Orissa Matters

KALINGA NAGAR MASSACRE: CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES POINT AT THE CHIEF MINISTER

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Four days passed away in Orissa Assembly debating on Kalinga Nagar massacre, the unprecedented and ugliest onslaught ever perpetrated by the State government on innocent and illiterate tribal people who were crying together for protection of their tiny plots of land from the massive and melancholic grip of the Tata Steel industry that was going ahead with construction of boundary wall, encroaching upon their said plots of land, oblivious of their protests.

Chief Minister Navin Pattanayak, even though his stooges have left no force within their command unused to counter the charges leveled by the Opposition, to the extent of even supporting the police action that extinguished twelve tribal lives, is yet to answer.

What would be his answer would be a matter to watch. But, as on now, he seems to be the mastermind behind the massacre, alleged the Leader of Opposition, J.B.Pattanaik, participating in the debate on February 09.

The Leader of Opposition pointed out the circumstantial evidences point at Naveen Patnaik. It is he who has been working for the mines-grabbers. In the high-level meeting held in his chamber in the Secretariat on Dec.28, 05, it is he who had issued directions to the administration to deploy enough police on the site to help Tatas at any cost to build up their boundary wall. This was the reason of the presence of so huge number of armed police with thirst for tribal blood on the spot where the Tatas were to start wall construction, said J.B.

The local Collector, basing on intelligence report, had informed the State Government, much ahead of the day of the massacre, details of the mass reaction to Tata’s plan for enclosing encroached tribal land within a compound wall. Instead of initiating conciliation in the matter, the meeting held in the Chief Minister’s chamber on Dec.28,05, drew out plans for silencing tribal protests by unleashing a reign of terror. And the result is the unprecedented massacre.

Under such a situation, Naveen Patnaik stands at the center of suspicion. He should own responsibility and quit.

It would be an indication of how the ruling combine is responsible if Naveen is replaced by any other of its members, the Leader of the Opposition told a perplexed treasury bench.

CHIEF MINISTER IS INVOLVED WITH THE MASSACRE, OPPOSITION INFERS

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The Chief Minister’s reply would be awaited with interest; but the charges against him are quite stiff and specific.

Orissa Legislative Assembly, on February 06, superseded its normal business to discuss the issue of the Kalinga Nagar massacre in which record number of 12 members of tribal community, threatened with displacement, were butchered and brutalized by the state machinery in order to help the Tatas grab their land.

The ghastly act occurred on the 2nd day of January, this year.

More than a month has elapsed. The Chief Minister has not yet thought it prudent or proper to pay a visit to the spot where aggrieved members of the tortured tribes have been awaiting justice. He has no guts to face the aggrieved, because he is guilty and his guilty consciousness doesn’t permit him to visit the place, roared deputy Leader of Opposition, Narasingh Mishra, initiating the discussion.

Mishra insisted that Naveen Patnaik was personally involved with the crime against Kalinga Nagar tribes. There was a conspiracy to kill as many tribal people as possible to terrorize the opponents of arbitrary transfer of tribal land to private industries. Otherwise such a bloody annihilation of affected people could not have been carried out, he alleged.

Taking the House back to the background of the massacre, Mishra said, commission agents of private industries, from the ramparts of state administration, were in an acutely irritated mood since May 09, 2005, the day the tribes inhabiting Kalinga Nagar area, started opposing grabbing of their land by the Maharastra Seamless. That day was the beginning of a black chapter in annals of Orissa as the police force was charged upon the tribals like hound dogs determined to take them to task for their audacity to go against industry. A small child, abandoned by parents running away from the charging police, dehydrated to death on the spot as the Collector, the S.P. as well as other so many official functionaries present there did not bother for its rescue. The police raided the tribal habitations in the night and arrested 26 women in blatant violation of all legal norms and human rights, he reminded.

Oppression has been going on relentlessly since then, Mishra pointed out.

On 16 July 2005 residential houses of village Banshipur were affected by blast caused by Jindal. Police compelled the people to quit the village, but protected Jindal.

Similarly, on 17 October 2005, the police acted bluntly against the tribals when they opposed the construction of compound wall by the Tata group on the land under their possession. The tortured tribals, Mishra said, organized a rally at Bhubaneswar on 25 October 2005 to attract attention of the Chief Minister to their plight. It was surprising that the State greeted them by arresting one of their leaders concocting charges that he was involved in the agitation against Maharastra Seamless. The next day, i.e. on 26 October 05, the tribals surrounded the Kalinga Nagar Police Station in protest against continuous police atrocities. It did not fetch any result. Hence, on 22 November 2005, the tribals affected by the Tata project expressed their resentment afresh and demanded stoppage of the construction work by the said company till final settlement of their dispute. State government sided with the Tatas.

