Orissa Matters

Interpol Vice-President Uma Shankar Mishra ought to explain his position in chit fund felony

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is investigating into the chit fund felony that has shown how criminals are ruling the roost in Orissa. But, the CBI may do a mistake if it fails to assess whether or not its former Director Mr. Uma Shankar Mishra had a link therewith. Mr. Mishra is Interpol Vice President.

This unwelcome impasse is created by disclosure of the name of a newspaper owner as a beneficiary of his loot by chit fund swindler Pradeep Sethi in course of interrogation by the CBI. Mr. Mishra was the founder editor-in-chief of this newspaper.

If, as reported, Bikash Swain, owner of the said newspaper – Suryaprava – has been funded by Sethi, the CBI cannot but look into how far Mr. Mishra’s involvement with Swain was innocent.

When Swain was arrested by Orissa Police in September 2010, we in the Media Unity for Freedom of Press had condemned the arrest, holding the same as violation of freedom of Press, as we believed Mr. Mishra’s version that the police action was meant to intimidate the paper, because it was exposing misdeeds of the government.

We even had had a public-Press conference in the auditorium of the Orissa branch of Red Cross Society, where Mr. Mishra had shared our podium and had come down heavily on the State Police for what he held “illegal” arrest of the founder-publisher of the paper he was editing. We even had demonstrated before the Governor’s residence in condemning Swain’s arrest.

Now as Swain’s name has come out as a beneficiary of the loot by Sethi, we earnestly hope, he will honestly reveal his real connection with the exposed offense, specifically as the MUFP had publicly stood with him.

Swain had, in the eyes of many journalists, reason to be considered a credible man, because of the famous police officer – former Director of CBI – Mr. Mishra’s association with him as the Editor-in-Chief of his paper, even before the paper had come out.

In reporting on the paper on the anvil by then, Orissa’s newspapers worth the name had welcomed it, specifically as a very unknown man – by profession a contractor – had roped in the former CBI chief to edit his paper and the then chief of CBI Mr. Aswini Kumar to inaugurate its office and website much ahead of the print copy reached the newsstand.

A report in Indian Express on June 4, 2009 gives us a clear picture of the day when it says,

“Launching a daily during an economic downturn would be a marketing manager’s nightmare. But Surya Prava, a soon-to-be-launched Oriya daily, is no routine newspaper, what with current CBI Director Ashwani Kumar flying in from Delhi to inaugurate its building and a former director, Uma Shankar Mishra, joining as its editor.

While Kumar yesterday inaugurated the office and the website of the newspaper, the 16-page broadsheet will be launched on January 23. The newspaper is being promoted by a little-known contractor called Bikash Swain.

Mishra, who, during his tenure as CBI director, got underworld don Abu Salem extradited from Portugal, has been employed as Editor of the newspaper”.

The report is self-explanatory and significant. It would be better for Mr. Mishra to explain this excess zeal in being associated with a person who in course of time has been named as a beneficiary of chit fund loot.

The CBI is addressed to reach the root of the crime sic passim the chit fund empire. And, in the root, are there persons like the former Director of CBI who had allowed himself to be so enthusiastically associated with a beneficiary of the loot? The people would like to know the answer.

Dirty Journalists need be named, Press needs be saved from putrefaction

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Chit Fund scandal has brought ignominy to the scribes in Orissa as Pradeep Sethi, the exposed offender, has reportedly revealed the names of some of the media persons as beneficiaries of his economic offenses wherein some former as well as present ministers, and MLAs, and MPs and functionaries of the ruling BJD are allegedly involved.

Not only chit funds, but also acquiring residential plots under discretionary quota, availing largesse and junkets from industries looting the State, acting conduits between corporate houses and power corridors, connection with land-grabbers and compradors as well as Mafiosi operating educational institutes are some of the allegations being generally raised against ‘some’ of the journalists.

Though their names are not yet disclosed, it goes on the rounds in the grapevines that, the notorious operator of chit fund ‘Artha Tattwa’ has told about them to the investigating sleuths. Names undisclosed, fame tarnished, journalists as a whole feel embarrassed like never before.

