Orissa Matters

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

If you want to know as to what extent one can be shameless, look at the Congress and assess.

This party had taken lead to free India from foreign traders and to give democracy to Indians. But this party is now menacingly busy in destroying Indian democracy and to subjugate the country to another set of foreign traders.

Members of this party are not ashamed of this fall!

This party had given a Prime Minister to India in Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru who had founded and led the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) that had 118 countries of the world as its members comprising nearly two-third of the strength of United Nations and at least 55 percent of the world population united to ensure “the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries” in their “struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, Zionism and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics.” But this party has now a Prime Minister in Manmohan Singh whose single point program is to push India into hegemony of US of America and to obliterate all that its founder Prime Minister had stood for.

Members of this party are not ashamed of this fall!

This party had given India a Prime Minister in Lal Bahadur Sastri, who in his simple lifestyle had the most majestic leader the world could ever had and who in his small physical frame was as if the personification of the proud Himalayan Mountains. Peoples of India were seeing their collective identity in this leader, who had foiled Pakistan’s 1965 Operation Gibraltar. In the words of the US Department of State, through this adventure, “the Pakistani army (had) attempted to take Kashmir by force”. Sastri had gagged this gigantomachy by a prompt, proper and patriotic counterattack that saw every farmer of India woke up to his immortal words “Jai Jawan, Jai Kissan” emerged as a soldier in defense of the motherland. But the real villain that India vanquished in this war was the US of America whose “relations” with Pakistan “had been more consistently positive”. Its nexus with Pakistan was so nefarious that notwithstanding knowing that Pakistan “had joined the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) in 1954 and the Baghdad Pact (later renamed the Central Treaty Organization, or CENTO) in 1955 to develop its military and defensive capabilities, which were substantially weaker than those of India” it felt no qualms in saying in a US Department of State document that it had “supplied arms to Pakistan in these years”. But now this party has a Prime Minister in Manmohan Singh who has been lobbying for USA to the detriment of Indian democracy and sovereignty.

Members of this party are not ashamed of this fall!

This party had given India a Prime Minister in Mrs. Indira Gandhi, who had avenged USA offences against India by standing strongly with USSR while contributing her might to further strengthening of the Non-Aligned Movement, thereby making USA isolated in world arena and shrunk into its own filthy cocoon. She had fought and won the war against Pakistan in 1971. She had made Pakistan surrender on 16th December 1971 at the summit of her success in bifurcating that country, which, pampered by USA had always been conspiring against India. She had defeated USA evil design and had stunned President Nixon and his cohort Kissinger so much by her diplomatic excellence that they had no other way than keeping on leash the ill-famed 7th fleet, which they had pressed into the sea on India’s eastern coast to assist Pakistan in its war against India. Mrs. Gandhi had elevated India’s sovereign mana by the magic she materialized in the nuclear explosion at Pokhran in 1974, which, in words of the then famous Secretary of State Henry Kissinger of USA, “was a bomb no matter how India described it”. After meeting Mrs. Gandhi and assessing the reality, he had told President Gerald Ford in 1974 that for Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Indo-US relations could improve only on a “more equal” basis and nothing less. Congress had given India such a Prime Minister. But now this party has a Prime Minister in Manmohan Singh, who crawls to serve the interests of US imperialism to the total detriment of India’s sovereign mana, so much so that in order to ensure that nuclear traders of USA get a great “bonanza” by selling their rotten nuclear reactors and hazardous nuclear waste to India, he is busy in capturing Indian MPs of uncategorized political isms through horse-trading to satisfy US President Bush in clamping on India the venomous nuke-deal formulated in USA in interest of USA!

Members of this party are not ashamed of this fall!

This party had given India a Prime Minister in Rajiv Gandhi who, in spite of having lost power and in spite of being under western influence, had the guts to pull down Chandrasekhar government in stark disapproval of refueling USA Warplanes during the Golf war in 1990. But now this party has a Prime Minister in Manmohan Singh who is disregarding Indian democracy to serve the business interest of USA by pushing India into a nuke deal that is “so very clearly” designed to serve the interests of US firms in bagging a “bonanza” for the nuclear trade of America.

Members of this party are not ashamed of this fall!
Of course, after “killing” of Rajiv Gandhi, the mysterious machinations of this party have pronouncedly become pro-American.
P. V. Narasimha Rao, the Prime Minister it gave India after “killing” of Rajiv Gandhi, sabotaged Indian Constitution and rendered its Preamble inconsequential by signing GATT agreement behind back of Indian Parliament to please and satisfy US of America. And, to survive in power so as to pave the way for foreign traders to grab Indian market, he resorted to horse-trading where people like Sibu Soren, whose only commodity was their political flesh, had got caught against a cost exceeding crores of Rupees to keep his bed of power active. He destroyed India, the land of dreams of innumerable martyrs and freedom fighters, the land of Mahatma Gandhi and B.R. Ambedkar, the land that every working Indian was holding to be his or her mother; and, in its place, with the help of a pack of scoundrels, he laid the foundation of the empire of exploiters under the mischief of free economy as advanced by the US of America. By wrong application of a judicial observation of the Supreme Court at a stage of a case that the CBI had from the beginning created sans the real thrust, Rao of course had escaped three years rigorous imprisonment; but he was held by Special CBI Judge Mr. Ajit Bharihoke guilty of “conspiracy” and “abatement” in making Sibu Soren & Co his political bed-partners. Despite set free, he shall remain forever a black spot on Indian democracy and people will always remember that he was sentenced to three years’ RI and a fine of Rs. 100,000 being convicted for having committed offences under Section 120b of the Indian Penal Code (criminal conspiracy) read with Sections 7, 12, 13(2) and 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act as well as substantive offences under Section 12 for abetment to the crime of bribery. Rao had committed this offence against the country in order only to remain in power so that USA interests could be best served by imperialism replacing socialism as thrust of India. The Constitution of India in its Preamble was giving the direction for building up the country as a Socialist Republic. For imperialism this was the invincible hurdle. There was no scope to change the Preamble, because the Constitution of India has made it clear that any Article thereof may be amended except the Preamble. Rao and his cohorts, who were more eager to serve the interests of USA, had resorted to tricks of subterfuge and had succeeded in rendering the Preamble inconsequential by steering the country to its opposite direction, i.e. “free economy” in terms of imperialism. And, to do this, his government, lacking majority in Lok Sabha, was not competent. He had, therefore, indulged in horse-trading that eventually had gathered a nomenclature as JMM Bribery. This treachery of Rao had embarrassed the Congress party so much that the party had officially tried to distance itself from Rao. The then official spokesman of Congress, Ajit Jogi, in a statement following the judgment had put forth the party version in these words: “In response to the judgment handed down by the special court against Shri P V Narasimha Rao, at the outset the Congress party would like to reaffirm our esteem for the independence of the Indian judiciary. As a political party we are committed to the rule of law. Therefore we are duty-bound to respect the verdict of the court. Doubtless Shri P V Narasimha Rao has the right to appeal. Doubtless he will invoke that right. The judicial process will continue and the law will take its course.” So, officially, at least on records, Congress had distanced itself from Rao who had thrived in power by bribing Sibu Soren and his members of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. But now again this party has a Prime Minister in Manmohan Singh, who with his background of being the principal architect of subterfuge against Indian Constitution as finance minister of Rao, is busy in same sort of horse-trading again with the same Sibu Soren & Co to continue in power so that USA would gain the pleasure of bagging the “bonanza” for her nuclear traders!

Congressmen are shamelessly silent!

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

For us to say Orissa is in the grip of dishonest fellows is not new. New for us is that we are not alone. Slowly but steadily many others have started seeing how scoundrels are ruling the roost in Orissa. A sample of this new awakening has hit the police, which, after absorbing the initial jolt of predicament generated by overwhelming material documents against top authorities like the Chief Secretary and the Chief Minister, has at last stated to start investigations.

The crux of the issue is a corruption that Biju regime had started and Navin regime has completed!

It is a single case; but a representative case of nexus domination over administration.

A man was illegally appointed as a manager under the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) in the rank of a Deputy Secretary to Government on 23 April 1994 when Biju Patnaik was the Chief Minister. It was one of many illegalities done during his time.

The person that used the top corridor of Orissa Secretariat to bag the appointment was not qualified for the post. His deficiency was kept a secret and he continued to draw salaries of Deputy Secretary to government.

