Orissa Matters

Release the Reporter and Arrest the Editor of Samaja with the Gang Immediately: Employees Trade Union

The communal disturbances ignited by the Samaja controllers has shocked the State.

When real culprits are protected by the Police, Jitendra Prasad Das, a very innocent staff reporter purposefully shown as sub-editor, has been thrown into the jail to mislead the public.

Leaders of Utkalmani Newspaper Employees Association (UNEA) have demanded for forthwith release of Das and for immediate arrest of Satya Ray, Niranjan Rath, Sushant Mohanty and Suresh Mantry, who in its views, are the real culprits.

We post below their statement:

“Sri Jitendra Prasad Das a working journalist in position of Staff Reporter of the Samaja is made a scapegoat by wrong-doing executive editor, printer/publisher and General Manager (all impostors) of the paper and has been thrown into the central jail at Chaudwar as an undertrial prisoner, for fault, which he has never committed. The wrong-doing fellows that presently control the Samaja are always using workers as scapegoats.

It is sad that the executive editor who should have owned the responsibility for offensive publication to the chagrin of a minority community, has, to save his skin, treacherously handed over Das to the Police. And the police has acted a puppet in arresting and throwing him into custody jeopardizing his right to personal and press freedom, when he is not at all responsible for the controversial posting in the paper.

The crux of the issue is that a photo allegedly of a sacred path-setter for a minority community, downloaded from Internet, was published in the Samaja in its January 14 edition. Finding it offensive, a delegation of the affected minority community had wanted to meet the general manager of the paper, but was denied audience. This irritated the community that took the conduct of the paper as an affront to their religious distinction and eventually ignited a communal passion leading to severe damage of the properties of paper as well as to its credibility. Dignity of Press was totally shattered for which the executive editor as well as the printer/publisher, news coordinator and the man who poses as the general manager are squarely responsible.

If playing havoc on communal peace and harmony and tranquil of the society is an offense, all the above mentioned four functionaries – they are impostors as there is no legal sanction behind their incumbencies- by their very irresponsible conduct, are the offenders and the police should have arrested, if that was so necessary, any or all these four persons. But, instead of doing that, the police has diverted public attention from the culprits to the entirely innocent reporter.

The UNEA strongly condemns the wrong action of police and calls upon the state to drop the case in which Sri Das has been willfully and falsely implicated.

The severe damage done to the property and credibility of the Samaja because of the highly objectionable and irresponsible conduct of the executive editor (sadly, the premiere paper has no editor) and the printer/publisher, is irreparable. UNEA demands strongest possible penal action specifically against them individually and collectively.

The UNEA therefore calls upon the police to withdraw its case against Das and to immediately arrest the gang of four – Satya Ray, Niranjan Rath, Susant Mohanty and Suresh Mantry – known to the police as Executive Editor, Printer/Publisher, Chief News Coordinator and General manager of Samaja respectively, as otherwise, relevant documents and evidences of their crime may be wiped out.

The UNEA further demands that due steps be immediately taken to ensure safety for Das in the jail as there is treat to his life from prisoners belonging to the irritated minority community.

Devi Prasanna Nayak (President),
Subash Ch. Singh (Gen. Secretary)
Utkalmani Newspaper Employees Association, Cuttack

SoPS miscreants ignited communal tension, but Police has arrested a Sub-Editor to divert public attention

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Niranjan Rath, a devotee of Hanuman and a controversial life member of Servants of the People Society (SoPS), projected as a person of moral turpitude in an enquiry report authored by Justice Arijit Pasayat, is the printer and publisher of the ‘Samaja’ newspaper, whereas Satya Roy, a retired desk journalist, as a reward for lobbying in corridors of courts for some of the SoPS miscreants, is its editor-in-charge on a time-bound contract.

They committed a crime by design or negligence that irritated the muslim community in whole of the State leading to angry protests in front of the Samaja office at Cuttack and ransacking of its premises elsewhere.

