Orissa Matters

OM Bureau

Bhubaneswar:

Orissa High Court saved on May 19 morning Rabindra Kumar Pal alias Dara Singh from the gallows and redrafted him for life imprisonment. The Judgement Reoprt under scan in the High Court was carrying the original sentence as, Convict Dare Singh is the prima Donna of the offence. Like knight errant of crime he formed a militant group of local tribals to physically liquidate Staines on the belief that with Staines the spread of Christianity will be buried in the area. Rest of the convicts who are gullible tribals, blindly followed him.

The factual scenario shows how gruesome and macabre the crime was. Even after drawing a balance sheet of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the case falls within the rarest of rare cases. Convict Dara Singh as the ambassador of death deserves death whereas rest convicts being gullible Adibasis deserve justice tempered with mercy.
Considering the various rulings of the Supreme Court and the facts and circumstances of the case in which the crime was committed and part played by the convicts, I sentence each of the convict to imprisonment for life under Section 120-B I.P.C., imprisonment for three years under Sec.148 I.P.C., imprisonment for seven year under Sec.435 read with S.149 I.P.C., imprisonment for life U/S.436 read with s.149 I.P.C. and imprisonment for life under sec.302 read with S.149 I.P.C . Sentences shall run concurrently.
I sentence convict Rabindra Kumar Pal alias Dara Singh to death u/s.302 I.P.C ,for which he was separately charged and direct he be hanged by the neck till he is dead. The death sentence shall not be executed unless it is confirmed by the Honble high court of Orissa.
But the High Court of Orissa today disagreed with this judgment and converted the death sentence to life imprisonment and set free 11 of the co-accused persons. The details of the High Court Ruling shall be posted in our next edition.

OM Bureau

Bhubaneswar:

Chairman of Reliance Infocom Ltd. Mr. Mukesh Ambani is to defend himself in a money suit that demands Rupees one crore twenty lakhs for damage caused to a residential building in Sahidnagar, Bhubaneswar. The suit has been filed here by Mrs. Asharani Misra before the Civil Judge, senior division and is registered vide M.S.No.254/04.

According to the plaintiff, she is a share-holder in a two storied palatial building that her father had constructed at Sahidnagar. This being a joint family property, she has filed a partition suit bearing T.S.No.53/1996 before the appropriate court where it is awaiting decision.

When her claim is thus sub-judice, Reliance Infocom Ltd. Occupied 1st floor of the house without consent of the plaintiff and changed the architectural looks of the building by demolishing the staircase and balcony of the 1st floor and started business activities in telecom sector. This has not only ruined the original look of the building in which the happy memories of her father sitting atop that particular balcony lies, but also has made her vulnerable to punitive action by the B.D.A. and the G.A. department as being converted into a business complex, the stipulation that the plot allotted to her father for residential purpose only has been contravened.

She had, according to the plaint, notified Ambani on 3rd August 2004 of the damage done to her but as he and his firm did not heed to her notice, she has preferred the case.

OM Bureau

Bhubaneswar:

Scam in Stamps and Stamped papers to the extent of multi-thousand crore of rupees having hit the country mercilessly in 2002-03, Governments both at the center and in the States have been trying to invent ways to stop its recurrence. Orissa has invented one that can unfailingly succeed.

Orissas Inspector General of Registration, Mr.Pramod Chandra Patnaik has issued circulars, on interpretation of existing laws, to the Licensing authorities, Treasury Officers and to the Collectors, to ensure that Stamps/Papers are issued only to the licensed vendors.

The Vendors are to place their respective transaction Registers at the end of each quarter before the Licensing authorities for verification of supply, sale and stock of Stamps and stamped-papers. The Additional District Magistrates are the licensing authorities in Orissa. The Orissa Supply and sale of Stamps and Stamped-papers Rule, 1990 stipulates that the licensing authorities are to record the word VERIFIED after the last entry in the Register submitted by the vendor in token of examination.

Patnaik has noted, It is being observed that the licensing authorities do not verify the Registers of the vendors at quarterly intervals. Therefore, there is every possibility that misuse of Stamps and stamped documents can go undetected till it assumes serious proportion.

Asking the ADMs to verify Stamp Registers of vendors scrupulously at the end of every quarter, the IGR has warned them that any failure shall attract the Law that prescribes that you shall be held responsible.

