When Biju Patnaik breathed his last in Delhi, Janaki Ballabh Patnaik was the emperor of Odisha. The country witnessed one of the most incredible mourning for a departed soul who had loomed over the skies of Odisha for more than half a century for several reasons. Bijubabu was a daring pilot, a most adventurous businessman and a frighteningly outspoken politician.
He vanquished his political guru Harekrushna Mahtab and stole the throne soon after. Mahtab was a formidable force within the Congress fold whom even Jawaharlal Nehru feared. Incidentally, JB Patnaik, a postgraduate boy from the BHU, came across Mahtab, who instantly took great liking for him and appointed him in his Prajatantra, of which he became editor later by proving both his skills. Bijubabu was in trouble because Mahtab played tricks to have him finished in retaliation. Janakibabu watched how Mahtab devised ingenious strategies to have enemies crushed. The editorial stature of one of the two leading Odia dailies, Prajatantra, gave Janaki great advantage and he used the connections best to become a known figure. Janakibabu was, no diubt, a very learned person.
All his days he had not wasted a single moment anywhere only to gather knowledge from which he developed special skills to strike down opponents. Fortunately for him, the Congress gave him a ticket in the Seventies with backing from Odisha’s most powerful woman politician Nandini Satpathy. In Indira Gandhi’s regime, Janakibabu became a Union Minister and had great opportunity to persuade party leaders that Nandini was a horribly arrogant leader hated by Odias. Emergency was over with a single court order against Indira Gandhi and the Janata Party came to power. Janakibabu was certain that Nandini’s respectable presence in the party would never make him rise further. So, he hatched a magnificent fail-safe conspiracy and toppled Nandini forever in the eyes of Indira Gandhi. Janaki then became the obvious choice to represent and lead Odisha.
History was to be written obliquely when in 1980, Janakibabu became Chief Minister after ensuring Nandini was finished. Janaki picked old friends, allies and several ‘Men Friday’ to back him up on every move he made to gather weight for the party. Needless to say the people in charge became filthy rich too. Janakibabu created record as the first CM to complete a full term. As if fate was to smile upon him for long, security guards assassinated Indira Gandhi and countrywide sympathy poured all the votes on the Congress candidates. The Janata Party components were simply lost.
All said and done, that Janakibabu became one of the best Chief Ministers is a fact that can hardly be disputed. Despite innumerable personal blemishes, he was a true statesman who could see through the prevailing situations and take measures which would glide him across all obstacles and land him on the throne. Janaki became CM for the second time with a huge sympathy-driven majority. By the middle of his second term, he had his home enemies planning hard to retaliate. One of them was a petty contractor who had grown too large for his shoes and was called the ‘Super Chief Minister’ in the first term. He knew the techniques of extracting money from State clients.
Janakibabu was a great visionary. He planned for twenty years ahead of time. He brought rapid industrialisation to the backward region by launching a first of its kind project called “One thousand industries in one thousand days with one thousand crore rupees”, which became so popular among the unemployed youth that pushed the Congress roots even deeper in Odisha. With bigger projects came big money and big operators who attracted even bigger brokers and touts without any ethical principles, and Odisha began losing reputation of a good enough region to live or run business happily in. His detractors by now had risen in number, led by his closest aide called the Super CM, who had prospered with Janaki’s blessings. Janaki had clipped this guy’s wings because he talked too much and conducted himself as the supreme emperor. The Congress by now was suffering from infighting as power and loot sharing was not considered equitable by the thugs in the fold.
Janakibabu had the worst debacle when some of his private blemishes and political aberrations trapped him in a fix. Janakibabu fought back and won a defamation case against a national magazine, which had written about his aberrations. The editor and the publisher tendered unconditional apologies as per court directions, but the black spot never left the great statesman.
Janakibabu is perhaps the only politician from Odisha who is a master of both art and craft in the complicated game of politics. He knew the perspective absolutely right; all the dimensions and aspects were crystal clear to him. He knew how to judge the mind of the enemies with the flick of an eye. He could play one against the other so craftily that neither foe would figure out what was being hatched behind.
Between 1990 and 1995, Bijubabu had resurfaced and occupied the throne with a massive victory for his Janata Dal. Janakibabu was so badly defamed more due to plots by home enemies than by public disgust that even if Bijubabu had not appeared, he would have lost. Rajeev Gandhi tolerated Janaki too much only because he backed the party with support on different fronts. Bijubabu took last minute decisions and lost power to the Congress in 1995. Janakibabu, who had led the party to victory, became the Chief Minister for the third time without even fighting in the election.
Janakibabu in the third term knew too well that all was not so well as enemies masquerading as friends could strike anytime. So he led the Ministry cautiously, but some of his personal blemishes landed him in trouble. He had a wring choice as Advocate General and used terribly low-level police and other officials for some private fun and invited a suicidal situation. The AG became a big-crime accused. Still Janakibabu kept extending him support. The woman victim who levelled charges against the AG was eventually assaulted sexually by criminals because of her personal mistakes, but the craftiest Chief Minister on record took the blame as the public believed he was the culprit taking revenge.
Janakibabu was dislodged forever only to be rewarded with a Governor’s post when he was past 84. he would be remembered for expanding Bhubaneswar and Cuttack cities and having helped to convert Odisha into a preferred destination for large and medium-scale industrial promoters and entrepreneurs. He will remain in history for giving Bhubaneswar a most desired green zone called the Ekamra Kanan, which would otherwise have been full of polluting concrete structures. He was religious and spread the Jagannath culture across the world. An era has come to an end, at least for the Congress family. God give Janaki a good berth for all his scriptural knowledge and popularising Sanskrit.
(The writer is a core member of Transparency International, Odisha)