But, to save their skin, they have shrewdly shifted the responsibility to a sub-editor and the Police, pressed by CMO to protect these two fellows, has arrested Jitendra Das, the sub-editor, whom the primary court has thrown into custody oblivious of his right to personal freedom, even though, under laws governing the Press, he cannot be held guilty.

A very wrongful picture of Prophet Mahammad was published in the Samaja of January 14, against which a section of Muslim inhabitants of Cuttack wanted to place their protests before the editor. Denied the audience, they organized public protests that became acrimonious and mobile phones being sharp carriers, the information of Cuttack spread through out the State. Irritated Muslims ransacked the paper’s Balasore set-up and Rourkela edition office also soon tested the bitterness. Beyond the seats of Samaja editions, members of the aggrieved community also demonstrated their angry protests in important nerve centers of the State.

As situation was getting more menacing, the DGP had to rush to the newspaper’s head office at Cuttack to pacify the muslims and protect the Samaja functionaries. And, he somewhat succeeded. But, then, surprisingly, sub-editor Jitendra Das was handed over to Police by the illegitimately clinging GM of the paper Suresh Mantry,who never forgets to project himself as a retired IAS officer and who is noted to have acted the mastermind behind torture of employees by the management.

ORISSA MATTERS wanted to know from the Police as to why a sub-editor has been arrested when for the mischief the editor-in-charge and the printer-publisher are individually and collectively answerable. Police just fumbled. Who raised the allegation against the sub-editor? Police kept mum.

Sri Das has been illegally suspended.

Earlier we have shown how a sub-editor, pressed to report the Assembly, has been suspended for his faithful reporting of a debate, as therein a member who had mocked at the Chief Minister’s secretary Pandian was quoted.

In such nefarious hands the Samaja has fallen.

The Labor department is not daring to intervene as the illegal occupiers of Samaja (Samaja is occupied by SoPS through a forged Will) are under protection of the Chief Minister, who has whimsically transferred a labor officer of Cuttack for having initiated action against unfair labor practices rampant in the Samaja establishment.

Now, to save the real culprits, the Police has been used to arrest sub-editor Jitendra Das in order to save their own skin and divert public attention.

AMIRI BARAKA: ANGRY BLACK COMMUNIST, THE SOUL OF THE SUN.

By Saswat Pattanayak

“Who invaded Grenada

Who made money from apartheid
Who keep the Irish a colony
Who overthrow Chile and Nicaragua later
Who killed David Sibeko, Chris Hani,
the same ones who killed Biko, Cabral,
Neruda, Allende, Che Guevara, Sandino,
Who killed Kabila, the ones who wasted Lumumba, Mondlane , Betty Shabazz, Princess Margaret, Ralph Featherstone, Little Bobby

Who locked up Mandela, Dhoruba, Geronimo,
Assata, Mumia,Garvey, Dashiell Hammett, Alphaeus Hutton

Who killed Huey Newton, Fred Hampton,
MedgarEvers, Mikey Smith, Walter Rodney,
Was it the ones who tried to poison Fidel
Who tried to keep the Vietnamese Oppressed

Who put a price on Lenin’s head?”
(Amiri Baraka)
Who says Amiri Baraka is no more?

He is alive as long as there exists humanity. He shall remain relevant as long as critical questions continue to be posed. When Baraka wrote the poem “Somebody Blew Up America”, he was accused of anti-semitism, he was stripped of the poet laureate rank of New Jersey and many prominent political leaders and activists ridiculed him for having taken such a radical stand at a time when the country was mourning 9/11, as jingoism was the only poetic license a poet could afford to retain in America then. And yet, Amiri Baraka did not give in to the patriotic flavor of the day. He instead spoke the truth. Awards and recognitions were not going to influence him. He relinquished the honorary positions. He adopted what a true radical does: he remained unafraid of truth.

This truth however became the contentious issue for a hypocritical world order that soon termed him as controversial. What was controversial about furthering the cause of peace as an active oppositional stand against militarism and racism? Upon his demise, New York Times called him the “polarizing poet”. Polarizing? What was polarizing about the poet who dreamt of unifying the world while challenging the artificial geographical borders conveniently set by colonial masters?