Comfortably placed, he longed for a promotion specifically as the Pay Commission was likely to sumptuously enlarge pay packages for officials. This made BDA peruse his personal file that brought to attention of the concerned officer the lacunae in his appointment. Then attempts were made to regularize his appointment by obtaining post- facto approval of the Government.

Unavoidably, the file went to the Secretary of Law. The law department refused to recommend for post-facto approval of the illegal appointment and returned the file on 27 February 2007 to the administrative department of Urban Development (UD). The illegalities in appointment having thus been bared by the department of Law, on 8 March 2007, the Special Secretary, UD department put up the matter before the departmental secretary with his observations that the appointment should be nullified and penal prosecution should be initiated against persons responsible for this illegal appointment and swindling of salaries. The Secretary endorsed it to the Chief Secretary on 13 March 2007.
The Chief Secretary, Ajit Kumar Tripathy, accepted the Law department interpretations and approved the views of the Special Secretary of UD and passed orders for fixation of responsibility for the illegality committed. In his note dated 17 March 2007, Tripathy said, “Government need not take lenient view to regularize irregularities like this. Continuance for long periods is no ground for this. I fully agree with the views of Law department. No further action is called for except fixing of responsibility for such action, which should be done”.

But Tripathy had hardly imagined that no illegality done during Biju Patnaik’s Chiefministership could ever be allowed to be shown on records as illegal during the Chiefministership of his son Navin.

His order for fixation of responsibility was treated with the contempt honesty attracts in a climate of dishonesty.

He was forced not to look at previous pages of the concerned file when that should come to his table again.

And, the file, sans compliance of his orders for responsibility fixation came to his table again with recommendation of UD Secretary dated 15 December 2007 for post-facto approval of the appointment viewed as illegal by the department of Law.

Tripathy did not look at the previous pages and endorsed the file to UD Minister, noting as if on dotted lines the words, “as proposed”. The copy of the note-sheet produced here below is suggestive of the tremendous mental trauma that Tripathy was subjected to at that moment. He seems to have deviated from his practice of putting the date below his signature after writing “as proposed”. By simply writing, “as proposed” he had indicated that he had to sign the file on dotted lines. Therefore the file had to return to him from the UD Minister with off the records instructions to express his clear willingness for post-facto approval of the appointment he had earlier refused to approve.
And, Tripathy had to write again, “The justifications are convincing and it is in interest of the organization”. Then the file passed the UD Minister and then the Chief Minister gladly regularized the irregularity committed in his father’s regime.

The person concerned who is now regularized must have enjoyed utmost sadistic pleasure by seeing Tripathy shallow his own bitter pill.

Such a situation hits a State only when the scoundrels rule the roost.

But now, Tripathy is to face the music for not having adhered to principle, as a social activist outfit Kalinga Sena has raised the issue of corruption that the police has taken cognizance of.

(Continuing discussion on Sri Jagannatha)

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

As everywhere, tribal people of Orissa, marveled by agro-magic, were matriarch in outlook and were worshiping Mother Nature in whom they were seeing the factor of creation. To facilitate permanency of the object of worship they had developed the habit of worshiping wooden logs roughly designing the same in the pattern of woman’s torso. They were calling such a wooden torso as Jaganta.

To the simple tribal mind, child was being created in the womb of a mother and therefore, female torso was the source of creation of life. Therefore this Jaganta was representing the female torso that stood for giving birth. But birth was meaningless without life. The newborn was to live. And to live, the breasts of the mother provide the initial and basic source. Orissa’s tribes call the breasts as Thana, in short, Tha. Hence the tribal of Orissa gave prominence to the two breasts of a mother in the wooden torso of the female they were worshiping as Jaganta and started calling this Tha- painted torso as Jaganta-Tha. Doyen amongst the Chaurasi Siddhas, Sabaripa, author of the oldest Baudha Doha, was worshiping Jaganta-Tha in the village Chaurashi near Kakatapur, which belong to the Kurma Pataka Pur. Agents of Brahmanism who had conspired to wipe out the Buddha connection of Sri Jagannath have misprojected this Sabaripa as Sabar Biswabasu.

Jaganta-Tha was developed into Jagannath by Orissa’s Buddhist king Indrabhuti, founder of Vajrayana, who being a master social philosopher of his days, had been successful in superimposing Buddha, as the Guru and the protector of Oriya culture on Sabaripa’s Jaganta-Tha and then had begun his scripture Gnyana Siddhi with salutations to Jagannatha, the new form of Buddha, the Master.

So, it is Indrabhuti, who, in order to overcome the impact of the idol worshiping that was found more advantageous to Vedic imperialism than the theosophy of void relied to the Mahayana sect, tried to transform the omnipresence of Buddha to a form of physical presence for better concentration of the followers of Buddha by transforming Jaganta-Tha to Jagannatha.

By coining the word ‘Jagannatha’ he projected Buddha as the Supreme one amongst all the deities conceived and propitiated by anybody till then and made it clear that this new word stands for Buddha, the ‘Guru’ as is seen in Gnyana Siddhi. He then proceeded to provide the formulas for achieving ‘Siddhi’ of His worship. In the process he built up an environment of worship of female deities in total contrast to spread of male deities by Vedic propagandists. He developed the tenets of Vajrayana in consonance with the original Buddhist identification of the female factor as the cause of creation as against the male factor speculated by Vedas.

He therefore contemplated the idol of Jagannatha in the form of a female, in consonance with the concepts of Sabaripa.

Sabar tribes of Orissa to which Sabaripa perhaps belonged, known colloquially as Sauras, have a tradition since ancient days that helps us understand how agro-magic had shaped up the thinking process of our people and culminated in the cult of Jagannatha.

After mangoes in Orissa ripe suggesting that the rainy season is not far away, Sauras get ready to indulge in matriarch festivities. The mother earth would soon indulge in union with the clouds and be pregnant with the new crops. To them, their village deity embodies mother earth. She is Jaganta, she is also Jalia deriving this name from Jala (water, the clouds would bring). They erect a small chariot with four wheels representing four clouds (Chari Megha) and putting her along with Dharmagoja and Kitumg as her companion they drag the chariot to the village junction in a procession with members of both the genders dancing to drum beats. These deities are made of wooden logs and resemble female torsos with round eyes painted in their upper parts resembling breasts in female bodies. The personal belongings of the village deity are kept in a new basket made of Bamboo and are carried by a bearer along with the procession. She stays in her camp house for six days and then, in the same style and in the same sort of a procession returns to her permanent abode.

This tribal practice is discernible in the car festival of Sri Jagannatha.

Agents of Brahminism have misled the people by misappropriating both Sabaripa and Indrabhuti and projecting them in the labyrinth of legends as Sabara Biswabasu and Indradyumna respectively in order to show Jagannatha as an Arya deity. But, they have never succeeded in eliminating or suppressing its tribal origin. (To be continued)

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

We have been watching Pranab Mukherjee from Sanjay Gandhi days. So his braggadocios do not astonish us. We are not shocked by sophomoric assertions of the packs of neo Goebbles who have been relentlessly vomiting the Prime Minister’s version that the nuke deal with USA is essential for India’s welfare; because we know their existence in power depends on that. We are perturbed over the very fact that the Prime Minister of India, from now on, shall not be looked at as the highest political leader of the country; but shall be seen as a mere political horse trader. For any citizen who loves democracy it is an ignominy.

In precipitating a political turmoil in the country in order to serve the business interest of foreign nuclear traders who are sure of a “bonanza” out of selling their rotten reactors that are so overrun that unless India purchases them they shall be “dismantled”, (some of them have already been dismantled and the rest are running on temporary fitments certificates), is not at all becoming of a Prime Minister of a country like India. But Prime Minister Singh has played this treachery against the country.

What must be the quantum of gain that Singh and his cohorts in the central ministry have bagged to risk the end of their rule for the nuke deal? Not known. Not fathomable.

But in the deal there is no patriotism.

