Orissa Matters

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Dear Visitors,
A friend, who studied Journalism and Mass Communications (JMC) under the Odisha State Open University, Sambalpur, is kind enough to send me a printed Book of Syllabus that includes a chapter on “New Media Journalism in Odisha.”

ORISSA MATTERS” is placed there with a few words on its distinction,such as,

Odisha-centric news web sites began to appear from the first years of the new millennium. One of the first such ventures was www.orissamatters.com. It started in 2001 as an “alternative media vehicle for Odisha‟.

I thank you, esteemed visitors for all the support you have given to this venture.

The soft copy published also by the Univ. is here for Records.

History of Journalism in Orissa (Oen Univ, Sambalpur)

theNEWSsyndicate

All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has been called upon to stop using national exchequer as bonanza to a gang of language-mafia styled Institute of Odia Studies and Research, in the guise of producing engineering textbooks in Oriya.

This mafia outfit is exposed to have stolen away the copy-righted official document on Classical Oriya, over which an inquiry is going on in Odia Bhasa Pratisthan.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak, founder of Bhasha Andolan, who has exposed this offence in his well documented book MICHHA KEBE SATA HUENA, has, in a mail today, urged upon the Chairman of the Council not to proceed with the wrongful decision and to entrust the assignment to the State’s Bureau of Textbook Preparation and Production and/or the Odia Bhasha Pratisthan, if it wants the textbooks to be produced in right earnest.

The mafia gang had met the new education minister Darmendra Pradhan recently, after which the AICTE has showered this sudden favor on this gang, it is observed.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

I do not know the miscreant, but it must be someone who has the power and ability to intervene in LIVE launching of my book ORIYABHASHAKU NAVEENANKA MARANAAGHAT – Naveen’s death blow to Oriya Language.

September 11 is a day of great significance for our race, as on this day in 1870 the first demand for creation of a new province by amalgamation of all the Oriya speaking tracks, so that all official works of the Oriyas could be done in their Language.

Gandhiji had expressed his support to this demand, saying, “This fine race cannot possibly make the natural advance which is its due, if it is split up into four divisions for no sound reason.'(Young India on 18 Feb, 1920)

In fact, for no sound reason the Oriya speaking land was divided by the the British after occupying this splendid soil though treachery. One of its great officials, Magistrate W. Forrester, in a report on the revolt of the Oriyas against what the British was claiming to be their administration, had noted “The nature of the country (where Oriyas dwell) and the disposition of the inhabitants will always present formidable obstacle to the suppression of these disturbances either by Military or Police.” (Report to Robert Ker, 9 September 1818). The British fear to this disposition had led to division of the land and to force-attach the divided parts to rival provinces on the borders in order to reduce the Oriyas into linguistic minorities in those provinces.

The Oriyas had not tolerated that. With people of Ganjam district raising the demand for creation of a linguistic State where rule in their language would prevail, the entire race had given a very unique non-violent battle for amalgamation of all their divided areas which had no parallel in the history of mankind. Gandhiji had pointed out that the Oriya movement “raises the large question of distribution on linguistic basis.” (Ibid). The same British that had divided Oriya-speaking land for no sound reason except their fear for the disposition of the members of the “Fine race of Oriyas”, had to bow down to the most peaceful and incomparable movement ever seen anywhere by then and to create a new province that is known to the world as Orissa.

When India got her freedom, created her Constitution, established the Republic, it was natural for the people of Orissa to use their first Legislative Assembly to frame and promulgate a Law styled ‘The Orissa Official Language Act. 1954’ that mandated the “Oriya to be the language for all or any of the official purposes in the State of Orissa.”

But, this splendid linguistic State has a Chief Minister now, who, for reasons discussed in this book, has ruined this Act and has resorted to forgery and a cabinet scam to deny the people their right to governance in their own language .
As I was launching this book live in Facebook on September 11, the program was brutally intervened with a notice to the august watchers that the they are prohibited to watch it! However, by then a few eminent persons had inscribed their approval and appreciation, screenshots of which I have already published in my bhasha andolan site at https://bhashaandolan.com/12092021/

For the esteemed visitors to this site, the same screenshots are presented here:

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The role of Indian Diaspora in waging anti-colonial struggles has not been adequately studied. Ghadar Mutiny as a pan-Indian resistance against British Raj is one that instructs us how Indians no matter where they reside in the world are united in their love for motherland, and yet that dedication is beyond petty sectarianism and political opportunism.

Historically, the most prominent Ghadarite Lala Har Dayal had turned down civil services career in India and later became a communist leader at the California branch of Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1911. He inspired numerous comrades in both Canada and the US to become mutineers and revolutionaries with the aim to free India from British rule. Many of those Indians still reside in the West, and even as they are geographically afar, their first love still is towards the Indian motherland.

In the documentary (Ghadar Party & Mutiny – 100 Years) I am sharing below, you will learn more about those Indians from the diaspora, some of whom have been interviewed by my son Saswat who has co-produced it, along with award winning journalist Munish Gupta.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Eminent poet and sentinel of human rights, Advocate Gajanan Mishra of Titilagarh, who has all along battled for administration of law in Oriya, has been fighting against arbitrary change of land records under a Law made in English, which has devastated a Tribal family in his area under the district administration of Bolangir.

We cite below a post from YouTube that carries an interview of the disadvantaged where Sri Mishra has also expressed his views on the issue that calls for urgent intervention of the Revenue authorities.

We strongly urge upon the government to discipline the officer, who has made a non-tribal land-right over a tribal family’s lawful right and has forced the innocent poor family into litigation.

Government officers administrating land records, particularly of the scheduled tribes and scheduled castes, mustn’t be allowed to act scourges, like the instance in hand.

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 →