More embarrassing is the fact that, when any journalist truthfully exposes any economic offender, he or she is soon shown by another section of the scribes as a stooge of a rival mafia.

Most embarrassing for the ones to whom journalism is a mission, is a protection layer provided by avaricious media owners to one Achyut Samant, a land-grabbing mafia running a commercial hub behind mask of education at Bhubaneswar, whose hired goons had made recently a murderous attack on journalists as they were covering a land scam, which he was accused of.

Like prostitutes serve the patrons according to their desire, the media owners, for money, ensured brainwashing of the people in favor of Samant through calculatedly coined advertisements. These media owners have not condemned, as yet, the assault on journalists on duty.

On the other hand, silent vibrations of the chit fund swindler’s confessions before investigating sleuths that he was, as and when necessary, greasing the palms of various media persons to keep his car of corruption run without any hazard, has been rocking the State and image of media has gone so low in public esteem that the people seem to be far from standing in solidarity with the attacked journalists. In their perception, attack on the said media persons was also a part of the gang war, not attack on Press per se.

This indicates that the Press in Orissa has fallen into a state of putrefaction. Journalists are to save it from becoming more putrid.

So, instead of passively tolerating the ignominy, scribes of the State must raise a demand for immediate disclosure of the names of media persons about whom the chit fund offender has told the investigating sleuths, so that, the entire community of scribes does not further fall down in public esteem.

BIJU VIRUS YET AGAIN INJECTED INTO MAJOR OFFICIAL PROJECT

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

It is good that Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has launched on Thursday a 656 km Expressway, which, he claims, would help economic development in Western Orissa including the KBK districts. But it is bad that he has injected the Biju virus yet again into such a major official project by naming it as ‘Biju Expressway’, though neither he nor any of the family members of Biju Patnaik is to bear the cost thereof.

The entire cost of its construction presently estimated Rs. 3,200 crores is to be shouldered by the public exchequer.

It would be fulfillment of promises made in his party’s election manifesto, the CM has said. But nowhere in BJD manifesto, there was any mention of ‘Biju Expressway’. The expressway is named after Biju, because the CM knows that he is winning elections only by confusing the people with official projects named after Biju when the party – Biju Janata Dal – under the banner of which he is occupying office is also named after Biju.

The gullible people, who are uninformed, less-informed and/or misinformed, but constitute the majority, mistake the welfare programs as programs of Biju Patnaik and/or his son Naveen. Massive propaganda of a highly mischievous contrivance like ‘dreams of Biju’ is overwhelming the gullible voters into this mistake. This is the only reason behind his success in elections, despite his anti-people aptitude and habit of ignoring the interests of the toiling masses.

The Biju virus, like liquor boosts up assertiveness in hooligans, has increased bragging vainglory in the ruling Biju Janata Dal so wildly that, when recent exposure in discretionary quota scandal, mines loot and chit fund felonies pushed many of its top leaders to their naked nastiness, they had the audacity to assert that whatsoever be the exposure, they won’t be affected, because the people have love for Biju’s son as they are benefiting from Biju KBK Jojana, Biju Gramya Bidyut Jojana, Biju Gram Jyoti Programme, Biju Saharanchal Bidyutikaran Yojana, Biju Krusak Kalyan Jojana, Biju Yuba Sashaktikarana Jojana, etcetera.

Naveen has not condemned this audacity of his corrupt colleagues, because he knows that through their swaggering only, he is thriving and can continue in power.

He treats the State as his father’s fee simple that he has inherited and takes the people as a foolish lot whom it is easy to cheat by naming the official projects by Biju. So, instead of giving good governance, he is busy in multiplying Biju-named projects with the funds of the State. This is yet again proved, as the Works Department has been forced to spend around a crore of rupees in full page advertisement in the name of ‘Biju Expressway’ in obliging media. Besides injecting Biju virus into pneuma of the people of KBK region and Western Orissa, it aims at procuring media silence on this political misuse of official resources and official projects/programs.