Had there been an iota of patriotism involved with the deal, the Hyde Act should never have been hidden from the country. Even the text of the 123 agreement should not have been kept wrapped. Indian Government had “promptly approved the agreement on 25 July 2007” even as the contents thereof were not revealed. World Nuclear News noted, “The decision not to reveal the contents of the 30-page agreement has led to press speculation that some political maneuvering remains to be done”. So, Singh made his colleagues like Pranab Mukherjee “approve” the 123 Agreement “promptly” though “some political maneuvering” remained “to be done” even after that “approval”. What was this political maneuvering? This is the language used in “Nuclear Policy” presentation in “World Nuclear News” respected as authority in the matter. How would Mukherjee react to this apprehension even in WNN? Does Mukherjee know anything of this post-approval maneuvering as apprehended? Does anybody in Indian Cabinet know it? Have the citizens of India no right to know it and know its pros and cons?

On the other hand, this particular item in WNN suggests that Singh had made his colleagues sign on dotted lines on the document of approval. Mark the picture of the intro of the item in WNN.

It is datelined 24 July 2007.In the last sentence of the intro it is noted that the “Indian government promptly approved the agreement on 25 July”. A news in an authority publication on nuclear datelined July 24 informs that approval of Indian Government on the agreement that is rated most sensitive in world nuclear scenario has been obtained on July 25 is something that is as queer as revealing of a shadow deal! It clearly reveals that the WNN had the authentic information by 24 July that the secret agreement would be “promptly approved” by Indian Government “on 25 July”.

India, in her democratic life so far had never fallen in the hands of such a Prime Minister and such a set of ministers who can play such nasty tricks on her sovereignty by signing on dotted line to fit into the design of a foreign country.

If the nuke deal is spotlessly pro-Indian, Prime Minister Singh should have placed every aspect of it before the people without any reservation.

I have quoted in my previous write up on this subject from the Nuclear Policy presentations in WNN that the cardinal condition on which the deal was to stand was laid down in the sentence, “Indian Parliament must agree to the text” of the Hyde Act. In view of this stipulation, Prime Minister Singh should have placed the “text” of the Hyde Act before the Parliament of India and told both the Houses that if they “agree to the text”, he may go to sign the deal. If the Parliament would have refused to agree the matter should have ended by informing USA of this. But he never did it. Why?

Because he knows, the Hyde Act being coined with articles to subjugate Indian sovereignty, Indian Parliament would never agree to the text thereof. Moreover, had everything been placed before the Indian Parliament, it could have been revealed that the deal would clamp on India the burden of rotten, old, over lived, run on temporary fitness certificate, most hazardous nuclear reactors that have completed their normal working life of forty years.

As we have earlier shown, “US policy since 1977 has been to forbid reprocessing of used fuel and to treat it all as high-level waste which the government is responsible for finally disposing of in a deep geological repository. Utilities have paid over $18 billion into the Nuclear Waste Fund for this mostly through a 0.1 cent/kWh levy towards final disposal, so that by mid 2007 it stood at almost $30 billion, including interest. The fund is growing by some $1 billion per year, including interest.

“It is the responsibility of utilities to store this used fuel on site until it is taken over by the federal Department of Energy for final disposal in a geological repository. Such a repository is not yet available and the DoE defaulted on its 1998 deadline to start accepting used fuel, which has put pressure on storage space at some power plants”.

US want to be released of this pressure.

Against this background, Singh’s deal seems dubious.

But most shameful is his attempts to stay in power through political horse-trading. After withdrawal of leftists’ support, he has lost all his legitimacy to continue as Prime Minister; because, he had been able to become the Prime Minister on the basis of leftists support.

If he thinks, the nuke deal is most beneficial to the people of India and peoples of India are one with him in this deal, but the leftists are unnecessarily opposing it, he should have preferred a fresh mandate on this issue. But he has no courage for that. He knows, people will dismiss him and refuse him and Congress the mandate for the deal with USA. Therefore he wants to survive by horse-trading.

The Samajvadi party has officially declared its willingness to support the Singh government in this issue. So, there was no necessity of contacting individual members of this party for cultivating support. But, this afternoon, the way Raj Babbar was invited to meet the Congress boss and the way he declared his willingness to support the government in the moment of its crisis, makes it clear that individual members are being contacted to cultivate support over and above his or their party organization.

Singh may claim and the persons who pledge him support may also claim that there is no clandestine deal amongst them. But people will no more believe. Singh henceforth shall be looked at not as a political leader, but as a political trader.

It would be very painful to lovers of democracy. The harbinger of plutocracy in India and his cohorts cannot understand this pain.

If amongst the Members of Loksabha, the ones who had remained politically opponent to Prime Minister Singh till withdrawal of left support, dedication to democracy does not give way to personal avarice, the pain portended may not hit the people.

Otherwise they will have to tolerate it till they reject the Congress and avenge the ignominy.

Articles germane to the topic from pages of orissamatters:

http://orissamatters.com/2008/07/06/prime-minister/

http://orissamatters.com/2007/10/21/murkier/

http://orissamatters.com/2007/10/08/enemy/

http://orissamatters.com/2007/09/22/communists/

http://orissamatters.com/2007/08/31/let-parliament-have-the-victory/

http://orissamatters.com/2007/08/25/allies-should-dissociate/

Indian creamy layer who benefits from economic chaos created by the government run by Dr. Manmohan Singh is vociferous against the left for their “no” to the nuke deal. We feel the left view needs deep appreciation. Therefore, posting of this document.

It is a Press Statement issued by the Left Parties – Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, Forward Bloc and Revolutionary Socialist Party – on July 8, 2008, in the following form:

The UPA Government has refused to submit the draft text of the IAEA Safeguards Agreement to the UPA-Left committee. As the experience of the 123 agreement has shown, the claims of the Government made prior to the negotiations are not borne out by the actual text. Thus the full text of the agreement is necessary to clarify the major issues involved.

The first major issue relates to the possibility of the US terminating civilian nuclear cooperation with India for any reason in the future. India already had such an experience, when the US suspended nuclear fuel supplies to the Tarapur Atomic Power Station in 1983, reneging upon a thirty year contract signed in 1963. In the present case, the IAEA safeguards would continue even in such a scenario, since they are applicable in perpetuity to the entire civilian nuclear energy sector. The text of the 123 agreement has very ambiguous references to India taking “corrective measures” if nuclear fuel supplies from abroad are discontinued. Therefore, the text of the IAEA Safeguards Agreement needs to be made available to see whether any corrective action is possible on India’s part, if the US discontinues the fuel supplies.

Secondly, the 123 agreement claimed that the US would join India in negotiating with the IAEA an “India-specific fuel supply agreement”. However, it is well-known that the IAEA is not at all concerned with fuel supply but only with the imposition of safeguards on nuclear equipment and material. Therefore, it is important to know how the IAEA Safeguards Agreement provides for the fuel supply assurances in the case of India as claimed in the 123 agreement.

The key concerns expressed by the Left Parties regarding the IAEA Safeguards Agreement and which have not been addressed by the UPA are the following:

· In case the US or other countries in the NSG renege on fuel supply assurances for imported reactors, will we have the ability to withdraw these reactors from IAEA safeguards?

· If US/NSG countries renege on fuel supply assurances, can we withdraw our indigenous civilian reactors from IAEA Safeguards?

· If we have to bring nuclear fuel from the non-safeguarded part of our nuclear programme for these reactors in case of fuel supply assurances not being fulfilled, will we have the ability to take it back again?

· What are the corrective steps that India can take if fuel supplies are interrupted by the US/NSG countries?

· What are the conditions that India will have to fulfill if the corrective steps are to be put into operation?

Once the text of the Safeguards Agreement is approved by the IAEA Board of Governors, which is what the UPA Government seeks to do now, the subsequent steps require no participation at all by the Government of India. It is the US Government that takes the next steps – moving the NSG countries for the waiver and then placing the 123 Agreement before the US Congress. Therefore, it is critical for the country that the IAEA Safeguards Agreement is discussed with full transparency and not kept secret.

Why is the Manmohan Singh government keeping the draft of the IAEA Agreement secret from the people of India?

Sd/-

(Prakash Karat)
General Secretary
Communist Party of India (Marxist)

(A.B. Bardhan)
General Secretary
Communist Party of India

(Debabrata Biswas)
General Secretary
All India Forward Bloc

(T.J. Chandrachoodan)
General Secretary
Revolutionary Socialist Party

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Any political person, who knows, there is no chance for him to occupy power again, can commit any crime against the country. So, Dr. Man Mohan Singh is determined to sign the Nuke deal with the USA. (“Come what may”, as his less capable Goebbles has asserted.)

