There has been poignant, meaningful and purposive action by the residents of Rasagobindapur block in Khuntapal panchayat in Mayurbhanj district. In this panchayat flows the river Jambhira, which runs along the villages like Gambharia, Bada Gambharia, Baiganabenti, Bhedisahi, Singirisahi and luhakhunta. Almost the entire population of this area belongs either to Scheduled Tribe or Scheduled Caste. Gambharia is also the village of the present Deputy Speaker of the Odisha legislative Assembly Sananda Marndi. Believe it or not, almost seven decades after Independence, there is no permanent road to these villages. During the monsoon, the residents of this area – six to seven villages – remain a prisoner of floods and waterlogging. Otherwise, the residents have to walk through the agricultural fields to reach the nearest Khuntapal market. In the absence of regular and usable road of a particular standard, the area is also denied of emergency and other services. The deceased, the pregnant and those otherwise stricken by illness, the women of this area are all victims of denial of essential services. There has been a persistent demand for a permanent usable road from Khuntapal to Gambharia from the six villages and from the leaders of the villagers. On one pretext or the other, the administrative authorities have been turning a deaf ear to this rudimentary and legitimate demand. Years after Independence, one has to come across a case like this where by sheer insensitivity, negligence and incapacity the necessary infrastructure has not been made available. The villagers of Gambharia, Bhedisahi, Baiganabenti, luhakhunta and Singirisahi have now rallied together to make sure that the Khuntapal-Gambharia linkage of road connectivity is established at their own initiative. It is by voluntary contribution and on the last Sunday, construction work of the relevant road has started.
The lesson one derives from this insensitivity is that administration, a helpless group of residents and an utterly ineffective executive not to preventing the provision of basic amenities. Please look at the response of the people. They start acting on their own. This is a departure from despair, and there is now a glimpse of hope. They shall build the linkage road from Khuntapal to Gambharia. But does this scenario indicate good governanceIJ It certainly does not.
Apart from keeping the general populace at the subsistence and dependence level, the State does not seem to be attempting any steps towards economic and political liberation. The writ of the Deputy Speaker does not seem to reach the governmental functionaries so as to make them act in a reasonable and rational manner. If this be the situation, the ordinary citizen is rendered helpless and the tenets of democracy are in danger.
*Alongside in the State, there is an over indulgent preoccupation of the location of the Daru Brahmas and their arranged logistics to reach Koili Baikuntha in Puri. This aspect receives the largest attention of the media. Rationality is a casualty and the religious faith is projected by all and sundry to be the right and rational method of functioning. Every conceivable myth and story spread out through the media by vested interests is swallowed up by the gullible populace, justifying to a great extent that religion is the opiate of the masses. It appears there is an over-orchestrated media hype and a premeditated search for the relevant Daru to fit in with the requirements of the occasion to pacify the underdog, i.e., Patitapabana or Daridranarayan.
*While the march towards Nabakalebar should make us proud, there is a steady increase in migration of labour from Odisha to other States up to Jammu & Kashmir. The villages are left with the infirm, old and children. The workforce is elsewhere on account of economic necessity. On account of acute poverty and lack of adequate employment avenues and lack of social security for the agricultural labour or, for that matter, the agriculturist himself, the farmer does not consider his property in agriculture to be of lasting and increasing value. He is seen to barter the land to an industrialist and is content with a job of a peon for his progeny. The scenario is indicative of the perversity in our social order.
A good friend tries to differ and says that one-rupee rice and the five-rupee rice-dalma have taken care of the impoverished and there is, therefore, no necessity of being critical of the existing scenario. The dream-world has arrived and the rulers have had their sway! But if one looks at the requirements of the average voter, his plight is worsening day by day.
This also vitally affects the younger sections of the community, who are to provide the future of our society. When they are debauched, demoralised and subjected to accepting the given situation as a reasonable pattern of life, keeping them satiated in poverty the perpetuation of poverty through a new form of opiate for masses becomes feasible. Keeping them duped with less than a square meal with below subsistence patronage makes them fully comfortable subjects of the feudal lord. This strategy and the purposive scenario has been designed as a new model of administration of the class that be called as poor and underprivileged and incapable of asserting their entitlements. The recent aberrations in the Maoist front within the State of Odisha indicate that the opiate is not really effective and it is no more acceptable to an increasing number of persons to draw out a pragmatic sustainable growth programme.
But when we turn to the youth power, we find a deliberate and designed attempt at curbing them, misdirecting them, disorienting them and finally debauching them so that they subserve the neocolonialism of the new political power that be. The brilliant youth must not be subjected to such damages and have to now react, if necessary, in a meaningful and effective manner. Inter-generation equity is a part of societal jurisprudence. The tendency to pollute the youth for the purposes of continued power dominance of the non-youth is now an unbearable factor. The parasites are now trying to grab the youth so that the society cannot hit back and progress in an appropriate manner. In the scheme of social engineering, a time has come when the oppressed and misdirected youth must now assert for their own benefit and growth, and in that context any uprightness or ruthlessness on their part has to be condoned. There is hardly any leader today who can say, “I have miles to go before I sleep; I have promises to keep”. The electoral process has become analogous to a corporate investment planning. The political parties are tending to behave like corporate entities. They need henchmen without any mind, without right to raise any question, and they need people who will blindly second all their selfish desires. The time has come that we permit our youth power to be rejuvenated, regenerated and reconnected to the right path. We need a social rearmament based on value-based norms. In the march ahead, we must be tolerant of the emerging youth and steer their ship to the right port. This surely concerns all of us!
(The writer, a Senior Advocate, is a former All India Service officer, a former diplomat, a former editor, a former President of Orissa High Court Bar Association and a former Advocate General of Odisha. yantdas@hotmail.com)