The Press in prostitution

The Press in Orissa is so shamelessly in prostitution, that, despite knowing how official projects named after Biju are misguiding the voters into the political trap of BJD, destroying thereby the very purpose of democracy, they have been eagerly accommodating the misuse of official funds in advertisements that link Biju to welfare of the people, whom, when alive, in fact, the people of Orissa had thrown into the political dustbin to avenge the treachery he had played against them.

ORISSA MATTERS postings on this treacherous practice are of relevance more even now.

One may peruse my posting – Wake up S.E.C. Orissa! Put Biju statues under cover and obliterate his name overshadowing official projects

One may also peruse the posting – Election Commission now must ban operation of all Orissa projects named after Biju Patnaik

These postings were addressed to the Election Commission. Had the EC acted prudently after these postings and denied operation of projects named after Biju, it would never have been possible for Naveen Patnaik to return to power with the strength he has come.

If the name of Biju is dropped from the officially run welfare projects, and/or the ruling party is divested of the name of Biju, the scenario would be different.

Official programs named after Biju stamp his name so deeply in the minds of the gullible people that they link those programs to Biju and to the party named after him; and go to the polling booths overwhelmed by the name of Biju, which helps Biju Janata Dal in gaining their votes.

If the official programs are freed from the Biju tag, the scenario should so drastically change that the so-called popularity of Naveen that his sycophants day and night boast of, would find its place not in the vote boxes, but in the trash box of Time, never to get revived.

He knows it.

Therefore, yet again, he has named the major expressway of Western Orissa in the name of his father Biju, as if there is no other name that counts in Orissa.

The name needs be changed

Naming the hundred per cent exchequer-funded Expressway after Biju Patnaik is an affront to the mana of Western Orissa that had tremendously contributed to formation of Orissa as well as freedom of India in hope for democracy.

There is no difficulty or problem in naming it as ‘Chandili-Rourkela Expressway’ with due honor to the stretch of the land to be served by it.

Or, if a human name is so essential – which is not at all – a name from amongst the freedom fighters of the area, whose selfless sacrifices have given us independence, may be given to the project.

It may be named ‘Lakshman Naik Expressway’ after the famous martyr, who was hanged to death by the British in the Berhampur jail on 29 March 1943 for his active participation in freedom movement. It may also be named ‘Veer Surendra Sai Expressway‘ whose supreme sacrifice in fight against the British has remained a permanent source of inspiration for people in the whole landmass in the western part of Orissa.

Go to any district to be served by this Expressway, you will find many illustrious children of the soil.

One of the earliest martyrs to have raised the sword against the British was Khara Malaya of Ghasaba of Malkangiri, whose brave wife Khara Parvati had also enriched the martyrdom after fighting against the British.

Parvati had led a very unique battle against the British from 1900 to 1915, after her husband was killed by the foreigners. She had often overwhelmed the British by her Guerilla warfare.

Name the expressway by this unique heroin Parvati or by the name of her martyr husband Malaya and make it ‘Khara Malaya Expressway‘ or ‘Khara Parvati Expressway‘, if a human name carrying the mana of the concerned area is required.

Yet, much ahead of these freedom fighters, a Bonda woman, regarded as Bonda Mahadei, had raised an army of Bonda people to gain back independence. Bonda people worship her as their Goddess. Christen the Expressway as ‘Bonda Mahadei Expressway‘ if you want to prefix a human name to the project.

Bolangir born Bharat Chandra Nayak, who had adopted Sambalpur as his home, was subjected to unfathomable sufferings by the conservatives as he insisted on women emancipation through modern education. He is the yet unrecognized father of women education in Orissa, specifically Western Orissa. Name the Expressway after him by christening it ‘Bharat Nayak Expressway‘ if you need a name.