Congress has made a farce of India since Nehru days. The latest has begun with grooming Rajiv’s son Rahul for the top post. In words of sycophants like Arjun Singh, he would be the best choice for Prime Minister post as he carries in his body and mind the legacies of Rajiv Gandhi!

Most of Indians do not know what were the legacies of Rajiv Gandhi. But almost all of them know that Rajiv Gandhi had profusely rewarded R.K. Dhawan, the man, who had attracted judicial needle of suspicion in Indira Gandhi murder case, after he had “inherited” her chair as India’s Prime Minister.(What a contribution to democracy!)

To the Congress it was no crime. How CBI had to help Ottavio Quattrocchi, intimately linked to Sonia Gandhi, in Bofors kickback under Rajiv regime is not unknown to any. So, it is established that Congress has developed a habit of supporting any crime against the country “come what may”.

With such a party at the background, Prime Minister Singh is determined to sign the nuke deal with USA as per his scheme.

If he signs the deal he will no more return to power; but India will perish forever.

Peoples of India had thrown the Congress into the dustbin from where it would never have resurrected again in a normal condition. But, once in power the party of profit fetchers under Vajpayee acted so sly and so much against peoples’ interest that all the bad that had happened to the country under Congress rule seemed like mere dots of smudge. Yet the peoples did not excuse Congress.

They refused a fresh mandate to Vajpayee. But they did not grant power to Congress.

If Man Mohan Singh, as Congress Prime Minister, is now assertive of his power to sign the nuke deal with USA, it has become possible only because the Communists and their left allies have helped the Congress to head a hybrid government. During my long span of experience with dogs that I have always adopted with love and care, I have seen that every hybrid is not as reliable as expected.

As far as the nuke deal is concerned, this is the truth.

Singh government has not allowed the country know the truth.

In these pages I have shown earlier, how the deal is designed to serve the interest of USA. I have quoted US Congressmen holding the deal as “a bonanza for US firms” (Reuters, August 25, 2007). I have quoted Senator Joe Lieberman as he unreservedly declared (August 14, 2007, Reuters) that the deal “is so clearly in the interests of the United States” that both the houses of USA Congress would sure endorse it. Both of these statements of top policy makers of USA – “it (the nuke deal) is a bonanza for US firms” and “it is so clearly in the interest of the United States” – expose the reason of why USA is so very eager to get the deal signed.

Prime Minister Singh has not told the country as to how India will benefit from the deal that is “a bonanza for US firms” and to what extent and if the deal would be “a bonanza for US firms” what should it be for Indian people, as roles of both the countries being different, the result cannot be the same “bonanza” for both. The people of India have therefore a right to know the proportion of benefit, if any they are really to derive. On the other hand people of India have a right to know as to why Lieberman described the deal as “so clearly in the interest of United States”. Is it because, the deal shall help USA get rid of her over lived old generation reactors most of which are running on extended licenses while posing serious threat to human life and eco-system there? Man Mohan Singh has not helped peoples of India know the real reason.

In the guise of secure energy he has been trying to hoodwink our people.

Tony Blair during his tenure as Prime Minister had also advanced this idea in UK.

Experts of Oxford Research Group on detail study rejected the idea. Its conclusion was

“If a decision to go with nuclear power is taken then the UK will implement a flawed and dangerously counter-productive energy policy - one from which the blowback may be a lot worse than higher heating bills”.

The Report captioned “Secure Energy? Civil Nuclear Power, Security and Global Warming”, edited by Frank Barnaby and James Kemp, with a foreword by Jürgen Trittin, (March, 2007) allows us to know the issues dealt with.

Peruse an excerpt:

“By comparing the security consequences of civil nuclear power to its contribution to tackling climate change, Oxford Research Group shows that rather than making a positive contribution, an expansion of civil nuclear power would:

· Make efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons much more difficult.
· Increase the risk of nuclear terrorism.
· Make a negligible short-term contribution to lowering CO2 emissions.
· Make a negligible contribution to energy security.

Finally, we show that nuclear power is not needed. Germany, for example, already has more generating capacity from wind-power than the UK nuclear component and within six years will have more solar powered capacity too. If the UK pursued similar policies, by 2020 wind would provide well over six times and solar three times the generating capacity major industrial players estimate for a nuclear new build”.

It further said,

“Much of the disagreement about the security implications of nuclear power revolves around whether the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation and terrorism risks can be managed. Using the most recent research we can show that these risks will become much harder to manage. In fact a new nuclear build would take us into uncharted and very dangerous waters.

“For these reasons the UK government should apply the precautionary principle. The Prime Minister’s justification for replacing the UK’s nuclear weapons system is based on a version of this principle: in an uncertain future in which new nuclear weapons states and state sponsored terrorism are likely, the ‘ultimate deterrent’ is justified. Judged against this argument, building more nuclear power plants is self-defeating in the extreme: they would increase the very threats nuclear weapons are intended to deter”.

Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh should tell the peoples of India, if the ORG has erred in its analysis and if any such analysis by any expert group of India has justified the deal, how have they done and whether or not their views were juxtaposed with ORG views and the outcome thereof justifies Singh’s closed mind in matter of the deal with USA?

On the other hand, scientists of our own country are also not in favor of the deal. Former president A P J Abdul Kalam has stressed that India should seek to achieve self-sufficiency in nuclear power through thorium fuel-based reactors as “in the country we have a shortage of uranium (which the American reactors would need). But we have one of the largest reserves of thorium” (October 24, 2007-PTI). Placid Rodriguez, president of Indian Nuclear Society and former director of Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam has stoutly said that factors like energy security and development, highlighted in support of the Indo-US nuclear deal “are misleading”. Emphasizing like Dr. Kalam on self-reliance through Thorium, he has said, “Energy security does not come from nuclear or few reactors imported unless we ultimately reach the thorium technology” (Agencies, November 21, 2007) Dr. Katepalli R Srinivasan, Director of International Centre for Theoretical Physics, has categorically stated that the deal will not be beneficial to India as the heat produced from nuclear fission might put the country’s environment in danger. Like the ORG advice, he has stressed that instead of relying on nuclear energy, the country should look at available renewable sources of energy to meet the energy requirement.(UNI, January 05, 2008 ) There are many more experts in the country who have expressed their doubts on desirability of the deal with USA. But the above three views from three most eminent nuclear scientists of the country deserve serious attention of the country. Man Mohan Singh has not helped the country in knowing how his obstinacy to sign the deal with USA is more scientific than the views of these three top most scientists.

Besides this closed-minded conspiracy to keep people in dark about the deal on areas discussed, Man Mohan Singh has committed a crime against the country by not telling the Parliament the truth that the Hyde Act makes it compulsory that the Parliament “must agree to the text” of that Act.

I had, in these pages, earlier dealt with the matter. It seems pertinent now to confront Singh with the hard truth. I am going to quote from Nuclear Policies published in World Nuclear News on 10 December 2006. Here it is:

“On 9 December the US Senate voted to approve the ‘Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006’ after a series of revisions since President George Bush and Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh signed an initial agreement in July 2005.

Once President Bush has signed the document and it becomes law, four further agreements must be made:
(1) A specific agreement between India and the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding safeguards of nuclear materials.
(2) India-specific trade guidelines must be drafted by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a 45-nation cartel which has restricted nuclear trade to NPT signatories since 1992.
(3) The USA must conclude a ‘123′ agreement with India on nuclear cooperation. Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954 requires an agreement for cooperation as a prerequisite for nuclear deals between the USA and any other nation. And
(4) The Indian parliament must agree to the text”.

The stipulation No.4 is most pertinent. It makes it binding on India to see that “the Indian Parliament must agree to the text” of the ‘Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006’, called the Hyde Act, which conversely makes it clear that despite this stipulation, if the government of India signs the deal, it will be presumed that the Indian Parliament has “agreed to the the text” and the provisions shall be activated accordingly.

Man Mohan Singh has suppressed this vital but devastative fact from the Parliament of India. He has never placed the Hyde Act before it for the Parliament to “agree to the text” of that Act.

The Hyde Act is a danger to Indian sovereignty. Singh’s party is aware of this danger.

Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi on April 16, 2008 after meeting US jockey of the deal James Clad and a group of Lawmakers at Washington DC had told the media that the “Hyde Act is clearly the biggest bug-bear - the red rag to a raging bull” and referring to some of the provisions of the Hyde Act, he had wondered as to how can we stop dealing with Iran or send troops to Iraq or sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty? “There is no way in which these provisions are ever going to be accepted or implemented by India,” he had said, according to PTI.

