a recent venture functioning on Chakratirtha road of Puri. What then was he doing earlier, during the 23 years?

A probe was needed in this matter. But the government has not thought it prudent to probe into it. And, perhaps, the personnel who were hand-in-glove with the foreigner, will breathe in relief as disclosure of shady deals, that he is suspected of, will not be possible in his absence.

The Hostage Tangle: Orissa Offers A Case Study

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

“The existence of an armed struggle is indicative that the people are determined to put their faith only in violent methods. The very same people who had it constantly drummed into them that the only language they understand was that of force, now decide to express themselves with force. In fact the colonist has always shown them the path they should follow to liberation. The argument chosen by the colonized was conveyed to them by the colonist, and by an iron twist of fate it is now the colonized who state that it is the colonizer who only understands the language of force”.

Thus has said Frantz Fanon in ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ in its chapter: ON VIOLENCE.

On this matrix, Orissa, known before the 1980s as the most peaceful province of India, offers scopes for a case study.In the 80s, J. B. Pattanaik used his position as Chief Minister to initiate official priority on industries that has acquired a monstrous shape in the regime of Naveen Patnaik and has given birth to an era of hostage, which, earlier was beyond imagination.

Marginal farmers, agricultural workers, self-employed social forces, socially exploited people condemned as untouchables, forest dwelling tribes as simple-natured as flowers but as fearless as lions were the children of Orissa that had made their supreme sacrifices for the freedom of the country and, had given almost the entire integer of martyrs from the soil of Orissa, including the nation’s youngest martyr Baji Raut, to India in equipping the motherland with all the strength she was in dire need of to succeed in obtaining her independence.

But their dreams of independence are shattered by the rulers of the State after independence.

Industries and corporate companies have taken over the land and emerged as new colonizers.

The very same segment of people that brought us our freedom are being displaced for handing over their lands and living environment to foreign firm POSCO and its likes in Orissa by a chief minister who has no sacrifice for the State.

The very same segment of people from which proud patriots in so many numbers had jumped into martyrdom to make our struggle for freedom succeed – the tribals – are being brutally killed by the State government to help industries spread their empires, as witnessed in Kalinga Nagar for the benefit of Tata.

Tribes in Niyamagiri, tribes in Deomali, tribals everywhere in Orissa who depend on their living environment, everywhere the Oriyas who depend on their lands for living as self-employed people, are now threatened by industries, by land grabbers, by water grabbers, by mines mongers, by education traders, by builders, by illegal wealth accumulators, by the neo-rich, by the new colonizers.

Whosoever amongst the tribals, amongst the poor people, amongst the marginal farmers, amongst the self-employed social forces is not willing to be colonized, is being subjected to state-terror, to illegal arrests, to cooked up cases, to sedition charges, to fake encounters,to abductions by the State.

This, as Frantz Fanon in his quoted canonical words has said, has forced the innocent and tortured people to become violent. Their violence is a counter violence to violence by the State.

Branding their violence as Maoist terrorism is as misleading as contrary to reality. In reality, the tribals and illiterate people that are prosecuted under charges of being Maoists do not know abc of Maoism.

They are being tortured by the state, because they oppose in their own way the loot of funds meant for their welfare by persons in power, transfer of their land / living environment to industry owners and transnational traders and reduction of their independent status to colonized condition.

Rise of violence at par with corporate influence upon administration, with rise of state support to private industries, with rise of incarceration of small / marginal farmers, workers, tribals, self-employed social forces and economically weak but politically conscious persons in the State strongly suggests that the people have started violently replying the violence being perpetrated on them by the State. They have started violently reacting against being colonized. They are violent, because the State is addressing them in violent way.

The instant hostage tangle has its roots in this phenomenon. Mili Panda, wife of Naxal leader Sabyasachi Panda whom police is not yet able to arrest, was arrested and prosecuted and the climate of official highhandedness is so maddening that a court had taken cognizance of the case in blatant disrespect to prohibition laid down in law against that type of cases. The Orissa High Court ruled that it was wrong on part of the lower court to have taken cognizance of the case and ordered for her release. She was yet under detention despite the High Court order; because the State having no hesitation in misusing its power, had kept her behind the bars under guise of a case at Gunupur. Even in the court at Gunupur, the Gudari-Kutinguda firing in encounter case lodged against her has collapsed as unproved. In other words, the State government had made her a hostage. Similarly many poor people, despite failure of prosecution in courts and despite finding that the cases against them were false and baseless, are perishing in jails in order to keep people intimidated. Keeping any one in illegal detention after court’s release order is nothing but keeping him hostage. They are, thus, hostages that the State government has made them. And, it transpires from the you-release-we-release materials of negotiation revealed to public by the State that keeping an Italian and a ruling party MLA as hostages is linked directly with the hostages the government has made of people opposed to colonization.

So, the Orissa hostage tangle is not a matter of mere crime to silently watch, but a matter of political economy to seriously study.