Orissa’s delivery of Buddhism apart, if applied Buddhism got the boost and scriptures from any, she was a woman namely Laxminkara, who ruled over Sonepur. She founded Sahajayan, when her brother, philosophic leader of Sambalaka (Sambalpur) Indrabhuti had given birth to Vajrayan and to the Jagannatha cult that has given Orissa world recognition. Take any of them – Indrabhuti or Laxminkara – to name the Expressway if you honor intellectual and cultural heritage of Orissa.

Make it ‘Gangadhar Meher Expressway‘ or ‘Sir Basudev Sudhala Dev Expressway‘ if there is an unavoidable need of a human name to be prefixed to the project

The entire landmass spanning from Chandili to Rourkela, as the Expressway proposes to serve, is full of illustrious personalities. If a human name is required, name the Expressway after any one of them.

Why the name of Biju who betrayed India in China aggression and corrupted administration through self-aggrandizing corruption?

When alive, Biju was rejected

Biju was a man who had betrayed the state for his personal benefits, for which, time and again, the people of Orissa had been ejecting him out of power and, in fact, when he had died, he was in the political trash, as the disgusted people of Orissa, betrayed by him to the core, had refused him a fresh mandate.

This writer, in his column ‘Singhavalokana’ in Orissa’s acclaimed daily ‘Sambad’, had exposed his offenses, even when he was alive and in power. Those well-researched articles are published in two Oriya books – ‘Singhavalokanare Biju’ and ‘Singhavalokana’ – both published by Bharata Bharati, Cuttack. After his demise, as his posthumous political use necessitated journalistic juxtaposing of reality with cooked up legends, this writer had deemed it a duty to recall him again, in respecting the right of the people to be informed, in these pages. Some relevant ones from those postings are published in his book ‘Animadversion’, published by Santosh Publications, Cuttack, for anybody to go through and counter if the documentary evidences used therein are not found correct. So far there is no counter.

Conspiracy to make Biju a cult figure

If one rightly remembers how Naveen came to power, as also founders of BJD recall, the people of Orissa being, by nature, magnanimous, had instantly forgiven Biju, the moment he died a pathetic death, as by then such a situation had developed where the people had already inferred that for all his misdeeds, he had been sufficiently punished, being pushed into an abandoned condition in the last phase of life, which could have ended earlier if Dillip Ray, who was not his family member, not taken him to his personal care out of pity.

Despite public dislike exhibited in refusal of a fresh mandate to him, the then Chief Minister J.B.Patnaik in his superlative condolences created a sympathy wave that his protégés later used to create a political party after his name with his son Naveen as its President.

And, thus, eventually, when Naveen occupied the CM chair riding the sympathy wave, and the state administration run rudderless because of his lack of experience, creating a feeling amongst the general public that it was a wrong to have rejected the JB led Congress, astute bureaucrat-turned politician in BJD Mr. Pyari Mohan Mohapatra advised him to jettison some of his cabinet colleagues from whom there was a treat to his leadership, on grounds of corruption, so that the people should have an occasion to compare between him and JB in the matter of patronage to corrupt colleagues, consequent upon which Naveen would appear more acceptable, to the total detriment of JB’s dreams to recapture power.

This of course saved Naveen at that critical juncture. But the rest of the leaders in BJD knew that Naveen’s habitual nonchalance would ultimately harm their party.

So, they shifted their emphasis from Naveen to Biju before the sympathy wave over his demise was totally waned.

They started a new experimentation.

Attempts to build up Biju image

They used a secret agent to behead a statue of Biju Patnaik in a village and immediately thereafter, on August 1, 2006, they stonewalled the Assembly proceedings in protest against the so-called desecration of the statue of Biju, which continued for two days with similar protests enacted in the Parliament as well as streets of Orissa. This they used to elevate the rejected Biju Patnaik to a cult figure.

As the pampered and tamed media kept quiet, I had to inform my readers on this intricate issue on 9.8.2006 under the caption:

Ban posthumous deification of Biju and the likes.

Thereafter they have adopted the technique of naming state funded welfare programs after Biju Patnaik starting with Biju KBK Yojana.