If a Sonia sycophant could react to the Hyde Act this way, the Indian Parliament would never have agreed to its text.

Unless the Indian Parliament “agrees to the text” of the Hyde Act, USA cannot legally force it on India. But, according to Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, as stated before US Congress, the deal has to be ‘consistent’ with the Hyde Act.

The US Congress aware of the mischief of the Hyde Act had guessed how India would react to its bulling clauses. Therefore, while passing the Act, it had stipulated that before execution of the deal, the text of the Act must have to be agreed to by the Indian Parliament.

Now, keeping the Parliament in total dark about this, Singh is rushing into sign the deal “come what may”. Once he signs, knowing absolutely clearly what the Hyde Act aims at, India’s sovereignty would be severely jeopardized. India would be bound to dance to the tune of USA.

Singh will one day be shown the door and that is bound to happen. But if he is tolerated any more and kept in his chair till he proceeds to sign the deal, the country shall suffer forever.

At this critical juncture, the Communists have a major role to play. They have so far saved the country from danger to her sovereignty by stymieing the signing of the deal. They have exhibited matchless political patience and maturity by not being rash in their decisions. But, now they should cast aside all their reservations against the BJP and take all possible steps to topple the hybrid government of Man Mohan Singh before he signs the deal. There is no other way to save the country from the worst disaster in her independent life.

During all these days the Communists have not opposed BJP on the platform of political economy. They have opposed BJP on the question of communalism.

Communalism is not a political term. It is a politically facilitator term.

If Advani with his Tilak exhibits his communal color, Man Mohan Singh with his turban is also an exhibitor of his communal culture. Have the Communists supporting him so far not supported communal assertions howsoever feeble that be? And, when Communist leaders with their families stand in folded hands before Durga statues in Dasahara at Kolkata, what picture then they give? What are those who amongst the Communists castigated Brinda Karat over her allegations against Ramdev?

So, there should not be any stress now on who is or who is not a communalist. The only emphasis should be given on saving India from falling into the trap of the Hyde Act. And it needs that the leftists and the rightists should rip open their respective cocoons to stand united to save the country from the treachery of her own Prime Minister.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The naked truth that Orissa is perishing under a bad government got exposed at Puri when religious revivalists stampeded six persons including three women into death on the spot and injuring as many as sixty persons including ten children in the barricade erected in the nearest proximity to the chariots of deities when chief minister Navin Patnaik and his cabinet colleagues were overseeing and adding authority to official actions on the Badadanda (greatest revered road) to control Rath Yatra (car festival) of Sri Jagannatha.

This government, voted to power by uninformed franchise, is a curse to Orissa and a sample of how people commit collective blunder in a democracy by electing representatives not on the basis of political economy but on the basis of orchestrated propaganda.

A hybrid of pseudo seculars and rabid communalists, the BJD-BJP coalition has, on the one hand, not shown any resistance to religious revivalism; but, on the other hand, has constantly contributed to communalization of Sri Jagannatha.

Appointment of IAS officers, one after another, belonging only to the Brahmin caste, as chief administrator of Jagannatha temple, is an indicator to the mischief played by the government against the cult of Sri Jagannatha.

What is this cult?

It is a cult against caste supremacy.

By picking up IAS officers only from the stable of caste supremacists to control and manage Jagannatha temple, the government has helped religious revivalism to grow and has closed the doors for scientific study of and discussions on casteless uniqueness of the cult of Sri Jagannatha.

The commercial TV channels in stark competition to catch visitors in order to cultivate and grab advertisement support from economic players who thrive on religious revivalism, have not only given massive publicity to the sophomoric legend-lenders to help religious revivalist, but also have opened up new vistas of publicity for devotion actors like the Samkirtanias, who, by donning Harimandir chitas on their noses have been contributing to transformation of Buddha of Orissa to Krushna of Dwaraka in the form of Sri Jagannatha, so as to help caste supremacist convert him to Vishnu of Vedic order.

These Sankirtanias constituting a pack of around two thousand persons competing with each other amongst them to reach the frontline to be focused by TV cameras stampeded six persons to death on the spot while injuring the others by barging into a four feet narrow barricade erected by police aside the Car of Balabhadra.

It is a matter of shock and shame that when stampeded people were crying for help, these Sankirtanias had no time and heart to bother over that. People died. People were mortally wounded.

The police force present on the spot has seen how the Sankirtanias killed and injured the people. They also know that their barging into the narrow barricaded passage meant for individual or marginally small number of devotees was absolutely unauthorized. But, no action has been initiated against any of the members or the leaders of this troop.

A gang of two thousand Sankirtanias was not of a small number. They were showy people whose sole aim was to attract TV cameras by the massiveness of their strength. So, the police should have earmarked a root for them up to the chariots on their advance intimation. That was not done simply because the Sankirtanias had never intimated the Police about their plan. So, squarely the Sankirtanias are responsible for death of so many people and for the damage done to others.

Chief Minister Navin Patnaik, who should have asked his DGP, present on the spot, to take the Sankirtanias into custody for exemplary punishment for the criminal chaos they have precipitated, has tried to bag silence of the affected people by using the money from his relief fund. It is a sort of bribing the affected people to keep mum.

And, he has gone a step ahead to burry the mishap under the carpet of an administrative enquiry even though his government is a marked impotent in matter of making enquiry committees or commissions delivering their findings.

How far this anarchy is tolerable?

(continued from the previous part)

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Caste supremacists thrive on religion. Buddha was against religion. Buddha is the strongest threat to caste supremacy even with retrospective effect. Therefore the caste supremacists, who are traditional exploiters of social forces, find their omnipresent enemy in Buddha. And, therefore, they want to obliterate him from the system of Jagannatha as therein the people feel the omnipresence.

Buddha was a Guru, but not a religious Guru. He was a socio-political thinker and revolutionary, who had gone deep into the cause of suffering of human beings and discovered that people suffer due to exploitation and exploitation commences and continues by a class of non-workers under the umbrage of patriarch autocracies.

Patriarch autocracy was the political weapon of these non-workers with which they were consolidating their exploitative network and continuing to exploit the working people.

To perpetuate this process of exploitation, they had built up a caste system and branded the working people as Sudras projecting themselves as Brahmanas.

The patriarch autocrats and their musclemen on the strength of which these Brahmanas were enjoying the best of comfort without doing any physical labor to earn that comfort, were shown by them as demigods or Kshyatriyas and those amongst the working people who were too ambitious to stay as workers and avaricious enough to act as conduits of the Brahmanas and Kshyatriyas were elevated to a creamy layer of Sudras called Vaisyas.

The Brahmanas declaring themselves as born not to do any physical labor, had developed the concept of property in such a design that without shouldering any responsibility they should be enjoying the fruits thereof. In this design, possession of properties was vested in the hands of their cohorts, the Kshyatriyas, who as a class, were ordained to act under area-specific autocrats called kings or emperors preferred by the Brahmanas. These Khyatriyas were allowed to grant lease of landed property and right of trading to Vaisyas at fixed but enhancive premiums and the Sudras were ordained not to possess any property but to work in the land belonging to Kshyatriyas and leased out to Vaisyas and to do any work that their Masters, meaning the propertied classes, were to require of them. And, all these three castes were ordained to satisfy whatever the Brahmanas want of them at whatever time.

This ordainment was promulgated in the name of the creator Brahma under concocted codes called the Vedas.

Any Brahmana was free to claim himself as a seer and coining any hymn as he could to contribute to the cause of his class was claiming to have seen that hymn being composed by Brahma and eventually to have been authorized by Brahma to deliver it.

And all such hymns under the cover of speculation on cause of creation were in the reality the instruments of a social system that was aimed at perpetuating social exploitation of the working class. Their enforceability was totally dependant on patriarch autocrats. Therefore imperialism was growing under Vedic order aimed at subjugating all the peoples so that by exploiting their labor, the caste supremacists could enjoy their lives without bothering to work for livelihood.

Buddha had found this exploitation as the root cause of sufferings of human society. Therefore he had campaigned against acquisition of private property and against concentration of power in the hands of autocrats. To succeed in this campaign he had tried to consolidate the tribal democracies where the cardinal principle was management of society on majority opinion ascertained through adult franchise and vesting of ownership of all means of production in the hands of the society so as not to allow concentration of property in individual hands and to eliminate thereby exploitation of working class by the owners of private property.