Amiri Baraka was neither controversial nor polarizing. He was a poet, a historian, a progressive, romantic, revolutionary communist. And he was always unafraid of truth. The truth to him was revolution. A revolution to him was beyond a certain group of people, certain race of people, or people of a certain nationality. Like Paul Robeson before him, he strove for the revolution through his art. He shunned social divisions imposed by the ruling class. And if to acquire this truth, he had to struggle to reach there, he remained unafraid of that. He was not ashamed of transforming himself as a political being if by doing so he could further the progressive causes of the world. He wrote:

“I see art as a weapon of revolution. I define revolution in Marxist terms. Once I defined revolution in Nationalist terms. But I came to my Marxist view as a result of having struggled as a Nationalist and found certain dead ends theoretically and ideologically, as far as Nationalism was concerned and had to reach out for the communist ideology.”

When I met Amiri Baraka for the first time in Summer of 2011 at his house, he was 77. I had expected to see an old man, a retired poet, a tired revolutionary, or maybe a combination of all three. What I found in him instead was a young man deeply curious to know about international affairs, a passionate researcher sharing his new findings, and an enthusiastic radical radiating hope for the future. I had promised to be back to his place for another meeting, perhaps to conduct a more formal interview. But then I also knew that formal interviews are not conducted with lovers of revolution. Or, maybe I was quick to abandon any professional project in the midst of the hearty welcome, fine homemade foods and introductions with his entire family; the warmth and love that they bestowed upon my father (journalist Subhas Chandra Pattanayak) and I, when we visited him along with my dearest friend Dr. Todd S Burroughs, and beloved Professor and freedom fighter Dr. Les Edmond.

Todd S Burroughs, Amiri Baraka, Subhas Chandra Pattanayak, Les Edmond

I saw Mr. Baraka two more times – once in Brooklyn during an evening of revolutionary recitals, and the last time was at a Left Forum event. On both the occasions, he kindly asked about my father and reminded me that we needed to have that interview we have been planning for. Well, the interview could never finally take place. But I have no regrets at all. The fact that I did get to see him in person a few times was itself such a precious experience. The fact that he and his remarkable wife, revolutionary poetess Amina Baraka posed for my lens will always remain the high point of my artistic career.

Amina Baraka & Amiri Baraka

Personal is political and that is how I was drawn towards him early on. And that is the philosophy which was embodied in Baraka’s works throughout. His poems inspired me and empowered me. Baraka to me was Langston Hughes of our times. A poet of his people, a poet for all people. Like Hughes, his songs carried messages not of hope, but of revolution. Not of charities and feel good rhetorics, of sweet talks or inner peace bullshits. But of raw emotions, critical posers and call for actions.

Hughes had written:
“Goodbye
Christ Jesus Lord God Jehova,
Beat it on away from here now.
Make way for a new guy with no religion at all-
A real guy named
Marx Communist Lenin Peasant Stalin Worker ME-
I said, ME!”

Baraka, too wrote:
“We’ll worship Jesus
When Jesus do
Somethin
When jesus blow up
the white house…
we’ll worship jesus when
he get bad enough to at least scare
somebody – cops not afraid
of jesus
pushers not afraid
of jesus, capitalists racists
imperialists not afraid
of jesus shit they makin money off jesus
we’ll worship jesus when Mao
do, when tour does
when the cross replaces Nkrumah’s star
Jesus need to hurt some a our
enemies, then we’ll check him out…
we ain’t gon worship jesus
not till he do something
not till he help us
not till the world get changed
and he ain’t, jesus ain’t, he can’t change the world
we can change the world
we can struggle against the forces of backwardness,
we can struggle against our selves, our slowness, our connection
with the oppressor, the very cultural aggression which binds us to our enemies
as their slaves.
we can change the world
we aint gonna worship jesus cause jesus don’t exist
except in slum stained tears or trillion dollar opulence stretching back in history, the history
of the oppression of the human mind
xxxxx
we worship the strength in us
we worship our selves….
throw jesus out your mind
build the new world out of reality, and new vision
we come to find out what there is of the world
to understand what there is here in the world!
to visualize change, and force it.
we worship revolution.”

