KERADAGARH CRIES TO KNOW WHO RULES ORISSA: THE GOVERNMENT OR THE Satan? - Subhas C. Pattnayak

December
27th, 2006

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The peculiarity of human society everywhere in the world is that it is
ruled over by a person or a group. The ruling person or group is called a
Government where rule of Law prevails. Where rape of Law continues, the land
is held to be ruled by the Satan. Keradagarh in Orissa's Kendrapada district
cries to know as to who rules over the land.

Before going to that intricate issue, let us first see why there is the need
to know of this.

Had there been no rape of Law, the need to know this would never have
arisen.

Hence which Law has been raped?

The Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 and The Orissa Temple Entry Act,
1948, have been raped under patronage of the government, allege deputy
director S.K. Naskar and research officer D.N. Palchaudhury of The National
Commission for Scheduled Castes after concluding a spot survey in Keradagarh
where Scheduled Caste people have been subjected to atrocities by members of
the upper Castes like the Uchha Jaati Vikash Parisad (Council for
development of Upper Castes) and the Priests of a Jagannath temple standing
there as a citadel of caste apartheid.

But we will concentrate on the Special Law made to stop such atrocities.

"Despite various measures to improve the socio-economic conditions of
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, they remain vulnerable", with this
official admission begins the Statement of Objects and Reasons of this
Special Legislation namely The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
(Prevention of Atrocities) Act,1989, hereinafter called the Atrocities Act.

The Statement goes on confessing,

"They are denied number of civil rights. They are subjected to various
offences, indignities, humiliations and harassment. They have, in several
brutal incidents, been deprived of their life and property. Serious crimes
are committed against them for various historical, social and economic
reasons.

"When they assert their rights and resist practice of untouchability against
them or demand statutory minimum wages or refuse to do any bonded or forced
labor the vested interest try to cow them down and terrorize them".

Depicting practice of much such oppression, the Statement confesses that the
existing Laws "like Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 and the normal
provisions of the Indian Penal Code have been found to be inadequate to
check these crimes. A special legislation to check and deter crimes against
them committed by non-Scheduled Castes and non-Scheduled Tribes has,
therefore become necessary".

Therefore this Special Legislation makes it mandatory under Section 3
thereof that

"whoever not being a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe,
intentionally insults or intimidates with intent to humiliate a member of a
Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe in any place within public view"
(Sec3(1)(x) or "denies a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe
any customary right of passage to a place of public resort or obstruct such
member so as to prevent him from using or having access to a place of public
resort to which other members of the public or any section thereof have a
right to use or access to" (Sec.3(1)(xiv), "shall be punishable with
imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than six months but which
may extend to five years and with fine".

But at Keradagarh these atrocities are perpetrated on the members of the
Scheduled Castes by non-Scheduled Caste people and the Government of Orissa
is not implementing this Law specifically framed to prevent such atrocities.
Therefore the question arises as to who now rules over Orissa.

The perpetrators of these atrocities have not only raped the Law there, but
also have raped Jagannathism in the guise of worshiping Jagannath.

Of course raping Jagannathism in the guise of worshiping Jagannath is an old
practice of the priests who act as stooges of the perpetrators of social
slavery designed by Aryan imperialism.

*Aryan assault on Jagannath*

When our Motherland was subjugated by invading Aryas, those exploiters, as a
class, had reduced the overpowered Indian Tribes to slavery and had designed
a caste structure wherein they were designated as impure persons
(untouchables) to whom salvation was shown attainable only through total
surrender to the commands of their masters described in scriptures as Dwijas
i.e. the members of the Upper castes. This system of exploitation was made
perpetual by denial of right to read scriptures, to perform penance, to
enter into temples or to observe asceticism, which, according to the
scriptures that they had contrived, were the gateways to salvation. So
acceptance of these denial-commands of the Upper Caste people without any
question was the only way to salvation granted to the untouchables.