As a precautionary step, the Treasury and Sub-Treasury Officers have been asked to issue Stamps to the vendors only after examining that the licensing authority has duely verified the concerned Register.

In another circular to the Collectors, as they are the controllers of Treasury in their respective districts, the IGR has intimated that the Treasury Officers are to put their signature with stamp on the backside of every stamped paper whose value is more than Rs.1000/-. In papers below this value stamped signatures of the Treasury officers will do. The Collectors are required to educate the Treasury and Sub-Treasury Officers under their control accordingly. In addition, as a safety measure, the Collectors are to see that the vendors submit their specimen signature to the Revenue Officer for circulation within the district so as to eliminate every possibility of counterfeit stamps being used.

For detail text of the circulars, one may visit the link:

OM Bureau

Bhubaneswar:

Civil liberty is severely affected by the plutocratic practices of the state government, according to Deshapremi Jana Samukhya, a confederation of the civil liberty organizations of Orissa.

The Samukhya alleged in a press conference on May 17 that police force is being used to brutally suppress the protests raised by local people against their exploitation by industrialists.

The police brutality against tribal people of Kalinga Nagar industrial complex is an example. The people were demanding minimum compensation against loss of their land and living environment before a Maharastra linked steel industry, to which their land was allotted, starts construction of its plant building. Instead of assuring them of prompt and proper rehabilitation, the State resorted to such oppressive measures that as many as 25 women protesters were arrested and male folks in fear of police action abandoned the villages. This resulted in starvation death of two deserted kids and an aged man.

The Samukhya further alleged that the State has failed to respond to the call for protecting interest of the family of Kartik Maharana, who died electrocuted in the evening of May 16 while unloading sand from a lorry at Jindals plant site. Administration, it seems, is hesitant to take Jindal to task for lack of care for human life.

The State should bring out a white paper on the status of rehabilitation of the people affected by major industries and also on gains and losses the industries have caused to the local people as well as the State, the Samukhya demanded.

ORISSA GOVT. MAKES A MISTAKE BY ADOPTING A COMMUNAL FESTIVAL

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The Orissa State Government has made a mistake by adopting a festival that the Jayadev Foundation Trust and Jayadev Sanskrutika Parisad, twin private bodies, run mostly by Brahmins under leadership of Orissa’s Development Commissioner-cum-Additional Chief Secretary Mr.A.K.Tripathy, to keep buried forever Sri Jaya Dev’s Buddhist identity.

Birthday festival of Sri Jaya Dev has been celebrated this year from May 11 to 13 under the State government banner with total funding by the State without any provision in the Budget for the purpose. The aforesaid private combine was conducting ‘Sankirtan Yatra’ from Bhubaneswar to an adjacent Brahmin village named Kenduli for the last 13 years wrongfully projecting Sri Jaya Dev as a Hindu Vaishnav saint. This writer had shown the poet as a Buddhist who had composed his lyrics as a supportive literature to Kamavajrayana vide Orissa’s popular newspaper ‘Sambad’ (dated 11th May 1997), to which the above combine had resented through its founder-functionary P.C.Tripathy (Sambad, 25th May, 1997, but did not dare to counter academically after this writer established the Kamavajrayani tenets of the lyrics of Sri Jaya Dev (Sambad, 8th June, 1997). Since then the combine has never come forward to academically establish that Sri Jaya Dev’s writing did not connote to Buddhism in Sahajayan sector; but has tried to mislead the people through the ‘Sankirtan Yatra’. It now transpires that the Directorate of Culture and the Directorate of Information & P.R. were also being used to organize this communal ‘Yatra’ “with adequate assistance from the District Administration, District Police, Engineering Departments and local Public Relation Officers”. (Minutes of meeting taken for celebration of Jaya Dev Jayanti and sankirtan yatra, 2005, dated, 8th April, 05) When an IAS officer has a stake in a matter who in the State administration can deny the cooperation sought for?

