While on a morning walk down a desolate street on a Bhubaneswar outskirt location, a retired engineer identifies a familiar face begging. Distressed, he walks up to the emaciated middle-aged guy and seeks to know what went wrong in life. The beggar was an ace Bajaj scooter mechanic, who only a decade ago, did not even have time to eat properly due to want of free time. Bajaj scooters ruled the Indian roads. One had to wait for years to own a scooter which was the pride of India and had put Rahul Bajaj in the big league of world industrialists. The company was the second most profit-making outfit in the country next to the Tata Steel among the private operators and known worldwide for its Chetak model exported even to developed countries. All this has now become history.
The 'morning walk mechanic' was the most desired person among the rich and powerful officials, politicians and business tycoons. He would be treated as king if ever he paid a very rare visit to a wealthy household. He created at least one hundred technicians himself after having been trained and rewarded by the company. He lived in a decent house and his children went to an English medium school. His wife organised feasts for fellow women once or twice a year. Now, all this is gone. The Bajaj scooter is a relic of the past. Most of the middle-aged mechanics have been rendered jobless because catching up with the motorcycle invasion has been difficult. India has become all motorcycle now. Bajaj scooter has been erased from the minds of the Indian youth of today.
The ace mechanic was waiting for a construction supervisor to choose him as a daily labourer. His wife is now a domestic cook, and the half-educated grown children are permanent burdens on the helpless parents. life is so tough now. Technology advancement too has its victims. Hundreds of such talents are now in streets looking for a job to only survive in vain because of age and lack of high-tech skills. There is no help available for them. The State has ignored this community in distress as if they don't exist. Around this time, Prime Minister Modi calls for 'subsidy give-up'. He is right in persuading people to help the nation financially, but the call appears misplaced because he has failed to motivate people by leading. If only he had taken initiatives to scrap the most loathed 5-crore rupee annual MPlAD fund, the limitless free train travel in luxury class, unforgivably free phone calls, water, electricity and above all the Parliament canteen food subsidy, people would have taken his call seriously.
Further, the lawmakers' pay-hike issue cropping up every now and then has irked the people of India as much as the hefty pension for a five-year period fun (pension schemes have already been scrapped for ordinary government employees). The Administrative Reforms Commission, successive Parliamentary committees and even the Sonia Gandhi-inspired National Advisory Council with members drawn from various walks of life have strongly recommended scrapping of the MPlAD arrangement which is anti-people in nature. They have never been respected.
There is big talk of gross abuse of funds as much as absolute nonuse and kickbacks for grant to unworthy projects. For all this, the Modi administration has to be cautious on its calls to people. 'Man Ki Baat' and super-frequent foreign trips are being considered theatrical by people who believe these acts are a ploy to evade critical domestic issues. Modi was expected to be a saviour after the UPA's two-term debacle, but nothing much has been done to sooth the burning hearts of the masses. Media made Modi a larger-than-life figure; it could end in demolishing him soon enough unless there is quality delivery of public goods in good time. So, instead of harping on giving up subsidies, Modi should devote more time in persuading lawmakers to be more worthy and credible. Or else, a second term may not happen at all.
*The Naveen Patnaik administration in Odisha is equally dramatised by BJD biggies. Naveen is perpetually safe by not opening his mouth on truly contentious issues. The Nabakalebar disaster has not shaken him up at all. He has never worried about what's right and what’s wrong in performing rituals of the most-hyped festival of Odisha, though he turns up at the temple every New Year day in January to seek blessings of the deities (but never shows his face on the Odia New Year on April 14).
The Daita menace has embittered the whole Hindu community for the scandalous breach of religious faith and trust. The media made them and unwittingly marred them as well. Poetic justice has been meted out to them. But the gravest issue is that the Daitas who are only nursing and scavenging servitors were permitted by the temple administration to perform the divine 'Brahma transfer' act, which is the prerogative and exclusive right of the betrothed Pati Mahapatra servitor. This most unfortunate discovery by an aged and learned committee member has shocked the sentiments of Hindus everywhere. The Temple Chief Administrator is strangely mum on the issue. He should have studied the temple scriptures including the ROR well enough before taking mad decisions. The only laudable decision is banning Nabajauban Darshan in true public interest. But at the same time, he has permitted the family members of the servitors to crowd out there which is morally wrong. Only 'servitors on duty' have a right to enter the temple, none else, no matter one's status.
But the temple administration would do great good by banning that sacrilegious non-Badagrahi 'Tikipua Daita' for having caused all blasphemous havoc everywhere, particularly for his pendal dress 'Ananta Sayana' act in 'Sabarpalli' with Arun Sahoo at feet eating leftover food. People are waiting frantically to take revenge on him for having offended their dearest deities. A woman police sub-inspector was witness to this Daita getting a leg massage from the local female MlA and most shamefully so.
So, it is feared the festival may have a mob ready with gears to hurt the Daitas on chariots. The police DG haranguing on a 'possible terror attack' is all humbug. If at all, shall it be attack by home people.
May the deities protect the innocent pilgrim-devotees from the danger of stampede and mob attack!
(The writer is a core member of Transparency International, Odisha)