JB: A life lived to the full
JB Patnaik (JB) is a textbook case of what a man can do if he has talent, perseverance and ambition. After his graduation from the Ravenshaw College, the State’s preeminent educational institution and post-graduation from the Banaras Hindu University, one of the country’s best-known universities, JB could have walked into any job he liked. But he accepted a low-paid job as the editor of a vernacular daily run by his mentor (later his tormentor) Dr Harekrushna Mahtab. After he fell out with Dr Mahtab, he started, with little capital but enormous talent and experience in print media, a monthly Odia magazine Paurusha which quickly became one of the highly regarded and bestselling monthly magazines in the State. But his love for public life led him to enter politics. He was elected to the lok Sabha from Cuttack in 1971 and only two years later became a Minister in Indira Gandhi’s Council of Ministers.
There has been no looking back since then. He became a Cabinet Minister, three-time Chief Minister and Governor of a State. But he has pursued his literary passion all along. He has translated Ramayana, Mahabharata and Gita into Odia, He has won both State and Central Sahitya Academy awards. His scholarship and communication skill were par excellence. Few political leaders were so prominently successful in both politics and literature. But two unfortunate incidents blighted his otherwise illustrious career as Chief Minister. The Anjana Mishra rape case in January 1999 seriously hobbled him. It attracted so such adverse media coverage that it is a mystery how JB, himself a quintessential media man, failed to gauge its overpowering impact on the public opinion. A few days after the rape, the gruesome death of the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two little sons shook the nation’s psyche. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, always less tolerant towards Patnaik than Indira Gandhi, removed him from Chief Ministership in February 1999. Thus began his political descent and the Congress party’s eclipse in the State.
Since then the party is dead in the water and actually going deeper and deeper to the bottom. But Patnaik had already carved a niche for himself in the State’s history. His personal incorruptibility was never in doubt. He was the first back-to-back Chief Minister of the State, giving stability to administration which saw 10 Governments in 24 years before he became CM in 1980 and a coherent policy on all-round development never seen before. He laid the foundation stone for the State’s concrete and systematic industrialisation by establishing industrial estates. He may be less eulogised and mythologised than the legendary Biju Patnaik. But they represent two different genres. JB was quiet stream while Biju Patnaik was strong currents. JB was plain tap water while Biju Patnaik was exotic champagne. The former was sprinkler irrigation and the latter flash flood. One was an ethically-driven cultured leader and the other a larger-than-life showman. Each has his own place in Odisha’s history. Comparing them is like comparing oranges with apples.
When will Rahul Gandhi grow upIJ
Rahul Gandhi, in his first public speech after nearly two months of self-imposed seclusion, defended his decision to close a running industry in Kalahandi district to protect the Niyamgiri Hills considered sacred by the Dongria Kondhs. He said the Kondhs met him personally and requested him to stop bauxite mining in the area or else they would be forced to become Maoists. Rahul answered their prayer and asked his minions in the Central Government, notably Forest and Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan, to refuse environmental clearance to Vedanta for mining bauxite. In the process, he finished off a mega investment of Rs 50,000 crore in one of the poorest regions of the country, nay the world. But what did he do for the economic development of the centuries-old poor KondhsIJ Did he find an alternative source of raw material for running the plantIJ Did he not know that every penny of the Rs 50,000 crore, borrowed by the promoters from public financial institutions, would go down the drainIJ Such an unthinking act with all-round misery for everybody was bound to invite cosmic displeasure. The Gandhi scion led the Congress party to its worst defeat in the general elections since Independence. Snarling in a corner and licking his wounds is the only thing he can do now after the countrywide disgust over a series of his outrageously thoughtless actions. Industry, infrastructure, power generation, GDP growth, all suffered during the reign of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a hapless marionette with Rahul Gandhi pulling all the strings and Sonia Gandhi watching like an indifferent spectator. Causes of the Congress party’s decimation are many; but Rahul’s inept and bungling leadership tops the list. There should be a limit to his learning difficulties. But judging by his comments on Niyamgiri mining, it seems he has not reached it yet.
Carrying coal to Newcastle
Once every few months we come across news that the Government employees and the pensioners will get enhanced dearness allowance (DA) and that too with retrospective effect, costing the Government hundreds of crores of rupees. Employees don’t demand this higher allowance. It is an automatic increase linked to cost of living calculated on a formula more complicated than the Duckworth-lewis method. The moment the index reaches a certain level, the Government, in a Pavlovian fashion, increases the DA even before anyone asks for it. The employees are themselves surprised over the bounty. The inflation-proof salary our mollycoddled public sector employees get is the envy of everyone working everywhere outside the Government. Dearness
Allowance has now reached an eye-popping 113 per cent of the basic salary. It has been conclusively established that the whopping Government salaries as a result of implementing the 6th Pay Commission recommendations from the beginning of 2006 is the primary cause of the spiralling inflation since then. The Pay Commission virtually opened the treasury for the Government employees. But to give an automatic increase over and above the existing sumptuous salary and allowance is a wanton overindulgence of the employees which millions outside the Government bristle at. As if things are not bad enough already, the 7th Pay Commission recommendations are on their way and most likely to be implemented from the beginning of next year.
(saratpattanayak@hotmail.com (M) 9437962121)