The private combine succeeded this year in legalizing every illegality committed so far. A cursory look into the matter reveals that Orissa’s Minister of Culture, I & P.R. was prevailed upon to take a meeting with the above two organization which he did on 8th April 05. It was decided that, “henceforth the primary responsibility for organizing these celebrations should be taken over by the Culture and Information & P.R. departments together” whereas the above two organizations “will extend necessary cooperation”. A sum of Rs.1,22,000/- was announced as grant that included Rs.20,000/- for Jaya Dev Sanskrutika Parisad. The avowed aim of this new arrangement was a ‘sankirtan yatra’ from Anantavasudev Temple of Bhubaneswar to Srimandir of Puri via Kenduli village which is being projected as the village of Sri Jaya Dev. Officers like the Executive Engineer of Prachi Irrigation Division and B.D.O.s of the concerned Blocs were asked to look after the comfort of Sankirtan Yatries whereas Executive Officers of Local Bodies were to organize reception for the troupe. The Collectors of Khurda and Puri were asked to personally see that the venture was a grand success. S.P.s of both the districts were asked to ensure that adequate police escort was pressed into action. The State machinery was massively used to convince the people that Sri Jaya Dev was a Hindu saint and that he was born in the village Kenduli near Bhubaneswar.

It is a Brahminic conspiracy to wipe out forever Sri Jaya Dev’s Buddhist identity by use of the State machinery. It is a shame that a minister, without consent of the cabinet, has prompted the administrative machinery of the ‘secular’ state to work for a communal cause to the extent of strangulating history.

After the agents of Brahminism succeeded in eliminating Buddhism in the birth land of Sri Buddha Dev, i.e. Tosala or the coastal belt of Orissa, attempts have been made to misguide the rest of the world about Jaya Dev’s birthplace and philosophy too. His world famous love-lyrics, which were composed to spread the tenets of Kama-vajrayana or Sahajayana School of Buddhism, (Subhas Ch. Pattanayak: Sambad, 11th May 1997 and 8th June 1997) were edited by antagonists of Buddhism with profuse interpolations with a motive to usurp him for Brahminism and in course of time the edited compilation was given the title of “Geeta Govinda”, given his works a permanent Vaishnav colour.

Gajapati Purusottam Dev, who was a blind patron of Brahminism, had tried to stop recitation of Jaya Dev’s love-lyrics in the temple of Sri Buddha Dev christened as Sri Jagannath by King Indrabhuti , the founder of Vajrayan school of Buddhism. By that time Brahminism had succeeded in projecting Sri Jagannath as Bishnu in place of Buddha and Sri Mandira as a Hindu temple. But the general public of Orissa being more attuned to Buddhism, and therefore determined to see that the Kama-Vajrayani lyrics of Jaya Dev are not discarded from Sri Buddha-Jagannath’s abode, the evil design of Purusottam Dev did not succeed. Then attempts were made to project Sri Jaya Dev as a Hindu saint in order only to eliminate his public image as a Buddhist.

When thus his philosophical tenets were under an eclipse, visitors to Puri from outside Orissa were getting acquainted with the peculiarities of the Sri Mandira system wherein recitation of Jaya Dev’s libidinous lyrics was a must in the Deity’s daily worship. That the people of Orissa had compelled their king Emperor Purusottam Dev to withdraw recitation of another book styled as ‘Abhinav Gita Govinda’, the authorship of which was attributed to the emperor himself and which he had promulgated in place of Jaya Dev’s, was a matter of public knowledge that had lifted the poet to a legendary position in their estimation. Naturally, therefore, they were interested in collecting as much information as possible on Sri Jaya Dev. All of them, who had mentioned of him in their respective books during the period when Orissa was under Hindu Monarchs, have recorded that he belonged to a place near Puri, which was known for the shrine of Sri Jagannath. (Chandra Datta in Bhaktamala, or Mahipati in Bhakta Vijay for instance). It is remarkable that these two authors have described Sri Jaya Dev’s birthplace as “Vinduvilwa” and “Tinduvilwa” respectively. But both of them have made it abundantly clear that this village was adjacent to the town of Puri.

Therefore, history does not agree with the propaganda that Sri Jaya Dev was born in village ‘Kenduli’ near Bhubaneswar. Even Sri Jaya Dev himself has not said that he was born in village ‘Kenduli’ near Bhubaneswar. According to him, the name of his village was ‘Kinduvilwa’, if interpretation of the ‘Sarvangasundari Tika’ is accepted. This word Kinduvilwa, of course, is interpreted as the name of his family or clan in the ‘Shrutimanjari Tika’. If this interpretation is accepted then there is no reason to say that Kinduvilwa was his village. In that case, his village was either Binduvilwa or Tinduvilwa near the town of Puri. While editing ‘Sri Gitagovindamahakavyam’, in a footnote to the stanza where the poet has given a hint on his birthplace under the 3rd ‘Sargah’ at page 132, Dr.Bhagaban Panda has also said that in some of the manuscripts, the word has not been shown as ‘Kinduvilwa’, but has been shown as ‘Tinduvilwa’. Hence the village of Sri Jaya Dev can either be Tinduvilwa or Vinduvilwa or Kinduvilwa near Puri, but by no chance it can be the village of ‘Kenduli’ near Bhubaneswar.

