The beginning of October has the birthdays of many important personalities. They include Mahatma Gandhi, Utkalmani Pandit Gopabandhu Das and lal Bahadur Shastri. Customarily, many programmes of the Government are announced professing provision of service to the weaker sections of the community. This year, however, the State has been plagued with suicide of farmers in a repetitive long list lasting over nine months. The teachers’ community has been in turmoil. The medical services arena has also had its upheavals. One wonders what inspiration or lesson young voters derive from these socioeconomic manifestations. It is difficult to indulge in a detailed analysis of each and every indicator. But disarray and distortions at the grassroots need to be studied for ensuring proper micro management.
Gopabandhu Nagar block in Kuamora panchayat in Mayurbhanj district has an Anganwadi Centre under the Integrated Child Development Scheme. On the eve of Utkalmani Gopabandhu’s birthday, this Anganwadi Centre at Sikidiha stared at the visitors with a building unsafe for being used by children and it was further revealed that the building has been in a precarious condition for the last 15 years. Children are under compulsion taught on a verandah of a nearby school. There is no adequate provision for cooking of food nor is there adequate supply of safe water. More than 100 beneficiaries are linked with this institution. They include children, pregnant women and adolescent girls. Any inquiry regarding the lack of basic facilities is met with the standard answer that proposals made for the purpose were pending with the higher-ups and will be executed soon. This scenario is prevalent in most of the ground-level units.
Moving on to the agro sector, each of the unfortunate suicides and deaths have been followed by the standard statement that the concerned Collector has been asked to inquire into the matter and so has been the District Agricultural Officer and their reports are awaited or shall be acted upon. We need not delude ourselves so repeatedly in so vital a sector as food production. Odisha’s rice bowel Bargarh has already seen death of 13 farmers in about nine months. lack of purposive implementation of an adequate agricultural policy and lack of any meaningful reforms in the realm of agricultural and rural credit has left the farmers to the vagaries of nature and the shackle of increasing debts without there being any adequate return from such loans. People have killed themselves burdened with loan of 17,000 rupees at 11-per cent interest. In a specific case, it was found that such a loan was taken in the year 2000 for installing a water pump, which was never effectuated. In 2015, such a farmer called Bhakta Dharua in Patnagarh sub-division was driven to commit suicide. Inability to utilise his land in a productive and remunerative manner, lack of social security, lack of adequately effective State policy relating to quality inputs and a responsive credit system were and are the most essential requirements for initiating a startup in agriculture. Richer farmers are happy with having agricultural income out of the net of income tax. But the overweighing bulk of small and marginal farmers or landless farm workers continue to be weather-bitten and debt-ridden so as to be driven to kill themselves. Young readers should analyse this particular case and the lessons will be easily forthcoming but may be prevented from being implemented to perpetuate the tyranny of status quo. This impediment has to be overtaken by the youth.
As a digression, one should not ignore the social turmoil emanating from gender discrimination. It has demonstrated crude irrationality and has even led to a skewed ratio of male and female population in some important and so-called rich States. The sex ratio imbalances have resulted in inter-State matrimonial linkages. Forty-two girls, mostly from poor Kurmee and other families from Odisha, recently took part in the first-ever matchmaking ceremony held in Surat in Gujarat. Around 5,000 Patel men have queued up with the hope of finding a bride. These girls mostly belong to families of Odia workers employed in textile mills in Surat. Grapevine says the 42 girls have found their life-partners and the weddings will be solemnised at a mass marriage ceremony on October 16 at the famous Samasta Patidar Samaj Bhawan. Another interesting aspect of these marriages is, reliable reports say, that the parents of the girls are usually spared of all expenses and the wedding feast is normally sponsored by moneyed Patels. They are also believed to be giving Rs two lakh for household articles to each of the newly-wedded couple.
These three instances, not very usual, have been cited with the object of starting a debate for a new vision of Odisha, not as a disgruntled crybaby but as a proud leader of the Indian polity with a rich tradition and heritage and further plentifully endowed by nature. But alas! What are we doingIJ On the one hand, we are deluding ourselves with programmatic propaganda without any structural alteration at the grassroots and without any “change” in the environment and the setup. The youth power has been misdirected into politically-oriented elections in its own educational institutions. The recent experiences in this regard do not speak well of themselves. One must end with great concern for all of us, when one reads a news item with a headline “Students promised monthly allowance in lieu of votes”. The report, inter alia, indicates that as per grapevine, over 200 students will be paid anywhere between Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 if they vote for a particular set of candidates. This facility is further reportedly promised in terms of a monthly allowance in lieu of votes. This report emanated from Keonjhar, the “deep throat” of the mining scam, and in that context, the figures mentioned above sound rather low.
The youth, therefore, are evolving a new pattern of degeneration of their own selves instead of being the “pundits” of future; they are already pawns in the hands of some politicians with known feet of clay. One is driven to appeal to the community of youth power to hold a State-level workshop for an intensive study of Students’ Union elections in their respective institutions. This study by itself would throw up all the poisonous seeds that have been planted and have to a great extent grown up with their branches already sprouting. But this fruit of our effort is not edible and is lethal. It is poisonous in a dreadful manner. The time has, therefore, come for an introspective study with the aid of independent activists to identify the weaknesses in the body politic of the youth power, and without avoidable delay, take appropriate curative measures to convert any weakness into strength. But the triggering of this activity and the thoughts in this regard must be ignited by the fire in the bellies of the youth power. And when it is not yet forthcoming, it is disturbing and, in turn, it now concerns us all!
(The writer, a Senior Advocate, is a former All India Service officer, a former diplomat, a former editor, a former President of Orissa High Court Bar Association and a former Advocate General of Odisha. jayantdas@hotmail.com)