Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
“It is a pity that the Opposition continuously disturbed the proceedings of the House” for which adjournment sine die was necessary, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has said.
The pictures would show how, under his leadership and instigation, the ruling party was creating disturbances to force the Speaker to adjourn the House except when Bills were needed to be passed under the cover of ruckus so created, avoiding Opposition gaze.
Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
If passing of some Law Bills as well as the Appropriation Bill – in a condition where legislative wisdom of the Opposition is not honored as the basic necessity – is counted as success of the Government, failure of democracy would stand synonymous with this success.
Failure of democracy needs no proof, as the winter session of the Assembly has been pushed into premature death today, when the House has been adjourned sine die.
Background
By the day the Assembly was to commence, the State was entirely in turmoil due to exposure that chit fund cheats have bilked thousands of crores of rupees from more than one-fourth of the population of Orissa. Some of the close associates of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik were in judicial custody as under-trial offenders, when some more were in the investigation chamber of CBI under orders of the Supreme Court.Intriguing attempts of the State Government to use the Supreme Court to keep the CBI away from investigation into chit fund scams was not only rocking the minds of the people, but also was moving the needle of suspicion towards Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik who was marked for his patronizing cooperation with a chit fund swindling outfit SeaShore. Advocate General of the Government was apprehended by CBI for his dubious deal with another chit fund cheat under the banner name: Artha Tattwa. Shockingly, another man who was lawyer of chit fund cheat Prasant Dash was appointed as the new Advocate General, when the State was expected to prosecute the chit fund swindler. Alok Jena’s case in the Supreme Court had pointed out who of Naveen’s ministerial and party colleagues had taken how many crores of rupees from the chit fund operators; but they were not daring to counter Jena’s allegation. In such a situation, the Chief Minister was sure to have feared that the Opposition may strip him layer by layer in the Assembly over the chit fund scams. He would have been happy if the session could have not been convened. But, that was not within his power, as the supplementary budget was to be adopted and a few Law Bills were to be passed.
Modus operandi
The House had commenced with adjournment and call-attention notices from the Opposition and the Treasury benches on the chit fund issue.
That was most troublesome for the CM.
Treasury bench members were eager to protect him at any cost, because their survival in politics was linked to his clean image.
Deliberately, therefore, a minister – Pradeep Maharathy – hurled sexual slangs at a lady member of the BJP – Radharani Panda – in the hall of the Assembly in order to provoke acrid commotions that would make the Speaker adjourn the House. Almost three days were lost to this design.
Modus operandi of the Chief Minister became clear when the treasury bench engineered adjournments under pretense of State Interest, after the House had regained normalcy with Maharathy apologizing to Ms. Panda for the nasty words he had hurled.
Further stronger methods to keep the House adjourned were devised in the guise of advice of the aforesaid Advocate General that has culminated in adjournment sine die today.
The Irony
The irony is that when the CM had not opened his lips in the House to revive the climate for it to proceed, after declaration of sine die closure, he has come out with words of allegation that the Assembly had to be adjourned sine die; because, the Opposition did not allow it to proceed. What a farce Mr. Patnaik has made of democracy in Orisa!
Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Despite fabulous majority – 117 members in a 147 seater Assembly – Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik looks like a pathetic loser, as a mere 30 member strong multi-party Opposition has put him on the mat where he does not dare to open his mouth.
At the crux of this imbroglio lies the chit fund felony.
Significantly, the Opposition is not holding the Cabinet, as a whole, responsible for this, whereas it has unambiguously pointed out at Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who seems to have acted God Father to at least one of the crooks – Prasant Dash of SeaShore.
It should have been proper for Naveen to explain his position; because he is not an individual alone, but a Chief Minister.
It is not becoming of a Chief Minister to use silence as the best method of defense.
On the 14th day of its commencement, Orissa Assembly collapsed again to adjournment till 3 PM today after less than a minute of beginning of the Question Hour.
At par with our views, the daily Sanchar, founded and guided by the most astute member of Naveen’s cabinet Dr. Damodar Raut, also has opined that, the Chief Minister shouldn’t shy at the Opposition in the chit fund matter and rather should put forth with honesty the details of the scam as has come out in course of investigation, so that denigration of the image of the Government in the eyes of the people may stop.
But, instead of correcting himself, the Chief Minister has taken refuge in the ruling of the Speaker that the chit fund matter being sub judice, cannot be subjected to debates of the House.
This plea is abysmally poor.