Not only he had built up his unique Samngha system on this principle to educate people through demonstration, but also he had rushed from his birthplace Tosala (Orissa) to Magadha to stop spread of Vedic imperialism in its heartland by organizing against it the tribes in his Samgha pattern.

Emergence of tribal democracies strengthened by politico-economic directions of Buddha made emperor Bimbisara suspend his aggression on tribal lands and to remain content with whatever area he already had acquired. He even thought it prudent to make friendship with Buddha and to act according to his sermons.

This enraged the Brahmanas so much that they cooked up a conspiracy against him leading to his incarceration in the hands of his ambitious son Ajatasattu.

As Ajatasattu captured power, a Brahmana namely Vassakara reached Buddha as emissary of the emperor and asked him on behalf of Ajatasattu to desist from supporting the tribes. Tibal democracies must be vanquished, so that empire should expand, he said. Buddha rejected the pleadings of Vassakara and declared that the emperor should not venture any attack on the tribes for they were invincible as long as their democracies were run on their franchise on basis of equality and fraternity.

The Buddha-Vassakar dialogue offers us a very interesting insight into the real cause of Brahminic antagonism to Buddhism.

T.W.R. Rhys Davids has rendered it in Dialogues of the Buddha [London(1910)Vol-ii(78-80)] as hereunder:

“The Exalted One was once dwelling in Rajagaha, on the hill called the Vulture’s Peak. Now at that time Ajatasattu, the son of the queen-consort of the Videha clan, the king of Magadha, had made up his mind to attack the Vajjians; and he said to himself ‘I will strike at these Vajjians, mighty and powerful though they be, I will root out these Vajjians, I will destroy these Vajjians, I will bring these Vajjians to utter ruin.’ So he spoke to the Brahmana Vassakara, Prime Minister of Magadha, and said: ‘Come now Brahmana, do you go to the Exalted One and bow down in adoration at his feet on my behalf, and enquire in my name whether he is free from illness and suffering, and in the enjoyment of ease and comfort and vigorous health. Then tell him that Ajatasattu, son of the Videhi, the king of Magadha, in his eagerness to attack the Vijjians, has resolved,”I will strike at these Vijjians, mighty and powerful though they be, I will root out these Vajjians, I will destroy these Vajjians, I will bring these Vajjians to utter ruin”; and bear carefully in mind whatever the Exalted One may predict and repeat it to me. For the Buddha speaks nothing untrue.’ Then the Brahmana Bassakara, the rain-maker, harkened to the words of the king, saying, ‘Be it as you say.’ And, ordering a number of state carriages to be made ready, he mounted one of them, left Rajagaha with his train, and went to the Vulture’s Pick, riding as far as the ground was passable for carriages and then alighting and proceeding on foot to the place where the Exalted one was. On arriving there he exchanged with the Exalted One the greetings and compliments of politeness and courtesy, sat down respectfully by his side (and then delivered to him the message even as the king had commanded).

Now at that time the venerable Ananda was standing behind the Exalted One, and fanning him. And the Blessed One said to him: ‘Have you heard, Ananda, that the Vajjians foregather often and frequent the public meetings of their clan?’ ‘Lord, so I have heard’, replied he.

‘So long Ananda’, rejoined the Blessed One, ‘as the Vajjians foregather thus often, and frequent the public meetings of their clan; so long may they be expected not to decline, but to prosper.’

(And in like manner questioning Ananda, and receiving a similar reply, the Exalted One declared as follows the other conditions, which would ensure the welfare of the Vajjian confederacy.)

‘So long, Ananda, as the Vajjians meet together in concord and rise in concord, and carry out their undertakings in concord,- so long as they enact nothing not already established, abrogate nothing that has already been enacted and act in accordance with the ancient institution of the Vajjians, as established in the former days - so long as they honour and esteem and revere and support the Vajjian elders, and hold it to a point of duty to hearken to their words,- so long as no women or girls belonging to their clans are detained among them by force or abduction - so long as they honor and esteem and revere and support the Vajjian shrines (cetiyani) in town or country, and allow not the proper offerings and rites, as formerly given and performed, to fall into desuetude - so long as the rightful protection, defense, and support shall be fully provided for the Arahants among them, so that Arahants from a distance may enter the realm, and the Arahants therein may live at ease - so long may the Vajjians be expected not to decline, but to prosper.’

It is to be noted that till demise of Buddha, Magadha had not dared to attack the tribal democracies fortified by Buddha.

By restricting Vedic imperialism in Magadha itself, Buddha had saved his motherland Orissa and her autonomous social system.

Asoka’s attack on Orissa was meant only to avenge this and to destroy Buddhism by plundering its cradle.

History has been wronged by vested interest noting that Asoka won the battle and on seeing the vast destruction he had wrecked on the people his heart melted in repentance and he embraced Buddhism on the battlefield at the foot of Dhauli Giri and spent his might in spreading Buddhism. But in reality, he was defeated and had fled with his life by taking umbrage under Buddhism, which he had come to destroy.

The Kalinga war had two phases. The first phase was sudden like a bolt from the blue and the most peaceful people of Orissa, before being aware of the attack, had been overwhelmed by the army of Asoka who plundered the land and captured more than a lakh of people and exported them to his land as slaves under custody of packs of his plundering soldiers while keeping the rest of his army pressed on his campaign to desecrate the birthplace of Buddha in Kapilavastu (modern Kapileswara) near the Sweta (Dhauli) hills with the ill motive of humiliating Buddhism. There were many places of Orissa where he could have challenged the Oriyas to a war if annexing their land to his empire was his aim. But that was not. His target was Kapilavastu, the birthplace of Buddha near the Dhauli Hills and therefore the battle was fought at the foot of the Dhauli.

The people of Orissa, the most ardent and loyal followers of Buddha, did not allow him to reach Kapilavastu, the present Kapileswar. They resisted him at the cost of their lives at Dhauli. The devastation has no parallel in Indian history. Millions of Oriyas sacrificed their lives to stop desecration of the sacred birthplace of their beloved Gurudev Buddha who had saved their motherland from being engulfed by Vedic imperialism by rushing up to Magadha to obstruct it there. And, Asoka’s army declined in numbers even as the brave Oriya women jumped into the battlefield with their traditional weapons. The wicked Maurya, who was ill famed as Chanda Asoka, was vanquished by the united women of Orissa. And, subsequently, the entire army of Asoka including resummoned troops was annihilated. The Chanda Asoka could be able to flee with his life only after he prayed to be initiated into Buddhism, the creed he had come to destroy.

The resounding victory of Orissa’s matriarch forces over the Chanda Asoka and the total destruction of his army has been symbolically depicted in Devi Bhagavat where he has been shown as Chanda asura.

History, as we know, is not without wrongs.

History has wronged Orissa by not recording correctly the purpose of Asoka’s expedition to Orissa and his battle at Dhauli Hills and the real reason of his praying for and getting initiation into Buddhism.

We shall try to help history correct itself in this matter in course of our discussion. But for now, this suffices to say that Vedic chauvinists had attacked Orissa through the Chanda Asoka of Magadha to desecrate the birthplace of Buddha.

Vedic chauvinists have succeeded to desecrate Buddha Jagannatha by infesting his Pahandi Bije with Vedic hymns taking advantage of the confusion that has been spread by the religious revivalists in Navinraj where rabid right wing communalists are assigned with portfolios that oversee and controls the Jagannatha Temple administration.

We will later come to the history.
(To continue)

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

On the Rath Yatra (Car Festival) day, this year, Sri Jagannath will be killed in spirit by help of the nastiest administration that has engulfed Orissa. Enemies of Jagannath Cult for centuries had been trying to do this; but this year they are going to succeed.

The temple administration, dominated by caste supremacists, has decided to infest Pahandi Bije (Sri Jagannatha’s pageant from the Temple to the Car) with recitation of Vedic hymns. This is going to happen for the first time and with this Sri Jagannath is going to get the final deathblow.

Caste supremacists for centuries had been trying to convert Sri Jagannath from Orissa’s Gurudev Buddha to non-Oriya Srikrushna of Dwaraka and consequently to Vishnu of their system, i.e.the Vedic order.

