A turbulent political life

IN fthere is a state in India where politics is both complex and -perplexing, it is Odisha.

The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) was formed in 1997 by Naveen Patnaik, the son of Odisha's bestknown politician, Biju Patnaik, but at the time, Naveenbabu (as he is known in the state) could neither speak fluent Odiya nor read and write the language. And yet he is likely to become the longest serving chief minister in India's history. He is on the verge of bequeathing his political empire, not to a politician from Odisha or even neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand or Bengal, but to a bureaucrat from distant Tamil Nadu. When it comes to complexity, there is much that non-Odiyas and Odiyas alike need to learn about the politics, language and ambitions of the state. We know so little.

This book represents a significant effort in that direction. While it is a biography of Odisha's chief minister Nandini Satpathy, it also locates Satpathy's fascinating life in the context of the politics of the state. She was a political figure much before she became a politician: Even before she was a teenager, she was jailed for pulling down the Union Jack from atop a dome in Cuttack's Ravenshaw College. She was fired by communism, but the communist movement itself was going through upheavals and looked askance at her relationship with Devendra Satpathy, a fellow comrade whom she later married. Both were expelled from the party. Satpathy and Indira Gandhi were friends and Gandhi, herself a vulnerable target of attack from colleagues in the Congress, embraced Satpathy as an ally, though outsiders saw her as nothing more than a satellite.