The Odia ethnic population today constitutes a major chunk of the Indian diasporas in the United States having in its midst scientists, technocrats of the first order, second to none in the world. Er Shreekanta Nayak belongs to the same genre of Odias but with a difference. He is convenor of the Biswa Odia Samaja Sammilanee (BOSS) and an unofficial ambassador of lord Jagannath who spreads the cult of the lord locally and continentally. He firmly believes that the Jagannath cult is entirely cosmopolitan and it embraces the whole of humanity and the universe. He has carried the message of the lord to the first citizens of the US like Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barrack Obama. He calls upon Odias both at home and abroad to lend their energy and resources for the noble task of Odia nation building and for preserving and protecting the age-old precious Odishan culture. He dismisses the razzle-dazzle of the Western society where he has spent forty years of his life and exhorts Odia youths for their own character building without being assailed by the consumerist culture and Godless materialism. After having a degree in Mechanical Engineering, he went on a NASA scholarship for Aerospace Engineering in the US and settled there since 1979. The love of his motherland and the Odia bonhomie compels him to visit Odisha at least twice in a year.
He is very much shocked to find today that Odisha is witnessing a colossal wastage of human resources where alone three lakh engineers are remaining unemployed and agriculture has been given a backseat. Although politicians find a ghost everywhere, Nayak is highly apolitical and is interested in seeing a vibrant and rejuvenated Odisha with youths being gainfully employed. In an interview to The Pioneer, Nayak spoke to Sugyan Choudhury at the Janata Maidan, Bhubaneswar after the four-day Biswa Odia Samaj Sammilanee ended here on January 10.
What is your BOSS all aboutIJ
The Biswa Odia Samaja Sammilanee aims at the twin task of man making and nation building. I hail from the undivided Baleswar district from Dhamnagar. Our district has earlier produced two political leaders Dr HK Mahtab, the founding father of Odisha, and a veteran Chief Minister Nilamani Routray. My father and his elder brother were great social workers and freedom fighters. I was deeply influenced by all these personalities during my student days and the formative periods of my youth. That is how I have zeroed on this idea of forming the BOSS. Today when you meet someone, they ask you, “How old are youIJ” in spite of asking “How young you areIJ” People who want to transform the society should always feel active. I want young men and women of Odisha to be energetic and enthusiastic and should be gainfully employed or lead an independent resourceful life so as to consider themselves as someone or somebody in the society living with dignity and integrity. If agriculture in our State could be galvanised, it would alone provide at least 70% of our youths with gainful employment despite having a degree and squandering across the country and abroad seeking some suitable opportunities. Education is the only system to provide meaningful direction to adhere to ostensible means of livelihood. About sixty lakhs of our youths are unemployed. I call upon the administrators and the leaders to come forward as the governing body of the society to extend a support system for enabling our young men to stand on their own legs. About 97 lakh Odias starting from the brick layers to engineers, technocrats, scientists, professors are working both at home and abroad and a call upon them to introspect as to what or in which manner they are paying back to Odisha. This is the land and its poor people who have contributed to them for what they are today. For example, I have had my education through scholarship, which is the generous contribution of the State or national exchequer. Hence, it is our first and foremost duty to pay back to our society without asking what the State, the society or the nation has given us. I see the colossal wastage of human resources here when youths from age group of 25-35 remain unutilised, when in their youthful resources and in their State of abundant energy they could have contributed to the onerous task of nation building.
What’s your opinion about the present state of affairs in our StateIJ
With charity to all and malice to none, I must say a major chunk of our youths are sitting idle. About three lakhs of our engineers are each having a debt burden of ten lakh over their head. There is a total 3,000-crore debt burden over nearly three crore of people. Then, you calculate how much debt burden is over the head of each family. We have seen farmers committing suicide due to crop loss, debt burden and owing to lesser rainfall. The situation demands for a soul searching introspection. The scenario of unemployment stares us at our face. You must know that a hungry man is an angry man and he seldom differentiates between conduct and criminality. Hence, I call upon all those concerned to handle the situation most diligently and most carefully before time is out of its joint. Human potential is the most gigantic potential and it should not be diverted to other countries. Those streams of energy should be utilised, retained and be absorbed invested here in my land of Odisha.
What are the other activities of BOSS in the USIJ
The other activities rest round the transmission of culture of our land, i.e., Utkal. We are having a temple of lord Jagannath in the US and we call it as just. This means Jagannath Universal Seva Trust, through which dissemination of the cult of Jagannath is transmitted to other cultures. People including Christians, Zorastians, Buddhists and all sects of people pull the chariot minimising their distance with the lord of the universe. In 2001-02, we invited Gajapati Divyasingh Dev and his family along with Ministers including the then Assembly Speaker Sarat Kar. late Bhikari Bal serenaded all throughout and his devotional songs touched one and all whether they understood the inner meaning of it or not. lord Jagannath’s eyes are universal and he is revered by all devotees of the world as the paramount lord whose image is sans eyes, sans hands and sans feet for He takes nothing but gives everything, notices everything without eyes and is everywhere in the cosmos without feet. He embraces all sects of humanity without any bias of caste, colour, creed and religion. We invite Senators, Governors and they also break coconuts as a token of their love and their gratitude to the lord. Most of the US Presidents have come to understand and appreciate our great culture.
Who’s the source of your inspiration behind your endeavoursIJ
My wife Dr lipishree Nayak, who heads a medical institute of repute and who is a typical Odia bhajan singer, is the source of my inspiration. Above all, the cult of lord Jagannath and the great Odia culture of excellence are the unfailing source of inspiration in the journey of my life.