The virus has penetrated into all official welfare programs and government offices as well as places of public interest. It would be gainful to peruse the above article along with the two articles mentioned supra for proper diagnosis of the disease that has afflicted Orissa through this virus.

The disease is too serious to be ignored, if we love our motherland and democracy that our martyrs in the struggle for freedom had suffered for.

BJP engaged in wiping out the evidences of illegal land grabbing

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

A tiny facet of misrule and loot of the State going on in Naveen Patnaik’s administration has just been spotted at Gangapatna in the outskirt of mainstream Bhubaneswar, where around a hundred acres of forestland reduced by timber mafia to minor forest, has been grabbed by close collaborators of the Chief Minister, one of whom suspected is his blue-eyed boy Kalpataru Das, sent by him to Rajya Sabha oblivious of many worthy aspirants. Das has a nasty trail of dishonesty and is considered a black sheep by many of his colleagues in the ruling BJD.
Chief Minister’s blue-eyed boy and his collaborators in administration are so deeply linked to this design to grab the hundred acres that the land not only has a surrounding wall erected in contravention of Forrest Laws to give it a glow of exclusivity, but also a road has been built in the offenders’ service.

The Chief Minister’s total silence in the matter, when the whole of the State is in fire over this glimpse of offence, has made the situation more serious than corruption that the Naveen brand of administration stand synonym to.

But the conduct of BJP in this matter makes it more complicated. As the pictures below would show, BJP musclemen have all on a sudden become extremely active to remove the speaking evidences of the crime in a clever manner. They have razed down the compound wall illegally erected around the grabbed patch of land and also have started wiping out the illegally built road thereto.

Why the BJP has tried to wipe out the evidences of illegal constructions of compound wall and approach road concerning the 100 acres in question, is a question its state president K.V.Singhdeo may answer in interest of probity, if he or his party has the slightest regard for probity in public life.

Naxals in Judicial Wisdom

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

“The poor and the deprived people revolt” when “manifest injustices of all forms perpetrated against the weak”, the Supreme Court of India had observed in what is famous as “Salwa Judam” judgment. It had held, “People do not take up arms, in an organized fashion, against the might of the State, or against fellow human beings without rhyme or reason. Guided by an instinct for survival, and according to Thomas Hobbes, a fear of lawlessness that is encoded in our collective conscience, we seek an order. However, when that order comes with the price of dehumanization, of manifest injustices of all forms perpetrated against the weak, the poor and the deprived people revolt… … …”

But the very same fellows who have never condemned Nathuram Godse for having cold-bloodedly murdered Mahatma Gandhi, while demanding death for killers of so-called Swami and Saraswati Laxmananand, whose acts of religious revivalism had breached communal harmony in Kandhamal in such acrimonious velocity that a mayhem had to get rid of him at the cost of peace and tranquility in that beloved land of tribal magnanimity, have been condemning the “the poor and the deprived people” when they “revolt’, their leadership that the Naxals/Maoists constitute.

Laxmananand’s extinguishment forms the crux of a Judicial Enquiry headed presently by a former Judge of Orissa High Court, Justice Naidu. Yet, the Godse admirers and their allies in the pro-rich administration – always eager to perpetrate State-terrorism on progressive people – are one in condemning the opponents of caste-divide in Hindu society in general and Orissa’s icon of modern revolution Sabyasachi Panda in particular, for the homicidal death of the Hindu sectarian leader who was executing a mission of conversion of vulnerable people from other religions to Hindu, oblivious of how Indian Constitution was being denuded of its spirit thereby, even though the commission of enquiry is yet to find out who really was responsible for the death of Laxmananand.
It may so happen, if the Commission of Enquiry acts without any bias, Justice Naidu, who has wanted Sabysachi Panda to be produced before him for study of his role, if any, in the murder and its environment he is inquiring into, may held Laxmananand responsible for his own death.

But, the Godseites have been trying to obstruct the process of free thinking of Justice Naidu by shrouding the Judicial Commission with clouds of libretto that the Naxala/Maoists are criminals.

