By Biswaraj Patnaik in Puri, May 5, 2017 : Legendary Biju Patnaik, strangely, was a Jagannath devotee. In the last ten years of life, he would invoke the Lord of the Universe at every public meeting and seek His blessings in turning the poor state of Odisha wealthy and happy. He would invariably begin his poll campaigns from His abode in Puri. Yet he was exemplary secular in his public conduct and thought. Love for the Lord was absolutely his personal choice. He loved the Lord because ‘He’ symbolized formlessness unlike other Deities in religions of all kinds.

Coincidentally, his younger son Naveen too is a Jagannath devotee in his own style. He visits the Lord religiously on the popular New Year day. Further, he has a great dream if turning Puri town truly iconic with all state support. Puri is a highly desired pilgrim destination for Hindus of the world. Further, the sea makes it a great tourist attraction as the climate is fairly temperate throughout the year except for a summer month when the wind drops and humidity goes very high in the June–July period. Lately, Puri has become a delightful wedding hub. Families from far and wide are organising wedding events in hotels with grand facilities.

The car festival is one of the two in India which receives national security forces, the other being the ‘Kumbh Mela’. Not surprisingly, the car festival also exposes administrative ‘excellence’ as a much as ‘failure’ for millions of visitors, both tourists and pilgrims set foot on the city during the joyous festival during which the Deities come out and go on a joyride. But sadly, most of the countless servitors at the temple have become unruly exploiters, greed having gripped them all over. Successive governments have taken great care to ensure the ancient temple is a place of peace and divinity.

However, due to faulty and archaic traditions, the number of servitors has risen to countless figures which is the strangest phenomenon ever known or experienced. The last one just dismissed only recently had built great expectations; but he too turned timid when it came to disciplining the unruly servitors. He never proposed to the government for drastic reforms in servitor conduct and to keep them in small, manageable number. It so looked as if the Lord Himself became bored and annoyed. So, he brought in a real good administrator with guts, skills and a strong will to turn the Temple a great shrine which emits and radiates divine joy for all to grab and enjoy. Eminently popular administrator Pradip Kumar Jena

Pradeep Kumar Jena

has just been chosen. This IAS officer is a simple, humble who knows too well that the Lord has designs for getting him to Their abode where the pilgrim footfall is incredibly high. He knows that the Lord rejoices only when the poorest of the poor devotee is treated with respect and caring.

The monarchs who put up the huge shrine centuries ago had made sure that the servitors served the pilgrims with equal reverence as they did the Deities. Around seven hundred and fifty two mutts and religious shelter homes were set up to extend hospitality to all devotees with free comfort of food and stay. Volunteering servitors were given grain fields and homestead land to earn money and spend on the devotees’ comfort.

Now nothing exists, not even the minimum sense of hospitality. It seems the succeeding monarchs degenerated themselves into ordinary mortals and the temple suffered on all fronts of management including disruptions in the daily rituals and rights. The erring monarchs gave away precious properties of the Deities as absolute owners do and countless crafty servitors and other lowly human creatures grabbed the opportunity of robbing the temple. The monarchs were discarded late in the fifties of the last century and the state took over management primarily because the Deities were neglected, the servitors suffered from hunger and poverty and resultantly devotees had no facility left to give them shelter and food free.

As of the Lord desired, the incumbent temple monarch Gajapati Dibyasingji returned to the temple service as a devout principal servitor and the rest of the history is common knowledge. But the servitors had become spoilt, more so after the live telecast began.

After years of chaos and confusion, there came a chief temple administrator who, though on a part time basis, was given immense power to run the temple to make all happy. The first one, a former Puri DM did good by being strict and stern on discipline, but as he grew in stature as an IAS officer, he began erring without regret or remorse. A ‘Hundi’ was placed but only to benefit the already wealthy servitors. The devotees became even more helpless than before. The last Nabakalebara crimes and fiasco are part of too known history. All the secret rituals were telecast lice and the Daitapatis made more hay than usual as the sun ray kept coming. The chief said the local administration was to blame.

Last year, the unruly servitors became unruly and behaved like militants; but the chief sided with them as the DM began booking them on criminal charges. The Lord has brought to Puri a superb team of dedicated no-nonsense administrators including the young SP, ADM and the SDM. Everybody has been methodical in planning strategies to make the Car Festival this year a grander success than before. And the new Chief Administrator Pradip Jena has inspired all including the masses because each is confident he will ensure magnificent ‘team play’ and not ever tolerate militant or errant behaviour. He has delegated the law and order issues to be resolved by the district administration as per their choice.