Embarrassed by the recalcitrant attitude of their own government, the tribal peoples of various places of Orissa congregated at Kalinga Nagar and expressed solidarity with their affected brethren on November 30. Were Navin Patnaik a responsible Chief Minister, Mishra said, the State Government could have asked Tata to stop construction in order to see that the tribes in hereditary possession of abysmally marginal land patches were not drastically disadvantaged.

Instead of protecting the poor tribals, the Chief Minister sided with the Tatas, alleged Mr. Mishra. He called the concerned District Collector and S.P. on December 24 and asked them to ensure that come what may, Tata must not face any obstacle. The Chief Secretary also had taken similar steps and the Collector having expressed anxiety over possibility of a show down, was rebuked in the conference of Collectors on December 30. The minutes of these two meetings should be placed before the Assembly for finding out the real culprit hiding behind the curtain, said Mr. Mishra.

Mishra alleged that in these two meetings, a stratagem was fixed to use State Force against the agitating tribals in such volume and ferocity that they shall be too terrorized to protest. And that is what happened on January 02, 06.

Quoting the then Collector, Mishra said, that the brutal action on this day was triggered by the orders of the higher-ups. Whose order the Collector had to carry out must be brought to records, he underlined.

Both the top officers of the district, the Collector and the S.P., had talked to unknown persons before and after the massacre. Mr. Mishra apprehended that they had talked to the Chief Minister. Their mobile phones need to be examined to know with whom had they talked, if justice is to be done, Mr. Mishra emphasized.

That a conspiracy was cooked up to kill the tribals is abundantly established by the very fact that on January 02, massive numbers of armed police was deployed at the Tata site. When the Tata concern had not filed any F.I.R., Mishra wanted the Chief Minister to explain, why did the police force in so massive size with abundant quantity of lethal weapons had been put on duty there and why the Collector and S.P. were present with executive magistrates?

The modus operandi was evidently malicious, Mishra roared.

Others have expressed their mind. But all attention is now addressed to what the CM shall say.

Thanks Giving Can Wait, Stocktaking Can’t

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Orissa Legislative Assembly could not proceed with the motion of thanks on the Governor’s address on February 3, 2006 as the Opposition insisted upon stock taking of the situation arising out of Kalinga nagar massacre that has taken a toll of 12 lives of the tribal community displaced by the syndicate comprising Orissa government and the Tata house.

Even as Governor Rameswar Thakur went on reading his written budget speech, the entire Opposition concussed the well of the house with vociferous protests, refusing to pay attention to the speech prepared by the government, which, they said, being evidently anti-people, had no moral right to rule the state. The leader of Opposition, J.B.Patnaik, was even seen reading aloud an unknown document at par with the delivery of the formal speech by the Governor, who was not without knowing that the very purpose of his speech was getting defeated as the Opposition for whom the speech was basically meant had closed its ears to whatever he was to say.

One after another the members of the Opposition were tearing out pages of the printed speech of the Governor while lacerating the government layer by layer, as their gestures suggested, for dastardly favoring the Tata industries in total disregard to the minimum and essential interest of our own people.

The House had to adjourn after discernible attempts of an abysmally low number of the ruling combine’s backbenchers failed to counter the Opposition impact.

But, tomorrow when the House shall resume after two days, will it transact its business as per the list of business supposed to be in vogue by then? Considering the confrontationist stances of both the sides, it is difficult to say ‘yes’.

Conveying united Opposition’s collective wisdom, Leader of Opposition Mr. J.B.Patnaik has made it clear that thanks giving on Governor’s speech can wait, but stock taking of Kalinga Nagar massacre can’t.

SUPERIOR LANGUAGE ORIYA LANGUISHES DUE TO INFERIOR LEADERSHIP

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

“The Oriya Language can boast of a rich vocabulary in which respect neither Bengali nor Hindi nor Telugu can vie with it” Dr. Bainshidhar Mohanty has noted in ‘Oriya Bhasar Utpatti O Krama Bikash’ at p. 39, quoting Sir George Grierson’s observation in Linguistic Survey of India.

Sir Grierson had to take up a comparative study of these languages when Oriya, as a vernacular, was threatened by the other three, i.e. Bengali, Hindi and Telugu.

British administrators had to admit that Oriya race was the most formidable amongst all the peoples of India.

