Linguistic Survey of India has unambiguously declared that Oriya, amongst Indian Languages, is so rich in vocabulary that “neither Bengali nor Hindi nor Telugu can vie with it”. Naturally, therefore, Orissa’s contribution to the world of poetry has remained superb. But contribution of the newly launched poetic compilation “Sabita Paeen Kabita” by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak to the world of Oriya poetry would remain forever matchless.

So far poetic works depicting love between paramours have enthralled human hearts. But this book is totally different. It is a magic canvas of loyal love where spousal joy has been painted live as lucidly and elegantly as magnificent is the poet’s mother tongue Oriya.

Written in 1974, around his marriage held on 24 June 1974, the anthology begins from betrothment and proceeds through pre-nuptial and post- nuptial ecstasies captured in beautiful sonnets.

Amidst the presence of finest laureates and scholars of Oriya literature, “Sabita Paeen Kabita” – the anthology of immortal love poems by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak – was released yesterday.

The book received critical acclaim by distinguished guests and audience alike at a function held at Orissa State Scouts Conference Hall.

Bibhuti Pattanaik launching the book

Eminent author Bibhuti Patnaik released the book and rendered his views on the author. He said this wonderfully lyrical work is unlike something which could otherwise be expected of a ruthless journalist Subhas Chandra Pattanayak.

Dash Benhur on SCP and his poems

Furthering on this unconventional marriage of objective journalism and surrealistic romanticism in SCP’s works, Dash Benhur shed lights on poet’s contributions to Oriya literature.

Dr Hara Prasad Paichha Pattnaik addressing the audience

Secretary of Orissa Sahitya Akademi and esteemed poet Dr Hara Prasad Parichha Pattanayak declared “Sabita Paeen Kabita” as the first book of this kind in entire India.

Adhyapak Biswranjan speaking on the uniqueness of the book

Acclaimed wordsmith and literary activist Adhyapak Biswaranjan presented a noteworthy keynote address dwelling on various facets of the poet and his work, judging the book as exceptionally unique and refreshingly beautiful.

SCP on his work

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak reflected upon his poems and drew attention of the audience to a rather natural connection he has always found between his public activities and his inspiring conjugal life.

Barendra K Dhal rendering presidential speech

Dr Netajee Abhinandan welcomed the guests and august audience on the ceremony while former president of National Union of Journalist and renowned man of letters Barendra Krushna Dhal presided over the meeting.

Eminent scholars in the audience

The audience at the ceremony included notable scholars and authors, including Central Sahitya Akademi awardee Pramod Mohanty, renowned poet Prof Fani Mohanty, Prof Sashi Bhushan Biswal, Dr Abhinna Chandra Sahoo, Gaurahari Das, Dr Asoka Misra, among others.

Major Kumudini Borai proposing vote of thanks

The guests thanked the publisher Umesh Sahoo of Bharat Bharati, for bringing out the book. Historian and authoress Major Kumudini Barei conveyed the vote of thanks to conclude the meeting.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The Government of Orissa celebrated the assent of the President of India to the erroneous Orissa (Alteration of Name) Bill, 2010 that tampers with classicism of Oriya language by enforcing change of the State’s English spelling from Orissa to Odisha with effect from November 01, 2011. The Chief Minister declared November 05 a holiday to mark the success in the mischief and announced that signboards all over the State and official files shall be made to replace Orissa and Oriya with Odisha and Odia respectively by end of March, 2012. The Hindi words – Urisha and Uriya – must also be changed in use accordingly.

The Bill was erroneous inasmuch as it is surprisingly silent about so called wrong naming of the State in Bengali and other Indian languages. It is erroneous, further because, its nomenclature was misconceived. It was not meant for altering the name of Orissa and in fact it does not. Orissa as pronounced in Oriya is kept in tact and is to continue like that. So, there is a blatant mismatch between the nomenclature of the Bill and the purpose thereof. Over and above this mismatch, the aim of the Bill was detrimental to the classic character of Oriya language. Hence the Parliament of India should not have passed the misleading Bill and when despite our protests, the Bill was passed, the President should not have given assent to it sans required cogitation. The Parliament was certainly conspicuous by its absence of mind in considering the Bill and has made a blunder in passing it without going into the history of transliteration of these two most material words. But the President acted a mere rubber stamp of political power holders and approved it without application of mind to the issue raised by us.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is a congenital non-Oriya born to Biju Patnaik through a non-Oriya mother. He has neither any education in Oriya nor any commitment for this matchless language, which not only is recognized in Linguistic Survey of India (Vol.IV) as a language “of a rich vocabulary in which respect neither Bengali nor Hindi nor Telugu can vie with it”, but also is marked as the most distinguished language on archaic aspect of languages of India, specifically amongst the neighboring tongues when linguistic authorities like Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterjee of Bengal points out that, “Of these three languages – Oriya, Bengali and Assamese – Oriya has preserved a great many archaic features in both grammar and pronunciation and it may be said without travesty of linguistic truth that Oriya is the eldest of the three sisters, when we consider the archaic character of the language” (Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol.XXIII, at p.337). Neither Naveen Patnaik and his followers and fellow politicians in Orissa nor the members of Indian Parliament who passed the Bill know of this archaic distinction of Oriya language. But, they have given a death blow to this distinguished feature by making this misconceived Bill a Law of the land giving it effect through an amendment in the Constitution of India. This happens, when stupids rule the roost with determination to stay in power by any means and contrive schemes to divert public attention from blatant failure of their administration to misled satisfaction on fulfillment of misconceived pride that the schemers deliberately coin.

The moment it had come to our attention that the lingua non-Oriya fellows in power in Orissa were conspiring to kill the classical feature of Oriya language through this misconceived instrument, we had tried to place our views on records and had urged upon the CM that the English and Hindi spelling of the name of the State and its language should not be changed, as the same was nothing but recognition of Oriya’s classic distinction by non-Oriya Indians and English speaking foreigners.

People of this State had not coined the words Orissa or Oriya or Urisha or Uriya to pronounce and spell the name of their land or language. The non-Oriyas – Indian and foreigners – had to develop these spellings by using ‘R’ for approximately correct pronunciation of the concerned Oriya words.

The peculiarity of Oriya language lies in different appearances of the same alphabet to serve the purpose of two patterns of pronunciation. This was posing a problem for the non-Oriyas, particularly the British occupants of the land. To remove this difficulty, a British officer – Mr. T. J. Maltby of the Madras Civil Service – had authored a ‘Handbook’ in 1874 “mainly for the non-Oriya officers serving in the Oriya speaking districts of the Madras Presidency”. Orissa Government adopted the book – A Practical Handbook of the Oriya Language – in 1945, by courtesy of Miss Lilian Cranworth Maltby, daughter of the author. In this book, Maltby has most ably and faithfully located the pronunciational differences of similar Oriya letters to the extent of even a single letter and has laid down rules for transliteration thereof to Roman equivalents. In the process, he has marked the two patterns of pronunciation of the single Oriya letter represented by Roman D. When the first pronunciation of D is “dental” or “soft” like ‘D’ as in ‘Did’, the second pronunciation of the same D is “cerebral” or “hard” as in the word “Dol”, he has noted. The second pattern of pronunciation of this particular letter was being stressed by the children of the soil by adding distinction to the same alphabet with a dot underneath. M altby, who mandated that “Oriya words in the Roman character are to be pronounced as in German or Italian rather than as in English, and care must be taken that every letter be distinctly sounded” ruled that the relevant alphabet represented by Roman D with a dot underneath justifying its “cerebral” or “hard” pronunciation must stand converted into ‘R’ in transliteration and therefore, in transliteration, Odissa with a dot underneath ‘d’ had become Orissa and Odiya had become Oriya. Attempts were made in 1930s in the all-time authoritative lexicon of Oriya language – Purnachandra Bhashakosha – to present a new transliteration form by prefixing ‘R’ to ‘D’ in representing the dot underneath in matter of cerebral or hard pronunciation thereof and thus Ordisa was posted as transliterated name of the State and Ordia of the language. But, as this was practically problematic, the Bhashakosha’s prefixing of ‘R’ to ‘D’ was discarded by the founding fathers of this State and Mr. Madhusudan Das et al had accepted the rule of transliteration framed by Mr. Miltby and thus Orissa and Oriya had become the transliterated forms of the names of its land and language. Therefore these two words are symbolic of the classical status of Oriya language. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik who celebrated the stupidity of tampering with the classical components of Oriya language in this matter does not know of this.

Oriya language is not only matchlessly superb as pointed out in Linguistic Survey of India and Indian Historical Quarterly as mentioned supra, but also is the language that has given birth in India to the concept of linguistic states.

But, Naveen Patnaik, after taking over the Office in the name of Orissa’s regional interest, has shown constant disrespect to this splendid language and has continuously contravened the Orissa Official Language Act 1954, which stipulates that Oriya is “to be used for all or any of the official purposes of the State of Orissa”. In his regime, administration runs not in Oriya language, but in English. And, in his regime, massive majority of projects have gone to non-Oriyas, all major allocation of land have gone to non-Oriyas and priority of administration has been steered into serving the interest of non-Oriyas to the utter disadvantage of indigenous people of Orissa. This man now celebrates the death blow on the classical features of Oriya language and asserts to impose/enforce replacement of Orissa and Oriya by Odisha and Odia by March 2012 in the name of Oriya pride!

What a great farce! What else could have happened when stupids rule the roost?

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Orissa! My Mother! On this your birthday, as I greet you, I know, your tears are rolling down in the eyes of your children who are being tortured by the Governments they have created. Let me share your tears, mother, if thereby a bit of relief manifests.

You have been in headlines, Mother, over an order of the National Green Tribunal in matter of a foreign firm – POSCO – to whom our government has pledged sovereignty on your sovereign soil in the name of SEZ.

This takes me to the year of 2004, Mother, when the State’s then Chief Secretary Subas Pani had vanished from the State along with three other Secretaries for several days, ignoring the Assembly in the last session of the year, even though they were required to remain present in the headquarters to assist the Minister(s) answer the House.

At the end of this mysterious absence, Mother, you must be remembering, they surfaced before the Press at New Delhi to announce that their secret journey was to a foreign country in interest of the State. They did not disclose who had sent them on the secret journey, which was their destination, what was their mission, who granted them the authority to use foreign exchange and why was it that the Government could not inform the House on query that they were on duty under its privilege, if they were on an assigned mission!

But, Mother, no action was taken against them, even though this child of yours, on January 1, 2005 had raised the issue specifically in the media. Pratisruti,Bhubaneswar has included the same write-up in Dura Adura, a compilation of a few of my articles, spanning pages 155 to 158, published in library edition,2009 .

It later transpired that Pani and his team had been to South Korea to POSCO headquarters, wherefrom a team had later picked up a group of Bhubaneswar based media persons for organizing their cooperation at the time of need and specifically for creation of a congenial media environment for what Pani and his team were to do subsequently.

From the POSCO side, Mother, it became clear, that it had conducted a secret search on wherefrom to acquire mines of the highest quality ores for its steel factories in massive scale at the lowest possible rate. And, had found your stocks of the ores most suitable to its purpose.

So, was it POSCO that had, through agents at Delhi, screened top functionaries of yours to find out who could be used by it and thus Pani, then a top functionary at the center, was approached and when found suitable for its purpose, his posting as Chief Secretary of the State was organized, so that it could be easy to get the way paved for its project?

And, is it, therefore, Pani, after becoming the Chief Secretary, organized his coterie, to whom he had taken to POSCO headquarters where they were tamed or trained to serve its purpose?

This could not be investigated into, Mother, as the Chief Minister did not take any action for unauthorized absence of this group of officers during the Assembly session and as the media mysteriously kept mum.

On the other hand, the Pani coterie emerged as the most powerful group in the State administration as the Chief Minister, without giving your children any opportunity to understand what was happening, dazzled them with a Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with POSCO, projected as the largest foreign direct investment project in India.

Nobody can say, mother, sans specific in-depth official investigation, as to whether any payola had played the role in this matter. But the way your children are being oppressed by the Government and Rules are being broken and Lands are being given to this firm make it clear that the Government is monstrously motivated to please this foreign firm at the cost of indigenous masses.

Why this motivation, Mother, why?

To kill the people to better their condition?

Do not cry Mother, do not cry. You shall never know why is it happening, why!

The governments, Mother, both in the State and at the Center, have been acting as agents of POSCO that at any cost wants to grab your soil, to loot your resources, your natural and human assets, and, whatever, Mother, you should have liked to keep in store for use by your future children.

Your children who would be directly affected by this project have been continuously protesting. But the Chief Minister is more committed to POSCO than to the people.

Men are blocking the roads to obstruct POSCO.

Completely overcome with distress, women are prostrating on the soil.

Children, threatened by imminent danger to self-employed status of their parents are also holding protest meetings.

General public is demanding quashing of the POSCO deal.

