Haradei Majhi could barely keep pace with the usher guiding her on to the stage. Nearly 60, she is a dark, emaciated, diminutive bundle of flesh and blood seemingly unaware of the wicked world around. She just trudged along and climbed the steps with effort and kept glaring with primitive innocence into the crowd, having been blinded by the bright lights focusing on her feeble, drooping eyes. She was introduced as a lone soldier against the timber mafia operating with modern firearms and ruthless goons.
The illiterate Adivasi woman has been guarding alone an area of 11.25 acres of thick forest created by her in the last thirty years. The patch of land lies at the foot of a hillock called Kapsi Dongar under Sinapalli block of Nuapada district of Odisha. So thick and green is this ‘forest cover’ as to inspire nature lovers of any grade to stop for a while to wonder in awe as to how this came up there as a great respite across the vast stretch of denuded land mass around. As one is making wild guesses, the frail, under-nourished Hiradei, with an axe on the shoulder, materialises and seeks to know very gently what brings them there. locals passing by explain to the awe-struck beholders that the wonder-patch is the creation of a lone crusader standing in front, whose husband Anang Majhi had planted the forest long time ago because he was madly in love with nature. little kids needed caring; so Haradei would worry that Anang was wasting time planting trees and nurturing them rather than earning a living.
When the tress became attractively lush and green, village folks came to aid the family and persuaded Hiradei to let Anang go his way. He was doing a most courageous thing especially when the timber mafia was prowling around and would not bother to eliminate anyone who came in the way. Anang kept guard virtually round-the-clock with an axe and complete vigil. One fine stormy night, he set out to the forest where a variety of rare trees nurtured like dearest kids needed guarding against the merciless timber mafia and heartless poachers who invariably took advantage of storms and rains to make their kill. In the blinding downpour and high-speed wind, Anang encountered the predators and fought them alone to be hacked badly. He lay bleeding for hours before Haradei, suspecting a deadly mishap, came with help to discover the dying man as medical help was far off and no speedy enough vehicle was available. Anang, just before breathing his last indicated in eye language that the forest needed to be protected anyway. Haradei vowed solemnly to keep the voiceless living forest growing and alive for ever. The village folks kept the kids and fed them. Haradei took the husband’s axe and told everybody that she is a lone crusader against all evil forces that destroy nature. Ever since then, over decades, the 11.25 acres have worn one of the best manmade green patches in the world.
The occasion was the 81st birth anniversary of Harishchandra Baxipatra, a leader-minister from Koraput who died early. The youngest Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan, as the chief guest, expressed great delight that such courageous tribal women still treaded the earth like in folklores and stood beside him to accept mementos and a citation. Haradei stood speechlessly with folded hands probably emitting the message that real hard work, not big rhetoric, can make things happen. She did not adorn dailies or the TV screens the next day as a true Hero because the materialistic media people too have lost the faculty to recognise and differentiate a real achiever from a make-believe one with publicity machinery at hand.We get to hear one Tulasi Munda, also a fairly appreciable tribal social worker, is to appear on a postage stamp quite in her lifetime. No one talks of the substantial institutional grants of money she gets and the Padmashree award she uses as a title to appear more famous than appropriate, and the social safety net she is guaranteed. She is used by other tricky NGOs as core member to capitalise her Padmashree award which is not to be used either as a prefix or suffix, violating which can lead to repealing of the award. Tulasi is too innocently unaware of many rules and laws that influence quality of public conduct. Tulasi, Padmashree recipient is fine. The ones trying to capitalise on her award-recipient status are all rank opportunists. It so happened that on being asked about the rock bottom level information about the opportunist outfits, she drew such a blank that the inquirers were nearly tempted to go public and raise an outcry.
Similarly, there was an awards function organised by an Odisha news web portal felicitating the State’s living legends. That is a very commendable idea, but the jury chose, among others, a man-wife duo as living legend, which is plain laughable, not because the man and wife have not done much but because not impressively enough to be branded even ‘legends’, let alone ‘living legends’. More than this logic, conventionally man and wife are not awarded alike for the same achievement. Two colleagues from the same organisation can share the honour but never man and wife, as in a nonprofit outfit, members of the same family cannot remain as core functionaries. It’s not ethical codes. Activists are expected to stand tall against erring State agencies that degrade quality of life of people; or move courts by petitioning through PIls; or at least remain courageously in frontline to court arrest if necessary. There is much public murmur about the man of the duo having gone into hiding in utter fear of the police likely to arrest him for inciting the poor communities agitating against development projects to protect livelihood as well as environment. Come whatever may, activists don’t disappear in hiding; they stand up to their principles and face consequences. In hundred out of hundred cases of arrest the activists becomes public heroes only because they do not go to jail for fraud or robbery but display of ‘public courage’. Despite commendable work in the tribal hinterland way back in the eighties which had brought them to limelight, they chose the easier wrong than the harder right. Marie and Pierre Curie constituted the only commendable duo for having bagged together the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1911. Such a heroic ‘man and wife’ duo has not appeared ever since Marie’s death in 1934.
The point being driven home is that true living legends are ignored while make-believe ones are grabbing awards instead of saying, “Not us. There is the real one.” The happiest thing that happened at the function was witnessing the youngest Petroleum Minister who has been highly inspired by Baji Rout the kid martyr from Bhuban of Dhenkanal who laid down life defying the despotic Gadajat king’s forces on being asked to ferry them across river Brahmani in spate during the peak of the Praja Andolan to be free of monarchical misrule. Dharmendra is heading a Ministry which has been successively been defamed as one under complete control of the Ambani family. Only Jaipal Reddy had stood up to principles and punished the arm-twisting approach by slapping a Rs 6,000-crore penalty for willful breach of contract to make personal gains at the cost of the State exchequer.
There is a great deal of public anxiety as to whether the young Odia Minister of Petroleum and Gas would ever be able to contain the colossally mighty vested interests. The BJP insiders say Dharmendra, like Narendra Modi, is highly ethical when it comes to the interest of the nation.
(The writer is a core member of Transparency International, Odisha)