Buddha, born in Orissa's Kapilavastu, presently known as Kapileswar,
(wrongfully depicted as in Nepal) was the first scientific revolutionary to
have organized the untouchables to form Samghas of their own on the basis of
democratic centralism and collectively defeat caste exploitation. He, eager
to save Orissa's Tosala democratic culture from Aryan autocratic invasion,
rushed from Orissa to Magadha and organized the tribes there to resist the
expanding Aryan Autocracy. Under his guidance the Tribes organized their own
Democracies against Aryan Autocracy and clipped its spread in its heartland.
Ajatasattu,s failure in overpowering Bajjian Tribes as recorded in history
testifies this matchless political phenomenon. Till finally the Kalinga war
gave the Magaddhan Asok a chance to hoodwink the tribal democracies, Aryan
Autocracy had been kept clipped by the Bouddha Samghas and Orissa's original
culture of complacence and peaceful pursuit of democratic way of life was
kept in tact. So the grateful people of Orissa through their Buddhist guides
like the Siddhacharyas of Chaurashi (famous as Caurasi Siddhacharyas) had
equated the Tribal Jaganta-tha, meaning the torso of the mother that stood
for the universal force of productivity and protection with Buddha, the
philosopher and the protector and eventually Orissa's king Indrabhuti
christened Buddha as Jagannath deriving the word from the said
Jaganta-tha.*(Sri
Jaya Devanka Baisi Pahacha, Subhas Chandra Pattanayak, Bharata Bharati,
2005)*. So Jagannath being Buddha became the ultimate leader of Orissa.
Aryan Autocracy that thrived on Caste apartheid could not be stable in
Orissa because of the impact of Jagannath Buddha on the people. Aryan
Autocrats were non-Oriyas and they were attacking and capturing portions of
Orissa and trying to establish dynasties. But the people being Buddhists,
their caste culture had no acceptability and this is why there were so many
dynasties replacing one after another in Orissa. Then attempts were made to
transform Jagannath from Buddha to Bishnu, specifically to non-Oriya
Krushna. And to execute this design as many as 10,000 Brahmins who were
non-Oriyas were imported from out side Orissa by a non-Oriya king of Keshari
dynasty. They were allotted freehold lands at different parts of Orissa and
their settlements were styled as Shasana that stood for administration and
they were imposed on the subjects as the priests who were the only ones
entitled to worship the deities and the feudatory kings were instigated to
establish Jagannath temples in their respective estates and engage these
priests to worship Jagannath not as Buddha, the beloved son of Orissa soil,
but as Krushna of Dwaraka and thereby to destroy the casteless character of
Jagannathism.

History of Jagannathism is a history of battle between Aryan attempt to
promulgate caste apartheid in Jagannath temple and Oriya endeavor to defeat
that design. The story of defeat of the caste supremacist Balaram and his
obedient follower and younger brother Krushna of Dwaraka origin in the
episode of the untouchable woman Sriya is an Oriya way of proving the
unacceptability of caste culture.

Many Vedic preachers, who basically were caste supremacists like the
Samkaracharya had camped in Puri and tried to sow seeds of caste apartheid
in the guise of philosophical sermons. Even the Adi Samkaracharya and his
disciple Padmapada's statues were arbitrarily kept on the Ratna-Simhasana of
Sri Jagannath, the Brahmins worshiping them along with the Deity, forcing
the people to accept Jagannath as Bishnu. People of Orissa, history has
witnessed, threw away those statues of Samkara and Padmapada and dismantled
all his authorities in the matter of Sri Mandira. And till date
Samkaracharyas have no control over Jagannath system. Having thus failed to
usurp Sri Mandira of Puri for the caste supremacists, the exploiters as a
class have established Jagannath temples in different parts of Orissa
through Feudatory Kings and Zamidars with a motive to dilute its casteless
culture and thereby have succeeded in bonding innocent people to social
slavery by promulgating caste apartheid.

Keradagarh was no exception. Construction of a temple there and consecration
of Jagannath statue therein was a part of the caste supremacist design.

When the Country was under foreign yoke and the Zamidar of Kanika comprising
Keradagarh was hand-in-glove with the powers that had subjugated our
Motherland, it had flourished. The exploited people, declared as untouchable
by the exploiter class, were made to accept that they are inferior creatures
born only to serve the Upper Caste Masters and to inscribe this in their
psyche permanently, they were banned to enter into the temple proper and to
remain satisfied with the permission to see the temple through peep-holes
made on the surrounding wall for that specific purpose.

Like in Kanika, everywhere the untouchable people had by experience gathered
that as long as they are not free from the autocratic rulers and their
foreign patrons, this social humiliation would not end.

*Freedom fight was against caste supremacy*

In order to end this humiliation they had joined the freedom movement.
Therefore we find majority of martyrs of our freedom struggle belonged to
the lower Castes.

Their contributions to our freedom movement were so massively immense and
incomparable that after independence their mouthpiece Babasaheb Ambedkar was
the Nation's natural choice for drafting the Constitution of our Country
notwithstanding presence of many legal luminaries in the Constituent
Assembly.

So our freedom was a contribution of the people who had wanted caste
apartheid to end.

But there was no dearth of caste supremacists in the Constituent Assembly.
The caste supremacists have a common creed. They support private property.
Lest this creed be opposed to, the first Prime Minister of free India,
Jawaharlal Nehru, who was adamant to be addressed as Pundit Nehru or
Punditji in consonance with his Kashmir Pundit linage and in whose cabinet
caste supremacists were the heavyweights, had ensured that the Constituent
Assembly remained free from presence of the Communists by banning the
Communist Party of India, the party that had led the country into
independence after all the Congress leaders had gone into British prisons
after 1942 and had made the highest sacrifice in heroic battles against the
British. In absence of the protectors of proletariat interest, i.e. the
Communists, Indian Constitution could not be saved from the trap of private
property and right to property became a fundamental right. This has provided
the most congenial climate to spread of all sorts of corruption in the
country and has helped public money looters becoming awe inspiring rich and
has eventually, but unnoticed, transformed our democracy to a plutocracy.