But, instead of respecting the people, the government has been trying to suppress them with the police, to silent them with the bullets.

And, most devastatingly, the government is active in weakening the people through cleavage.

And, Mother, they have no qualms in organizing contravention of laws of the land to help the foreigners.

They do not care for the judicial orders of the High Court, so much blindly are the motivated for serving the design of the foreign firm.

The National Green Tribunal, Mother, has, on March 30, stripped layer by layer, how the government had organized rape of environment laws to help this foreign firm.

“The entire process was vitiated in the eyes of law”, the Tribunal has ruled, while suspending the environmental clearance given to steel-cum-captive power plant and captive minor port of POSCO on your Paradip coast. The Tribunal has marked “official bias” in this matter, Mother, “official bias”.

Mother, “official bias” as marked by the National Tribunal smacks of manipulation in generation of the environmental clearance for POSCO. And, who but POSCO could have caused the manipulation?

Manipulation established, the project, being of foreign interest, needs be dismissed in its entirety.

The Supreme Court’s order in Aravali matters needs be applied to mines that POSCO and the likes are determined to loot. Your this child had stressed upon it in these pages. But, the Court has yet to look at the issue in Aravali spirit.

The tribes who would be rendered destitute by destruction of their living environment as well as all of your children, who would be affected by destruction of the eco-systems, Mother, are being subjected to State terror as they oppose the evil design, when, like the proverbial blue colored jackal, packs of fellows who benefit by amassing illicit wealth in the environment of opportunism plutocracy has provided and packs of neo-elites who want to do everything that may distinguish them as brighter than the rest in society, are supporting the state-terror and are playing every nasty tricks to demoralize your children that are opposing the foreign firm.

On your birthday, Mother, the same functionaries that are thus playing havoc upon the lives of your children are greeting each other and enjoying fireworks that tally with their laughter at the people pushed by them thus into predicament.

They have not spared anybody who is not gorgeous in position.

So severe is the savagery of state oppression, that the media despite being controlled by the neo-rich now mostly, is sometimes publishing pictures of oppression as above, with an aim, of course, to catch readership amongst the oppressed.

I will, Mother, place here some of those pictures, picked up from published pages, assuming that you permit me to do so.

Crores of rupees are shown as spent on primary education. But Mother, in your most undeveloped districts, schools are functioning without rooms or roofs and any of the students are forced to take up classes under any tree in the earmarked open spaces as teachers are engaged in other works. This is a picture from Rayagada:

You know, Mother, primary students, specifically kids in Anganvadies, have died by being forced to eat poisonous Khesari dal, that too moth eaten, as the contractors – blue eyed boys of the government – have preferred the same to fetch more profit, with no punishment against the crime. But, the Anganvadi and Ganashikshya teachers engaged in works that require their regular daily attendance are being forced to work sans the minimum wages, their protests not heeded to.

Who does not know how the lady health workers are perishing under hardship in absence of service conditions and minimum wages. But the government is more ready to suppress them than hearing their appeals.

The government, Mother, never bothers about promises and policies made in matters of family welfare, specifically in respect of green card holders. Their collective voice to press their grievances are being suppressed by police.

When the government is not getting required numbers of allopathy doctors to manage health care and engaging homeopaths, specifically in rural areas to tackle emergencies, the homeopathy colleges in different parts such as in Sambalpur are in dilapidated conditions. Yet, the advanced homeo college managed by the government in Bhubaneswar has scant provisions for proper study. The students, Mother, are battling in vain to gain attention of the government to their legitimate grievances.

Tortured and exploited low-paid employees, who despite in work of regular nature, continue without regularization of their service,rush to Bhubaneswar to demonstrate their legitimate grievances when the Assembly commences its session, in hope against hope that the House may wake up to prevail upon the government to give them their due. But days pass away. Assembly does not wake up. Government does not hear. Yet, in hope against hope, they retire to soothing lap of the goddess of sleep in their demonstration tents to rise in the early morning to continue their stir.

The Assembly does not wake up to the call of the Opposition. Government runs on the strength of numbers and a frustrated Opposition often resorts to physical stonewalling. The government does not bother.

Farmers are committing suicide in utter helpless condition as government apathy is flaming up draughts and non-maintenance of embankments and channels causing floods that wash away their crops. Unbearable price rise in essential commodities, lack of concern for the common man in every sector of life, has prompted the parties of working class interest demonstrate their protest time and again. But the government that is wedded to POSCO interest never bothers.

Corruption has so engulfed the State that question papers gushing out into black-markets has become norm of the day. Sudents are demonstrating their wrath against the mischief; but no action against top persons responsible for the grave dislocation in students lives are not punished.

Who will stand with you, Mother?

The media?

Supposedly.

But, Mother, whosoever of media is taking up the cause of the people and causing awareness against misrule, is being attacked through hired goons, harassed through the police, implicated in cooked up cases, some even charged for sedition. The journalists determined to protect freedom of Press have formed a front of theirs styled Media Unity for freedom of Press and have been collectively working for safety of the journalists. They had, Mother, after representing before the Chief Minister many times in vain, released a White Paper on atrocity on media person within your geographical limits, but the government is conspicuous by its nonchalance so far. Their demonstrations are never heeded to by the government.

Mother, when India was under the British yoke, as you had raised the first battle against them, you know, they had dismembered your body and appended your different parts to rival neighbors. The outsiders were grabbing your soil by treachery with the help of the British and rendering your children wretched. Your children rose up in demand for your restoration and even though the rival neighbors were creating every possible hindrance and heavyweights in British administration were too afraid of your “disposition” to allow union of your divided limbs, you became the first State of India to be formed on the basis of language. To our misfortune, Mother, we have a Chief Minister who does not belong to our language, who does not talk in your tongue, but in whose administration you have been reduced to grazing ground for non-Oriya land-grabbers. The phenomenon against which Buxi Jagabandhu had commanded your militia in the first battle of freedom that you had raised against the British, has returned in full strength, Mother, taking advantage of the present regime that has no concern for your toiling children.

Mother, to what extent your children are irritated and embarrassed over the hypocrisy in vogue in the name of administration can be judged from how they refused to respond to the government’s call to observe the death anniversary of Buxi Jagabandhu. In the heart of the citadel of power, at the State Information Center, arbitrarily renamed jayadev Bhawan, the people of Bhubaneswar deliberately stayed away from official function on Buxi. This was not for any disrespect for the great commander. But to your children, this government stands for everything that Buxi Jagabandhu had stood for. Recalling him in a function organized by the government run by the agents of POSCO and the likes was an affront to the sacred memories of Buxi. Therefore, Mother, as is captured in the picture below, the hall was empty. There was none in the audience except a 3/4 employees of the Information and Public Relations Department though the chairs on the podium were occupied by arranged speakers.

Mother, with these pictures, I offer my tears to you, in consanguinity with your tortured children and share yours, unable at the moment as am I to raise my arms to force quit the traitors.

In Orissa, the famous ancient soil of Buddhism and agriculture, the Mahabishuba Sankranti is celebrated as the day of dreams for a better world to live in. It is Orissa’s New Year’s Day.

Co-operation amongst social forces to face the dryness caused by the scorching sun and transform it into preparedness for cultivation of paddy – the most staple food of Oriyas – at the end of summer, gets refreshed on this day, as Panji – the Oriya annual almanac that basically carries weather forecasts relevant to agriculture and instructions on consuming agro-products as would be suitable to individuals on the basis of their respective zodiac signs – gets launched with the blessings of the most revered son of the soil- Lord Buddha, worshipped as Sri Jagannatha at Puri.

As the summer that disinfects the soil for better agriculture starts on this day, Oriyas prepare themselves for agriculture with propitiating the Mother Earth with water sweetened by treacles and fruits that they call ‘Pana’, which also is offered to the Goddesses that symbolize Mother Earth and shared and celebrated amongst all the Oriyas irrespective of caste and status in surge of brotherhood defined by their mother tongue. The significance of propitiating Mother Earth with ‘Pana’ is so huge that the day is also known in Orissa as ‘Pana Sankranti’.

Orissa was the last land of India that the British had been able to annex, but was the first soil to have raised the battle of independence against the British, which, afraid of the “disposition” of her children, had dismembered her body and yoked the divided parts with neighboring provinces that it had already occupied and was plundering. The Oriyas had raised unprecedented objection to this mischief and had got back their Motherland in a new shape, based on the uniqueness, strength and spread of their mother tongue.

So, on ‘Pana Sankranti’ day, Oriyas also celebrate their language and brotherhood.

Presentation of ‘Bishuba Sammana’ to an eminent Oriya author by ‘Prajatantra Prachara Samiti’ in its seat at Cuttack every year on this occasion is an instance.

This year, as we have informed earlier, eminent poet Pramod Mohanty has been honored on April 13 with this ‘Samman’. Along with him, ‘Jankara Puraskara’ named after ‘Jhankara’ the journal of Oriya letters, has been awarded to Ajay Kumar Mishra, Amarendra Khatua and Giri Dandasena. Other awards of the Samiti, such as ‘Minabazar Shishu Sahitya Puraskara’ has been given to Laxmikant Rath, ‘Justice Harihara Mohapatra Smaraki Natya Sahitya Puraskara’ to Rajkishore Varadwaj, ‘Ajit Anubad Bharati Puraskara’ to Binay Kumar Das, ‘Rajiv Smaraki Lalita Nibandha Puraskara’ to Niranjana Padhi and ‘Manoj Smaraki Shishu Sahitya Puraskara’ to Abhilas Bal.

The event presided over by eminent poet Sitakant Mohapatra was addressed by famous author Gangaprasad Vimal, with Saroj Ranjan Mohanty, editor of Jhankar giving the introduction.

This being Orissa’s New Year’s Day, its Capital was formally shifted from Cuttack to Bhubaneswar on this day.

Hence the Capital Foundation Day was observed with students of 49 institutes of the city participating in a commemorative parade, with the Speaker of Orissa Assembly Pradip Amat taking the salute.

The day was celebrated in different form in different places.

Such as, about a hundred families of mutual friends, Dr.Jyoti Prasad Pattnaik, Er. Sayad Suleman Ali and others celebrated ‘Mahabishuba Milana – 2012’ at hotel ‘Dalma’ in Bhubaneswar, where two books authored respectively by Sri Satyanas and Smt. Indira Mishra were formally released.

Ekamra Hat effervesced in ecstasy as Oriya housewives joined a pageant with their traditional costumes and ornaments for selection of Shrestha Odiyani (the best amongst Oriya housewives). Kadambini, a journal for women organized the pageant.

These celebrations were just samples of how happily the day was celebrated all over Orissa.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Orissa became Odisha and Oriya became Odia under a very misconceived law enacted sans proper study of historicity of the concerned words and application of parliamentary wisdom thereto.

Shockingly, Orissa’s community of letters preferred to stay silent spectators, even though the two words – Orissa and Oriya – were samples of international recognition of classicality of Oriya language.

But a good news is that, Bhubaneswar Book Fair Committee (BBFC), in a meeting on Sunday has expressed interest in a campaign for classical status of Oriya.

BBFC, An Appropriate Forum

It can be said without any travesty of truth that, the BBFC is the mother of bibliophilic renaissance in Orissa. It will continue to be recognized for ever as the organization that has revolutionized people’s love for books in Orissa, where bibliophily was, till book fairs were started by this Committee, restricted only to the elites.

It is therefore quite becoming of this Committee to have started thinking of a campaign for recognition of Oriya language as a classical language.

In a meeting it held on 15th, with its President Satakadi Hota in chair, while welcoming the Oriya New Year, it has stressed on this recognition. Eminent authors such as Pramod Mohanty, Fani Mohanty, Rajendra Kishore Panda, Asit Mohanty, Sarat Chandra Mishra, Jugal Kishore Dutta, Sourindra Barik, Asutosh Parida, including former Director of Central Institute of Indian languages Dr. Debi Prasanna Pattanayak and the Committee Secretary Barendra Krushna Dhal observed that the oriya language being a very ancient language in vogue since the Puranic days deserves national distinction as a classical language.

If Oriya politicians that were and are in power, not been herds of factotums of their respective high commands and suffering incorrigibly from lack of courage due to a syndrome that has afflicted them all, which we can call the ‘supremo’ syndrome, the Government of India, when it declared Tamil as a classical language in 2004 or Kannada and Telugu in 2008, could have declared Oriya as a classical language of the country.

Juxtaposed with the apathy of Oriya politicians to Orissa’s cultural need, it should always be welcome if the State’s men of letters take up the issue and demand for declaration of Oriya as a classical language.

To me, personally, BBFC, established by Orissa’s men of letters, is an appropriate forum to raise this demand and to fetch the desired result. But, I have my reservations; because neither the Committee nor any participant in its meeting had thought it prudent to oppose the annihilation of its classicism by the Government that had used the Orissa Assembly to recommend for change of Orissa to Odisha and Oriya to Odia and steered the Bill through the Parliament till enactment and enforcement.

