The flip side of Naveen Patnaik and Manmohan Singh

Naveen Patnaik has been widely feted as the man the people of Orissa have fallen in love with. After all, he has just won the third successive elections in the state. This time it is all the more significant as he has won a landslide victory, largely on his own, without the  support of a national party like the BJP.

Patnaik, who claims that his ‘every bone is secular’, has defended his 11-year cohabitation with a ‘communal’ outfit like the BJP as a political compulsion. Because of this compulsion, he had to defend Narendra Modi, when his goons ravaged the lives and property of Muslims in Gujarat. Because of this compulsion again, he had to wink at the depredations of the saffron outfit in the Kandhamal region. As soon as he consolidated his position, his supporters say, he snapped ties with the BJP. And with this one action, a ‘secular’ Naveen was born, both in bones and flesh, so much so that the Left leaders who considered him a pariah till the other day literally begged him for an electoral embrace. Thus a ‘secular’ alliance was born in the state which swept the polls.

But, then, exactly five years ago, the ‘communal’ alliance had also achieved an equally spectacular success. How does one describe Orissa’s electorate then? Were they communally driven in 2004 and have turned secular in 2009? Well, the supporters of Naveen Patnaik would say that the people of the state love him and they don’t care who he consorts with.

His astounding victory for the third time in a row is a testimony to this claim. You may ask, have the people of Orissa been better off since he came to power in 2000? Many would consider it a foolish question. Why should the people of Orissa vote for him otherwise, they would retort.

Well, didn’t the people of Orissa elect J B Patnaik for three terms as chief minister not long ago? And what do the people say about him now? The common voter today thinks that he was the man who institutionalized corruption and criminalized politics. If that is the case, then why did the same people prop him up in power for a decade and a half?

Most political analysts romanticize the success stories. They have to invent an explanation to idolize the man (or the woman) of the day. For them, J B Patnaik was a man of organization; he enlivened the moribund state Congress with his astute political management. It was only when he lost the electoral battle decisively that these analysts found skeletons in his cupboard.

The same would inevitably happen to his successor who is now being feted as the icon of integrity and development. When his stars begin to wane — and that would inevitably happen, sooner or later — then the people of the state and the intelligentsia will wake up to the realization that the other Patnaik sold jobs to make money; this Patnaik has sold the state, lock, stock and barrel.

And what was the logic? That they would set up industries that would benefit the state and the country. Pray, you set up industries by all means and mine as much minerals as you need for the industries in the state, but why should you have the right to export the minerals out of the state and the country?

But who will raise this issue? With the mainstream media eating out of the hands of the business giants in the form of advertisement revenue, there is a corporate censorship over any news that would adversely affect the interests of a large business establishment. When the big media maintain a conspiratorial silence, how will the issue come to limelight?

Of course, the political rivals are expected to do it. But then if the ruling party can be bought for a consideration, why not the opposition? That explains why the Congress, the leading opposition party in the state, never made the siphoning of the mineral wealth an issue. The BJP was in the ruling alliance and its leaders were the beneficiaries of the largesse doled out by the two MNCs. The astonishing part was that the Left parties in the state too adopted a policy of studied silence.

The only opposition came from the ordinary people in the region where the mining was to take place, as that would adversely affect their livelihood and life as well. Local political leaders were left with no option but to take part in the resistance struggle, lest they become politically irrelevant.

Many local communist leaders took part in and at places led the struggle. But the communist parties made it clear that they were doing so in their individual capacities, and not as party members. Bhakta Charan Das, who has built a successful political career based on mass struggle on popular issues in the western district of Kalahandi, had spearheaded the movement against the Vedanta. But as Samadrusti — a fortnightly Oriya journal which has positioned itself as the conscience-keeper of the state — pointed out, Das was given the Congress party ticket to contest the Lok Sabha elections only after he gave in writing that he would not be involved in the anti-Vedanta struggle any more. Such is the power of the corporate behemoths!

Now that Das has won the election, it would be worthwhile to see if his undertaking was just a tactical ploy and he would return to his instinctive spirit to fight injustice or if he has also surrendered his fighting spirit to the corporate blackmail.

But, then, Bhakta Das, the political activist, could take part in the local struggles. Das, the Congress MP, can’t. It is true that he belongs to a party which is the political rival of Naveen Patnaik’s BJD. But then his party, the Congress, is a partner in crime. The Manmohan Singh government at the Centre had given Naveen Patnaik the go-ahead with this brazen anti-Orissa policy.

Naveen Patnaik and Manmohan Singh are supposed to be two leaders known for personal honesty; but they clearly presided over a corrupt administration which was in thrall to the big business and big money. The corporate giants greased the palms in a big way both at the state and the centre and got the dream deal. And the irony was that these two leaders – Naveen Patnaik and Manmohan Singh – who should have been in the dock for parceling out Orissa’s long-term interests, were hailed as icons of development.

Both have now won sweeping victories. Their media-driven image as honest and development-oriented leaders have been reinforced by the people’s verdict. Clearly, the state of Orissa and its people are the losers in this confluence of interests of big business, big media and big politics.