Orissa Matters

Supremo syndrome yet again takes the toll: Ghadei gone, others alarmed

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Instant expulsion of veteran Prafulla Ghadei by BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik after a petal of his independent mind got published in the Sambad, is the latest evidence of how Orissa’s ruling party is afflicted with congenital fragility. Nobody in this party is safe and sure of continuing with this outfit, as its autocratic boss has no respect for his colleagues’ contributions to the organization that he heads. All members of BJD are servants to him, as if born to serve him like the Paika people of former Rajas. He is the ‘owner’. All others in the party are his slaves with no freedom to criticize him. The State knows that BJD members are sycophants; but for Naveen, they are nothing but factotums, ordained to dance to his tunes, required to act according to his whims and caprices. Otherwise, Ghadei’s life in BJD could not have so contemptuously extinguished in blatant disregard to democratic norms supposed to have primacy in a political party.

Ghadei, a seven-times MLA with several innings in the State cabinet was, like a putrified potato, thrown out of the party he had co-founded, without even any chance to explain his position, on September 20.

The supremo syndrome has yet again taken the toll as his alarmed colleagues stand silent onlookers exactly as the goats in the slaughter house stand looking helplessly at the butcher’s blade after one of them gets beheaded.

The only countable voice heard after Ghadei’s expulsion came from Minister Dr. Damodar Raut who defined the action as unquestionable being an act of divine power (prerogative) of the party ‘supremo’.

When Dr. Raut had been ejected out of the Cabinet along with Bijayashree Rautray, Nagen Pradhan and Balabhadra Majhi under whims and caprices of Naveen Patnaik in May 2006, and none of his co-passangers in the BJD train had extended any support to him and/or uttered a single word against extermination of every iota of collective identity in the party, might be, to Dr. Raut that was Naveen’s divine power in display, we in these pages had pointed out that, in a political party that rules over the State, internal democracy should not have given such way to autocratic overlordship.

Similarly when Prafulla Ghadei, Prafulla Samal, Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, Pratap Jena and Puspendra Singhdeo were whimsically dismissed from the Council of Ministers in 2012, and their colleagues in the party stood silent onlookers, we had again warned them all that ruling party should have collectively decided who should be dropped from and who should be inducted into the cabinet, so that democracy could be saved from being affected by supremo syndrome.

BJD members have never pondered over this.

It is an irony that Ministers like Debiprasanna Mishra, Bijayshree Rautray, Pradeep Moharathy, Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, Rabinarayan Nanda et all, who have already had the ignominious experience of whimsical expulsion from the party as and when necessary to save the skin of the chief minister, have no qualms in ignoring the dastardly act of autocratic assault on a founder of the party, who had thought it prudent to play no hypocrisy with the people in matter of management of the state under his party that they have mandated to rule.

What Ghadei did do to be thrown out of BJD, the party he co-founded?

He simply adhered to his conscience as a ruling party politician and to tell the people where from comes the misrule, so that, collective application of mind may manifest to save the State from the whirlpool of corruption, scams and scandals and everything that harms democratic norms. His words to Sambad were plain confession of where the shoe pinches.

We are depicting here below a few excerpts from the interview with comprehensible rendition thereof in English for our visitors.

CAG and investigating sleuths are almost confirming the correctness of our years-long observation that the state is perishing under misrule.

Why the Chief Minister is failing to give a good governance? Sambad had asked. This is because, Naveen babu is in the hands of a coterie, Ghadei had replied. The excerpt-

(Even now, Naveen babu is in the hands of a coterie. Pandian group grabs everything. Now Naveen babu is under possession of K.P.P.P. Kalpataru-Pandian-Pravakaran-Pinaki combine is K.P.P.P. Bijay Patnaik, Arun Sarangi are also with these fellows.)

Why the coterie? Is the chief minister facing a void, not getting proper advice from his cabinet/party colleagues? Is BJD not collectively managed? The interviewer’s mind must have pondered over, before asking whether or not the ruling party runs democratically. Ghadei’s answer along with the question of Sambad is here below –

(Where is democracy in the Party? This is just a single-man party. When we are in the party, can everything be divulged here?In the party, where the meetings, where discussions?) – Ghadei rued when asked to present the picture of democracy, if any, in the party and mode of its implementation.

The Sambad interviewer was apparently eager to know if involvement of many leaders was too overwhelming for the CM to act diligently. Ghadei attributed lack of diligence on part of the CM to absence of proper advice.

(He himself doesn’t do anything.whosoever now enjoys his proximity doesn’t give proper advice. What advice the thieves shall give? Pandian Phandian are there to loot the party.They will loot, what could be said of that!)

But he is the Chief Minister. He must be seeing the files. Should the loot not be coming to his eyes? – Sambad asked and recorded Ghadei’s response like this – Ghadei said:

(He does not see anything. It is a wonder of India. A man does not understand anything, does not say of anything, yet he is a Chief Minister! People have tolerated this, because it is Orissa. He is getting the support, as because, there is no opposition.)