In these pages, I have been harping on about the classicality of Oriya language, which is evidenced by its archaic distinction and recognized by many linguists. So, nothing could be more desirable for me than a campaign for classical status for Oriya language, the ancient legacy of which needs be placed before the world.

I, therefore, most heartily welcome the BBFC and wish, its steps should be such so as to make me drop my reservations.

Legacy of Ancient Orissa

Orissa in ancient days had illuminated Indian sky of knowledge so brilliantly with its own unique luster that the Rig Veda in its tenth Mandala had to advise its followers to be cautious of Orissa where indigenous people find their object of worship in wooden logs.

A formal notification recognizing the classicality of Oriya language would be helpful in conducting in-depth researches with global input into the Protohistory of Oriya language, as Oriyas are a very prominent ancient people whose valor has been mentioned as matchless even in the Mahabharata. Though the Mahabharata is believed to be telling us of an internecine battle between the sons of two cousins – Dhrutarastra and Pandu – of Bharat clan, I am convinced that it is a Puranic depiction of the battle (described as the greatest war) that two different philosophical proponents – Patriarch: the Kauravas and Matriarch: the Pandavas – had fought on the soil of India. In this war, ancient Orissa had made a matchless mark.

Protohistoric Record

In Vishma Parva of Mahabharata, it is described that, after Bhima vanquished the great Vishma, whom his Sarathi had been able to save only by taking away his chariot from the battle field, no other Kaurav could dare to face Bhima. The war was going to be lost for the Kauravas, as Vishma was their Commander-in-Chief.

Duryodhan had to take refuge in Orissa’s king Shrutayu, who, as a proponent of Patriarchy like Vishma, had joined the Kaurava’s camp against the matriarch Pandavas.

And so, Shrutayu led the battle for Duryodhan with his distinguished army, well equipped with a regiment of war elephants. (Orissa’s king emperor is traditionally known as Gajapati – the lord of elephants).

Vyasa has described that Bhima, the victor of Vishma, failed to face Shrutayu. As the Orissa army with its unique elephant regiment wreaked havoc on the Pandav side, the emperor of Orissa, despite being very senior in age, overwhelmed Bhima to such extent that the vanquisher of Vishma that day was clearly in utter grip of death in his hands.

Arjuna, drowned under surprise and shock, wanted to rush to the rescue of Bhima and boasted to eliminate the old king of Orissa to avenge reduction of his brother’s wonderful victory over Vishma into a defeat.

Krushna, his charioteer, not only refused to proceed, but also restrained Arjuna in such words that were a matchless tribute to the king of Orissa.

“Not even can I defeat Shrutayu in a battle, Arjuna; so it is not within your prowess to face him”, he said.

But as Bhima’s chariot was smashed by Shrutayu, it was essential to save him. So, Krushna asked Satyaki to rush to the spot to offer him his chariot and the moment he boards it, to bring away the chariot as quickly as possible from the engagements with Shrutayu.

While thus arranging for Bhima a narrow escape, Krushna himself rushed to Shrutayu challenging him to test his strength against him if he dares.

Shrutayu accepted the challenge and raised his divine spear to attack Krishna; but then he found that Krushna was without any weapon.

Shrutayu had, in his younger days while obtaining the divine spear, made a promise not to use it against any unarmed person.

The Spear was Abyartha – infallible – which also meant that the user must not make it fail. Once raised, it was certainly to be used, as otherwise it would tantamount to disrespect to its divinity.

With Bhima run away from engagements, at that moment in the battlefield there was only one man who was challenging Shrutayu; and he was Krushna. And, he was not armed with any weapon! Shrutayu was clearly in the worst of predicament.

If he was using the divine spear against Krushna, he would be violating his own promise not to use it against any unarmed person. If he was not using it, he would be acting against its divine distinction.

So he decided not to go against his promise and not to render the raised spear inconsequential.

He, therefore, decided to pierce the spear into his own heart.

And, thus he died in absolute adherence to his own principles.

This is the single most distinguished episode in Mahabharata, the like of which in the epic of war is nowhere found.

So, Orissa has her due revered recognition in Mahabharata.

By that time, language of the Aryas had not reached Orissa. Language is the basis of the strength of a land. What was Orissa’s language then that had made her so strong and elevated her to such stupendous stature? To know it, study of her Protohistory language is essential and for this study, declaration of Oriya as a classical language is necessary.

On records in History

After the epics, the greatest war that history had witnessed in ancient India and which the entire world recognizes as a turning point in world civilization that made nations after nations embrace Buddhism, was the Kalinga war fought below the Dhauli Hill at Bhubaneswar of Orissa. The people of Orissa had fought back Asoka, the invader in this war and stopped the spread of his empire for all time to come.

Asoka, as history admits, had nowhere faced the resistance he faced in Orissa in this war.

To him, as he has declared, Kalinga was “unconquerable”.

In his spree of empire building, he had never found any other people than the Oriyas “unconquerable” and has never used this epithet for any other region or people.

The history written by his courtiers has noted, Orissa’s resistance was so resolutely valorous and sacrifice of the Oriyas for their motherland was so matchlessly patriotic that Asoka’s wicked heart melted in repentance by seeing the ruin he had wrought through his invasion and he changed his creed and adopted Buddhism, (the religion in original of the Oriyas) in the battlefield itself and from Chandasoka he became Dharmasoka and dedicated his life to spread of Buddhism.

But, this, despite truth to a large extent, is far from the fact.

A wicked man like Asoka had no reason to repent on his victory, if at all he had vanquished Orissa.

His heart had never melted in pity seeing the plight of the vanquished as his bards had claimed.

Had it been so, all the Oriya civilians he had taken to arrest in sudden attacks before facing the Oriya army at Dhali Hills and exported to Magadh, should have been released with their dignity and honor after the war was over and all the riches he had looted en route before reaching Dhauli, should have been returned.

This had never happened. He had never even apologized to the people of Orissa for the offenses he committed against them.

So, even though it is true that he had attacked Orissa and had converted into Buddhism in the battlefield in Orissa, he had not defeated the people of Orissa and never in his heart had metamorphosed into a true Buddhist.

The sole purpose of his attack on Orissa was to desecrate the birthplace of Lord Buddha in Kapilavastu, the land of reddish soil spread below the Dhauli Hill on river Daya and to destroy the fountainhead of Buddhism, which was the strongest obstacle to the Magadhan empire building even since the days of Ajatasattu.

Therefore he had faced the massive resistance at Dhauli hill only.

In this battle against the people of Orissa, his army was completely overwhelmed and he had no other way than accepting Buddhism as his creed to escape the wrath of the people he had attcked.

It had taken decades for him to convince the Oriyas that he had really been loyal to Buddhism and then only he had dared to visit Orissa to pay prayers to Buddha at his birthplace Kapilavastu – later converted into Kapileswar when Vedic chauvinists occupying Orissa had converted Buddhist shrines into Hindu temples – and to commission stone inscriptions highlighting his concern for the people.

I have discussed this aspect in my book ‘Sri Jaya Devanks Baisi Pahacha’ (published in 2005 by Bharata Bharati, Cuttack) in course of focusing on the background of the love lyrics complied in Geeta Govinda.

Mother tongue being the sole unifying factor and hence the basis of collective strength of the people, what was the people’s language that had made them “unconquerable” and helped them conquer the great wicked Asoka to the extent of converting him into Buddhism, their own religion and had given their land this unique distinction?

Only specific researches into the Oriya language of the concerned period will bring out the missing chapters in history in this regard. Under the prevailing legal provisions, recognition of classical status of Oriya language will facilitate such research.

Proto-Charya-Oriya

The Charyagities by Chourashi Siddhacharyas present us a previous shape of modern Oriya language that linguists suggest to be Proto-Oriya.

But Pali was Proto-Charya-Oriya.

Gurudev Buddha had preached in Pali and Pali was the then Orissa’s mother tongue.

So, it is necessary to know how modern Oriya evolved from Pali.

In the post 2004 scenario, only a legal declaration of Oriya as a classical language can help us conducting this highly expensive and world encompassing research. Therefore, it is essential to obtain classical status for Oriya language.

And, therefore, it is most welcome that the BBFC has now expressed interest in campaign for this.

But I know, no campaign can be a real campaign unless the campaigners have the total commitment and adherence to the cause of their campaign.

Neither the BBFC nor the participants in its 15th April meeting have raised any voice at any point of time against annihilation of a great instance of international recognition of classicism of Oriya language caused by change of Orissa to Odisha and of Oriya to Odia. The harm this change causes to classicality of Oriya language is discussed in these pages.

Ignoring the Wrong Law is Essential

If the BBFC is serious about its proposed campaign, the campaign should begin with demands for legal restoration of the international spelling of the name of the State as Orissa and of its language as Oriya. It may look time-barred and unrealistic, specifically as the change has come through a constitutional amendment. But, Orissa’s lost classicality in this particular regard can be reclaimed by authors ignoring the wrong law that hampers the uniqueness of their language. Here in Orissa Matters, we have declared to ignore the wrong law, as to us our mother tongue is too precious to be rendered subservient to any set of law, even if that be an instrument created by the country’s constitution. We have been using Orissa and Oriya in these pages because these two English spellings of our motherland and language depict the archaical magnificence of our mother tongue; and because, no law can force anybody to change the spelling of his / her mother’s name as the stupids in power desire. Therefore, BBFC should work out how to reclaim the politically dropped two words – Orissa and Oriya – as the first step to claim classical status for Oriya language.

Otherwise, to us, its attempt would appear like a farce, that men of letters hankering after publicity often resort to.

The agents of the rich in power have already shrewdly changed India into a plutocracy.

A plutocratic government kills the character of the people. Hypocrisy becomes the software of society. It corrupts even the creative persons whereupon authors hanker after prize and publicity instead of staying committed to preservation and furtherance of their languages. In this light we would allow ourselves to interpret the BBFC endeavor if no step is taken to revive Orissa and Oriya, the two words that were the global gateway to classicality of Oriya language.

I have received a comment on my continuing opposition to change of the English spelling of my motherland and mother tongue from an esteemed reader Sri Deba Prasad Parija. I could have replied to him on the dashboard itself. But, as I feel that it would be better if the debate continues, I deem it proper to post my reply on the major area of my page. So, here it is.

Sri Parija has written:

So we should change our pronunciation as the foreigners pronounce? If not then what wrong to correct the mispronunciation. I am sorry to tell some time we try to show our knowledge. Why we bother how Britishers call us, we have got them out and now time to correct our names. You may accept or not but 99.999999…%Odia has approved it even before the Bill was passed. Bande Utkal Janani.

My reply is:

Dear Sri Parija,
Thanks for the time given to the article.

You have perhaps not gone into the articles linked to this article and therefore, wrongfully attributed Orissa or Oriya to pronunciation by foreigners.

From “Ordia” as in Purnachandra Bhashakosha to “Oriya” as developed by founding fathers of our resurrected State, our own pronunciation of D used in second and onward position in an Oriya word has evolved into the shape of this transliteration, when Oriya had attracted foreigners’ attention and our founding fathers – Kulabruddha Madhusudan Das et al – had the need to project Orissa before the foreign community.

Orissa and Oriya are the names in which our founding fathers had decided our motherland and mother tongue to be mentioned in English.

And, their decision was based on their pride in the archaic uniqueness of our language, that they had wanted the world to know.

The Kera-Oriya Naveen Patnaik, who, despite being in power for so many years, has not learned our language as yet, and his sycophants in the cabinet and the Assembly, and packs of habitual order carriers in bureaucracy and fellows in Parliament that do not know anything of the uniqueness of Oriya language have played this mischief against our mother tongue and heritage.

If, according to you, “99.999999…% of our people has approved” this mischief, it is necessary for history to take that so many people have been reduced to such pusillanimous condition within a decade of demoralizing misrule, that they – recognized from the times of the Epics to the British time as the bravest people in India – have lost their courage to go against the whimsical and capricious decisions of the Government.

But had the spelling change been ever subjected to plebiscite? Where from you got the statistics that 99.999999…% of our people have approved the spelling change “even before the Bill was passed”? Be honest. Be honest in contributing to living history, if you can.

In all my articles on this subject in these pages I have shown the distinction of D that forms the crux of this issue. For ready reference, I am placing this picture –

Mark the two shapes of the single Oriya alphabet.

The archaic magnificence of Oriya language lies in this alphabet. When the letter is used in the first position of a word the first shape is used as in DARA.

When the letter is used after the first alphabet in a word, its second shape with the dot underneath is used as in MADAKA.

To understand the distinction, mark the word DABADABA. Here the word has 2 uses of D. There is no dot under D, which is used at the beginning of the word. But there is a dot under D which is used as the third letter in the word.

