Heritage Cabinet, a Historic Zero

They said, it was a historic day and indeed it was. For the first time, the Odisha state cabinet sat out of the capital city of  Bhubaneswar, in the temple town of Puri.  It was 26^th December 2017, coinciding with the 20^th year’s annual day celebration of Biju Janata Dal, the ruling party of Odisha for the last 22 years. On that particular day state cabinet under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik accepted a few important proposals to preserve the state’s culture, language, and literature. After 5 years since that historic day, we must review and ask a few questions about those “historic declarations”.

To counter BJP’s aggressive cultural nationalism BJD on that occasion rolled out a roadmap blended with the idea of language and ethnic nationalism.

Odia’s identity was the core component and to further this idea state cabinet decided to –

1. Set up a ‘Heritage Cabinet’ to preserve the relics and monuments in the state and enrich its rich culture and language
2. To set up an Odia Language Commission.
3.  To bifurcate the tourism and culture department. The cultural wing would be renamed as Odia Language, Literature and Culture Department.
4. To amend The Odisha Official Language Act, 1954 and to strictly enforce the act as law.
5. To made mandatory for all shops and business establishments in the state to display signboards in Odia language within a stipulated time. There would be a provision for punishment in case of violation of this rule.
6. World Odia Language Convention would be organized every five years and tuition fees would be waived for students pursuing Odia course at the graduation and post- graduation levels.
7. Scholarships, stipends and incentives would be provided to those securing high marks at the intermediate and graduation levels.
8. Students would be encouraged to pursue research in Odia as per the UGC pattern and the number of PhD seats would be increased.
9. State level and district level book fairs would be organized every year, besides setting up “smart libraries” with Odia books in all district headquarters and high schools.
10. Steps would be taken to facilitate translation of Odia literary works into other Indian languages and vice versa. All government functions in the state will be conducted in Odia language.
11. Non-resident Odia would be given access to learn Odia, and replies to letters and complaints received from the public would be given in Odia language.
12. Grants provided for the revival and popularization of ‘Bhagabat Tungis’, which are small huts in the villages where religious texts are narrated to the people, would be doubled for their maintenance.

These are few proposals which get cabinet nods on that day and was expected to be brought into action by the government. After five years all these points look as blank as it was on the very first day. After six months of Puri Cabinet meeting the first “Heritage Cabinet” sat in Bhubaneswar on 27^th July 2018 and resolved to set up an “Odia University” at Satyabadi.

In that meeting it was also decide to-

1. To convert the Ananda Bhawan Museum and Learning Centre (Biju Patnaik birthplace in historic Cuttack city) into a Trust and for this purpose, a corpus fund will be created.
2. For the smooth and smart functioning of all the public libraries, a separate post of Director, Public Library to be created.
3. To formulate one Odia Culture & Heritage Policy for preservation and proliferation of Art, Culture and Classical Odia Language.

So many dreams, but too short the night was. All those rosy plans and proposals were sent into dustbin and except very few token gestures, nothing has really come up to the light of the day.  God only knows where are those Odia language Commission and Odia University. The University construction is hopelessly slow and the Language Commission is a nonstarter. There is a futile document as Culture & Heritage Policy of the state which is a bundle of copy paste and junk ideas.

Forget about the state level and district level book fairs, the department of Odia Language, Literature and Culture ( That’s the only thing happened, they changed the name of the department immediately) had stopped all the existing private book fairs in the state capital. The use of Odia language in signboards is invisible and English still dominate all the signposts. Enforcement of the Odisha Official Language Act, 1954 had remained in absolute dark zone. Odisha Sahitya Academy. Odia Bhasha Pratishthan etc. are almost defunct. The Sahitya Academy is running like a headless chicken and the language institute is in deep slumber.

Historic Cabinet

In reality not a single proposal of that “Historic Cabinet” of  December 2017 is brought in to action. It was a high political drama to play the Odia identity as a fodder for vote bank before 2019 general election and is conveniently forgotten after “The Historic gain of the power” post 2019.

ALSO READ :https://interviewtimes.net/dharmendra-pradhan-on-the-murder-of-a-child-and-a-politician/

Story By : Kedar Mishra