How is he in power for so long, the interviewer wondered. Ghadei said, by maneuvering the Congress High Command.

We have, in these pages, exposed how the Congress High Command has been helping Naveen stay in power by sabotaging the provincial leadership. Ghadei’s statement corroborates our observation, as he has divulged how through Ahmed Patel Naveen has been using the central leadership of Congress in weakening the provincial congress

In the regime of Naveen Patnaik, Orissa has become a grazing ground of greedy non-Oriyas even as its natural resources and purses of its people are being looted unhindered. This happens in a State when the the government as well as the ruling party is headed by a man of notority. Ghadei considered it prudent to warn his colleagues as well as the people in the following words:

(Naveen Patnaik is an expert in causing cleavage amongst party members, in taking revenge and in damaging whosoever in the party is disadvantageous to his design.)

Why is he not changing for the better? Sambad asked. Ghadei said:

(“He does not do anything himself. Always depends on others. Earlier was dependent on Pyari babu. Now in illusion. Now-a-days mentally, physically dull. A handful of traders have taken him to their control.)

These most relevant words of Ghadei should have helped the party he co-founded have a serious introspection, had there been any semblance of respect for democracy left in it. But he has been expelled by Naveen Patnaik, exactly as a pet goat could have been slaughtered by the owner.

How congenitally fragile are the members of the ruling party of Orissa!

1962 Chinese aggression: Times Now silent about the real factor of India’s debacle

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

It is 9.50 PM at Bhubaneswar.

Just now there is going on a debate on India’s debacle in 1962 Chinese aggression strategically aimed at embarrassing the Congress for benefit of BJP in election environment, while highlighting allegations that the enquiry report thereon was suppressed as then Prime Minister Nehru’s faults could have come to public gaze.

The people of the country have the inherent right to know where we erred in 1962. There has been lot of hush to save the face of Nehru. Because of his dreamy dreamy desire for global recognition as the most charismatic leader of India, he had committed many blunders, specifically in believing the mafias that were then entering into politics and grabbing power.

One of them was Biju Patnaik of Orissa, to whom, despite opposition from defense minister Krishna Menon, he had allotted the contract of supply of essentials to our soldiers in the boarder. Biju patnaik sold them in the black market instead of delivering them to our soldiers. We were defeated and lost around 12000 sr.kms to China because of this treason of Biju Patnaik. An commission of inquiry headed by Katju had found that Biju’s Kaling Airlines had disposed of essential supplies meant for the soldiers engaged in defending our boarder in various black markets. Parliament had very sharp debates over the matter, but the Nehru Government had refused to make the report public, lest Nehru’s wrongful patronage to Biju was exposed.

I have exposed this mischief many times in context of biju. Even when he was the Chief Minister of Orissa, I had published on 8.2.1996 the details of his treason in my column ‘Singhavalokana’ which is compiled in my book Biju Patnaik, Bharata Bharati, Cuttack,2009.

In ORISSA MATTERS too, my keyboard has exposed on how Biju was responsible for our debacle and loss in 1962.

As Modian media is trying to obfuscate the gullible people in matter of 1962 Chines aggression in a design to mislead the people, my October 24, 2012 discussion seems very relevant. So, here it is :

Drum-beating of imagined dreams stupefies Orissa, as the Country has failed to punish Biju Patnaik for his treason during Chinese Aggression

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)

Prof Abani Baral passes away

(Orissa Matters)

A paragon of progressive outlook, Prof. Abani Kumar Baral, is no more. Prof. Baral dedicated major part of his life to didactics as well as to the cause of the teaching community. He belonged to that section of human society, to which struggle for others’ emancipation remained more attractive than personal benefits.

Prof. Baral was founder of the Teachers Movement in Orissa, Secretary General of All Orissa Federation of Teachers Organizations, and the Vice-President of FISE, the World Body of Teachers. He was eminent as an educationist, trade unionist, litterateur, artist, and as a communist leader. He was also the working chairman of the birth centenary committee of Bhagat Singh.

Prof. Abani Baral

He was not limited to his organizational responsibilities as he was also marked for unique contributions to the philosophy of systematization of the teachers organizations and connection thereof to world efforts against exploitation.

A teacher par excellence in Oriya literature, he had authored more than twenty books.

Prof. Baral was 78.

Orissamatters.com and its sister sites join his family members – wife Prof. Adaramani Boral, and four children – Abhas, Akash, Arati and Ahuti, in deep sorrow.

Kali Pooja of Orissa is not Diwali

“Kali Pooja in Orissa is symbolic of the necessity for a united battle of the oppressed against exploiters that are set to spread their empires, and not Diwali, that the exploiters now a days project.”

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