The uniqueness of Oriya language lies in this. The single alphabet D appears in two forms: D in the first position of a word and D with dot underneath in subsequent positions. Therefore, the alphabet in second position has a dot underneath as in the name of our motherland and in the name of our mother tongue.

This deference in situational shape of the single alphabet D, had given birth to use of R in place of D in the second or any later position in a word, as our founding fathers had preferred to show the world our distinction.

The change that the Kera-Oriya Naveen Patnaik has brought out in English spelling of the name of our motherland and mother tongue is against the archaic magnificence and classical distinction of our language over and above being an offense against our founding fathers.

The concerned law is a bad law and needs rejection with utmost contempt by everybody to whom Oriya’s linguistic beauty and archaic magnificence are matters of pride.
Kind Regards,
Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Replacement of R by D in the English spelling of Orissa’s name and language by a law is a wrong that adversely affects its archaic uniqueness.

After consistent stress in these pages of ORISSA MATTERS on necessity of preservation of classicism of Oriya language, a section of Oriya authors and scholars have started speaking for recognition of Oriya as a classical language.

The Government of India has recognized Telugu as a classical language in 2008. But Linguistic Survey of India has recognized Oriya as a richer language than Telugu. To quote it, “The Oriya language can boast of a rich vocabulary in which respect neither Bengali nor Hindi nor Telugu can vie with it. The richness of the vocabulary is the index by which the vastness of a vernacular can be gauged” (Vol.IV).

“Oriya has preserved a great many archaic features in both grammar and pronunciation” has said famous linguist Prof. Suniti Kumar Chatterjee in I.H.Q. Vol.XXIII, 1947.p.337.

Replacement of R by D has ruined this “archaic feature”.

As Chatterjee has noted, Oriya is an ancient language of India that has “preserved a great many archaic features” and, as Linguistic Survey of India has determined, it is so vast in vocabulary that Telugu cannot vie with it.

If Telugu became a classical language in 2008, why Oriya is left behind?

This is because, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, whose mother tongue is not Oriya and who has no knowledge about the “high antiquity” quality of Oriya language, which is the cardinal condition for recognition of a language as classical, had by then started playing the mischief against this quality of the language.

Instead of demanding for recognition of Oriya language as a classical language of India, Naveen had made his followers in the Assembly adopt a Resolution on 28th August, 2008 to change the name of Orissa to Odisha oblivious of how adversely that was to affect the “high antiquity” quality of Oriya language. So, instead of Oriya language, Telugu earned the status of classical language.

Naveen, who has killed the soul of Orissa by forcing its people into displacement to handover their lands and living environment to the non-Oriya – even foreign – industrial houses, was in dire need of something to show the people that he is not anti-Oriya. The alteration of Orissa’s name was contrived to help him in this regard. On this mischievous measure metamorphosing into a law with supportive constitutional amendment, Naveen was so relaxed that official holiday was declared to celebrate it as a victory and the entire administrative machinery was misused to project him as the greatest epitome of Oriya nationalism by squandering away, on the occasion, the State exchequer in propaganda and fireworks.

It is a shame that the supporters of the “alteration” who feel “proud” over the change of the English spelling of Orissa and Oriya to Odisha and Odia, in the name of Oriya nationalism, are not ashamed of the very fact that their mother tongue has lost its primacy as the official language in Orissa in the administration of Naveen Patnaik, even though the State’s Official Language Act 1954 that had made use of Oriya language compulsory in official works, is 15 years senior to Official Language Act framed by the Union Government for India and their motherland is also the first amongst all the States of India to have been formed as a province on the basis of its language.

However, it is to be noted that some of my friends are of the opinion that the letter constituting the crux of my discussion has no two situational shapes; but the two shapes are of two different letters acting as two different phonemes.

The set of Oriya alphabets depicted by old Oriya dictionaries, given below, is capable of making the position clear.

The greatest ever encyclopedic lexicon of Oriya language, ‘Purnnachandra Ordia Bhashakosha’, in distinguishing the two different situational uses of the concerned letter says, it is “the 13th consonant and the third letter of the “Ta’ series (cerebral), corresponding to the‘d’ sound. When it occurs at the beginning of Oria words it is pronounced as in day and when at the end or middle of a word, it is pronounced as rd in hird”. We find ‘rd’ evolving into ‘r’ in writings of the leaders of Utkal Sammilani to whom we owe resurrection of our motherland that was deliberately and diplomatically divided into four separate limbs by the British because of its fear for the “disposition” of the inhabitants of this brave land, which, its area authorities were sure, “will always present formidable obstacles to suppression either by military or police” (Report of W. Forrester to Robert Ker, Dt. 9.9.1918).

The Law to change Orissa to Odisha and Oriya to Odia is a legal mischief to do away with this distinction and hence is a bad law that no Oriya, who loves the richness of his ancient vocabulary and respects the “high antiquity” quality of his beloved mother tongue, can ever obey.

For us, it would continue to be a matter of pride to disobey the Law that replaces R with D in international spelling of the names of our motherland and language: Orissa and Oriya.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

His party senior Biswa Bhusan Harichandan, who, from the BJP segment of the ruling coalition in Orissa, holds the portfolio of Law and heads the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Higher Education, has come out with a clarification that Minister Samir Dey might have been misled by the bureaucracy to approve scrapping of Oriya language from degree curriculum in government and non-government Colleges in the State.

The whole State of Orissa is in bitter agony over the government decision to do away with Oriya study in centers of excellence in higher education like the Ravenshaw College and other 14 government and 125 non-government Colleges. It is an inexcusable insult to the national pride of the Oriyas. Politicians, irrespective of party affiliations, have expressed shock to know of this mischief. Law Minister Bishwabhusan Harichandan of BJP has said, “The Higher education department cannot scrap Oriya from the curriculum without express approval of the State Cabinet”. Many a ministers of the state have decried this decision. BJD heavyweight Sangram Keshari Berma, who heads a high-membership association of teachers, has threatened to resort to a state-wide strike against the foul play, if the minister does not withdraw the nasty order. Orissa Gana Parisad and the left parties have come down heavily on the government alleging that the Chief Minister, who does not know Oriya, has provided an anti-Oriyas with the opportunity to play havoc with the people’s mother-tongue.

Had there been anybody other than a mindless man like Naveen Patnaik in power, a Bangali by birth like Samir Dey could never have dared to pass orders to do away with Oriya in Orissa’s higher education institutions. As admitted by the Law Minister, this decision has been taken behind back of the State cabinet.

The entire Opposition, openly and senior leaders of the ruling coalition, off the record, are pointing out their fingers at the Chief Minister, who does not know the mother tongue of Orissa, for this uncalled for assault on the national identity of the Oriyas. His aversion to Oriya language proved by his conspicuous negligence to the Official Language Act of Orissa, has encouraged Samir Dey to play his foul trick against the Oriyas. If he wants to escape responsibility, he must sack Samir Dey for having caused so much damage to the Oriya pride.

No Oriya can ever forget the mischievous conspiracy Bangalis had cooked up against Orissa using the advantage of their being in the close circle of the British bosses as their “native servants”. Is Samir’s action a new version of that conspiracy? The answer cannot be a “no” unless otherwise established by an open investigation. To facilitate this, the Lingua-Benga Minister needs to be sacked summarily. So also, S.Sanyal, the Secretary of Higher education department, another specimen of Bengali-tongue bureaucrat, who, as apprehended by Harichandan, might have initiated this nasty proposal, deserves oustal from his post. Continuing Sanyal in the department of Higher education, if he has initiated the proposal to scrap Oriya from eminent Oriya Colleges, would be a danger of higher potency to Orissa.

If Naveen fails to rise to the occasion, end of his government under people’s wrath would be most welcome.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

As the people of Orissa are utmost happy over recognition of the classicality of their mother tongue, a wrong person in the right place – Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik – under whose misrule Oriya language has been de facto reduced to a stale condition being deprived of its primacy in official use, has exceeded all limits of brazenness in claiming credit for the achievement, as the entire official machinery was used to celebrate the long overdue recognition in a style that was aimed to tell the people that, it is his government that has made the dream come true.

Union Minister Srikant Jena, who has injured Oriya mana by shamelessly acquiescing into an utterly inferior position in the Union ministry, has not stayed behind. He has claimed that the classical status “given” to Oriya language by the central government is the best gift of the Congress party to the people of Orissa.

Sadly, a handful of men of letters, taking advantage of anarchy spread in the literary horizon of Orissa, are seen cultivating approbations for their self-claimed contributions to achievement of the classical tag, though in reality, for collection and compilation of documents placed before the union cabinet in support of Orissa’s claim, they have discharged a paid duty. Even some of them have allegedly used officially procured data for projection thereof as their own researched collection! But none of these fellows have shown and cannot show, how had they reacted when Telugu bagged the classical status even though it was well on records that Oriya is a far superior language than that.

Let me begin with the most authentic recognition of Oriya’s superiority and proceed to say how it declined because of Orissa’s political and executive governments and men of letters – more eager to ingratiate themselves with the men in power for bagging desired positions and awards than staying sentinels of the Oriya language.

“The Oriya Language can boast of a rich vocabulary in which respect neither Bengali nor Hindi nor Telugu can vie with it”, the internationally acclaimed linguist Sir George Grier’son had to declare in Linguistic Survey of India (Vol.IV). We will come later to why he had to make this comparison; but let me first make it clear that, Orissa owes its origin to Oriya language.

Unique position of Orissa

Orissa is the mother of the concept of linguistic provinces in India. To quote Mahatma Gandhi, it had “raised the large question of redistribution (of population and landmass) on linguistic basis” (Young India, 18 February 1920). It was born out of political debris the British had made of it, on the basis and because of its children’s ardent love for their mother tongue.

The invader British was most afraid of the brave and proud people of Orissa. Orissa was the last land in India to have shrewdly been annexed by the British; but was the first land, where no sooner than being occupied, swords were raised to oust the British from the soil.

Admitting this historic reality, British historian G. Toynbee has said, “It was not long, however, before we had to encounter a storm which burst with so sudden fury as to threaten our expulsion” (A sketch of the History of Orissa).

The patriotic “disposition” of the people of Orissa was such that it was impossible for the British to defeat or overcome them “either by military or police” (Magistrate W. Forrester to Commissioner Robert Ker, on 9 September 1818).

Therefore, it is Orissa, where the invader British had to make a compromise with the people. Their leader Buxi Jagabandhu Bidyadhar Mohapatra was honored with dignity and the moral sovereignty of their king-emperor the Gajapati of Orissa was restored. But through this compromise, the British also had gained acceptability as a government.

The people of Orissa allowed themselves to be ruled by the British in lieu of restoration of the lost honor of their leader Buxi Jagabandhu and their moral Sovereign the Gajapati.

It was a sacrifice par excellence ever made by a brave race.

But the British, after gaining this acceptability as a government, resorted to blatant treachery against the people and divided Oriya speaking tracks and arbitrarily attached the separated parts to neighboring provinces of Bengal in the north, Madhya Pradesh in the west and Madras in the south in order to weaken the Oriyas, whose “disposition” it was afraid of (Magistrate W. Forrester to Commissioner Robert Ker, cited supra).

In the labyrinth of conspiracy

Thus the proud people of Orissa were reduced to linguistic minorities in their rival neighboring provinces in the labyrinth of conspiracy.

To push them into further disadvantage, the “native servants” of the British were being helped to misappropriate the landed properties of the Oriyas militia and it was soon seen that a few fellows that were earning their livelihood as pimps in Calcutta brothels became Zamidars in Orissa!

People of Orissa got ruined as native servants of the British – the Bengalis in particular – went on looting their properties.

“A regular system of oppression and peculation appears to exist throughout …… these people (the Bengali servants of the British) are considered the terror and the scourge of the district” (Revenue Administration in Orissa, notes of W. Trower, Collector of Cuttack, dated 23rd may, 1817).

The Bengalis, taking the advantage, not only went on looting the jewelry and landed properties of the people of Orissa, but also their intellectual properties like Sri Jaya Dev’s world famous lyrics compiled in Geeta Govinda and Proto-Oriya works of the Siddhacharyas of Orissa known as Bauddha Gana O Doha and dared even to claim that Oriya was not a separate language, but an offshoot of Bengali!

The words used for the Bengalis by Trower in Cuttack context were applicable to Madhyapadeshis and Telugus in whose hands the Oriya speaking tracks had fallen under the conspiracy.

Birth of the Oriya movement

Dinabandhu Pattanayak of Dharakot (Ganjam) was the first man to have raised voice against this mischief. He made a public appeal to peoples of Cuttack to come forward to fight for amalgamation of the Oriya speaking tracks in entirety as otherwise Oriya culture, sculptures and natural wealth cannot be saved from non-Oriyas (Utkala Dipika, 22 October 1870).