This is the Baraka I have known. The “real guy” Hughes wanted us to remember, emulate and while worshipping the revolution, to worship the revolutionary. It is not the gods who are immortal. It is Baraka and the revolutionaries like him who shall always live in our midst.

Amiri Baraka

Immortality is radicalism. Going to the roots and to find that all of us never really perished. We are all connected with each other, in our life form and without, in our present and our collective history. This is again what Baraka used to characterize as “Digging”, the name of the outstanding work of his that traces the evolution of Afro-American art. About that book, he had written, “This book is a microscope, a telescope, and being Black, a periscope. All to dig what is deeply serious…The sun is what keeps this planet alive, including the Music, like we say, the Soul of which is Black.”

Baraka’s black-is-beautiful was a legendary call for international unity for the people of the third world. It was a call for communism in a country that was the most anti-communist in the planet. Baraka never faltered, never feared and always remained the fighter, against conventional wisdom. In “Reggae or Not!”, he outlined who he was as a black man in America:

“Self Determination
Revolution
Socialism Socialism Socialism
DEATH TO ALLIGATOR EATING CAPITALISM
DEATH TO BIG TEETH BLOOD DRIPPING IMPERIALISM
I be black angry communist
I be part of rising black nation
I be together with all fighters who fight imperialism
I be together in a party with warmakers for the people
I be black and african and still contemporary marxist warrior
I be connected to people by blood and history and pain and struggle
We be together a party as one fist and voice
We be I be We, We, We, the whole fist and invincible flame
We be a party soon, we know our comrade for struggle…
Only Socialism will save
the Black Nation
Only Socialism will save
America
Only Socialism will save
the world!”

Goodbye, angry black communist. See you again in the morning, the soul of the sun.

—–

(Saswat.com)

If not a mask of Congress, Kejriwal must act first and fast against rapists of law in Congress regime

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The devil always acts under a mask. Under a mask of Tapaswi, the demon Ravan had obtained boons from different Gods including Brahma and even Rama’s wife Sita had fallen into his trap when he begged for alms under the mask of a Vedic Sanyasi. Kejriwal bagged the second-largest chunk of votes under the mask of an antagonist of Congress, by shattering the spate of support BJP was expecting from the people of Delhi. But, instead of initiating action against the criminals that misused political and executive positions to corrupt administration during Ms. Sheila Dixit’s chief-ministry, despite the guilt unveiled by investigation, he has preferred to be a Congress dependent for power.

Ever since emergence of Kejriwal in political horizon, this site has been questioning his design. A creation, mostly of corporate media and the very same mediamen that had tried to hijack 2004 election for Vajpayee swallowing around five hundred crores of rupees in course of the misleading media campaign they had masterminded and executed, which was so very offensive, undemocratic and monstrous that a noted national newspaper editor had to confess that, that was a war between the media and the people of India, Kejriwal has acted a stooge of Congress to convert spontaneous awakening of the people against Manmohan Singh’s political economy of capitalism to campaign against corruption.

People were seeing their exchequer looted under mega scams; people were seeing the gap between the rich and the poor was widening; people were being treated as non-entities by the government(s) in nefarious design to hand over their lands and natural habitats to mine-exploiters and industrialists; people were seeing the benefits of planning flowing into coffers of the rich and the mafia; cost of living was becoming so high that the government was increasing dearness allowance for its employees again and again so that the tentacles of exploitation won’t irreparably suffer; people in the majority were denuded of their purchasing power and the power-holders, sure that they would certainly die in starvation unless life-saving food materials like rice and wheat supplied to them in the highest subsidized rate, had provided for rice, as in Orissa at the rate of rupee one per Kg; people, the helpless victims of relentless rise of price of essential commodities, perishing under starvation and slow starvation, were so miserably unable to feed their children that, the UNICEF had to report that 43% of Indian children below five years were underweight, whereas 48% were stunted due to chronic undernourishment with 20% wasting away in starvation.

