Bishnu Charan Das is an age-old politician of Odisha, who was made to bite dust in the last elections in his Jagatsinghpur Assembly seat. Damadora Rout is a still older politician from the same district whom Bishnu hates like mad. Dama understands the craft of politics and is a known orator. He has methodically ignored Bishnu all these years.
But once in the recent past, Bishnu got on Dama’s nerves as the latter, while addressing a crowd, said the ‘Harijans’ should not be taken seriously. Bishnu was afire publicly but exceedingly elated because there fell a most desired opportunity to fix Dama for good. The expression ‘Harijan’ coined by Mahatma Gandhi smelt rotten to Ambedkar, who headed the Constitution drafting team, and he termed it unconstitutional, hence punishable by law. Ambedkar told the world that ‘Harijan’ meaning ‘person close to Hari, the lord’ is derogatory. He gave birth to a new word for the Scheduled Caste communities, ‘Dalit’, roughly meaning badly exploited, deprived and neglected. Fortunately, the Mahatma had left the world by that time. Thus, Dalit politician Bishnu’s supporters banged on the doors of law courts and trapped Dama in a criminal case. Bishnu kept enjoying every moment of Dama’s predicament and imagined Dama would be finished forever.
Though Dama won conclusively from his Paradip seat, he was given a relatively insignificant portfolio, which may have elated Bishnu no end. lately, the ‘discretionary quota’ issue became hot and fiery, and stalwarts of the ruling BJD kept passing comments as per their logic. The Chief Minister formed a taskforce to look into the issue to discover what has gone wrong and who the culprits are. Dama publicly expressed doubts about the outcome of the probe headed by a very senior bureaucrat. Apart from Dama, many others too insist on a judicial probe rather than an administrative one.
Bishnu was waiting for an opportunity for a long time to hit Dama fittingly. He screamed “FOWl!”, meaning Dama was grossly wrong in suspecting the ‘cleanest’ Chief Minister’s decision and the probe team as per his choice. He went on to say that Dama has committed blasphemy by commenting adversely on the party supremo’s decision. He advised Dama to leave the BJD and vanish into the blue rather than stay and cause embarrassment to the most magical party of Odisha.
Dama retorted with one simple sentence, “Bishnu Charan Das is just not a person of any substance and so no match on any front to make comments on his remarks; better, he be ignored.” That curt reaction hurt Bishnu so much that he has nearly lost hunger and sleep. People of his area say that Bishnu studied for a greater period than others to attain the same degree for he stayed back a second time or more in the same class. Thus, he made more classmates and got deeper-rooted than his mates in the college. That wonderful status gave him a big advantage in being able to woo student-voters for a greater period than usual and garner votes to become a campus politician. Thus did he become a students’ leader. He did his graduation and grabbed a law degree as well.
But it would be safer for Bishnu to refrain from bootlicking acts as the supremo knows too well that sycophants are dangerous. Surya Narayan Patro has got his reward for having become a permanent slave. Bishnu should not forget that Dama was the only one to have encountered the then mighty Pyari Mahapatra on all occasions. The people would enjoy a face-to-face talk between Dama and Bishnu to get to know the deeper and unseen truth if there is any.
Dama may not be right in suspecting the outcome of the direct quota (DQ) probe. But it is absolutely reasonable to insist on the period under probe. The DQ drama had begun in the Janaki-Basant regime in the early Eighties. So, the taskforce has to look into the scam from those days. An investigation from the Eighties would help the BJD unravel a deeper crime hidden until now. Even during Biju Patnaik’s tenure as CM, worthless people including some journalists had grabbed multiple houses or plots. A Congress Minister had doled out 439 plots and houses in a single year during Janaki’s third term.
There is big talk about civil servants of repute having grabbed more than one State-developed property by furnishing lies. Bureaucrats with exterior honesty are understood to have availed multiple houses or plots. But ruthless Dr Taradatt will have no mercy for even the dearest colleague if he finds a trace of crime.
The ‘discretionary quota’ probe, if executed with utmost honesty, is bound to reveal fantastic secrets people would rejoice to know.
(The writer is a core member of Transparency International, Odisha)