When I first met Biju Patnaik, he was sitting on the verandah of the Circuit House in Sambalpur, reading a book.
When I first met Biju Patnaik, he was sitting on the verandah of the Circuit House in Sambalpur, reading a book. He had been in the political wilderness for long, but his demeanour was of a political aristocrat, born to rule. His various exploits of courage and daring were the stuff of legend in Orissa. But when I met him, he was in a contemplative mood. I asked him whether he had ever considered writing his memoirs. His response was expectedly imperious — “I believe in living my life, my boy. Let others write about it”.
Many have indeed written about Biju Patnaik, but it is not easy to fit so many disparate elements of a rampant personality into a coherent kaleidoscope. He was a giant, driven by many passions, far removed from your textbook politician. The defining feature of his personality was a total absence of hypocrisy. He spoke his mind, and did not care how many delicate egos were bruised. He lived his life on his terms, and these terms were often extremely unorthodox, not open to run-of-the-mill politicians.
Of his many passions, two were dominant — his love of flying, and of India. These two themes wove into each other in a fascinating mesh and created a tapestry that defined him uniquely as an action hero and visionary leader.
These passions seized him very early in life. He was totally besotted with airplanes when very young, and came under the Mahatma’s spell as a schoolboy when the latter visited Orissa in 1927. He learnt his flying in the Delhi Flying Club and joined the Royal Indian Air Force when World War II was declared. But the other passion could not be far behind. While in the RIAF, he continued to maintain contacts with prominent freedom fighters and often flew them to secret trysts. Finally, he was arrested in 1943 by the British authorities for dropping the Quit India leaflets on Indian soldiers on the path of the Japanese advance in Burma. He was imprisoned for 3 years as a result.
The intermeshing of the two themes into his life continued after the Independence. As head of the Interim government, Nehru convened an Asian Relations Conference in early 1947. He invited many leaders of independence movements in Asia, including Dr Sokarno. Dr Sokarno had formed a government in Indonesia but the Dutch colonialists still controlled the sea and airlanes. Dr Sokarno appealed to Nehru for assistance. At Nehru’s request, Biju Patnaik flew into Java in his own plane and evacuated Sultan Sjahrir, Sokarno’s Prime Minister, in defiance of the Dutch blockade. “Resurgent India does not recognize Dutch colonial sovereignty over the Indonesian population”, he said. For this act of courage, he was later awarded the Bhoomi Putra, the highest civilian award, by the Indonesian government.
He developed a close relationship with Dr Sokarno and his family and Dr.Sokarno asked him to name his new born daughter. Patnaik named her Megawati (“goddess of the clouds”) and became her godfather. Megawati Sokarnoputri is a political leader in her own right and was President of Indonesia from July 2001 to October 2004.
Immediately after India’s independence, when Pakistani invaders stormed into the Kashmir valley, Patnaik piloted the first plane, a DC-3, to land in Srinagar with 17 soldiers of the 1 Sikh Regiment on 27 October 1947, again at Nehru’s request.
In the first few years after independence, Patnaik focused his energies on business, and created a large manufacturing conglomerate in Orissa. His efforts were driven by an emphatic rejection of the poverty-as-destiny belief. “To be born poor is not a crime, but to remain so is indeed a crime”, he said. His industrial empire included iron and manganese mines, a pig iron plant, textile mills, and a plant to manufacture seamless steel tubes. Considering the backwardness of Orissa at that time, his success can only be marveled at.
But perhaps his favouriteventure was Kalinga Airlines, which he founded in 1947 and of which he was the chief pilot. Kalinga Airlines was later nationalised and merged into Indian Airlines in 1953.
As is well known, industrial policy in the first few decades after India’s independence was characterized by numerous controls and restrictions on private sector investments. The government policy cited market failure as the justification for public sector investments. This was not quite in line with Patnaik’s own views which were in favour of large private investments for global scale and global markets. The breadth of Patnaik’s global vision was at odds with the prevailing orthodoxy at the time, which favoured controls and autarky. This did not however, prevent Patnaik from using the public sector to Orissa’s advantage. Much of Orissa’s industrial base today is the result of Patnaik’s efforts. Paradeep Port, Rourkela Steel Plant, Hindustan Aeronautics, Sunabeda, NALCO, and many other projects owe their existence to Patnaik.
His forays into post Independence politics were bookended by two stints as Chief Minister, the first between 1961-1963, when he was still with the Congress Party, and the second between 1990-1995, when he headed a Janata government. Between these two periods, there were spells in state and central politics.
He joined the JP movement in 1974 and was imprisoned when the Emergency was declared in 1975.
He, thus, had the unusual distinction of being jailed in British India as well as in independent India for defending political freedom. He was one of the founders of the Janata Party and served as the steel and mines minister in the Morarji Desai government. He died in 1997 at the age of 81.
In many ways, Biju’s legacy is unparalleled among leaders of his generation. His accomplishments outside politics reflect his boundless energy, initiative, courage and vision.
As a politician, he sought to bring these qualities into public life and governance. He was always larger than life, not only because of his energy and vision, but also because most of his contemporaries were so small.
He lived and died in the 20thcentury, but he was, in many respects, a 21st century leader.
The author is a retired civil servant who now advises WTO