It eventually gave birth to Utkal Sammilani, the great Oriya Movement led by Kulagaurav Madhu Sudan Das, which not only forced to create Orissa as a separate province with the concentrated Oriya speaking areas, but also paved the path for formation of language-based States in India.

But, by then Congress being the national forum of negotiation with the British and Bengalis and the Telugu as well as Hindi speaking people having their sway in the Congress, there was a lot of resistance to creation of Orissa as a separate State. The Oriya Movement led by Utkal Sammilani was unique and unprecedented. Gandhiji had to say, “The fine race (of Oriyas) cannot possibly make the natural advance which is its due, if it is split up into four divisions for no sound reason” (Young India, 18 Feb. 1920).

By then, the British had already had a linguistic survey of India.

Making a study of the linguistic superiority claims of Bengali, Hindi and Telugu as against Oriya, Sir George Grier’son had made it unambiguously clear – as quoted supra – that, Oriya was far superior to all these three rivals. “The Oriya Language can boast of a rich vocabulary in which respect neither Bengali nor Hindi nor Telugu can vie with it” he had declared (Vol.IV, Linguistic Survey of India). With specific reference to Bengali, Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterjee had later to admit, “It may be said without travesty of linguistic truth that Oriya is the eldest of the three sisters (Oriya, Bengali and Assamees) (I.H.Q. Vol.XXIII, p. 337), in view of her “archaic” richness.

Birth of Orissa from the womb of Oriya

The “Oriya Movement” succeeded and Orissa, as the first linguistic province took birth from the womb of Oriya language on April 1, 1936.

We therefore celebrate Utkal Divas (birthday of Orissa) on April 1 every year.

Orissa Official language Act

On the first April after independence, i.e. on April 1, 1948, Orissa decided to make Oriya the official language of the State, with effect from June 1, 1948 (Orissa Assembly Debates, 1 April 1948, p.748). Accordingly, the Assembly enacted ‘The Orissa Official Language Act, 1954’.

Biju sabotaged Oriya language

Nabakrushna Chowdhury, whose government had brought the Act, was not tolerable to fellows like Biju Patnaik that were priding in being elite.

The administrative officers, in order to keep them as a separate distinguished class, ignored the Act and went on managing their files in English.

Chowdhury was to relinquish office due to their conspiracy.

The Official Language Act was relegated to insignificance and English reemerged as the language of administration.

Oriya language was rendered officially useless by Biju Patnaik when he became the Chief Minister. And he contrived a shrewd method to render it useless.

When the Act of 1954 had stipulated that Oriya was “to be used for all or any of the official purposes of the State of Orissa”, Biju Patnaik damaged this stipulation by amending the Act in 1963 providing for use of English “in addition to Oriya for transaction of business in Legislature of the State of Orissa”. This shrewd insertion subjected Orissa administration to predominance of English and ruined the utility of Oriya as a language.

Role of non-Oriya officers

The people of Orissa had saved their language from non-Oriyas through decades long movement. But non-Oriyas ruled the roost as Chief Secretaries till Biju Patnaik’s protege Nilamani Rautray was dismissed as Chief Minister by then Prime Minister Smt. Indira Gandhi.

In fact, from B. C. Mukherjee to B. Venkataraman, the first sixteen Chief Secretaries since adoption of the official language resolution in the Orissa Assembly were all non-Oriyas. Due to them, despite adoption of the resolution by Orissa Assembly to make Oriya the official language with effect from 1 June 1948, administration run in English and even English remained the language of interview for administrative posts. Oriya lost its utility as far as official work was concerned.

J.B.Patnaik’s noteworthy steps

The change came with the end of Biju Patnaik’s shadow rule that his sycophant Nilamani Rautray was running, when President’s rule was promulgated on 17 February 1980. A silent scheme cooked up in Indira Gandhi’s kitchen made it certain that J. B. Patnaik would be drafted to take over Orissa and S. M. Patnaik became the first Oriya by birth to head the executive government as Chief Secretary of the State.

So, by the time JB took over, an Oriya was ready as the Chief Secretary to help the mission of J.B.Patnaik to enforce the 1954 Act in making Oriya the official language in reality.

Specific and time-bound steps were taken to train the stenographers in Oriya shorthand and typing; an expert committee was appointed to build up a full-fledged English-Oriya bilingual dictionary of administrative and legal words. The Government took up with type-writer manufacturers for Oriya type machines. JB set the 1st April 1985 as the day from which use of Oriya as official language would be compulsory. An year ahead of the targeted day, as many as 2,846 Oriya type-writers were supplied to all offices with another 2,077 machines on the anvil. It was decided to enforce use of Oriya as the official language by strengthening the 1954 Act with necessary amendments.

Biju was blatantly against Oriya

But Biju Patnaik blatantly opposed the idea of making Oriya the official language. He was entirely in favor of English.

When the Official Language (Amendment) Act, 1985 was taken up in the Assembly, it was Biju Patnaik, who opposed the proposal. “We can progress further if we have international (English) language (as the official language), he said. He ridiculed the idea of making Oriya the official language and went on elaborating, “If you go to Andhra , you will find DHUD DHUD, if you go to Karnatak, you will find FUD FUD ! Nothing you will understand there. So many languages there in our country. This is not a country at all”.

And, this Biju Patnaik, on succeeding Hemanand Biswal of Congress on 5 March 1990 as Chief Minister, dismissed Oriya from official use with such contempt that the 2nd edition of the Administrative Dictionary, which was ready with more words, was abandoned.

The third term of JB

After JB’s return to power again in March 1995 the abandoned dictionary of administrative words was recompiled and published. Translation of various Acts and Rules into Oriya was taken up and official communications and file notes commenced in Oriya.

But this third term of JB’s chief-ministership was under confusing impact of utter opportunism and corruption and capitalistic anarchy that Manmohan Singh’s emergence in power politics had generated in the country under Prime Ministers P.V.Narasimha Rao, which successive PMs like Atal Bihari Vajapayee, H.D.Deve Gowda, I. K. Gujral and again Atal Bihari Vajpayee had patronized to.

JB had to make a lot of compromises to retain his government and had to relinquish his chair ahead of his term succumbing to internecine rivalry when the Congress high command was too demoralized to ensure for him the much needed discipline in his party to continue with authority.

This is why, the compulsoriness he could have given to use of Oriya as official language had escaped his prerogative.

Rot returned with Naveen Patnaik as CM

And, then, with a very insignificant intervening phase in hands of two short stayers in CM chair, the State fell in the hands of Naveen Patnaik whose only qualification for the post is sonhood of a father whom the people had refused to rely, but whose posthumous image building by his shrewd sycophants has kept the people too overwhelmed to discard the dire danger. Oriya language has lost its utility most severely since the day Naveen Patnaik became the CM.

Like his father as quoted supra, he is so contemptuous towards the Oriya language that despite 14 years in the highest political seat, he has not learned the language though non-Oriya IAS or IPS officers posted in Orissa learn and speak Oriya quite efficiently within a very short span of time, philologically so systematic is the language.

When, to the bad luck of Orissa, a man like him became the Chief Minister, apprehensive of embarrassment that my State will have to suffer because of his zero capability to understand and express in Oriya, I had made a Xerox copy of ‘ A Handbook of Uriya or Oriya Language’ authored by a British Civil Servant Mr. T. J. Maltby in 1874, and revised and republished by Government of Orissa in 1945 on the basis of copyright obtained from the daughter and heir of Mr. Maltby, which was helping the British and other non-Oriya Officers to learn the Oriya language for official use in Oriya speaking areas; and had given it to him through his Secretary. But my endeavor did not bear any fruit. Naveen Patnaik, whose mother tongue is not Oriya, continues to embarrass the people of Orissa by his clumsy utterances of Oriya words as yet, which he reads out from scripts typed either in Hindi or English.

In his regime, Oriya language has suffered irreparable damage and humiliation.

A Bengali colleague of Naveen Patnaik was the Higher Education Minister when directions were issued to jettison Oriya as a subject in degree course. When we exposed and vehemently opposed the anti-Oriya modus operandi under the caption “A Renewed Bengali Conspiracy: Thwart it. Thwart it. Thwart it” on 22 May 2005, and demanded that the Lingua-Benga Minister be sacked, holding Mr. Naveen Patnaik responsible for the rot, the order was, of course, nullified by the Chief Minister; but the national humiliation Oriya language suffered was not avenged. Naveen Patnaik continued to keep Higher Education in the hands of Samir De. We had reiterated on 30 May 2005, “Not enough, National humiliation must be avenged”.

Damage done to Orissa Sahitya Akademi

In the circumstances, in order to further hoodwink the people, to show them that he has his thinking for development of Oriya language, a few months after the official assault on Oriya by his colleague Samir De, a new hotchpotch styled as Odia Bhasa Pratisthana was floated. And, in this, he has destroyed the preeminence of Orissa Sahitya Akademi (Orissa Academy of Letters) in the matter of Oriya language.

Bitchy politics

Against this backdrop, three-days long official celebrations of classical status of Oriya language under orders of Naveen Patnaik when general election is knocking at the door, seems to be nothing but bitchy politics, contrived again to hoodwink the people in the name of their beloved mother tongue.

Famous linguist Dr. Debi Prasanna Pattanayak’s new book ‘Language and Cultural Diversity’ has made a hit with bibliophiles.

It was released on 17 September 2014 by the Chief Minister of Orissa, Naveen Patnaik, who lauded Dr. Pattanayak’s constant emphasis on initiation of education to children in their mother tongue as that only improves children’s self confidence and leads to internal educational efficiency.

Dr. Pattanayak, already decorated with Padmashree, has been recommended by the State Government for Padma Bhusan award this year.

Son of famous freedom fighter Madhu Sudan Pattanayak, he belongs by birth to Tigiria, the famous former Princely State where the scripture of what is now known as Odissi Dance – Abhinaya Darpana Prakash – as well as India’s one of the only two noted scriptures on warfare – Veera Sarvaswa – were authored. The  palm leaf manuscripts of both the scriptures are now in Visva Bharati University at Shantiniketan of West Bengal, along with hundreds of palm leaf manuscripts written by Tigiria’s people of literary excellence in the bygone princely days, which, Dr. Pattanayak had taken from the Tigiria Palace to enrich the famous Central University with its first library of ancient manuscripts.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Sad, the Orissa Assembly is adjourned again due to the Government’s adamancy to impose English over the primacy of Oriya language in the Legislative Assembly.

After creating the cause for unrelenting ruckus in the House, the Government has architected passage of several Bill without discussion, even though they were blatantly violative of the Orissa Official Language Act.

In this, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has given a culminating effect to the act of subterfuge his father Biju Patnaik had devised to render the mother tongue of Orissa officially useless. It was one of the reasons of mass upsurge against Biju that had forced him out of power in 1963. After 50 years of Biju’s anti-Oriya foul play, his son Naveen has given Oriya language a deadly blow by bringing in Bills only in English, not in Oriya, and getting them passed beneath the whipped up hubbub.

The people of Orissa are the creators of the era of linguistic States in India and Orissa was the first State to have made administration to run in the mother tongue of the people – Oriya.

While celebrating the first Utkal Divas after independence, on 1st April, 1948, the Orissa Assembly, awaiting adoption of the Constitution, had resolved that, the First Assembly to be created by the people must make Oriya the Official language by enacting a Law to that extent and accordingly, the first Assembly enacted ‘The Orissa Official Language Act, 1954’. This Act stipulated that Oriya was “to be used for all or any of the official purposes of the State of Orissa”.

But, the administrative officers, in order to keep them as a separate distinguished class, ignored this Act and went on managing their files in English.

When a fellow like Biju Patnaik grabbed the Chief Minister chair, he pampered and patronized whosoever was priding in being elite.

In his vested interest administration wherein non-Oriya officers and favor-seekers were dazzling as the Chief Minister’s inner associates, the Official Language Act, 1954 was relegated to insignificance and English reemerged as the language of administration; and thus, Oriya language was rendered officially useless by Biju Patnaik. He even got the Act amended to make Oriya language bereft of its primacy in administration.

When the British had made non-Oriya languages the official languages in Oriya speaking tracks, the people of Orissa had woke up against the design and forced the British to amalgamate all the Oriya speaking areas to a separate province where they can use their mother tongue in offices.

But Biju Patnaik, the most hypocrite virus post-independence politics had ever produced, sabotaged this primacy of Oriya language by inserting a provision in the Official Language (Amendment) Act, 1963 to the effect that, English shall be used “in addition to Oriya for transaction of business in Legislature of the State of Orissa”.

This shrewd insertion subjected Orissa administration to predominance of English and ruined the utility of Oriya as a language.

By creating the Bills only in English language now, Naveen Patnaik has given finality to the act of subterfuge designed against Oriya language 50 years ago by his father Biju Patnaik. In his latest action, the concept “in addition to” penned in the 1963 amendment has also been discarded. It is a shame that there are sycophants who support non-framing of Bills in Oriya.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

As every Oriya is to celebrate the best and the finest day of his collective life – the Utkal Divas – the day of resurrection of Motherland Orissa, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who has been offending the people of this splendid soil by lack of his oracy in Oriya, has lastly vandalized today the ever cherished and celebrated name of “Utkal Divas”.

