Veteran Congress leader, the first President of National Commission for Women, the first woman member of Parliament from Odisha and life companion of former Chief Minister of Odisha JB Patnaik, Jayanti Devi breathed her last at her Bhubaneswar Forest Park residence on September 28 late evening. She had no major ailments except geriatric issues to which she succumbed finally, when she had reached her ripe old age at four score years and ten.
A fire brand leader known for her rabble rousing rhetorics, she was quite endeared to the masses and had dominated the political firmament of Odisha for quite a long time. She had carved a niche for herself as an eminent litterateur, a prolific writer, a noted columnist, a versatile speaker and as a pioneer in social works.
Born to her late freedom fighter father Niranjan Pattnaik, she was interested to join politics and public life and had opened her innings as a social worker, after having completed her post graduation degree in sociology from the coveted Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai. After having entered into wedlock with an eminently eligible bachelor of the day JB Pattnaik; she joined active politics in the noon day of her career. Subsequently, she was elected to the Lok Sabha in the year 1981 as the first women Parliamentarian from Odisha on the Congress bandwagon. Thereafter, she had not looked back.
She was again reelected to the Parliament in the year 1984 from Cuttack Lok Sabha constituency. She was further nominated to the upper house in the year 1996 and was elected to the Lok Sabha for the third time from Brahmapur seat in the year 1998 for the third time. It was in the year 1992, the National Commission for Women was formed during the Prime Ministership of PV Narasingha Rao. Jayanti had the singular privilege to don the mantle of chairmanship of the nascent commission for women of the country, being the first woman from Odisha to occupy the chair. She had left her debut by continuing in the chair from February 3, 1991 to January 30, 1995. The story of her success had not ended there. She had added a feather into the cap of Utkal Janani by being the first Odia to become the president of All India Women Congress from 1988 to 1990.
All along she was a champion for the cause of women and had worked day in and day out for women's emancipation. She had ushered in an era of a movement aimed at ensuring freedom, self-fulfillment and self development for women pleading for equal access to domestic and community resources. Her writings always revealed that her idea of women emancipation was inextricably linked to efforts of social themes aimed at setting women free from all types of bondages like social, political and economic exploitation. This aspect of her relentless fighting for the cause of women is sustained and substantiated from the fact that she had vehemently protested against the ‘Sati Daha’ incident in Rajasthan’s Roop Kanwar’s case, when Kanwar was forcibly mounted upon the burning pyre of her dead husband. In her incisive argument and stubborn logic, she had made it clear that male counterparts cannot advance forward to the 21st century while putting the womenfolk in the medieval times.
JB Pattnaik was the founder secretary of ‘The Paurusha’ which was established by him in the year 1967. Jayanti had played a pivotal role in managing the affairs of this literary and philosophical journal in Odia as her husband was caught in the heat and dust of his stupendous political career, having little time to devote for the journal he established. Her unique rendering of ‘Krishnavatara’ published in the Bhavan’s journal by the legendary writer KM Munshi deserves special mention here. She had published the endeavours of Lord Krishna of the Mahabharata times through her inimitable style and with faithful delineation to the original, so much so that it has been deeply embedded in the psychic residue of the collective unconscious of the generation of avid Odia readers of Paurusha. Paurusha has become a movement synonymous with the repository wisdom of the Indian culture and civilization under the stewardship of Jayanti Devi.
In her demise, Congress has lost an epoch making era that resulted in a void hardly to be fulfilled in days ahead. President Draupadi Murmu, Governor Prof Dr Ganeshi Lal, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, PCC president Sarat Pattnaik, former PCC President Niranjan Patnaik along with a host of dignitaries of the State expressed their deep condolences over the sad demise of the nonagenarian leader Jayanti Devi.