In fact, Orissa was the last of all provinces in India to be annexed by the British and the Oriyas were the first amongst all the Indians to revolt against that foreign power.

Overwhelmed by Oriyas in the first upsurge under a General known to history as “Paik rebellion”, British officials had to notify their masters that “It is to be feared that the nature of the Country (Orissa) and disposition of its inhabitants will always present a formidable obstacle to the suppression of these disturbances either by military or police”- W.Forrester to Robert Ker at Para 18 of his Report dated 09 September 1818.

From the day they had put their dirty feet on the holy soil of Orissa, the British had earned such experience that their fear for Oriya disposition was ever in the rise. To overcome this fear, they had to divide Orissa in parts and to merge these parts in neighboring provinces of Bengal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra (then in Madras), declaring the languages of those regions as official language for the people of Orissa after merger.

This crude conspiracy ruined Orissa. Our mother-tongue was shattered. Our existence as a race was threatened.

Administratively we were most disadvantaged as we were being compelled to write every communication to put forth any grievance in the language of the province in which we were merged. We were being compelled to adopt their language as our own. We were even being bound to accept our land records in their languages.

Taking advantage of our predicament, the Bengalis who were satisfying the British officers as ‘native servants’, not only grabbed our valuable lands, becoming landlords in different parts of Orissa by the grace of the British, started saying that Oriya was not an independent dialect. Encouraged by the Bengalis, the Hindi tongue of Bihar and M.P. as well as the Telugu tongue of Madras started playing their nefarious games against Oriya.

When thus our mother-tongue was threatened we awoke again. India saw the first, the finest and the most united awakening of the splendid segment of her children who from ancient days were known and respected not only for their original thinking and Buddhist outlook, but also for their unique contribution to culture and art captioned in the name ‘Utkala’ of the place they were dwelling in, in support of their language. There had never been as strong and specific a mass movement as that under the banner of ‘Utkala Sammilani’, which, as Gandhiji observed in Young India on 18 February 1920, “raised the large question of redistribution (of population and landmass) on linguistic basis”. We were the first in India to found our State on strength of our language.

But when the Lingua-Benga chauvinists were trying to convince their British masters that Oriya was not a separate language but was a branch of their’s, and their partners in Hindi and Telugu tongues had been conspiring to keep us subjugated, the bona fide arguments advanced by our leaders to show the unique ancientness of our mother-tongue had attracted eminent linguists to find out the truth.

Older than Classical Sanskrit

Sir Grierson, as quoted supra from Linguistic Survey of India, after intensive study, in pursuit of this quest under such circumstances, had arrived at the conclusion that neither Bengali nor Hindi nor Telugu can vie with Oriya in richness of vocabulary. Oriya, in the opinion of the world famous linguist, is certainly vast and superior to Bengali, Hindi and Telugu as a vernacular. Oriya Language, in his opinion, has the incomparable distinction of having a “grammatical development”, which is “older” “than even Classical Sanskrit”. He has clearly said that, Oriya Language is the one among Indo-Aryan Languages, which “can only be compared with the ancient Sanskrit, spoken in the Vedic times”. This speaks of how splendid and superior is Oriya.

This superiority was factually so unquestionable that eminent Bengali linguist Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterjee had also to say, “Of these three speeches: Oriya, Bengali and Assamees, Oriya has preserved a great many archaic features in both grammar and pronunciation; and it may be said without travesty of linguistic truth that Oriya is the eldest of the three sisters, when we consider the archaic character of the language”-(I.H.Q. Vol.XXIII, 1947, p.337).

A new phase of linguistic recognition has commenced in India with accordance of classical status to Indian Languages. When Tamil had bagged the tag in 2004, Sanskrit has got the status in 2005. Our linguists should find out if the status could be claimed by our mother tongue, specifically as the Linguistic Survey of India had spelt out that the grammatical development of Oriya is older than classical Sanskrit.

Post Independence political assault

But our mother-tongue is in danger. We have a Chief Minister who does not know Oriya. The sycophants of Biju Patnaik, a mafia of yesteryear, who was such a fraud that in spite of having grabbed political top post of Orissa many a times only by projecting himself as the sentinel of Oriya nationalism has not taught his mother-tongue to his sons, have made and maintained one of his sons, Naveen Patnaik as the Chief Minister. He is in power continuously for the second term. But during his tenure, the earlier importance given to Oriya in administration has declined and it has suffered the worst of ignominy.