Moreover, use of the word ‘Samudra’ in this verse by the poet himself suggests that the he was very much in harmony with the sea as he was composing his verses. Earlier I have shown how the sea was the vital source of philosophy that he depicted in his writing. A popular legend that attributes the writing of the words “dehi padapallavamudarm” to Sri Jagannath, narrates that the poet could not dare to write these words, even though they were contextually most appropriate, because his devoted mind refused to place the Lord in so humble a position. Undecided and perplexed, he left for a bath in the sea. It was, by his time, widely believed that a sea bath at Puri was enough to purify the mind. (A tenth century inscription vide Inscription from Maihar, E I Vol. XXXV part IV edited by Dr.D.C.Sircar and V.S.Subrahmanyam) As the saintly Jaya Dev should have been full of remorse for having conceived the words “dehi padapallavamudaram” which were to show the Lord in sub normality, he was correctly claimed in the legend to have gone for the sea bath. But the Lord was not going to be offended by these words. So, in full approval of what Jaya Dev had conceived, the Lord, before return of the poet, had come himself in his guise and taking the manuscript from his wife, completed the incomplete verse with these very words. This side of the legend may or may not be accepted, but it cannot be ignored that it has emphasized that Sri Jaya Dev was leaving in a place that was so near to the seashore of Puri that he was able to take a bath in the sea as and when he was wishing.

‘Bhaktamala’ of Chandra Datta narrates that Gita Govinda (as is the edited title) was composed by Sri Jaya Dev in the sacred city of Puri and the author was feeling himself accomplished by dedicating the same to the Lord. Neither in this book of reference nor in any other relevant works of the era, the village Kenduli which is adjacent to Bhubaneswar has been shown as the village of Sri Jaya Dev. The famous poet of Maharastra, Mahipati, in his work ‘Bhaktavijaya’ has told that Jaya Dev’s village was Tinduvilwa, which was adjacent to the town of Puri. “Jagannath kshetra samipa jana/Tinduvilwa grama namavidhana”. This is what he has said. In ‘Sri Sri Bhaktamala’ authored by Vishnav poet Krishna Das of Bengal in Bengali language, it is unambiguously told that Jaya Dev’s birthplace was near the sea at Puri.”Kenduvilwa name grama sagar haite/Sriman Jaya Dev dwija haila bidite” is his version.

So, there is no historical reason to take Kenduli village that lies near Bhubaneswar as Sri Jaya Deva’s birthplace. His birthplace must be somewhere near the town of Puri. Where then should it be?

There is a Temple of Bilweshwar, which is not only adjacent to Puri, but also is within the Shankhakshetra zone of the sacred city. The place is on the seashore. The village where Sri Jaya Dev was born should have been there. Agents of aggressive Brahminism like the Pashupata Shaivas who were killing Buddhist monks and their followers in order to extinguish Buddhism from Orissa, and taking gold coins from Orissa Monarch as reward for that, might have destroyed the birthplace of Sri Jaya Dev, who, in his love-lyrics, had contributed the most popular supportive literature to the Kamavajrayan school of Buddhism.

There is a Lingaraj-Temple inscription that informs us that Sadhupradhan Jaya Dev of Kurmapatakapur had visited Bhubaneswar as a guide of Kommi Nayaka (Inscriptions of Orissa, S.N.Rajguru, Orissa Historical Research Journal, Vol.V, No.4, p.179-182). The wrong notion that Jaya Dev was a Vaishnav Saint has prompted Dr. Bhagawan Panda to suggest that this Kurmapatakapur was ‘Sri Kurmam’ of Andhra Country. As Vaishnav Guru Nimbarka belonged to Andhra, Sri Jaya Dev, being his disciple, might have stayed in Sri Kurmam for some time and from there he might have come to Bhubaneswar accompanying Kommi Nayaka, a high-ranking officer of Kalinga at that time, he speculates.(Orissan Oriental Text Series {Sanskrit}-20, Directorate of Culture, Orissa, 1985, pp.41-42).