On the other hand, according to researched data made available by Wealth-X, only 150 Indians possess wealth in the range of 500 million to 999 millions US $, and only 109 billionaires in the country control 20.5% of the total fortune the ultra wealthy segment comprising 7,730 individuals that possess more than 70% of national wealth in India. Because of these marginal numbers of ultra wealthy fellows, Indians in general are so abjectly poor.

When people had started linking all these ills to capitalism and their revolt was spontaneous and the capitalists knew that the mass upsurge against Manmohan Singh’s misrule will metamorphose into mass revolt against capitalism, agents were desperately cultivated to stymie the awakening of the people against capitalism.

And, for this, they needed fellows who should not have had any political identity, so that the people, disgusted with known politicians, would have no hesitation to rely upon them.

At that time, as we had exposed in this site, Anna Hazare and his gang including Kejriwal appeared on the scene and with the dedicated help of rich media, eventually converted the people’s spontaneous upsurge against capitalism-propelled misrule to campaign for a Lokpal as if Lokpal is the final panacea!

Exactly as Jaya Prakash Narayan was used in the 1970s to hijack and kill the people’s spontaneous revolt against Indira Gandhi so that status quo continues to serve the interest of the rich, Hazare and his gang was used to foil people’s uprising against capitalistic anarchy created by Manmohan Singh so that capitalism continues unhindered and unchallenged.

Despite the muck differences with Hazare, Kejriwal has succeeded in halting the revolt against capitalism and rich media is brainwashing people to accept that, not capitalism but corruption is the issue in the coming election.

And, rich media is instigating the mainstream communists to stay with this issue, even if, thereby, they are to forgo their known stance against communalism. Last evening, Sitaram Yechury agreeing to such a proposal advanced in Times Now channel deserves attention in this specific context.

The war has begun. Like in 2004 to help Vajpayee stay in power and complete his notorious mission of selling away all public sector undertakings to private houses, certain operators of rich media, committed to keep capitalism protected from mass rejection, have started cultivating a climate of political confusion, by shrewd image building of Kejriwal and projection of corruption as the issue for election, even though corruption is caused by avarice that capitalism enhances.

It was necessary for the people to decide whether or not to stay with capitalism, in view of all the debacles the country has suffered since Manmohan Singh’s economic policy has infested India. But Kejriwal with the help of or under the influence of corporate media has made it a non-issue.

Yet, AAP seems acceptable

Yet, in absence of a credible Communist party, AAP seems acceptable. People, serious about freeing the country from the Congress and the communalists, are inclined to take it as an unavoidable alternative to the nakedly anti-people set-up in power. This is why, clean personalities in various areas are joining AAP. When Medha Patekar has pledged her support to it, Nandita Das allowed herself to be associated with it. That, so far apolitical people are finding AAP to be their forum of fight against political miscreants is evidenced in Devi Prasanna Nayak’s joining the new party. A principled fighter against misusers of media power, and himself an eminent desk journalist, Sri Nayak has not only joined AAP, but also has started organizing the people of his area in Jajpur district of Orissa in support of AAP. In every nook and corner of this State, young educated men and women with dedication and dreams for the country are seen expressing themselves in support of AAP.

It is incumbent upon Kejriwal and his team to ensure that their hopes are not thrown into the labyrinth of rule by the rich for benefit of the rich.

Therefore, instead of wasting time in posing the ruler in ‘Janata Darbar’, he should quickly act against culprits identified by investigating bodies.

Coming to power out of campaign against corruption, he cannot say that he does not know who was indulged in corruption during the period of his predecessor. He knows them. He needs to pass orders for their arrest immediately so that custodial investigations can help the police find out details of their crimes and pave the way for punishment to them.

If not a mask of the Congress, Kejriwal must act first and fast against the rapists of law in Congress regime.