Had it been so, people would never have punished Manmohan Singh

There was a Prime Minister of India in Manmohan Singh whose Americanism was so shamelessly anti-Nasxals that the people of India have avenged their ruin by throwing his party to such filthy depth of the dustbin of electoral politics that the Congress, despite all its cries before its party-planted President, has been rightly found too stoutly rejected by the people to claim the post of the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, had described the left revolutionaries as “left viruses”. People have punished him and the Congress for this nasty conduct, though in their anxiety to get rid of the Congress they had become so rash that they are yet to extricate themselves from another set-up of supporters of FDI in India, which the middleclass opportunists and ultra-high-rich combine, has brought into power in a climate of conglomeration of rich media and religious revivalism. Lest the Supreme Judiciary, known for its free thinking so far, becomes a hurdle, the new set-up has already taken steps to make it easier for the pro-rich elements entering into the high benches. Yet, it looks pertinent to see what the Naxals are in the wisdom of the supreme Judiciary.

In the eyes of the Supreme Judiciary

In trying to locate the reasons of the growth of Naxal movement, wherein tribal youths are conspicuous by their participation, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, in ‘Nandini Sundar v. State of Chhattisgarh’ (AIR 2011 SC 2839), have noted: “Many of these tribal youngsters, on account of the violence perpetrated against them, or their kith and kin and others in the society in which they live, have already been dehumanized. To have feelings of deep rage, and hatred, and to suffer from the same is a continuation of the condition of dehumanization. The role of a responsible society, and those who claim to be concerned of their welfare, which the State is expected to under our Constitution, ought to be one of creating circumstances in which they could come back or at least tread the path towards normalcy, and a mitigation of their rage, hurt, and desires for vengeance” (Para 52).

At Para 71 the Court further observed, “As we remarked earlier, the fight against Maoist/Naxalite violence cannot be conducted purely as a mere law and order problem to be confronted by whatever means the State can muster. The primordial problem lies deep within the socio-economic policies pursued by the State on a society that was already endemically, and horrifically, suffering from gross inequalities”.

In the eyes of the Father of Indian Constitution

“We must remove the contradiction (this gross inequality) at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has so laboriously built up”, Dr. Ambedkar, father of the Constitution had warned while replying to the last debates on the draft Constitution (Constituent Assembly Debates, Volume 8, p.279).

The Supreme Court, in their observation quoted above had to so observe, as the gross inequality between the Indians divided in two parts – the meager numbers of the rich and the massive numbers of the poor – instead of being removed, has become more savagely severe.

As Naxal/Maoist movement has grown against this background, agents of imperialism in power have made rigorous laws like Act No 15 of 2002 that equates the Naxal/Maoists with terrorist and applies the Act to them with retrospective effect.

But, by enactment of this act, the Supreme Court verdict cited supra is not denuded of its wisdom and Dr. Ambedkar’s words of their wise relevance.

Human conscience cannot be suppressed by Laws of Intimidation, whosoever in power frames and enforces them.

Revolutionaries were there, who brought us freedom.

Revolutionaries are there who dare State-terror to bring us emancipation.

Revolutionaries will be there, on whom shall depend people’s liberation from the yokes of exploitation.

And, in true judicial wisdom, not the exploiters, but the ones suffering for saving the people from exploitation, shall always have the right place of importance.

Therefore, despite draconian Laws equating politico-economic revolutionaries with cross-border and communal terrorists, in Judicial wisdom, as per Justice K. S. Ahluwallia of Calcutta High Court. “Naxalism or Maoism is a political movement wedded to violence and the participants thereof are political offenders”, not criminals.

Interpretation of Laws in various Courts by various Judges may differ, but judicial wisdom uttered in cases of politico-economic relevance, such as the ‘Salwa Judam’ and ‘Political prisoners’ cases, cannot be viewed as anything but expressed wisdom in matter of social and politico-economic developmental perspective.

One is to decide how to read between the lines.