Our beloved mother tongue, which, as admitted by eminent linguists quoted supra, is a classic language with so much archaic immensity and such vast vocabulary “in which respect neither Bengali nor Hindi nor Telugu can vie with it”, has been humiliated by a Lingua Benga Samir De, who, as Minister of Higher Education, had dared to drop Oriya from courses of study in degree colleges; and yet, Naveen has ignored our demands for dropping him from the Cabinet.

Because of Naveen’s nonchalance, geographical limits of Orissa bordering Bengali and Telugu speaking provinces have been rampantly encroached upon under official umbrage of those States even as a separatist movement has gained strength in the area bordering Chhatisgarh, carved out of M.P. On the other hand, in mainstream Orissa, the vernacular schools have been managed so menacingly badly that English medium schools are mushrooming even in remote villages.

Oriya, our mother-tongue, though recognized as vast and superior in the context of Indian languages, is now languishing under inferior leadership. But in a democracy like that of ours, who can ensure that leadership shall not fall in inferior hands?

Where is the remedy? The Oriya race must have to cogitate this question and recognize the urgent necessity of freeing our State from the pernicious grip of persons who have not cared for Oriyanising themselves. On the other hand, the Act of 1954 needs be amended to provide for punishment to whosoever plays with primacy and paramountcy of Oriya language in the matter of governance of Orissa in any and every respect. It is also essential to repeal Biju’s mischief against Oriya Language enforced through an amendment to Orissa Official Language Act in 1963.

To a race, its identity rests with its mother tongue.

GO BEYOND GOD, REALIZE HOW FAKE IS RADHA

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

I am ashamed to note that an officer of Indian Police Service in the rank of an Inspector General who is presenting himself as Radha, the lady love of Krushna, is an Oriya by birth.

He is Devendra Panda former IG of Uttarpradesh.

The communalists, who could not succeed in completely ruining the countrys unity in the name of Rama, have found in him a new ally to mislead the ignorant people in the name of Krushna for which Pandas posing as Radhas incarnation carries a lot of significance.

This therefore necessitates looking at Krushna in the light his creator Muni Vyasa had conceived of him.

Any one who thinks of how to make the world a better place to leave in has always gone beyond god.

God is the greatest obstacle on the path of universal brotherhood and peace. In the past, civilizations were destroyed in the name of god. The present world is threatened in the name of god. The future is doomed if the human society is not free from the belief in god.

God was created by man after invention of agriculture. Agriculture, discovered by mothers, was the first act of application of human mind to the issue of security. Assured of secured source of livelihood, man started speculating and conceptualized god. In every part of the world god got a name in the comprehensible primitive tongues of the locality and hence it is known in so many names.

Speculation, matching mans avarice that was linked to the issue of security, transformed gods into guardian deities to perform one basic act: to eliminate every possibility of insecurity. And from this basic act, two branches of responsibility of god developed; one, to safeguard the livelihood interest(s) of man, personal or combine and two, to destroy his or their rival or rivals. Hence, from the beginning god is sectarian, linked with selfish motive of man.

Lest this limitation mars the design, highly motivated people play the game of hiding this aspect of god by contriving and spreading an imaginative aspect that he is omnipresent, benevolent and universal. They keep their design alive by subjugating human mind to the addiction of religions in different names and styles, in most of the cases, from day one of birth of a child, through every channel: societal, educational, orientational and professional. Human society remains fragmented on the grounds of religion. Societal fragmentation makes man weak. Those who gain from mans weakness, the exploiters, contribute to the strengthening of religions.

Therefore, when the first revolutionary poet, Muni Vyasa, authored Mahabharat, in the mouth of his hero Krushna, he advised the society to relinquish all religions. SARVA DHARMAAN PARITYAJYA MAAMEKAM SHARANAM VRAJA. Relinquish all the religions, come to my fold, Krushna is told to have said.

Krushna was depicted as the embodiment of all the characters of the society in what is described as VISWARUPA.

But what does exactly this embodiment mean? What the expression my fold is used for? An annotation was needed.

This annotation came later in the DURGA SAPTASATI. Symbolizing Asokas defeat in Orissas famous Kalinga war which was a war between Vedic Imperialism and Orissas Buddist Tribal Communes of matriarchal character and in which Asoka had to save his life by tactfully embracing Buddhism (Sri Jayadevanka Baisi Pahacha, Bharat Barati, Cuttack, 2005, pp. 203-208), this thought provoking scripture of matriarchal social order gave a concrete definition of what Vyasa was intending to say.

Who was this to whose fold man was called upon to come, relinquishing all the religions? It was the classless Society, it said.