Higher Judiciary should quash the Delhi ADJ order on pre-marital sex

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Notion of judiciary is that consensual sex is no rape and so, an Additional Sessions Judge (ADJ) of Delhi has acquitted a person of charges of rape, as to him, “when a grown up, educated and office-going woman subjects herself to sexual intercourse with a friend or colleague on the letter’s promise that he would marry her, she does so at her own peril”.

Higher Judiciary should immediately intervene and quash it, because it is absolutely an anti-women judgment, supprtive of the treachery of man, over and above being vitiated with the venom of reliance on religion, inasmuch as the verdict underlines, “She must understand that she is engaging in an act which not only is immoral but also against the tenets of every religion”.

In other words, in the name of religion, the ADJ has said, that a male is above the laws despite having used the body of a female as a vehicle of his passion in an environment where the word ‘marriage’ has not got the seal of approval of religious society.

This is bad; and needs be rejected.

The case is that an orphan young nubile was proposed by a young unmarried man through chats online in 2006 and the young woman eventually had accepted the proposal. They got into a relationship that can be defined as ‘mutual marriage’. The said man used to have physical relationship with her in that environment of mutual marriage. When the mutual marriage should have been led into a socially recognized relationship, the young man abandoned her. On being abandoned by the male partner, she had interpreted her predicament as use of her body by the man on deliberate false promise of making the relationship known to the society.

Though in usual parlance, she had termed it ‘rape’, in reality it was not ‘rape’.

The ADJ has taken cognizance of the fact that there was frequent sexual intercourse between the two.

Rape_ a wrong perception

When ‘rape’ can be a sexual encounter for once between a man and a woman, frequent sexual intercourse between the both for years cannot be termed ‘rape’.

Judiciary has a wrong perception in matter of rape so far, which needs to be rectified.

As the ADJ has given us the impression, it was consensual sex between the two, and hence was not ‘rape’ of the woman by the man.

We also say that it was not ‘rape’ of the woman by the man, notwithstanding the term used by the abandoned woman in deja vu.

But, then what was it? Had the ADJ pondered over this, in interest of justice, it should not have been difficult for him to see that, sexual intercourse between the both was nothing but consummation of mutual marriage, awaiting announcement thereof to the society, which, she being an orphan, the man had promised to do on his family platform. But he did not do.

The Offense is yet to be seen

A male partner making a breech of mutual marriage is an offense; because no marriage can be unilaterally terminated. Sadly, in the case, the ADJ could not see this offense before delivering the verdict.

Personal perception cannot be judicial

I am afraid, the ADJ has not freed himself from his personal prejudices in matter of sex and marriage while hearing the case of the victim. I say so, because he says, “In my opinion, every act of sexual intercourse between two adults on the assurance or promise of marriage does not become rape, if the assurance or promise is not fulfilled later on by the boy”.

This perception of a judge may be a personal perception. But, if justice is to be done, in such peculiar cases, a judge should rise above personal perceptions and read the reality before arriving at a decision.

In this particular case, despite the word ‘rape’ used by the victim under shrouds of the wrongly used terminology, specifically in absence of a judicially determined definition of frequent sexual intercourse between two male and female adults before announcing their marriage on social platforms, the Court should have termed it as ‘consummation of a mutual marriage awaiting announcement to the society’ and should have given it the legal status the spirit of the victim’s petition really craved.

An affront to a female’s human rights

But the Court has fallen in the trodden track of woman bashing and acquitted the man that has unilaterally terminated the mutual marriage consummated through years long sexual relationship. Therefore, the said verdict is an affront to human rights of the woman and deserves to be rejected by right-thinking society and needs be nullified by the higher judiciary, which should, if and when the case comes to its attention, create a definition of frequent sex before (legal) marriage as ‘an act of consummation of mutual marriage awaiting legal status’.

Will the higher/highest judiciary of the country please rise to the occasion, as such cases are rampant in the country; and come forward to fulfill their social responsibility in this peculiar issue by giving the required legal definition to frequent and years long sexual intercourse before marriage as ‘consummation of sexual rights in a mutual marriage’, instead of terming /accepting the case as a case of mere pre-marital sex?

The issue is serious and the answer should be speaking.