But ‘Sri Kurmam’ is not the Kurmapataka to which Sri Jaya Dev belonged. Kurmapatakapur is the area of non-Brahmin population on the banks of Prachi spanning up to Puri via Konarka and Sri Jaya Dev, as admitted in the Lingaraj Temple inscription, belonged to this area.

The place, where the Vilweshwar Temple still stands, falls within the limits of this Kurmapatakapur. This was a great place of Kamavajrayana, the philosophy that had given birth to the Konarka Temple.

Agents of Brahminism had destroyed the Konark Temple and removed the image of Buddha Dev, which was being worshiped here as the Deity, from the spot. But people of Orissa did not allow Brahminism to succeed. The King was compelled to bring the image of Sri Buddha Dev to Puri and to consecrate a temple to him within the Srimandira complex. It was done.

Sri Buddha Dev belonged to the Surya Clan and hence was regarded as incarnation of the light giver Surya Dev. So the Konark Temple was known as the Surjya Mandir or Sun Temple and his image being placed in the Temple to be known as Surya Mandir inside the main Temple of Sri Jagannath was acceptable to the people. But the image of that great son of the soil of Orissa, again under Brahminical conspiracy, was kept hidden inside this Temple behind an image of Surya even as an iron barricade debarred the visitors to have a real glimpse of Buddha Dev who was being worshiped in the Konark Temple.

A single image of Sri Jagannath, which was brought from the Kanark Temple along with Buddha Dev’s, was kept in the ‘Surya Mandira’ for public darshan. This had satisfied the people to some extent, as Buddha himself was also Sri Jagannath.

Daily recitation of Sri Jaya Dev’s Kamavajrayani poems in the inner chamber of Srimandira before Sri Jahannatha-Buddha, and the inner campus of Srimandira being named as ‘Kurma Bedha’ in due honor to the poet’s Kurmapataka connection, must have convinced the people of Orissa at that time that notwithstanding the king siding with the Brahmins, Buddhism as practiced by the Kamavajrayan school in Kurmapatak is well settled in Srimandira.

That, Kurmapatak was a great center of Buddhism is slowly but steadily coming to light. Discovery of Buddhist antiquities from a place called Kuruma, around 8 kms to the southeast of the Konark Temple, makes the scenario clear. Kuruma stands for Kurmapatakapur and the Kurmapatak was a landmass that had spread from Konark area to Puri. The entire stretch was associated with Bouddha Tantra in which the Temple of Sri Jagannath-Buddha at Puri had its roots. Therefore, Mangala of Kakatapur in the Konark zone has so much part to play in the life of Sri Jagannath.

Sri Jaya Dev, according to the Lingaraj Temple inscription noted supra, belonged to the Kurmapataka area and his village was within the geographical limits of this Kurmapataka, be it Tinduvilwa or Vinduvilwa or Kinduvilwa.

It is to be noted that authors are confused in grasping and writing the correct name of Sri Jaya Dev’s village due to deference in pronunciation as a result of which different words like ‘Tindu’, ‘Vindu’ and ‘Kindu’ has taken shape; but none has made any mistake in respect to ‘Vilwa’. Be it ‘Tindu’, ‘Vindu’ or ‘Kindu’, Jaya Dev’s village had definitely had the suffix ‘vilwa’. Hence it may probably be the place on the seashore near Puri where still stands a temple of Vilweswhar.

To say that the village ‘Kenduli’ near Bhubaneswar was the birthplace of Sri Jaya Dev is therefore absolutely wrong.

Scholars like Pandit Kedarnath Mohapatra, Pandit Nilamani Mishra, Dr.Bhagaban Panda have erred in accepting this village as the birthplace of the poet. They have fallen in the trap laid by agents of Brahminism who, having failed to thwart Sri Jaya Dev’s lyrics from the Srimandira by using emperor Purusottam Dev, had tried to show the Sahajayani poet as a Hindu vaishnav.

Therefore it is clear that the State Government of Orissa, by patronizing the ‘Sankirtana Yatra’, which is designed to bury for ever Sri Jaya Dev’s Buddhist identity and his contribution to Bouddha Vajrayana under the carpet of time, has contributed to cultural dishonesty besides having gone against the appeal of history.

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 →