From what the Opposition is stressing upon, it is clear that, it wants accounts of the Chief Minister on his suspected link with chit fund crooks. The Chief Minister’s link with chit fund crooks is never before any court of law. So, it is not acceptable that the matter is sub judice. It would fit better to legislative magnanimity if the Speaker recalls his ruling and allows debates on chit fund felony without any prejudice to matters before the court. Assembly secretariat should be used to apprise the members of what exactly is su judice. Beyond that, free debate on chit fund should be allowed.
Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Sad, the Orissa Assembly is adjourned again due to the Government’s adamancy to impose English over the primacy of Oriya language in the Legislative Assembly.
After creating the cause for unrelenting ruckus in the House, the Government has architected passage of several Bill without discussion, even though they were blatantly violative of the Orissa Official Language Act.
In this, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has given a culminating effect to the act of subterfuge his father Biju Patnaik had devised to render the mother tongue of Orissa officially useless. It was one of the reasons of mass upsurge against Biju that had forced him out of power in 1963. After 50 years of Biju’s anti-Oriya foul play, his son Naveen has given Oriya language a deadly blow by bringing in Bills only in English, not in Oriya, and getting them passed beneath the whipped up hubbub.
The people of Orissa are the creators of the era of linguistic States in India and Orissa was the first State to have made administration to run in the mother tongue of the people – Oriya.
While celebrating the first Utkal Divas after independence, on 1st April, 1948, the Orissa Assembly, awaiting adoption of the Constitution, had to face a resolution moved by Pt. Laxminarayan Mishra (Bargarh-East)that required the Assembly to make Oriya the Official language of the State by enacting a Law to that extent; and in the spirit thereof, the first Assembly enacted ‘The Orissa Official Language Act, 1954’. This Act stipulated that Oriya was “to be used for all or any of the official purposes of the State of Orissa”.
But, the administrative officers, in order to keep them as a separate distinguished class, ignored this Act and went on managing their files in English.
When a fellow like Biju Patnaik grabbed the Chief Minister chair, he pampered and patronized whosoever was priding in being elite.
In his vested interest administration wherein non-Oriya officers and favor-seekers were dazzling as the Chief Minister’s inner associates, the Official Language Act, 1954 was relegated to insignificance and English reemerged as the language of administration through a blatantly illegal amendment in 1963; and thus, Oriya language was rendered officially useless by Biju Patnaik. His was a design to make Oriya language bereft of its primacy in administration.
When the British had made non-Oriya languages the official languages in Oriya speaking tracks, the people of Orissa had woke up against the design and forced the British to amalgamate all the Oriya speaking areas to a separate province where they can use their mother tongue in offices.
But Biju Patnaik, the most hypocrite virus post-independence politics had ever produced, sabotaged this primacy of Oriya language by inserting a provision in the Official Language (Amendment) Act, 1963 to the effect that, English shall be used “in addition to Oriya for transaction of business in Legislature of the State of Orissa”.
This shrewd insertion subjected Orissa administration to predominance of English and ruined the utility of Oriya as a language.
By creating the Bills only in English language now, Naveen Patnaik has given finality to the act of subterfuge designed against Oriya language 50 years ago by his father Biju Patnaik. In his latest action, the concept “in addition to” penned in the 1963 amendment has also been discarded. It is a shame that there are sycophants who support non-framing of Bills in Oriya.
Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
It is not that the Orissa Assembly is so very busy that it has no time for debates on Law Bills and Demands. But it has passed certain Bills and the Demands without the desired debates thereon. The Assembly is reduced to a political junkyard.
This nasty situation could have been avoided had the Government been a bit responsible in its response to the Opposition demand for a just and necessary discussion on chit fund scam that has put around 25% of the State’s population in drastic financial loss and has put the Chief Minister and the ruling party in terrible loss of credibility.
None other than the Government is responsible for the loss of its credibility. When depositors found that they have been cheated by the chit fund swindlers, they knew that they had been tempted to make their trysts with the chit fund operators only because the Government of Naveen Patnaik had appeared as their patron and Sri Patnaik himself also had posed as promoter of the major ones of them like the SeaShore, even after being notified by the appropriate machinery of the Central Government about their dubious conduct. The second most spectacular reason of loss of the Government’s credibility is found in its opposition to CBI investigation into the chit fund felony. Naveen Patnaik’s Government had spent about half a crore of Rupees on lawyers to obstruct the Supreme Court from ordering for CBI enquiry, claiming that neither any minister and/or leader of the ruling party nor any functionary of the Government was involved with the chit funds; whereas the CBI has already put some of the close colleagues of the CM – both political and executive – under the grip of law, for their discernible and/or suspected Role in the chit fund scam.