His greetings to people published in form of an advertisement in Oriya newspapers, for which the State Exchequer is to cough up huge money, has made a mockery of the name of the day that our founding fathers had handed over to us for celebration for ever.

Not only he, but also his Information Minister, who is by birth a genuine Oriya, has used the same term “Orissa Divas” in his Utkal Divas Greetings. These being Government advertisements, it is clear that these fellows have used our exchequer to vandalize our day of celebration.

Earlier an offense has already been done against classicism of our language by changing the English spelling of the names of our motherland and mother tongue.

Our founding fathers had evolved the English spelling of these two names by using the English alphabet ‘R’ to distinguish the two different pronunciation of our 13th consonant. In our alphabet, this consonant has two pronunciations reduced to two shapes – one plain and the other with a dot underneath. The dot is provided for distinguishing the phonetical difference. The plain form of this alphabet is used at the beginning of the word that starts with it, but the same alphabet is presented with a dot underneath when it is used at the second or later place in a word.

We Oriyas understand the difference and use the two different forms of pronunciation marked by the dot under the second avatar of 13th consonant in tune with the phonetical necessity.

But how the non-Oriyas, particularly the English-speaking foreigners are to utter the said alphabet used in the second or third or any later position in a word without violating our peculiar pronunciation?

This question had engaged our founding fathers in deep cogitation for quite a long period and eventually the approximate correct phonetic presentation was evolved for the second or later placement of the particular consonant in a word with addition of ‘R’ to ‘D’ as in ORDIA. The ‘RD’ was reduced to R without compromising the phonetic peculiarity.

So, in honoring the archaic uniqueness of our language, our founding fathers had evolved the English spelling of the name of our motherland as Orissa and of our mother-tongue as Oriya.

When Naveen Patnaik, who has no oracy in Oriya, in order only to divert public attention from his misrule, indulged in the luxury of imitating Bengali or Tamil people in changing the names of their states, tried to thrive on deceit over Oriya nationalism, and his non-Oriya acolytes in administration with a hidden agenda to demolish the potency of classicality of phonetic uniqueness of Oriya, advised him to change the English spelling of the name of the State and its language, I had strongly objected to that in these pages justifying why the English spelling of Orissa should not be changed to Odisha and of Oriya to Odia.

You may read it here again:

The cabinet must not muss up Orissa

Many eminent men of letters had supported my argument, but none of them had come forward to protest publicly.

The awards or appointments available to them by pleasing the power that be, was clearly a deterrent to their speaking out against the official mischief.

I would give some more links for perusal of the late comers, such as:

Replacement of R with D is a wrong against Oriya Language

Orissa in peril: Government plays havoc with her heritage

Message of Utkal Divas: Oriyas must defeat the conspiracy against classicism of their language

Bitchy politics over classical status of Oriya language

However, over and above the links, study of the excerpt from Purnachandra Bhashakosha inserted below may help to understand the different shapes of the alphabet in question.

If you read it truly, you may know how by changing the English spelling of Orissa to Odisha and Oriya to Odia, the sophomoric politicians in power have perpetrated an irreparable damage to the classicality of our language.

Fortunately for us, the contributions of our scholars from Gopal Chandra Praharaj to Debi Prasanna Pattanayak, have not gone barren and the nation of modern India has recognized Oriya as a classical language.

But then, the chief minister has not changed.

To suit his nefarious design for political gain by generating a false nationalism over change of the English spelling of the name and language of the State, now the famous day in our collective life – Utkal Divas – has been changed to Odisha Divas in the advertised message of Naveen Patnaik and his information minister.

Patnaik had shamelessly tried to claim credit for national recognition of Oriya as a classical language, even though his government had no role in it. It was a nefarious political stunt. In reality, he has no real relationship with Oriya language. He has no allegiance to Oriya language. He has no mind to protect the utility of Oriya language. He has committed heinous offenses against Oriya language by doing away with its official use inasmuch as his government has contravened the Orissa Official language Act in every sphere of administration.

The classical status given to Oriya has been challenged in the Chennai High Court through a PIL. But Patnaik has not yet prepared his government to face the challenge. Even the scholars whose contributions have fetched the classical status for our mother tongue have not been consulted so far on how to defeat the PIL in Chennai High Court and neither the Chennai High Court has been approached to drop the unnecessary litigation over our language nor the Supreme Court of India has been moved to quash the PIL before the Chennai High Court.

He has no discernible allegiance even to our State. Hundreds of our villages have been threatened with claim of West Bengal on one side and Andhra on the other side. Patnaik has not taken any tangible step so far to save our boarder.

Against this backdrop, his attempt to eliminate “Utkal Divas” by his so-called greetings on “Orissa Divas” speaks volumes of his mischief against uniqueness of Orissa.

But, sycophancy has so crippled the collective conscience of our people, that, this mischief is going unnoticed.

Sad and shameful.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

In whole of India, Orissa has a very unique place in history as not only the land of Kalinga war, but also as the land where British had not dared to set their ugly feet till the rest of the sub-continent had come to their control. The last soil to have been annexed to British India through treachery, Orissa was the first to have raised her sword to oust the British from her soil. In acknowledging this, he British historian G. Toynbee has said in his book A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF ORISSA , t“It was not long, however, before we had to encounter a storm which burst with so sudden fury as to threaten our expulsion, if not from the whole of Orissa, at least from the territory of Khurda”.

This heroic land, however, due to conspiracies of non-Oriya neighbors, had to succumb to British subjugation. The matter is elaborately discussed in orissamatters.com. Yet, for ready reference it may be recalled that, afraid of Oriya “disposition” (Magistrate W. Forrester to Commissioner Robert Ker on 9 September 1818) the British had divided the Oriya speaking tracks to four parts and merged the divided parts with Bengali, Hindi and Telugu speaking provinces to demoralize the Oriyas by reducing them to linguistic minorities in those rival areas. Exploiting this situations, some low-breed fellows managing their livelihood by working as pimps in red-light districts in those neighboring states had arbitrarily taken over Oriya lands and emerged first generation Zamidars. Those non-Oriya native servants and allies of the British were so savagely looting Orissa the thenBritish Collector of Cuttack Mr. W. Trower had described them as “scourge” in his report dated 23 May 1817(Revenue Administration in Orissa).

When people of Orissa raised a movement for amalgamation of all the Oriya speaking tracks so that they can collectively obstruct the loot of their land and assets by the non-Oriya servants and helpers of the British, the Bengalis started vomiting mad and maddening avowals that is a part of their own and hence Oriya speaking tracks annexed to their province were their own. Hindi and Telugu speaking provinces followed suit.

This claim of non-Oriyas had been taken up in Linguistic Survey of India the finding of which was given the words by G.A.Grierson. “The Oriya language can boast of a rich vocabulary in which respect neither the Bengali nor Hindi nor Telugu can vie with it”, it declared. The Bengalis got a great slap when their jewel linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterjee said, “It may be said without travesty of linguistic truth” that Oriya is much senior to Bengali and is Bengali’s elder sister”.

So, in language issue, the Bengalis know where they stand. Yet, they have been trying to inject their nuisance in villages of Orissa near to their provincial boarder. The language issue has remained the sensitive issue between the two linguistic rivals.

What was the necessity of telling this? This is because, the State Bank of India, running its LCPC Branch in Kolkata, has played a new mischief of forcing Bengali language on Oriya speaking customers of SBI in Orissa under guise of a RBI guidelines.

This is criminally offending to the people of Orissa. I would like the SBI and RBI national authorities to explain their positions to people of Orissa and beg unconditional apology publicly for the mischief the LCPC branch of SBI, Kolkata has played. Here below is the corpus delicti:

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The question that hunts Orissa at the moment is: Who has sabotaged Oriya as official language of Orissa. My answer is:None but Biju Patnaik has sabotaged official use of Oriya Language.

In my column SINGHAVALOKANA in daily Sambad,  I had discussed the issue on March 14, 1996. It is available in my book of the same caption at pp. 211-217 for anyone of the blind supporters of Biju to revisit and react, if they dare.

Biju was a hypocrite and a political mafia who had created a gang of sycophants and BHATAs (bards) amongst politicians and journalists whose principal work was to project him as the personification of Oriya nationalism and thereby trap the gullible people to vote for him. But his Oriya nationalism was such a filthy junk that even today that is making grimace at us when we see that he had not taught even a single alphabet of Oriya to his children, as we watch his son Naveen Patnaik.

However, for ready reference for friends who have been wondering who is responsible for abandonment of Oriya as official language of Orissa, I deem it my duty to render in English the crux of my observation in Oriya around two decades ago. When Biju sycophants are ruling the roost, I do not know if it would be seen that the present Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is only following his father’s footprints in offending Oriya language. Yet, the people have a right to know. Hence it is here:

Biju had Sabotaged Oriya

Naveen’s father Biju Patnaik had sabotaged the Orissa Official Languages Act by inserting a provision that in the Assembly, English would be official language along with Oriya.

The Official Language Act, 1954 had stipulated that Oriya was “to be used for all or any of the official purposes of the State of Orissa”, but Biju Patnaik damaged this stipulation by amending the Act in 1963 providing for use of English “in addition to Oriya for transaction of business in Legislature of the State of Orissa”. This shrewd insertion subjected Orissa administration to predominance of English and ruined the utility of Oriya as a language.

Even when, in 1985, the then Chief Minister J. B. Patnaik fixed April 1, 1985 to be the day from which use of Oriya in all official work would be “compulsory”, and it was decided to enforce use of Oriya as the only official language by strengthening the 1954 Act with necessary amendments, and accordingly the Official Language (Amendment) Act, 1985 was taken up in the Assembly, it was Biju Patnaik, who opposed the proposal and refused to support the amendment. “We can progress further if we have international (English) language” (as the official language), he had said. He had ridiculed the idea of making Oriya the official language and had gone on elaborating, “If you go to Andhra, you will find DHUD DHUD, if you go to Karnatak, you will find FUD FUD ! Nothing you will understand there. So many languages there in our country. This is not a country at all”.

Biju was so very bitterly averse to Oriya that the PRASASANIKA SHABDAKOSHA which was ready to be published by the Law department of Orissa was thrown into the dusts on the racks of the department the moment he had taken over the chief minister’s chair, where it was kept buried from May 7, 1991 to March 16, 1995.

When J. B. Pattnaik led the people to end Biju Patnaik’s misrule and took oath again as the new Chief Minister, the Secretary of Law ordered, “Now it may be published immediately”.

But the concerned Deputy Secretary’s note on which the Law secretary passed the above order is mot speaking.

At page 126 of the concerned file the Deputy Secretary notes,

“By the time the chairman of the Shabdakosha Committee Prof. Khageswar Mohapatra submitted his report on completion of the work, the Government has changed. Language Policy of the new Government (of Biju Patnaik) was not only not clear, but also it was averse to use of Oriya language as Official Language. The then law minister (who was to carry Biju babu’s instructions) gave such orders in the file, the evil effect of which forced the Orissa Official Language Dictionary had to stay abandoned for so many years in the cold storage of official junks and as the new government has been formed by J.B.Patnaik, steps should be taken to publish the same”.

After Naveen Patnaik emerged as the Chief Minister, the said dictionary has been allowed to be misappropriated by a lady who has privately published it and charging heavy price to whosoever wants a copy thereof. Nothing else could have been done when compradors rule.

Sastriya Status threatened by Nveen’s apathy

World famous linguist Dr. Devi Prasanna Pattanayak, trade-unionist Ramachandra Khuntia – these two names I am citing, because by profession they are poles apart – have established the status of Oriya as a classical language of India where the status is not yet awarded to Bengali, Hindi and other languages that were, in the British time, trying to superimpose themselves on Oriya.

But this status is now threatened. Naveen babu has not addressed himself to this glorious achievement. To claim credit for it, he had engaged the entire administration and State funded celebrations were held after recognition of Oriya’s Sastriya status. But, when a case has been instituted in Madras High Court challenging this status, the State Government has not countered the case as yet as per sources in administration.

He neither says Oriya, nor writes in Oriya nor rules in Oriya. Yet he is in power; because, under his irresponsible administration, Orissa is over-saturated with mindless but self-centric sycophants in politics and public offices, and in Journalism.

To save Oriya language, we are to struggle hard.

And, we shall have to struggle, because, Orissa, our Mother is perishing.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

If documents can say how Orissa is being administered, this document would show how mad has become administration under Naveen Patnaik.

