Nearly a decade or so ago, there was big news that a young woman stole a handful of expensively-cut diamonds from a high-end Mumbai jewellery-gemstone shop. The girl, posing as a high-profile buyer, had a whole basket of the precious stones laid out before her by the unsuspecting sales assistants who never maintained gaze on her. She kept swallowing a few glittering stones, two or three at a time. After executing the novel robbery, she said “buying would happen tomorrow as she was only on a choice making spree”. The trusting staff bowed down to her suave, gentle manners and ushered her to the door. The feminine robber would have vanished into the blue if one of the staff girls had not discovered some stones missing from the appointed slots of the storing cases. An alarm was sounded, the main door closed, every other buyer, staff members and even the owner’s family members on duty, were detained as the police had arrived and advised (close circuit cameras were not heard of then). Police and the in-house staff members frisked everyone to no avail. The staffs, who were at the diamond counter, were threatened by the police in vain. The bandit queen was making a lot of noise to convince the police that if diamonds get stolen from such a high-security shop then whole of Mumbai was unsafe. She would never come here again. But one clever police officer took the sharp girl aside suspecting she could be an accomplice to robbery. A simple X-ray job showed the stones and the robber was kept under custody until defecation happened in the morning. The stones returned to the cases at the shop, and madam thief was sent to jail. She knew she had no defence left. She was termed a ‘law violator’.
Analogically, when Bikram Arukh, a law Minister of Odisha, took two houses from the State housing agency by filing false affidavit twice and was shamefully exposed by RTI activists and media, he had no other escape route left. So, he had to cough out one of the stolen houses. But he has got away with the crime of cheating the State and the public. like the greedy diamond-thieving girl, he is not a commoner; he was and is a lawmaker and part of the executive. So, he can safely be termed a ‘law-hater’ of the worst kind. law violators are forgivable to a very small extent on confession to ignorance of law. But Arukh shall never have that luxury of being able to avail forgiveness. A professional lawyer, elected lawmaker has to be punished exemplarily to sustain credibility of a regime if at all there is any credibility acquired at all. Strangely, a branded “cleanest Chief Minister” has never spoken a word publicly against Arukh, when Prafulla Ghadai could not protect himself with believably much smaller blunders. This Mr Arukh is now appointed head of a committee to study and finalise the process of establishing an unnecessarily expensive legislative Council by inducting eminent persons from various domains of public activity. The council is suspected to accommodate a few troublesome BJD cronies. There are many other ‘law-haters’ prowling around as predators without fear.
The latest law-hater from the BJD fold is the big lawmaker Prasanna Patsani, popularly known as ‘Chicken Baba’, ‘Mister Bluffer’ (for issuing worthless written notes for Kendriya Vidyalaya admission), and ‘Joker-in–the Pack’ for making silly, laughable comments and passing uncouth remarks about Naveen Patnaik. On some occasion, when he believed Pyaribabu was the real boss, he named the son of Biju as a ‘rat snake’ born by mistake to a ‘King Cobra’. But as usual, the self-proclaiming Baba bit dust and fell at the feet of the supremo to retain berth. This law-hating MP has just kicked up a huge legal complication against the BJD merely by making terribly unforgivable remarks against a law court ruling, for which he has to be arrested immediately and be thrown in jail as trial at any court should convict him under Section 506 CrPC.
Bijubabu was a hero in the 1950s; he lost popularity in the late 60s so much so that in the 1971 elections, he lost from six constituencies not only because he failed the State but because he had become horribly overconfident and disbelieved all prevailing truths. The opposing politicians had prepared themselves too well to defame him on a few of his personal blemishes. Thereafter, until JB Patnaik materialised in 1980, successive Governments came and went without ever being able to last a single full term. JB ruled for three full terms, two uninterrupted, the last one without contesting directly. He created the first ‘full term’ record but was evicted permanently due to horrendous private conduct. The Congress lately rewarded him with a Governorship, which never caught the fancy of the Odias.
Very interestingly, Bijubabu never lost after the Emergency period, no matter what. The whimsical person he was committed strategic errors; he lost to let the Congress rule from 1995 to 2000. But he died in 1997, which caused such grief across Odisha as history had never recorded. Four former PMs attended his funeral. Even hardest critics were heard exclaiming, “Biju was a hero! Bijubabu kept his children far away from politics despite them being fairly eminent in their domains of activity, Prem as an industrialist, Geeta as a writer and the least heard-of Naveen as a high society intellectual with unique books to credit and fame in being escort to world class celebrities. With Biju gone, his followers living off his fame became horribly helpless. The Biju loyalists including Dilip Ray and Bijay Mohapatra, in consultation with other members of the Biju family, gave birth to the BJD, a very smart idea which worked out fine and yielded instant results. Pyaribabu was not part of the founding team. But Biju’s widow Gyan insisted that Pyari, Biju’s erstwhile confidant, be inducted as advisor to the outfit which was being received as a saviour party. Thus did the BJD become an adorable political outfit simply by keeping the Biju sentiment live. No wonder, many felt great when a memorial came up quite on the religiously preserved plot of cremation land at Puri for Hindus who believe is a ‘gateway to heaven’ as per the scriptures.
Some law-knowing guys filed a case at the local civil court. The case took one and a half decades to conclude on an order against the memorial constructed on public utility land. The court has ordered demolition within three months. The young judge Srimoyee Acharya will remain in history as one of the most courageous judges of the world. Around this time, the ‘Chicken Baba’ screamed in public, “Anybody daring to demolish Bijubabu’s memorial structure on Swargadwar land would be buried live to have a memorial structure for himself!” The poet MP (he writes good poetry) has gone overboard, probably imagining Naveenbabu would make him the next in command of the party soon, with many honchos having been dismissed from high positions. The PIls and other cases filed against the Baba will probably make the saffron-clad baton-wielding charlatan bite dust yet again, for law is blind to criminals irrespective of one’s power, creed, caste or authority.
*The New Year decision by the State Government to give special benefits to the Jagannath temple servitors is of course illegal and grossly discriminatory. Only a very negligible number among the servitors have remained economically backward; the huge majority of this fortunate lot makes easy money by way of sharing from the donation cask, service wages, festival incentives and privately persuading the gullible devotees to cough out great sums of money or big valuables in the names of the deities. Besides, numerous servitors are running business outfits like hotels, shops and other moneymaking establishments, apart from getting fat salary from lucrative Government and corporate jobs. The temple administration has to first identify those impoverished servitors who depend solely on the temple services for a mere living. Further, the disadvantaged hereditary servitors of all ancient temples of the State should be given State support, whose number is huge. Ignored for long, they can petition to superior courts by invoking Article 14 of the Constitution, mainly because the people of Puri alone have not fattened the temple coffers. The whole Hindu community of the world contributes to the temple treasury.
*lastly, the Amit Shah visit has turned out to be a ‘damp squib’ kind of a thing. The expected Shah ‘ROAR’ was only a squeak or at the most a whimper! The BJP president seemed more like wooing Naveen than condemning his administration. There seems to be a secret pact of joining hands soon only to ensure mutual benefits by decimating the Congress party. Insiders say it’s not Amit who calls shots; it’s Adani who is boss. Time alone will reveal the truth.
(The writer is a core member of Transparency International, Odisha)