When this loss of credibility of the Government was posing a threat to mana of democracy, it was natural for the Opposition to demand a discussion on chit fund in supersession of all other businesses. It should have been the best for the Leader of the House – the Chief Minister himself – to come forward with how the Government looks at the issue, and with the details of the actions taken by the Government in the matter so far, and proposed action, if any, it wants to take. The Chief Minister should have helped the Assembly with a proper, fair and honest debate that could have helped the affected people to understand where they really stand vis-a-vis the chit fund operators. But, sadly, that never happened. All nasty tricks were used to debar the House from having the accounts of the Government in the matter. The result has paralyzed the Assembly in matters of accountability of the Government for eleven working days till today, whereas it is increasingly being felt that the ruling party is derailing the House in order only to help the Chief Minister escape public gaze.
Significantly, the Speaker has become a party to subjugation of the Assembly Members’ right to speak in the Assembly on matters of urgent public importance. In respect to desirability of debate on chit fund felony, he wanted advice of the Advocate General in the matter and the AG reportedly advised that, no debate, either through any motion or demand-discussion, should be allowed on chit fund. This has pushed the issue into a turn towards the worse.
In public perception, the Speaker of the Assembly, who owes his berth in the House to the ruling party, and has every reason to stay grateful to the Chief Minister for the position he is holding, has been helping the CM by subjugating the sovereignty of the House to overlordship of the Advocate General who has vested interest in blocking the debate on chit fund. The Leader of the Opposition has condemned the reliance put on the AG, as, before accepting the assignment, he was the advocate of the chit fund set-up SeaShore, which is a major object of CBI investigation. Inability of the Speaker to remove the blockage on normal proceeding of the House has earned objurgation even from a senior member of the Cabinet Dr. Damodar Raut. Of course, after a day of putting on records his strong disapproval of the Speaker’s action, Raut has taken a U-turn.
In its history, the Orissa Assembly had never fallen in such a situation of abnormality. Nobody knows how its normalcy would be restored unless the government educates itself to be answerable.
Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik seems to have developed a wrong notion that governance of Orissa in Oriya depends upon his mercy. His press-note of December 17 and full page display advertisement in major broadsheets of today force us to arrive at this apprehension.
In his December 17 press note it was declared that he had held a meeting with the five members of the ministerial committee on that day for the purpose of “strictly implementing the Orissa Official Language Act, 1954 in official and non-official level” to facilitate which a website has been floated by the government. In the full page multi-color advertisement in broadsheet dailies today, this is intriguingly missing.
The advertisement is designed to tell the people that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has taken historical steps to save and develop Oriya language, and has enumerated the steps he has taken. This is blatant lie. Neither he nor his government has executed any single item claimed to be “historical” in the official advertisement. The entire advertisement is nothing but false propaganda. What a shame it is, that, the people of Orissa are taken for granted by their Chief Minister! Read more →
Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Legends are the most misguiding mischief aimed at superimposing lies on reality so that indigenous people of an occupied land are kept too dazzled to see the dark face of the rulers and the class of exploiters can keep its victims subjugated to its authority, while forcing them to forget the heroic history of evolution of their own philosophy of life, their own splendid spiritual realizations, their own socio-economic uniqueness, their own ancient culture, their own valorous past, their own way of social integration and their own civilization.
We see this mischief galore in the context of Navakalevara of SriJagannatha.
So, here, we are to rip apart the legends and bring the reality of the Navakalevara to light, as thereby alone we can reach the lost uniqueness of the people of Orissa.
We will use Puri Sankaracharya’s self-proclaimed authority over Navakalevara to proceed with our purpose.
Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
The Oriya daily SAMAJA founded by late Utkalmani Pandit Gopabandhu Das, to which, out of their love and reverence for the great humanitarian leader, the people of Orissa had and have been giving their financial and moral support, is in a menacing maze of forgery and loot.
Sadly, two of Gopabandhu’s trusted men – Lingaraj Mishra and Radhanath Rath – who, because of being known so, had the opportunity of becoming cabinet ministers in Orissa, were the masterminds and/or makers of the forgery from which the paper is yet to be salvaged.
Both of them – Lingaraj and Radhanath – had partnered with each other in forging the last WILL of Gopabandhu to grab the Samaja, which being Gopabandhu’s paper was of superb credibility and the greatest political instrument of the day. They had performed this crime behind the screen of and in nexus with Servants of the People Society (SoPS), of which, while breathing his last, Gopabandhu was the Vice-President. Read more →