Orissa Assembly’s Standing Committee on Higher Education discussed with departmental Secretary Sri G. Dhal and his team officials on 23.02.2015 on how to improve higher education in Orissa. The Committee resolved that for betterment of the scenario, “English language should be mandatory in College” (Point No.7) and wanted implementation thereof. In elaborating the point to Government, the Assembly wrote at item No.11, “English should be made the medium of teaching in junior and degree colleges. University authorities be asked to print the text books in English language”.

It is a mindless recommendation of the committee comprising MLAs namely Tara Prasad Bahinipati (Chairman of the Committee), Sashi Bhusan Behera, Bibhuti Bhusan Harichandan, Anubhav Pattnaik, Surendra sethi and Basanti Mallick. None of these members is a linguist and/or a known educationist. When they resolved to make English language “mandatory in college” they should have summoned language experts and educationists to the committee to take their considered views on what would be the impact of making English the mandatory medium of teaching in colleges. If the MLAs who do not possess didactic excellence or acclaimed expertise in language study, could not visualize if English becomes the mandated medium of instruction, what would happen to Oriya, what was the sabjanata IAS officer that represented the Higher Education department as its Secretary with his pack of officers doing? Why did he not assist the Assembly with the necessary advice that impact study of the promulgation of English as the only medium of teaching in colleges should be taken up before adding Assembly insignia to the proposal?

However, this mindless recommendation of the Standing Committee is not yet put before the Government and the Cabinet has not been made aware of this proposal, even though the matter breaths disastrous consequences. But the Secretary seems to have implemented it. Otherwise, the order posted above could not have been issued.

The desk officer who has issued the order is a Bengali namely S.K.Ghosh.  He is the Deputy Secretary by way of promotion from the rank of a clerk in the secretariat. He should have raised the issue of impact study of making English the only medium of teaching in the Colleges. He should have placed before the departmental Secretary that,  as very serious dislocations would be created in teaching if the mindless proposal of the Standing Committee is implemented, collective wisdom of the State Cabinet should be invoked.

When required to report on “action taken” on the Committee’s recommendations, the Secretary could have told the Committee that expert opinion was being taken or language impact study was being conducted or the Cabinet was being apprised of the recommendation or the Cabinet was considering on it, for example. But the fertile IAS/OAS brains in the Higher Education department, without Government (The Cabinet) approval of the Standing Committee recommendation, have implemented it as suggested by issue of instructions to all the Principals to report how far they have implemented the order.

The “Action taken note” the Higher Education Secretary has placed before the Standing Committee on 17.6.2015 at 3 PM shows that all the Principals have been “requested to furnish action taken report” as per the office order posted supra that mandates, “English should be made the medium of teaching in junior and degree colleges. University authorities to print the text books in English language”.

This means, Oriya text books shall be printed in English and Oriya language shall be taught in English. What nonsense!

Naveen Patnaik has been reading his Oriya addresses through Hindi or English alphabets typed in his PRO office for all these years. So, perhaps, the fertile brains in Higher Education department are sure, Oriya can be taught in English language with the text books in English.

This nefarious design must be quashed.

A decade ago, when Naveen Patnaik Government had conspired to eliminate Oriya as a subject in higher education, we had exposed and foiled that mischief. Now the same conspiracy having returned more menacingly, I am giving links to some of my discussions in ORISSA MATTERS in those days to say that this conspiracy is culmination of a decade long hidden agenda. Peruse these links, and wake up. We are to save our mother tongue from this mad government.

A renewed Bengali conspiracy: Thwart it. Thwart it. Thwart it.

Orissa Govt. plays its nastiest tricks against the Oriyas

The Lingua-Benga Minister be shacked

Lingua-Benga design defeated: Oriya nation wins

Not enough, National humiliation must be avenged

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The historic fast unto death in demanding use of Oriya as official language as per the original Official Language Act 1954 has reached the third day. Poet Gajanan Mishra is a senior citizen, who, as per his declaration, is on fast-unto-death since July 1. Poet Sanjib Parida of Dhenkanal and poetess Madhumita Samal of Bhubaneswar have joined him since the first day of the fast and ORISSA MATTERS chief Subhas Chandra Pattanayak has observed solidarity fast on the second day, i.e. July 2.

Oriya Bhasa Surksha Samiti is organizing the language movement.

On the third day, Sri Krushna Chandra Jagaddev, President of Pujya Puja Samsad, has joined Gajanan babu in Fast unto death when Dr. Bijay Prusti, Dr. Kulamani Nayak,Khageswar Bal, Aparna Nayak, Priyanath Acharya, Santos Pands and former government Chief Whip Ajaya Jena have begun their solidarity fast. The list of Oriya poets and authors and Oriya nationalists who are eager to join the fast for the mother tongue is flowing in from all parts of Orissa.

By the second day, the venue as been respectfully visited by famous Linguist Dr. Devi Prasanna Pattanayak, poet Ramakant Rath, poet Jagannath Prasad Das, poet Amiya Pandab, poet Umakant Raut, Dr. Shubhashree Lenka, Secretary of Orissa Sahitya Academy Ashwini Kumar Mishra, Advisor of the Oriya wing of Central Sahitya Academy Gourhari Das, Member of Central Sahitya Academy Bonoj Tripathy, Working President of Sachivalay Lekhaks Sangha Rasanand Sahu, Its Secretary Kamal Kumar Mohanty, Bhuban Mohan Mohanty, eminent social activist Rituparna Mohanty, political heavyweight Niranjan Patnaik, Ama Odisha Chief Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, CPI (M) leaders Janarddan Pati, Ali Kishore Patnaik, Santosh Das, AAP convener Dhanadakant Mishra, Samajvadi Party State President Rabi Behera, former MLA and All India People’s Forum State Convener Radhakant Sethi, Kalinga Sena Chief Hemanta Rath, Dr. Karttikeswar Patra, Ajay Jena, Arya Kumar Jnanendra, freedom fighter Bhavani Charan Pattanaik, Gandhian Padma Charan Nayak, former minister Panchanan Kanungo, former central Minister Braja Kishore Tripathy, BJD MP Baishnav Charan Parida, Abhay Samantray, Prof. Biswaranjan, Prof. Natabar Satpathy, Prof. Pabak Kanungo, Yantrana Parikshit, Kabita Parida, Social activist Devendra Kumar Das, Eminent Journalist Barendra Krushna Dhal, Pradyumna Satpathy, Tusarkant Satpathy, Pradosh Patnaik, Prasanta Patnaik, Kedar Mishra and many others, who have also pronounced their all out support to the cause espoused by Sri Gajanan Mishra.

When on the first day, Sambad Editor Soumyaranjan Patnaik, Subartta Editor Pradyumna Satpathy, ORISSA MATTERS chief Subhas Chandra Pattanayak, Prof. Biswaranjan, Rabi Behera and others pointed out what unfathomable harm has been done to Orissa by the State Government’s distance from the language of the people, and called upon Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to take immediate tuition in Oriya language to speak in Oriya and to understand Oriya so that he can evaluate his own administration by interacting with the people of Orissa, while stressing on compulsory use of Oriya in all spheres of administration, on the second day, Sri Barendra Krushna Dhal, Janarddan Pati, Santosh Das, Ali Kishore Patnaik, Dhanadakant Misgra, Radhakant Sethy, echoed the same feeling of the people of Orissa.

All the speakers on both the days supported the Samiti agenda for transaction of all official works in Oriya language including writing of all litigation related matters including police reports, reports of doctors asked by police or court to examine an accused or victim of crimes, all communication from Tahsils on people’s landed properties, from Blocks on welfare programs, from MPs and MLAs on their local area development funds. The Samiti’s other demands include appointment of Oriya language teachers immediately in every educational institutes, creation of official websites in Oriya, development of easily useable Oriya software for every net user to help people know of their government, making Oriya the only medium of tests for employment in Orissa, reservation of at least 75% posts in all IT companies and industries for candidates from Orissa and action against the non-Oriya officer who in a shrewd and unauthorized way has asked colleges and universities to make English the mandatory medium of education.

Your Rule is Illegal, dear CM

Dear Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, the Constitution of India has stipulated under Article 345 that English language shall continue to be used for those official purposes within the State for which it was being used immediately before the commencement of this Constitution until the Legislature of the State frames its own Official Language Act.

Immediately after independence, in the very first Assembly specially conveyed for celebration of the First Utkal Divas after independence, it was unanimously resolved by our founding fathers that when a new Government would be formed on basis of the Constitution when India would become a Republic, the same Legislative Assembly must enact without delay the Official Language Act to make Oriya the mandatory medium of administration.

And, as per this inviolable direction of the founding fathers on April 1, 1948, after the new Assembly was elected in the new Republic, “The Official Language Act” was created and enforced in 1954, wherein it was stipulated that Oriya is “to be used for all or any of the official purposes of the State of Orissa”.

Your father, Mr. Naveen Patnaik, sabotaged this Act by amending it in 1963 to the effect that English would be used “in addition to Oriya” as official language in matters of the Assembly.

Administration being answerable to Assembly, the amendment helped the non-Oriya mandarins and Oriya officers eager to gain benefits by ingratiating with your father, to replace Oriya with English, the mischief from which, people of Orissa have not yet been able to extricate themselves.

In your regime, the situations has become so unmanageable for the children of the soil, when its natural resources are being grabbed by non-Oriyas, and everywhere the officials and politicians basking under your powers have emerged as scourges beyond control. Please understand the predicaments of the people.

What the Constitution says

It seems, you do not understand the Law and therefore you are making mockery of the word ‘Law’ by always saying, “law shall take its own course”. Look at Article 210 (2) that says, if any State fails to enact its Official Language Act, after 15 years of promulgation of the Constitution, English shall be automatically discarded from use in offices. Read the provision. It is written in so simple language that a kid can understand it. I hope, you shall understand. It says, “(2) unless the Legislature of the State by law otherwise provides, this article shall, after the expiration of a period of fifteen years from the commencement of this Constitution, have effect as if the words “or in English” were omitted therefrom”

Please understand that, had Orissa not even enacted the Act of 1954, on expiration of 15 years from January 26, 1950, English would have been quashed as a language to be used in administration. So, by ruling the State in English, you have been running Orissa in an absolutely illegal manner.

Amend yourself. Stop preening and straight come to the place where the best of beloved children of this soil, have been observing fast to atone the sin of making you the CM to the total detriment of their beloved language; discard your ego of elitism and for the first time in your life, if you so want, interact with the people that are ready to sacrifice their lives for their mother tongue. Salute them for their patriotism, their nationalism, their love for their brethren disadvantaged by your non-Oriya rule. AND DECLARE ORIYA AS THE ONLY LANGUAGE OF ADMINISTRATION OF ORISSA.

Mark these pictures, because, if you have any difficulty in understanding their  language or voices, the pictures would silently depict of the pain of their hearts, in as simply way as you can understand.

These are the people whom you have put in slow-starvation by devising the method of one-rupeean rice, They do not know English. When your police entangles them in false cases, that do not know what the police papers say.  When they get any communication from Tahsil or Block offices, they fail to understand what is written, They fail to read the English notifications, if any, on MP or MLA local area development funds, they fail to tell their grievances to officialdom that runns in English, If they get a summon from a court, they fail to understand the same. They are forced to engage lawyers who file and fight their cases in English and when the judgements after wastage of a lot of times emanate, that being in English, they fail to understand what the court says and again run into the trap of lawyers without knowing what else to do. They want all the legal matters be noted in their mother tongue Oriya, so that, they can know at least what has become their fate.

Therefore, dear Chief Minister, amidst many other reasons, they had come to the venue of the fast in hundreds of numbers. Most of them had come under the able leadership of Mr. Hemanta Kumar Rath, President of Kalinga Sena, Mark the picture below-

Mark what they have displayed. Above their organizational name, they have very proudly written an iconic statement  of Asoka the wicked, that reads, “Kalingah Sahasikkah”, which means, the children of Kalinga (Orissa) are by birth valorous. Dear Chief Minister, British, after grabbing Orissa through cheating and treachery, had divided Orissa and merged the divided parts in neighboring provinces to reduce our forefathers to minority in rival terrains. When Orissa raised the first sword against the British rule in India, in words of British historian G, Tounbee, it had “burst with so sudden fury ” as to threaten “expulsion” of the British(G. Toynbee, A sketch of the history of Orissa, O.H.R.J. Vol. 1&2), the senior British magistrate in charge of law and order Mr. W. Forrester had reported to Commissioner Robert Ker on 9. 9. 1818, that it would be better for the British to come to a compromise with the militia leaders of Orissa, particularly Buxi Jagabandhu, because, “the nature of the country and the DISPOSITION of the inhabitants will always present a formidable obstacle to the suppression of these disturbances either by military or police”. The Kalinga Sena by displaying Asoka’s confession “Kalingah Sahasikah” (People of Orissa are valorous by birth), is making us reminded of our national “disposition” which the British was so very afraid of. Understand that this “disposition” is yet in tact and well reflected in the fast onto death Sri Gajanan Mishra and his supporters have resorted to.

