On this day 55 years ago, Biju Patnaik was sworn in as Chief Minister in 1961 after trouncing Harekrushna Mahtab, his predecessor-mentor-adversary. By the late 1970, he became a colossal public figure adored immensely for his daringly revolutionary ideas for developing Odisha. Although he, once in a while, identified Odisha with the cult of lord Jagannath, he never committed one blunder to hurt the sentiments of non-Hindus. He was so secular in spirit and belief that he never hesitated to condemn the BJP for its slightly fundamentalist Hindu agenda like building a Ram temple on a property where allegedly a mosque had been put up by Muslim rulers after demolishing the said temple. Further, the dream of Bijubabu on which the BJD leaders have been living so far was a straight and simple one. At a public gathering in 1992, during his second stint as Chief Minister, Bijubabu had said, “In my dream of the 21st century for the State, I would have young men and women who put the interest of the State before them. They will have pride in themselves, confidence in themselves. They will not be at anybody’s mercy, except their own selves. By their brains, intelligence and capacity, they will recapture the history of Kalinga.” The BJD loudmouths of today would hardly know all this. Most of them keep saying they are tirelessly engaged in making the Biju dream come true without ever knowing what it’s all about.
Damodar Rout is among one of Bijubabu’s oldest living followers who keeps the media vibrant and happy with his amusingly taunting jibes and quips, no matter if the target is from his own party. Unfortunately, some of the late entrants into the BJD fold managed to get closer to Naveenbabu and have been doing their best to influence the supremo against those who don’t give a damn to them. Rout told the world that while he boarded an SUV on Naveen’s request after a local event, he found three speechless, seemingly immobile, creatures occupying the entire passenger seat. There was not an inch of space left to push his bottom into to become a happy co-passenger. Since it was dark and the three stony figures neither laughed nor wept, he was frightened that they were ‘ghosts’. Moments later, he recognised them as Debashish Samantaray, Bishnu Das and Pratap Jena who chose to remain frozen perhaps due to fear of the boss and hatred for the animal doctor for his caustic and taunting comments he kept making at them on a regular basis. Damababu could neither raise hell nor scare the ‘ghosts’ away as he did not know exorcism.
Among the three, Pratap is a bonus beneficiary with a portfolio, though ineligible on every score. He speaks like a six-year-old kid and uses more Hindi words than Odia as if brought up in a chaste Hindi region. An avowed sycophant, he claims to be an advocate and lover of music and explorer of new places. Bishnu and Damodar would empty countless magazines if equipped with guns if put face to face. Debashish and Dama have such enmity as never happens in the same political family -- jealousy and bad blood of the worst kind oozing out nonstop. If the three guys only had sacrificed a couple of inches each, the animal doctor would have hugged them forgetting all bitterness. At least the 50-year-old baby in the crowd could have used his ‘toddler tongue’ to buy over the animal physician, which he never did. Dama went public; media gained desired matter and all fun came the people’s way.
BJD spokespersons, particularly the loudmouths, could never convince the masses that there is no problem and all is fine. The BJD is strong, for sure; but no single MlA has an appropriately functioning spine to talk straight because they know too well they are only basking in the Naveen glory as they have no individual star attraction at all.
Now onto the God story. Around Nabakalebar times a year ago, it was conclusively decided by the temple administration that deity touching would not be allowed. The seer, the monarch and the committee led by an administrator took the strong decision that chariot climbing and deity touching would not be tolerated. Even the High Court ruled no chariot climbing. But the guilefully greedy servitors pulled up sinning devotees onto the chariot platform and several ‘deity hugging’ media reports have been making rounds since. The Brahma transfer event turned out to be a disaster, and the devotees who had loaded the Daitapatis with love, adulation and money, particularly in Cuttack, got so wild that they made effigies of the most boastful ones, caned and kicked them before TV cameras and finally consigned them to flames with names emblazoned. The then DGP had nearly broken his spine by bending down 180 degrees to touch the feet of a politician Daitapati in theatre attire, to be removed from the post after being reprimanded by the Chief Minister for offending uniform and going low in stature. This unfortunate former top cop has just been forced to bite dust in an election battle in Jharkhand. The Jagannath Temple administration has failed to tame and contain the servitors who do not seem to have learnt any lesson from the Nabakalebar disaster.
On the divine bathing event three days ago, the unruly servitors facilitated touching of the deities by wealthy devotees late at night. They had also constantly blocked public view by standing in front of the deities all day except for a few moments. As per the record of rights, at the most 75 servitors from different communities are to be inside the temple across a whole day. So, when the temple administration has ruled severally that no non-serving servitor should be seen around, it’s strange that rule-violators are allowed to tread and pose to be important functionaries inside the forbidden area of the temple. The Chief Administrator is slowly becoming lax with the worthless servitors, whom the masses have started hating ever since the big event last year. The problem is likely to continue until exemplary punishment is awarded to violators or their hereditary rights as servitors are scrapped for good. The 12th-Century Act is horrendously obsolete and archaic. Those days, servitor successors never came forward to walk into the shoes because the job was essentially voluntary with bare minimum sustenance granted to them. lest there would be none left, the ruling monarchs made it mandatory for the servitor families to have all male offspring declared servitors in those difficult days. The servitors were expected to stick to the noble profession with a keen sense of service to the poor and needy devotees as service to God. Now with unthinkable publicity all over, they have become public figures without any contribution or service to any. The sooner the archaic law amended the better. All servitors have to come under scrutiny to ensure they are BPl class to get pecuniary benefits from the temple administration or else keep serving as a volunteer. Most of them today are filthy rich with money extracted from gullible devotees. They now own hotels, malls, shops, and many of them have tonnes of money clandestinely put into illegal lending business with criminally high rates of interest. The gods are only suffering like mad. Hopefully, the secular Naveen administration would fix the system to tame rogues sooner than people imagine.
If the temple Acts are not amended instantly, the soul of the secular Biju would suffer more than people are able to fathom. Servitors must be fixed to keep the image of Odias high as in the ancient times of Kalinga.
(The writer is a core member of Transparency International, Odisha)