Paika Marks A New March

바카라�Two hundred years ago, in 1817, a valiant uprising of soldiers led by Buxi Jagabandhu (Bidyadhar Mohapatra) took place in Khurda. We will commemorate the same appropriately,바카라� Jaitley had said. Recognition of the Paika rebellion at the national level brought much cheer to Orissa­바카라�and was welcomed even by chief minister Naveen Patnaik.

Less than two months later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi felicitated at Bhubaneswar바카라�s Raj Bhavan descendants of 16 families associated with the rebellion. He was in Orissa to attend the Bharatiya Janata Party바카라�s April 15-16 national executive. The venue was strategically chosen: the party is making a big push to mop up the unconqu­ered parts of eastern India. Orissa, West Bengal, Tri­pura and the remaining states of the Northeast still form territory where the BJP is yet to create a firm imprint.

Among those honoured by Modi was Upasana Mohapatra, daughter of late Congress leader Lalatendu (Lulu) Bidyadhar Mohapatra, a descendant of Buxi Jagabandhu. Lulu바카라�s elder brother Lalitendu was also present at the function. Both Upasana and Lalitendu had earlier announced their intention of joining politics, and the buzz in Bhu­baneswar is that the BJP would be their natural destination.

바카라�If that happens, the BJP바카라�s appropriation of Paika rebellion will be complete,바카라� says a worried leader of the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD). 바카라�The way the party has been usurping and using local iconography is incredible. This could give a boost to the BJP in coastal Orissa, especially Bhubane­swar and Puri, where the CM is strong, thanks to his father Biju Patnaik바카라�s legacy.바카라�

Soon after Jaitley바카라�s Budget speech mention of Paika, the CM had jumped into it. As in other states, the BJP had again managed to set the terms with a buzzphrase that other parties could not ignore and forced them to follow it. Two weeks before the national executive, Patnaik wrote to railway minister Suresh Prabhu demanding an express train in the name of Baxi Jagabandhu.

It is not just the Paika revolt the BJP has laid claim to바카라�it has refined cooptive symbolism into an art form, and a whole litany of highly resonant names are ava­ilable for the picking. Take the renaming of the venue where the nati­onal executive members gathered. Out went the insipid 바카라�Janata Grounds바카라�바카라�it was now the Bhima Bhoi grounds. This was after the 19th-­century adivasi Oriya poet, who wrote songs against social injustice and caste discrimination. Union minister Dharme­ndra Pradhan, who is emerging as BJP바카라�s face for Orissa, says the saint-poet바카라�s unique ideology is followed by crores in Orissa, Chhattis­garh and Jharkhand.

The choice of an adivasi who followed the bhakti marga is interesting in itself; by invoking him, the BJP wants to regain its footprint in the mineral-rich but impoverished western Orissa or Kosal region that comprises 23 per cent of tribal population. Kalahandi, which was once a byword for famine, falls here. So does Niyamgiri, whose Dongria Kondh people are a subgroup of the Kondh tribe to which Bhima Boi belonged. Their struggle for rights over the Niyamgiri hills sits ill at ease with both the state and Centre, which recently named two NGOs allied to the cause as pro-Maoist.

The BJP, however, is eyeing the numbers. If Orissa바카라�s Dalit population (17 per cent) is added to the adivasi numbers, together they constitute 40 per cent of the state바카라�s population. It is not surprising that party president Amit Shah reached Bhubaneswar one day before the national executive, on April 14, and paid tribute to B.R. Ambedkar on his birth anniversary바카라�the first thing after landing there. He later joined state party colleagues in celebrating the Oriya new year.

Dr Ajit Kumar Sahoo of Utkal University says invoking Oriya pride and subnationalism is all about politics. 바카라�It is about symbolism, about trying to bring marginalised sections into the mainstream. It seems like a well-thought out plan to get a foothold in the state,바카라� he says. The state government is doing the same, Sahoo adds, as no party wants to miss out on whatever little political mileage they can eke out. The symbolism around Paika, for instance, is of limited value, says Sahoo. 바카라�The Paiks were a martial community and not homogeneous. They were limited to the coastal princely areas. The benefit of commemorating them may be limited to the coastal belt,바카라� he explains.

For the BJP, it never really had a base in coastal Orissa, a local leader explains. The BJP was strong in the Kosal region till the time it was in alliance with the BJD. 바카라�When we were in government together between 2000 and 2009, the BJD was strong in coastal areas while the BJP held Kosal. However, after the split, the BJD spread itself west too, edging out the BJP. It does not appear that difficult for us to make inroads again,바카라� he says.

It바카라�s clear from the 34 per cent votes it polled in local elections in March that the BJP has managed to form a base in rural and some urban areas of the state. The party has now emerged as the clear challenger to the BJD, with the Congress relegated to the periphery in Orissa politics. Pradhan says it바카라�s a strong starting point to build on, working towards a final victory in 2019, when the state goes to polls. Riding on Modi바카라�s 바카라�man of steel바카라� image and welfarist politics, the BJP is pitching itself as the one to take Orissa beyond the horrific images of famine and poverty바카라�encapsulated recently by the image of adivasi Dana Majhi, who walked 12 km carrying the body of his wife, accompanied by his distraught daughter.

바카라�Orissa has become a laboratory for the pro-poor policies and welfare agenda of the Modi government,바카라� Pradhan says, giving details of how the state has benefited with greater devolution of powers under the 14th Finance Commission. 바카라�More national highways are being const­ructed in the state and central allocations for rural housing is at an all-time high. The BJP will become the natural party of governance in the state by 2019,바카라� he says.

If the optics at the national executive were anything to go by, the optimism does not appear misplaced. Bhubaneswar was bedecked with larger-than-life cutouts of Modi and Shah, with party flags fluttering all over. 바카라�Shah바카라�s politics is as much about psychological warfare as traditional stra­tegy,바카라� a senior BJP leader from the region tells Outlook. 바카라�The takeover of Bhubane­swar by the BJP is as much a signal to Patnaik as a confidence-booster for the cadres. The atmosphere of confidence also attracts leaders from other parties to the BJP. This will gradually make BJP the only viable party in the country.바카라�

Senior BJD leader Tathagata Satpathy, who is the party바카라�s chief whip in the Lok Sabha, recently caused a stir when he, in a series of tweets, accused the BJP of trying to engineer an 바카라�AIADMK-type split바카라� in his party. He referred to an MP who was trying to swing the deal for the BJP. Though the 61-year-old politician named no one, his younger party collea­gue Baija­yant Panda chose to respond in a sarcastic, emoji-riddled tweet, revea­ling the fault-lines within the party.

On its part, the BJP is not underestimating Patnaik, who has won four consecutive elections and is in power for 17 years. The suave, soft-spoken politician is a formidable leader, who seems to have accepted the gauntlet thrown by the BJP바카라�and is trying to reinvent himself. He recently posted his first-ever selfie, taken with kids who had fought off a crocodile. Whether he will be able to fight off the BJP바카라�s seemingly inexorable march is anyone바카라�s guess as of now.

By Bhavna Vij-Aurora in Bhubaneswar