But at this critical juncture, the government has sent a transfer order for the SDM to bring in a pure novice, with not-so-acceptable reputation as a frontline magistrate or administrator. This just promoted SDM designate should have been sent to Malkanagiri or Nuapada to learn the basics of frontline management. It is rumoured a big-time Jatni-based education venturer has masterminded the whole move by influencing the chief secretary to have him installed in Puri to repay some out-of-turn help and have his records fixed as the record room is still in Puri. The DM has pleaded with the chief secretary who has taken note only to avoid public ire and media bashing because the SDM of Puri has proven his capabilities too well.

Besides, very rarely has an SDM been dislodged from Puri between ‘Akhyaya Trutiya’ and ‘Neeladribhai Bije’ events that begin and close the Car Festival processes. Pradip Jena the chief administrator is making waves already by not being a mad boss but a team leader. The people love him too. A grand Car Festival is expected this year with the tough DM, the outwardly easy–looking Superintendent of Police, a very honest hardworking and honest ADM and above all the SDM who has made Puri peaceful and free of criminals and habitual law breakers.

Coming to politics, everybody is talking about the BJP is seriously nurturing the dream of capturing Odisha in 2019, which seems to be too wild and misplaced. The ‘Lotus’ party ‘think tank’ seems to have failed in figuring out that the BJD is virtually invincible. The Modi wave has been lately strengthened by several people-friendly moves by Yogi Adityanath.

There is rumour of some sly dissidents scheming to join the non-secular outfit only because they dream of BJP taking over in 2019. The truth that has emerged after methodical analysis is that BJD IS so deep-rooted in Odisha with a stronger cadre base than the ones Communists had brought up in their twenty five years of rule in West Bengal. As of now, BJD is the only regional outfit all secular parties are crazy to please and have as ally. The DMK is weak, AIADMK is finished, Telugu Desam has tough competition within their states. TMC in Bengal is on the verge of collapse. JMM is not trusted anymore by tribal communities. And lastly the RJD is causing such damage to JDU as unbelievable only because the Lalu sons have proven to be more embarrassing than the father. Nitish has no way out. He is at point of no return. BJP will gulp them down soon as Congress has permanently fallen from public grace.

The BJP invasion in Odisha will not yield results as Naveen is still considered clean and incorruptible by the masses. He has adequately proven that whether or not he speaks Odia properly, it will not matter in ensuring quality development. The BJP with the Modi wave on is bound to face stiffest battle in Odisha in 2019. 95 seats for the BJD are assured; some of the rest may go to BJP as Yogi Adityanath’s abolition of VIP culture has had great public impact. But they have not abolished the prohibitively expensive security cover for many without any threat perception. Odisha has taken inspiration and will strike down all ‘VIP’ things everywhere, including VIP Roads, Enclaves, Suites and so on. Puri town roads had beautiful heritage names: ‘Police line’ road, ‘Armstrong’ road and ‘Governor House’ road now insanely fused into one ‘VIP road’ which must go.

Some say the RSS-run schools; particularly by the ‘Saraswati Sisu Mandir’ organisation enforce Hindu prayers, which means non-Hindu students being put to distress, which is violative of the Constitutional spirit. The teachers too are expected to indoctrinate students, parents and the neighbourhood communities with Hindu ways of life. They churn out good students; but the Hindu fundamental traditions are dumped on hapless, gullible masses.

Naveen Patnaik is too aware of what’s happening around. He sees clearly no situation which has emerged so far to indicate the BJP is on its way to power-grabbing victory. The saffron party does not have the right face in the state to put up as CM candidate. Jual Oram is certainly not the one and Dharmendra Pradhan will not get support from oldies.

The BJD has only to whip all the loudmouth leaders and the ones who have amassed wealth after becoming politicians. The party can move the people by bringing in place such acts as will disqualify leaders from contesting elections if too found splurging money on too many guests at wedding celebrations; and having more than two children.

Most importantly, the spokespersons have to be perfectly decent. Except Pratap Deb and Dibyashankar, others are either too talkative or rude in speech and looks. The Nimapada leader, no matter how well-intentioned, irks the television viewers so badly that the BJD party suffers a beating. Suryanarain is too servile to the boss in speech which shows the former does not value democracy, although Naveen is one of the most democratic of all present day politicians only if the team members have functioning heads on shoulders. When there are more sycophants, slaves and flatterers, he assumes the Supremo figure because he knows these guys would not be able to contribute imaginatively to anything.

In 2019, the battle for power will not be fierce. It will not be a cake walk for BJD too. But the BJP will have to give in at all places as they do not have a cadre base.

All that the BJD high command has to do is instill a spirit of humility and decency in most of the fellow leaders who are talking too boastful and leading a royal life with money they have acquired after holding any political office with BJD mark. Some constituencies need younger blood, new fresh faces. Winnability is not going to be an issue at all. As long as Naveen is steering the ship as captain, Tom, Dick and Harry are bound to win.