By D.N. Singh
It was Thursday when the news came about the demise of Biju Patnaik, undeniably one of the tallest personalities in Indian politics. The day next the scene at his personal residence had worn a look of gloom amid an ocean of people, political leaders making a beeline before his residence to a get glimpse of the great son of Odisha.
We were travelling from Bhubaneswar to Puri for the coverage of his cremation in Puri and the road stretching from Bhubaneswar to Puri had its entire length of the kerb filled with aggrieved people, someone holding a bouquet of flowers and others with a shed of shock writ on their faces. Even it could be noticed that small boys in one hand holding the knot of the sagging shorts and on the other a small bunch of marigold flowers.
All eyes were towards the right to see if the motorcade was visible. It was a kind of tranquil all around sometimes interspersed by slogans of ‘Biju babu amar rahe’. When we reached Pipli, a long line of more than five hundred people stood in the wait. Interestingly, the man, holding a big flower bouquet, who stopped us there to know how far was the motorcade, was in fact Congress leader Yudhistir Nayak. That was enough to fathom what was Biju Patnaik whose acceptance knew no boundaries.
At Puri Swargadwar (gateway to heaven), a galaxy of top national leaders were present and the prominent among them were L.K. Advani, Lalu Prasad Yadav, H.D. Deve Gowda, Ramvilash Paswan and Chandrasekhar.
Biju Patnaik who for long remained as a silver line in Odisha and national politics was one of the most accomplished survivors among a generation of leaders who made their mark in the war of Independence and then in politics.
Biju Patnaik remained Odisha’s chief minister twice and during his second term in 1990 to 1995 in fact he drew the real industrial roadmap of the state.
As a politician his proximity with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was part of the synergy that helped him to pitch for industrialisation when he had established Kalinga Tubes and subsequently Kalinga Airlines, and became its chief pilot. However, the airlines later became a part of the Indian Airlines. What inspired him to relinquish such a successful empire and jump into the pyre of politics was not known but it was then viewed as if Biju was back-pedalling to future.
But besides his mark in politics or industry what had captured the headlines for quite some time was his daredevilry as a pilot and exploits in the Independence of Indonesia and the Indo-China war.
Somewhere he had described that a brief tryst with the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi was an inspiring takeaway for him to serve the nation. After that, he underwent training at the Delhi Flying Club and his skills and courage were put to use during the freedom struggle.
In the early part of his career he was into business but a person like Biju Patnaik could not remain cocooned to that format for long. Meanwhile, his daring exploits in flying earned him laurels and Pandit Nehru assigned him the most adventurous task of rescuing two key leaders of the Indonesian independence movement that later earned him the Indonesian highest honour of ‘Bhumi Putra’ (son of the soil). Biju Patnaik had his one liner clear to express his hatred against any colonial misadventure and he was once quoted by international media saying: “Resurgent India does not recognise Dutch colonial sovereignty over the Indonesian population.”
Although Biju babu’s political career was a less successful one yet some of his visionary skills were remarkable and are the most relevant today. He tried to champion the cause of ‘fiscal autonomy’ in India and politically he many times advocated for a loose federalism in India dismissing the relevance of two party system, a few landmark issues which then had very few buyers. Most often his political critics tried to ridicule his concepts as an off-shoot of a ‘maverick’ on the run but he always wore a jacket of magnanimity that is too big for any present day politician.