Orissa being the birthplace of Buddha, was the fountainhead of Buddhism. Therefore, proponents of Vedic order, starting from Asoka as recorded history shows, had always attacked Orissa and tried to keep the peoples of Orissa subjugated so that Buddhism would dwindle in its place of origin.

To say in a nutshell, history of Orissa is a history of fight between Buddhist order and Vedic order.

In course of time Orissa had transformed Buddha into Jagannatha and hence history of Jagannatha is a history of fight between Vedic chauvinists and the peoples of Orissa.

Rath Yatra of Sri Jagannatha is the most assertive instance of victory of the peoples of Orissa over Vedic order where, despite the caste supremacists’ conspiracy to display their hegemony with the help of their collaborator kings, it is the peoples in general, the people belonging to working class, shown as untouchable in Vedic order, establish that it is they to whom the deity belongs. So Rath Yatra of Sri Jagannatha is the festival of peoples’ rejection of Vedic order. And this is its uniqueness.

By allowing Vedic recitation in Pahandi Bije, Orissa Government under the anti-Oriya Navin Patnaik has tried to kill this uniqueness. It is an attempt to destroy the Cult of Sri Jagannatha and it is nothing but killing the spirit of Sri Jagannatha.

Who is Sri Jagannatha?

Sri Jagannatha is the worshiped form of Gurudev Buddha, metamorphosed from matriarch component of Buddhist perception of creation.

Followers of Buddhism, after Buddha’s demise, unable to protect their creed from overwhelming whirlwind of gods-spangled system of the anti-Buddha people in power as Sunyavad could not be a practical solution to socio-spiritual quests of commons, were in frantic search of a method of retaining Buddhism, when Orissa’s the then influential intellectual Indrabhuti, revered as the King of Uddiyana, preferred to introduce deity worshiping amongst the people of Orissa, basically Buddists, to counter the impact of countless presence of Gods that Vedic chauvinists were offering for tackling worldly problems of the people.

By then Sabaripa, an ardent follower of Buddhism and an astute leader of indigenous tribes of Orissa in the Sweta valley of Orissa that derived this name from the Dhauli (Sweta) Giri overlooking the area spanning from River Daya to River Prachi, was trying to see in Jaganta (the wooden log worshiped by tribal people of Orissa as the Mother Nature) the matriarch components of Buddhism and as is suggested in Sri Jaya Devanka Baisi Pahacha, female breasts conceived as the source of sustenance, were added to that wooden log resembling the torso of a female, reflecting the concept in Oriya “thana” abridged to “tha” thereon, thus editing Jaganta to Jaganta-tha.

Relying upon Sabaripa, Indrabhuti transormed that Jaganta-tha to Jagannatha and in Gnyana Siddhi the scripture he gave to Vajrayana, propitiated Gurudev Buddha as this Jagannatha.

Thus the transformation of Gurudev Buddha to Sri Jagannatha took place in the Kurma Pataka Pur on river Prachi in the Sweta valley of Orissa.

Pataka is a Deshaja (indigenous) Oriya word that means the low caste people.

As even now innumerable turtles are visiting Orissa coast to lay eggs every year, so also in the days of yore they were coming to this coast, specifically to the coast on the estuary of Prachi. Therefore the area had assumed the name of Kurma Pur (the preferred place of turtles) and as it was the habitat of Buddhist Patakas, it eventually became Kurma Pataka Pur. The concept of Jagannatha Buddha having its origin in this area, searching for logs for Navakalevara (new body) of Jagannatha starts only from this area even as yet. So the close circle of Jagannatha is known as Kurma Prachira that forms the inner wall of the Temple at Puri, even though the Vedic chauvinists have transformed Indrabhuti to Indradyumna and Sabaripa to Sabara Biswabasu throgh concocted legends to suppress the Buddhist origin of Jagannatha.

To Gurudev Buddha, there was nothing like low caste. He was the strongest opponent of caste-based division of society and therefore, nearest to him were the low caste peoples (Patakas).

By adopting the Sabara Jaganta-tha as Jagannatha Buddha, and establishing him as the deity for worship by all the Buddhists, Indrabhuti promulgated the caste-less culture in vogue in Buddhist Kurma Pataka Pur in the premises of his Temple.

To the caste supremacists this was not acceptable. Buddha’s deification as Jagannatha was a stiff challenge to the Vedic order specifically as in Jagannatha temple the caste system was done away with.

Therefore, there were repeated attempts to destroy Jagannatha by caste supremacists belonging to Vedic order.

Their attack on Jagannatha was two-pronged: (1) physically through their collaborator kings or emperors and (2) through attempt to transform Jagannatha from Buddha to Vishnu.

When the first method of attack has stopped in course of time, the second method is yet ongoing.

Recitation of Vedic hymns in Pahandi Bije is the last such attack and up till now, the severest.

We shall look at it in depth.
(To continue)

The frazzled world needs many Ram Singh Mundas. Let the Administration not ruin the only Ram Singh Munda available at present.

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Ram Singh Munda has gone back from Bhubaneswar to his village in Keonjhar with the feeling that peoples of Orissa love him and totally appreciate his humane nature and the way he has nurtured Rani by rescuing her from the grip of death.

But he may go back to Jail if a mentally dull officialdom in the lower level of Orissa’s Forest Department is not discouraged from wild use of the Wildlife Protection Act against him in total disregard to the noble qualities the innocent tribal personifies.

Released from Jail on bail, he had rushed from his village Rutisila under Ghatagaon Block of Keonjhar on June 27 to Bhubaneswar to meet Rani in Nandanakanan zoo. His six-year-old daughter Dulki, orphaned by her mother, had also accompanied him.

Who is Rani?

The entire learned world by this time has known her. She is a bear cub, rescued around eighteen months ago from the grip of death while lying abandoned and dehydrated in the Jungle. Ram Singh Munda had given life to the hopeless cub by bottle-feeding her curtailing his daughter’s food out of sheer compassion and had adopted her and given her the name and had given her the comfort she so badly was in need of then to survive. A widower, rearing his baby daughter, Ram Singh knew the agonies of a motherless child and hence he knew how to take care of Rani. By limitless love, he had convinced her that she was neither orphaned nor abandoned.

When he visited Nandankanan the scenario that suddenly manifested was to be seen to believe.

Rani, thrown into an isolated enclosure by forest officials, refusing to receive food and lying dejected, in a fraction of a second danced in delight as Munda knocked at the wire walls of the enclosure and the moment was so emotionally surcharged that the officer in-charge present on the spot could not know that he was defying the rules of the zoo as he ordered his men to open the gate and allow Munda the pleasure of the bear’s grateful hugs.
It was a rare reunion of a father (the man) and a daughter (the bear) the like of which the world has never seen so far in real life.

This establishes beyond doubt that Ram Singh Munda had not only rescued the bear cub from grip of death, but also had reared it as a father rears a motherless child.

It also establishes that Rani is not at all wild. Use of Wildlife Protection Act against this man who is nothing but a protector of wildlife exposes how mentally dull is the officialdom in lower level of forest department.

Why Ram Singh Munda was in the jail?

Ram Singh Munda, a tribal and a natural lover of the forests, had developed a fancy to dress up like a forest guard. But private use of Khaki not prohibited in Laws and the dress he was using not being the uniform, the local staff of forest department was unable to stop him, even though, that was bruising their official ego. On the other hand, people of the locality were making fun of the forest guards comparing them with Ram Singh Munda, as to them, though not in government service, he was a real lover of forests than the local foresters who were drawing salary from the state exchequer but hobnobbing with the jungle looters. They were morally shying at Ram Singh but internally waiting for opportune time to smash him.

The highly rich flora and fauna of Keonjhar District are no more discernible. For such a deplorable deterioration of the once enviable eco-system, though frazzled by authorized and unauthorized mining, in public perception the responsible factors lay in the deficiency and deliberate dereliction in duty coupled with corruption in the lower offices of forest department. So the low rank forest officials were in search of something that may project them as active and sincere in their duties.

Ram Singh Munda’s association with the bear provided them with the solution.

By catching hold of Ram Singh Munda and sending him to the heartless zone of law where jailing some one without complete assessment of an allegation is a privilege, the forest officials of the concerned area have in their own way built up a showcase in their support.

They have charged him for contravention of Sections 2(16) / 9 / 39(3) / 40 and 42 of Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.

Let us take a cursory note of what mischief these Sections are up to.

