By Capt. Dibya Shankar Mishra* : Biju Patnaik, today is name that reckons with Odisha – a cultural and political icon of this state. On his 100th birth anniversary, I espouse my view of this great man – an aeronautical engineer, an ace pilot, freedom fighter, politician, cultural ambassador, an industrialist, a dreamer and an ideologist rolled into one.
Political and administrative corridors, arm chair intellectual discussions on Odisha politics is incomplete without a reference made to Biju Patnaik. My being in Biju Janata Dal is not a chance. It is my resolve to carry forward the legacy that he left behind; to contribute to the making of a resurgent and developed Odisha.

In many senses, I wish to pay my respects to a hero – a great leader, a visionary, an ideologist who inspired adventurous ideas! He lives on…not only in the memories of people who have met him, but people who have heard of him and read about him.

Way back in the late seventies, I had the privilege of meeting Biju Patnaik. A child as I was, I still remember the man who made such a deep impression on my mind and eventually my life. I must confess that my father had well prepared me for this historic meeting; historic more for him than for me.

Asked a rather predictable question about what I wanted to become when I grew up; I parroted a statement told to me – I want to be a pilot. Least did I know that, that would be the beginning of a new journey for me. I was admitted into Sainik School Bhubaneswar in 1978 to follow a dream. In 1990 I was commissioned as a pilot in the Indian Air Force; true to the commitment that I made to myself.

While many will recall him as a legendary leader who sowed the seeds of industrialization in Odisha; I will prefer to talk about his vision on building social capital as pivotal to bring about social change. Clichéd as it may sound and at the risk of being seen as providing an oversimplified analysis of development; I deeply value his vision of social capital and see the need to bring this into the purview of public debate.

With no intention to devalue the contribution of industrial and infrastructural development; I personally feel that this whole debate around decentralization will remain unaddressed if we do not adequately invest in ‘people’ who are at the centre of any development or social change.

Building on social capital is like a long term investment for social change and within this gamut of definitions of social capital, I will focus on one important aspect of social capital – social networks. Secondly, bringing an end to poverty in a state like Odisha is not an easy task. There are no unilateral solutions to the complexity of problems that we see. In some senses, Odisha represents the same set of contradictions that Kalahandi, my district of operation, shows.

Mineral rich, resource rich, culture rich, art rich and yet Odias struggle for livelihoods. My political and social actions are to a large extent influenced by the political legacy of engaging with youth and with women citizenry groups to instill in them the aspiration and confidence to spearhead social change through their networks.

Engagement with youth covers a whole gamut of actions –improving youth employability with an effective labour market. While we have our social policies in place we need to adopt stringent measures to translate our pro-poor and youth friendly policies into action – to provide for strengthened public employment services and support youth entrepreneurs. Skilling youth and helping them to transit from school to work is important – creating value for vocational education and skill development is critical. There is now an increasing need to impinge upon hierarchical social structure existent in our society. It is our responsibility to promote a new normative culture of work and dignity. That all work provides dignity.

Dignity and value of a human being should no longer be associated with the work that our young people do. Odisha is probably one of the few states that has a youth policy; we in our capacities should facilitate in implementing the policy, engage with youth networks and collectives to help them realize their rights and responsibilities. There is an urgent need to usher in new aspirations into our young minds, create in them a sense of responsibility and accountability as citizens of a state.

The other potential change makers in my opinion are women. While women’s empowerment is the buzz word in all public discourses; we need to change our perspective on women’s empowerment today. Change in woman’s status is probably the slowest of all changes that we see, both in our country and our state. Our measures to improve empowerment should look at increasing the confidence and self- determination in our women to represent their interests in public space. While there is a certain degree of action required from the side of women themselves, empowerment of our women should be facilitated by us; to support them to look at themselves as valuable members of the society.

I see the necessity to move beyond the comfort zone of only considering SHGs as vehicles of women’s empowerment especially in rural areas – we have to make the quantum leap from group formation to promoting women entrepreneurship and to take women’s leadership programmes to the next logical level.

This calls for instilling a new conscious amongst both men and women. There are ample best practices seen within India on viable women entrepreneurship programmes run by poor, rural and marginalized women. Kerala stands as an example of women’s empowerment in our country – a critical contribution to this social change is women’s entrepreneurship.

As my plan of action to relive the dream of my inspirer Biju Patnaik and translate his dreams to reality I urge more people to dwell on the idea of creating conscious, confident, informed people – to lead the cause of social change in Odisha. March 5th, the birth anniversary of Biju Patnaik is celebrated as Panchayati Raj Divas in Odisha – it is an occasion to celebrate power to people. I believe power to people will be a reality only with strengthening the power of social networks.

{Capt Mishra is MLA from Junagarh*}