Wrath of the people, we see in the pages of this scripture, made them contribute their might to the DEVI, meaning the Chief of their respective matriarchal commune, who thus being strengthened, vanquished the ruthless autocrat Mahisaasura and in course of time, all the chiefs of matriarchal communes united together to eliminate the invader class comprising Chanda, Munda, Raktavija, Sumbha and Nisumbha and saved the society from their evil spell.

And, then the DEVI declared, I am unity of the people, I am the classless society (AHAM RAASTRI SAMGAMANI).

So saying the DEVI also declared that whenever Vedic class chauvinism shall try to gain ground she shall take shape to stop that nuisance. (PUNARAPYATIROUDRENA RUPENA PRUTHIVITALE/AVATIRYA HANISHYAAMI VAIPRACHITTAANSTU DAANAVAAN). By use of the term VAIPRACHITTAANSTU DAANAVAAN it has been made unambiguously clear that all of the above named demons were agents of Vedic imperialism or apartheid. Their arch enemies were the tribal communes as besides being Buddhist, they were matriarchal. Hence the body of matriarchal communes had resolved to defeat their design whenever they spread their class-tentacles.

This symbolically reflects the war between Asoka and the Kalinga Ganarajyas or matriarchal communes of Orissa. Therefore in Orissa, Devi Kaali who led the matriarchal army against the demons is held synonymous with Krushna of Mahabharata, who had fought against patriarchal monarchs to preserve the matriarchal culture. This is the cause behind the coinage, KALOU KAALI KALOU KRUSHNA KALOU GOPAALA KAALIKAA, meaning, in Kali Yug or the last phase, Krushna is synonym of Kaali.

Against this backdrop, Krushna is to be understood. He was created by Vyasa as symbol of revolution against oppression and exploitation. He fought against tyrants beginning from Kamsa and Jarasandha to Duryodhan and Visma. He fought for the tribes. In the context of those days he stood for the united working class. The VISWARUPA phenomenon has established that he was conceived as the entire society where the oppressed was in war against the oppressor. He was symbolic of a welfare country where everybody had a right to work and to be cared for by the state. This is established by the expression KARMANYEBADHIKAARASTE MAA PHALESU KADAACHANA.

Hindu religious propagandists have interpreted it as a call given by the God to his follower to perform the duties enjoined by the caste system without any question and without any expectation, because the Lord is to decide the result thereof, not he himself. This interpretation is incorrect.

Krushna being a synonym of Kaali is the name of the classless community. This community stands on and for collective ownership of all means of production. Hence, nobody can be denied by anybody to work. In fact everybody in the society should have every right to work according to his or her ability. KARMANYEBADHIKARSTE literally means this. It is Karmani-eba-adhikarah-te, literally meaning, You have every right to work. But it has denied any right on the result thereof; as that would lead to accumulation of private property and enhance avarice to the detriment of collective entity. Conversely it means, man shall work for the society to the extent he is capable of and the society shall look after him. Thousands of years after this Marx said the same thing in formulating from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. So Vyasas Krushna is the first proponent of the socialistic formulation that Marx made the crux of his manifesto. The communalists never cherish this. Therefore they need a physical witness to establish that Vyasas Krushna was not synonym or symbolic of a classless society, but was a God.

What more convincing a proof of Krushn being a god could be available than an IPS officer of Pandas position voluntarily retiring from the lucrative job to become a full time Radha for cohabitation with Krushna after claiming that the same is a physical phenomenon?

Unfathomable is the game peoples of this category play.

Their single point programme is to ruin unity of the common man through revivalism, so that exploitation can go on unhindered. For them creation or propagation of god or religion to divide the society on communal line is essential. Pandas transformation into Radha is a part of this game.

All progressive people, therefore, must rise to thwart this new mischief in order to save the motherland from the pernicious upsurge of revivalism.

Radha was created in Orissa by Sri Jaya Dev as the central character of his lyrics that he had authored in support of Kamavajrayana form of Buddhism. Unable to eliminate the Buddhist impact, activists of Vedic order had interpolated Jaya Devs lyrics with deliberately coined stanzas to usurp his Radha for Hinduism and legends were cooked up to transform her into a deity. So to accept that she has chosen Pandas body as the medium for her manifestation in order to experience cohabitation with Krushna is to accept the harshest nuisance as genuine.

Constitution of India under Art.51A (h) enjoins every citizen to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform. Hence it is the fundamental duty of every citizen to go beyond god and to realize and show how fake is the so-called incarnation of Radha.

The Government, if responsible, must subject Panda to medico-legal actions so that our democracy does not degenerate any further.