Section 9 says, no person shall hunt any wild animal specified in Schedule, I, II, III and IV except as provided under section 11 and section 12 as amended when Sec.2 (16) defines “hunting” as “capturing, killing, poisoning, snaring, and trapping of any wild animal and every attempt to do so”. When Sec.39 shows wild animals as government property, sub-sect.3 thereof at cl. (a) discourages a man to “acquire or keep in his possession, custody, or control” a wild animal sans prior permission of the Chief Wildlife Warden or his authorized officer. Section 40 under sub-section (2) repeats almost the same thing as it prohibits everybody to “acquire, receive, keep in his control, custody or possession any animal specified in Sch. 1 or Part 11 of Sch. 11 except with the previous permission in writing of the Chief Wildlife Warden or the authorized officer”. And, Section 42 gives power to the Chief Wildlife Warden to issue, for the purposes of Sec. 40, “a certificate of ownership in such form, as may be prescribed, to any person who, in his opinion, is in lawful possession of any wild animal”.

If anything, prosecution of Ram Singh Munda under these provisions is most farcical of law.

Firstly he has not “hunted” Rani. He has “rescued” Rani from the grip of death. And rescuing an animal is not illegal under Section 9.

Secondly, he has not “acquired” Rani. He has “adopted” Rani as his child. Adopting an animal is not illegal within the mischief of terms used in Sections from 39 to 42 as shown above.

Thirdly Rani is not a “wild animal” and hence sections 39, 40 and 42 are of no force in the instant case.

The term “wild animal” is defined under Sub-Section 36 of Section 2 of the Act.
Accordingly “wild animal” means any animal found wild in nature” If the animal is not “wild in nature”, the words “any animal specified in Schedule I, Schedule II, Schedule, IV or Schedule V, wherever found” added thereto would not apply as the same is a mere qualifying extension of the concept centering around the term “wild in nature”. Rani is never “wild in nature” and hence, these sections are not applicable against Ram Singh Munda.

That Rani is never “wild in nature” is proved by the very fact that when the forest officers who are prosecuting Ram Singh Munda transported her to Nandankanan zoo, they had never administered any tranquilizer on her. In full public gaze, she had accompanied them like a very good-natured human being assuming that those two-legged animals might be as good and noble as Ram Singh Munda.

But all two-legged animals are not humane.

However, if the law enforcers do not believe their own agents who took Rani from Ram Singh Munda’s house to the zoo at Nandankanan without experiencing in her any “wild nature”, they may peruse this much-circulated pictures afresh.
Do they find this bear rescued from death and adopted as a daughter by the kind-hearted tribal as an animal “wild in nature”?

Prosecuting Ram Singh Munda, the way they have done, betrays their own deficiency in understanding the spirit of Law. The law was framed for “protection” of wildlife, not for prosecution of a protector of wildlife.

Members of civil society feel ashamed of what officialdom in Orissa has done to a man who deserves rewards and honors of highest order for the noble and exemplary contributions he has made to humanitarianism.

The sections cited supra under which the forest officers are prosecuting Ram Singh Munda do never impose prohibition even on “acquiring and keeping” wild animals. Anyone can do it with prior or post-facto permission from an authorized officer. The authorized officer may grant the permission in fear of power or in getting his palms greased. Except these two unwritten but possible propellants, there is no definite description of circumstances in the body of these Sections that should necessitate issuance of permission. Therefore these Sections are infested, despite amendments, with inbuilt legal lacunae. But when administration relies on these Sections and the person relying on these Sections is not influenced by power or purse, it is clear that he uses his administrative wisdom in granting permission to acquire or keep wild animals. So law has not prohibited acquiring or keeping wild animals but has only stressed on invocation of discretionary powers of the officer concerned in the matter.

If officialdom is not prejudiced, it should appreciate that Ram Singh Munda has “protected” the life of the bear cub and is not guilty of any crime as there is no criminal intension behind rescuing the bear cub from sure death and upbringing it like his own child. In appreciation of this reality, the Chief Wildlife Warden or the officer authorized by him can invoke with retrospective effect the discretionary power vested in him in the above mentioned Sections and condone the delay in approach for permission and grant the same to Ram Singh Munda with retrospective effect to regularize this uncommon but welcome act of man’s responsibility towards animals. Far from being illegal, it will fetch unreserved appreciation of the world.

Available scope

According to the Divisional Forest Officer of Keonjhar, the case against Ram Singh Munda, propelled by the above mentioned Sections, is under further investigation and what other Sections may be invoked against him would depend on that. As such, admittedly, the charges are not finally framed. This gives a scope to not frame the case against the poor but upright man.

Everybody knows that cases are built up, evidences are cooked up and charges are framed up when officialdom decides to harass any upright person. Let this not happen this time.

Wildlife protection Act is a central law that exists in English language. It has never been translated into Oriya and available to peoples like Ram Singh Munda. The officers of forest department who are prosecuting him for having kept the bear cub have never tried to make him and peoples of his category aware of this Act. So, use of this Act against the innocent illiterate man is an act against natural justice.

On the other hand, reports coming from the locality reveal that in the presence of the peoples of the area including local forest officials, Ram Singh Munda had left Rani in the jungle twice in order to give it her natural habitat. Both the times, she had come back to his home. So it is clear that the bear was staying freely with Ram Singh for around eighteen months well within the knowledge and with tacit approval of the forest officials; and more importantly, on its own accord after being released to the jungle in presence of the peoples and forest officials. And, forest officials know this.

If under exigencies of circumstances, they deny this, then they should react to the highly circulated picture displayed supra.

It shows, he was moving the local area in his cycle with Rani clinging to his back. His village of Rutisila under Ghatagaon is a small rural habitat where everybody knows everything that happens in the locality within no time. So, the bear clung to Ram Singh Munda during his bicycling on the local roads must have attracted everybody’s attention including that of the forest officials. It must have taken months together for the bear and her foster father to master this practice. If any forest officer of the said locality says he did not know of this, then he is a liar or is mentally dull. If not, then it is clear that the bear was staying with Ram Singh Munda for all these days under full knowledge of forest officials and their non-intervention so far must be inferred as their full approval of the bear’s stay with Ram Singh Munda. Therefore, the present prosecution is a foul play against the spirit of law and is vitiated with unworthy and inhuman motives.

So, looked at from any angle, there is no real case against Ram Singh Munda. An honest judiciary will never find him guilty. The Wildlife Protection Act never vouches for any prosecution against him for having rescued, saved and adopted the bear cub found abandoned in dying condition in the forests and for bringing her up from infancy to adolescence in a healthy state with all the love and care a man, despite abject poverty, could ever have given to an infant animal, the like of which has never occurred anywhere on records so far in the entire world.

We, the people of Orissa have every reason to be proud of Ram Singh Munda, the simple natured hero who has shown how humane can become a man.

The forest department should not make an animal of him.

Ram Singh Munda is a rare person in the showy jungles of Ramadevs and Ravishankars and innumerable Godmen and innumerable Gods in whose favor propaganda of humanitarianism is cultivated and amplified.

Ram Singh Munda is personification of silent sacrifice and humanitarianism, of selfless service and compassion.

He is simple in nature and innocent. Though illiterate, he is the finest embodiment of positive thinking and qualities that make man the best amongst living creatures.

Enough damage has been done to him by the mentally dull officialdom who could never feel how devastative it would be to his six-year-old motherless daughter by beating up and arresting him before her eyes as if he had committed the heinous most crime by saving an infant animal from the grip of death!

No further damage the civil society would silently tolerate.

There are officers in the higher echelon of forest department whom I know as excellent and dedicated lovers flora and fauna. I earnestly hope, they will review this case and stop the misadventures of avoidable litigation against a man who is being harassed for his love for the animal world.

Talking to Sri Pradeep Raj Karat, DFO of Keonjhar, I have gathered the impression that as an officer he is perhaps not prejudiced. It would not be too much to expect that he stop his lower office from framing up cases against the financially poor but temperamentally magnanimous man who has made so much sacrifice from his scant resources for saving the life of an infant bear and thereafter to rear her up.

It would be better, if by withdrawing the prosecution, the forest department could honor Ram Singh Munda for exemplary compassion shown by him to an animal in distress.

The wrong done to Ram Singh Munda should be rectified this way.

The frazzled world needs many Ram Singh Mundas. Let the Administration not ruin the only Ram Singh Munda available at present.