I will post here some pictures of the fasting area so that you can know that the poor people forced to slow-starvation by your administration run by non-Oriyas in English language are not the only ones that have expressed solidarity with Gajanan babu, but highly educated Oriyas whom you can never vie with in knowledge and education, are also with the fasting friends. They include Dr. Devi Prasanna Pattanayak, one of the world’s towering linguists, Bhavani Patnaik, one of your father’s closest friends, and Adhyapak Biswaranjan and Pradyumna Satpathy, the top two orators, and scores of top intellectuals of Orissa. You may see in these pictures, Barendra Krushna Dhal, Prasanta Patnaik, Gourahari Das, Kedar Mishra – men of letters and journalists of eminence. You may see here Sri Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, the ablest editor of Orissa, who, through Ama Odisha and Sambad Sahitya Ghar has given birth to a new era of literature activism. You will see here many political heavyweights expressing their solidarity. You may see here selfless social activists like Padma Charan Nayak, Tusarkant Satpathy. You may see Sankar Parida and his tireless troop of friends who have given Gajanan Babu’s endeavor the shape of a movement. And, the movement has become so speaking that even your party MP Baishnav Parida has come to the venue of fasting and stripped you layer by layer for your inability to understand why Oriya should be the only official language in Orissa. Look at the pictures:

These pictures are just a few samples of Orissa standing one with Sri Gajanan Mishra to make Oriya the official language of Orissa, which despite the law of 1954, your father and you have not allowed to be.

Never forget that the lives of Gajanan Mishra and his friends in fast are more precious than your regime.

Save his and his friends by accepting their demands.

If you don’t bother about people of Orissa, wake up Mr.Naveen Patnaik in your own interest. This time you are facing a totally different class of foes and they are Orissa’s language lovers. Wake up from the ring of non-Oriyas, act like an Oriya with love for the mother tongue, do not endanger Orissa any further and, it may be so, if you wake up to this call, you may no more require to depend on sophomoric sycophants and anti-Oriya non-Oriyas to stay in power.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

It seems more and more language lovers are eager to observe fasting in solidarity with the Bhasa Sangram Samiti that is spearheading the movement well defined by Sri Gajanan Mishra’s fast onto death for ensuring entitlement of the people of Orissa to have their administration in their mother tongue Oriya.

Students from Colleges and Universities made the third day of the language movement more resounding by expressing their solidarity with Sri Gajanan Mishra on fast onto death at the venue of the hunger strike on Mahatma Gandhi Marg, Bhubaneswar.

On the third day, Sri Krushna Chandra Jagaddev, President of Pujyapuja Sansad has joined Sri Mishra in fast onto death when Dr. Bijay Prusti, Dr. Kulamani Nayak, former Government Chief Whip Sri Ajay Jena, Aparna Nayak, Khageswar Bal, Pabitra Mohan Samal, Priyanath Acharya have observed solidarity fasting.

Today’s participants, with Sankar Parida in chair, were addressed by eminent men of letters such as Dr. Devi Prasanna Pattanayak, Bibhuti Pattanayak, Pradyumna Satpathy, Prof. Natabar Satpathy, Prof. Dr. Ramesh Behera, Dr. Subrat Prusti, Leader of Orissa secondary School teachers Prakash Mohanty, eminent Congress leader Niranjan Patnaik, CPI leader Narayan Reddy, former Minister Panchanan Kanungo, Gandhian Padma Charan Nayak, Sharat Chandra Bhadra, Arya kumar Jnanendra, Kshirod Prasad Singhdeo, Nishan Editor Lenin, social activist Sudarsan Das, Columnist Tusarkant, Amitav Khilar, Manoj Jena, Sujata Sahani, Manasmita Nayak, Shantanu Kumar Suna, Dr. Chittaranjan Behera were amongst a galaxy of speakers who supported the movement and called upon the government of Orissa to immediately freedom of administration from non-Oriya language. They reminded the Government of its unavoidable responsibility to act according to Orissa Official Language Act, 1954.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

RTI activists of Orissa, who have been playing fabulous role in making people conscious about how badly the State is running, were not the only participants in the FAST ONTO DEATH which Sri Gajanan Mishra has been carrying out for the fourth consecutive day demanding use of Oriya as medium of governance in Orissa, but also politicians of eminence belonging to almost all parties except the ruling BJD have expressed their solidarity with the Bhasa Suraksha Samiti and pledged their support to the cause to make it so resounding that the State Government would hate itself for the abominable lack of concern it has shown to the mother tongue of the people and to the precious life of Sri Mishra.

The language lovers in increasing numbers are joining hunger strike everyday in solidarity with Sri Mishra, who, by his will force and on the strength of dedication for the people of Orissa, has maintained his physical stamina so far, despite continuous fasting for four days. Chhabi Mahali, Bharadwaja Mishra, Durga Das, Tuni Swain, Prativa Das, Priti Nayak, Trinath Maharana were in solidarity fast.

Here bellow is the Samiti’s Press release that depicts the day.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Governance in Oriya language is birthright of the people of Orissa. But Orissa is under non-Oriya rule. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has ignored the right of the people to be governed in their mother tongue for the last sixteen years, when, through manipulations he has kept the State under his grip. His party is notoriously named after his father Biju Patnaik and all the government programs are intentionally named after Biju, pushing the poor, illiterate people to confusion where official welfare programs are mistaken by the gullible voters as BJD programs, ensuring him victory in elections without any merit.

He considers the people of Orissa as spineless idiots who have tolerated the blatant violation of Orissa Official Language Act 1954 that has mandated that “Oriya shall be the language to be used for all or any of the official purposes of the State of Orissa”.

Despite this offense against Orissa, he can rule as long as his sycophants are able to hijack elections, he feels.
He makes farce of Oriyas by forcing Oriya officers and ministers to stand like Ajnyabakas (Factotums) before his non-Oriya private secretary who has emerged the super chief minister in the eyes of all who have any function in the government.

He does not want Oriya to be a must for governance in Orissa as he himself does not know Oriya.

His father Biju Patnaik was the nastiest ever hypocrite to have ruled over Orissa. His sycophants shamelessly glorify him as an Oriya nationalist ignoring the fact that he was such a man who had not taught a single Oriya alphabet to his son Naveen. It is a national shame for the State that Naveen has not shown any ability to learn Oriya even. He does not understand intricacies of administration and lest his weakness be caught, he has been depending on bureaucratic notes in English.

Implementation of Orissa Official Language Act would throw him out of power within no time. So he and his sycophants in the cabinet never want Oriya to be the language of governance in Orissa.

But not all the people of Orissa are to be befooled. Gajanan Mishra of Titilagarh, Bolangir, certainly not.

He is a lawyer by profession. Since decades, he has been doing his practice in Oriya language. He is drafting his cases in Oriya, conducting his cases in Oriya, prevailing upon the courts to take depositions in Oriya, to record the depositions in Oriya, to hear the arguments in Oriya and to deliver the verdicts in Oriya. His sincerity and dedication to the people’s mother tongue had made a District Judge to instruct all lower Courts to conduct adjudication in Oriya.

This Gajanan Mishra, who is a poet also, has been continuously pressing for governance of the whole of Orissa in Oriya as per the Act of 1954. As all his prayers fell in the deaf ears of Naveen Patnaik, he staged a fasting protest at Bhubaneswar and gave a three months time to the Government for implementation of the Act, failing which he would resort to fast onto death in support of his demand.

And, accordingly, he sat in fast onto death on July 1, 2015. Ms. Madhumita Samal and Sanjib Parida also sat on fast on that day.

Relay fast commenced on the 2nd day with your Representative-in-Chief Subhas Chandra Pattanayak sitting in the strike. This encouraged continuous relay fasting by many luminaries from different walks of life and by 8th July, the whole State was woke up against non-Oriya rule over Orissa, with poets coming from all over the State offering their solidarity though inspiring recitation of their poetries in praise of the mother tongue.

Various organizations working for Oriya language that had decided to support Sri Gajanan Mishra in his fast onto death had amalgamated into a common platform called Oriya Bhasa Sangram Samiti (hereinafter called ‘Sangram Samiti) with poet Sankara Parida as its convener. Under his able stewardship, leaders of all political parties except the ruling BJD were frequenting the strike spot and expressing their solidarity with Sri Mishra.

Situation was going out of control for the Government which was in a deep quagmire over blatant mismanagement of Jagannatha’s Navakalevar.

In such circumstances, a team of ministers, in the name of the Chief Minister, proposed to implement Mishra’s demand and begged for breathing time to first finish the Navakalevar event and then to finalize the date for implementation of the Act of 1954 in a Joint Action Committee (JAC) to be notified on obtaining the list of representatives of the Sangram Samiti.

The date for this JAC with five ministers on one part and seven representatives of the Sangram Samiti on the other part was fixed to August 1 and accordingly Gajanan babu ended his fast on July 8 to the announcement of the above agenda by the Law Minister of the State on the fasting podium.

But sadly, the government started playing tricks. It convened the Joint Action Committee on August 1 pretending that the notification of the JAC has been already published and the same would be delivered on the discussion table. Instead of doing this, it brought in BJD MP Baishnab Parida to derail the scheduled discussion and Linguist Dr. Devi Prasanna Pattanayak under whose cover it was trying to escape.

The Sangram Samiti had submitted a five-point-charter of demand on July 8 to the Government through the team of Ministers that claimed to be discussing with the Sangram Samiti on behalf of the CM.

On this charter of demand only decisions were to be taken in the JAC on August 1. There was no question of any discussion with Baishnab Parida.

Gajanan babu and fellow relay strikers had ended the fasting strike and the Sangram Samiti had withdrawn its campaign on official assurance of fulfilling its five-point charter of demands and the Government was morally bound to act only upon that assurance in the JAC on August 1. It could have honored its words to implement the five demands of the Sangram Samiti as promised or could have shamelessly refused to honor its words given to the Sangram Samiti.

But it brought in their party MP Parida who raised uncalled for hubbubs, knowing pretty well that in the instant scheme of JAC, he was not legitimately entitled to participate, because he was neither in the team of ministers nor in the list of representatives of the Sangram Samiti.

The Government was and is free to discuss with him and any number of persons in matter of its role in Official Language Act. But, as far as its promise to Gajanan Mishra and fellow fasting strikers and the Sangram Samiti is concerned, bringing in Baishab Parida to make unnecessary noise to derail the discussion is a naked act of betrayal.

We doubt, as Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is afraid that he cannot function if Oriya becomes the compulsory language of governance, and Officers who have been cheating the State by operating only in English, the Government  have resorted to tricks to delay the implementation of the Official Language Act.

Sri Gajanan Mishra, in this context, has placed the facts before the people of Orissa in a detailed edit-page article in Samaja today. I am placing below his article.

Peruse it and rise to the cause, dear brothers and sisters.

The national conference of Asima Orissa, held at Chennai from August 8 for two days applauded Orissa Bhasa Sangram Samiti for its glorious role in waking up the Government of Orissa to the essential need of governance of the State in mother tongue Oriya.

Samiti Convener Sri Sankar Parida and Joint Convener Dr. Subrat Prusti attended the Conference. Delegates from different parts of the country, who have kept abreast of the movement of the Samiti including the recent fast onto death for implementation of the Orissa Official Language Act 1954, wholeheartedly endorsed the five point charter of demands the Samiti has placed before the Government of Orissa, the number one of which is immediate implementation of the 1954 Act.

Sri Parida informed the conference that in the first session of the Joint Action Committee, which the government has formed with the Samiti, responsibility is assigned to famous linguist Dr. Debi Prasanna Pattanayak to formulate a Language Policy for proper implementation of the Act. The next JAC possibly to meet in the last week of this month will concentrate further on the five demands, he said.

On being requested by the delegates, Dr. Prusti gave details of the endeavors to get the Classical language status for Oriya. It was a moment of celebration in the conference, which applauded the Samiti for its contributions to the cause of the mother tongue.

No negligence to implementation of the 1954 Act would be tolerated, the conference resolved, while appreciating the new positive stance of the political leadership in matter of implementation of the Act.

Former Chief Secretary of Tamilnadu Sri Debendranath Sarangi, Financial director of NTPC poet Kulamani Biswal, Coordinator of Asima Orissa Kishore Dwivedy, President of Asima Orissa Kshirod Jena, Convener Nihar Samantaray, amongst others, felicitated Sri Parida and Dr. Prusti and assured them of all cooperation to make the steps taken by the Samiti succeed. They thanked poet gajanan Mishra and all others who sat in fast for the mother tongue. They also thanked the group of Ministers – Arun Kumar Sahu, Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, Sanjay Das Burma and Pranab Prakas Das for the first collective steps they have taken to cooperate with the Samiti to speed up the process of implementation of the 1954 Act and they further thanked Minister Debi Prasad Mishra for making the initiative proceed ahead as head of the ministerial sub-committee.