On July 17, millions of television viewers recognised two Government guys seated comfortably in a glass-empanelled box glaring down smilingly at a disturbing scene of verbal wrangle between the Government officials headed by the District Magistrate and a bunch of unruly, ill-behaved servitors ending up in a violent scuffle near the chariots of the deities of Puri. The two persons of high positions did not rush out to fix the crooks. One of them is Chief Administrator of the Jagannath Temple Suresh Mohapatra and the other law Minister Arun Sahoo.
Neither rushed down to have the illiterate, indecent servitors crushed and nabbed for their criminal behaviour. The headless servitors had the audacity of threatening District Magistrate Arvind Agarwal and media people after being hauled up for committing acts of gross violation of norms upheld by the High Court.
The ‘Car Festival’ at Puri is indeed a overhyped event that serves no public purpose in any manner. Everything was fine and fit until live television broadcast started by Ajit Panja, a Central Minister of the Congress regime in the 1990s.
A particular class of servitors frequently seen on television took undue advantage of the situation and steadily mastered the art and craft of daylight robbery by fleecing gullible devotees in the name of religion. Iskcon founder Prabhupada is the sole Hindu preacher who popularised the Car Festival across the globe, which people have forgotten.
The July 17 skirmish is a result of the rising servitors’ greed and arrogance. Unfortunately, they slipped into the hands of a no-nonsense District Magistrate teamed up with an equally spirited Superintendent of Police.
The last chief temple administrator Aravind Padhee was unceremoniously removed overnight probably because of conspiracy by colleagues and rogue servitors. The incumbent chief appeared like a bolt from the blue and never once took a strong stand.
Placating servitors has been an age-old technique adopted by him to ensure he is never in controversy. But the way he remained callous and casual about the District Magistrate facing the lawless servitors all alone speaks very poorly of him.
The gaping law Minister towed the former’s line and kept enjoying the drama. This Minister had been badly ridiculed by all for sitting at the feet of a pretending Daita in theatre robe and devouring leftover food at the ‘Daru quest’ camp supposed to be away from public glare.
All the same, the DM alone fought his battle like a warrior and ensured criminals land in jail or vanish into thin air. The media people too are equally fierce in their demand for the rogue servitors’ arrest and trial at court of law. The Bar Association of Puri is so disturbed that it took a decision not to stand in defence of any criminal servitor.
The DM on being asked what strategies he has devised to carry the unpalatable drama to its logical conclusion said, “This is only one of the tiniest of hazards we face while serving the masses. Public interest is of paramount importance. Personal egos have no place in relief delivery processes. Such incidents would happen again and again and get fixed on lines of law. The only special care we take is to see that the Rule of law is not undermined in the least.”
Before the conversation closed, he jokingly turned the topic to the National Flag installation on this day in 1947. His general awareness was inspiration enough to close story with the National Flag facts: On July 21, 1947, the National Flag was adopted by the Constituent Assembly. Until the 19th century, a variety of flags were used by the princely states.
Only after the revolt of 1857, the idea of a common flag was proposed by the British. The first flag with several British symbols was known as the Star of India. later during Edward VII’s reign, Indians imagined religious symbol would make a good flag. Popular symbols like lord Ganesh, Goddess Kali or Gau Mata (the holy cow) were seriously considered to be eventually rejected for being Hindu-centric.
After the Partition of Bengal in 1905 gave rise to a new flag known as Vande Mataram, it was composed of Indian religious symbols and launched during the Swadeshi movement against the British. It had eight white lotuses on the top white band (representing the eight provinces), a sun and a crescent on the bottom green band and the Vande Mataram slogan in the middle yellow band.
The flag was used at the annual session of the Indian National Congress but failed to gather nationalist sentiments. Another flag was suggested by Scottish Hindu reformist Sister Nivedita which had a thunderbolt running through the middle and 108 oil lamps running along the border with the Vande Mataram caption split across the border.
This was also presented during the Indian National Congress meeting in 1906, but to no avail. In 1916, Annie Besant and Bal Gangadhar Tilak recommended a national flag which included the Union Jack at the top left corner, a star and crescent
on the top right corner and seven stars diagonally from the lower right, placed against a backdrop of five red and four green alternating bands. This flag was banned by the Magistrate of Coimbatore, which was followed by a debate on the function and use of a National Flag.
By the 1920s, Mahatma Gandhi wished to see all Indian communities represented on the flag, depicting a united country. So, a new flag was designed comprising three colours: white on the top, green in the middle and red at the bottom. The white was to represent minority communities; the green represented Muslims and the red the Hindu and the Sikh.
A charkha (spinning wheel) was drawn across all three colours symbolising unity among all communities of India. Even though the Congress did not accept this flag, it was widely recognised as a symbol of patriotism and India’s struggle for freedom.
Not many people were happy with the communal representation in the flag proposed by Gandhi and, hence by 1931, another design was put forward for the flag. This time the colour red had been replaced by ochre. This colour
represented both Hinduism and Islam since saffron was the colour of Hindu yogis as well as Muslim darvesh (dervish). But this led to the Sikhs demanding a separate colour for their religion as well, or a complete rejection of religious colours. This led to a new flag which was designed by Pingali Venkayya, a freedom fighter. The new flag had three colours, saffron at the top, white in the middle and green at the bottom, with a charkha in between. The design of the flag was passed at a meeting of the Congress Committee in 1931 and was chosen as the official flag of the committee. After gaining independence, Dr Rajendra Prasad decided to adopt the flag of the Congress as the National Flag of India with a few modifications. So, the flag of 1931 was adopted as the National Flag, but the charkha in the middle was replaced with the Ashok Chakra. Thus, the Indian National Flag was born.
The Puri servitor menace anxiety will continue until they lose hereditary rights and lose job if they have any other source of sizeable income outside the temple sources. It is highly desirable to have a fulltime chief administrator who has hands of steel, heart of a king and the head of a great judge. Or else, the temple would become a tourism-pilgrimage burden for Odisha without fail!
(The writer is a core member of Transparency International, Odisha)