So the country has become a citadel of caste supremacists. As has been shown
supra, caste supremacists thrive on scriptural fundamentalism and
monopolistic handling of religious holdings. To them, assertion of lower
caste people to have access to religious places or temples is anathema.
Therefore whenever any member of the communities held by them as
untouchable, enters or wants to enter into a temple, the caste supremacists
subject him/her to various indignities. Giving an account of to what brutal
extent these indignities are devised, the Atrocities Act in its Statement of
Objects & Reasons even admits, that,

"there has been an increase in the disturbing trend of commission of certain
atrocities like making the Scheduled Caste persons eat inedible substances
like human excreta and attacks on and mass killings of helpless Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes and rape of women belonging to Schedule Castes
and Scheduled Tribes".

All these atrocities are being perpetrated on Scheduled Caste people in
Keradagarh under the umbrage of Orissa Government.

*Women tortured.*

Two years ago, in November 2004, four Dalit women were brutalized for having
entered the temple. Orissa administration has failed to act on the
Atrocities Act.

Their constitutional rights to equality so inhumanly trampled and their
protests against the atrocities not paid attention to by the Government, the
Dalits of Keradagarh decided en masse to enter into the Jagannath temple in
November last year. The caste supremacists instantly organized to obstruct
the Dalits.

An advocate, Akhya Kumar Mallik, filed a public interest petition in the
Orissa High Court seeking protection for Dalits when they enter the temple.

But to use the Court for prolongation of upper caste hegemony, a Brahmin by
caste Raghunath Padhy filed a petition in the high court seeking maintenance
of status quo.

In response, a division bench comprising Justice I M Quddusi and Justice N
Prusty, put a ban on the entry of people into the temple, barring the
priests and the staff, pending final verdict. This was meant to eliminate a
climate of immediate confrontation. Dalits, honoring the interim order,
shifted their entry schedule from November 09 to November 26, 2006. But the
caste supremacists continued their design to cow down the Dalits by
declaring through Sheshadev Nanda, the Brahmin leader of Uccha Jaati Vikash
Parisad, that notwithstanding what the High Court says, they will never
allow the Dalits to enter into the temple and in his support upper caste
leaders from outside the area also started camping in Keradagarh.

It is surprising that instead of taking the caste supremacist provocateurs
to task under the Atrocities Act, the Police Chief of the District,
Shatrughna Parida lost no time in airing his intent to have a compromise. A
compromise on Fundamental Rights? In whose interest Mr. S.P.?

However, the High Court ruled that the Hindus had the right to enter any
temple, irrespective of caste. The administration, afraid of the powers of
the Court, could not dare to help the caste supremacists when strengthened
by the High Court verdict, hundreds of Dalits entered the temple on December
14, 2006.

But rape of Law became most savage immediately thereafter as the head priest
of the temple Madan Mohan Panda locked up its gate and stopped worshipping
the deity declaring that they have been desecrated by the entrance of the
untouchables into the temple. The impasse continued for 60 hours and the
caste supremacists cultivated emotional wrath amongst non-scheduled caste
people of the locality against the untouchables by instigating the upper
caste people to observe fasting as a penance against lost of purity of the
temple by the dalits' entry.

This is a clear instance of offences categorized under Sub-Section (1)(x)
and (1)(xiv) of the Atrocities Act as quoted supra. The offenders are known.
The Law has made it mandatory that a minimum punishment of six months
imprisonment with fine is an unavoidable must under the Atrocities Act,
which is a special legislation promulgated to prevent these specific
offences. But administration of this Act rests with the State Government. On
the other hand, the Act, making the punishment mandatory, has given no scope
for non-prosecution. So it is a must for the Government of Orissa to
prosecute the persons who tortured four Dalit women over their entry into
the temple in 2004 and who in 2006 closed the door of the temple and stopped
the rituals there asserting that entry of the Dalits into the temple
following the High Court verdict desecrated the Deities. The state is also
bound to prosecute the Upper Caste leaders who organized caste supremacists
against the Dalits in Keradagarh. The Act has not left any option open for
the Government to desist from prosecution. Therefore, if the Government
fails to prosecute the offenders, who are known fellows, the concerned
functionaries must be held as abettors in the crime and prosecuted against
accordingly.

*Responsibility of the High Court *

The neo Nazi-Raj in Orissa seems to be siding with the caste supremacists
who have unleashed atrocities on the Dalits of Keradagarh. By arranging that
the Dalits can at best view the deities from a corridor constructed for that
purpose in stead of the nine holes available to them earlier, the
administration has tried to kill the spirit of the High Court verdict. If
this corridor arrangement is not nullified, it will go on making a mockery
of the High Court ruling and also go on reminding the victims that they are
untouchables and destined to stay so for ever. To this the High Court should
not stay a mute witness. Eyes and ears of the judiciary must not always
remain closed to what is happening in the locality. Therefore, Orissa High
Court should take up the matter under Article 226 of the Constitution of
India and ensure that the Atrocities Act is administered against the caste
supremacists of Keradagarh and there abettors in Orissa administration.

Otherwise the cry of the victims of Keradagarh caste apartheid to know as to
who is or are at the helm of affairs in Orissa � The Government or the
Satan? � would go on unabated and that would not be congenial to whatever
semblance of democracy we still feel existing.