Kings and queens still have their feet washed by villagers of the world’s largest democracy. But that’s the way it is in Bolangir, writes Ajit Nayak
Bolangir is caught in a time warp. Here the king still plays king in the world’s largest democracy. The ballot is preceded by visits by members of an erstwhile royal family that, in the eyes of its villagers, is still their saviour, their mai baap. On this morning, the villagers have waited for many hours, assembled in the village courtyard to receive a member of the royals. As the lady steps out of the car, her feet are washed by a poor, stooping, underfed woman, and she is worshipped as if she were a goddess. It’s election time when a mere thumb impression could change their future and have them unshackled from a present and its unsavoury primitive ways of the past. Yet that’s not to be: with state boundaries failing to remove the age-old lines that kingdoms had drawn, the story, election after election, has remained the same. The Bolangir royal family continues to hold sway on their hearts, minds and political destiny.
Where royalty reigns, statistics speak of appalling poverty and persecution: Bolangir has been identified as the poorest district in the country; aside of that, the area is infamous for its human trafficking. Here, it’s power politics at its worst, here in Bolangir, winning, be it at the assembly elections or in the battle for the Lok Sabha seat, means being a royal or having the support of the royals. Development is at its lowest index. In fact, it is close to non-existent. And yet it is not just within the district that the royals of Bolangir rule, having found a place in the politics of the state as well, a place that the family seems to have carved out for itself ever since Rajendra Narayan Singhdeo signed the treaty of accession in 1948 to make Bolangir part of the Indian union.
Having signed the treaty at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s behest, Singhdeo had launched the Ganatantra Parishad that was meant to play a vital role in the new democratic setup. His party later merged with the Swatantra Party to form the first coalition government in Orissa in 1967, when Singhdeo became the state's chief minister, a position he held till 1971. He, though, was a popular leader, one who is still remembered with respect. Historian Ram Kumar Agarwal explains Singhdeo’s successful transition from the throne to that of the chief ministerial chair at the secretariat: “He had this will to do something for the people and formed a council of five ministers to look into health, education and other areas. He set up a printing press in Bolangir that regularly brought out a literature magazine and a newspaper. He was a real representative of the people.”
omnipresent while Priya Dutt, a Member of Parliament from Mumbai, is on the move. Owen is seen every time Priya, or Sanjay Dutt for that matter, is in the news. Congress workers aren’t even fully aware of who he really is. “Some whispered I was Italian, related in some way to Sonia Gandhi,” Owen laughs. "Many cannot even my pronounce my Portuguese name."
ord, “very”! So fast, in fact, that if you’re moving at the right speed in taking care of a hiring mistake, it will probably feel that you are just moving a bit too fast. That’s OK. In every case, a rapid intervention is better for the organisation, your own career and even the person that you’re letting go as he would never be able to find a comfortable place in an organisation where he is considered a shameful “hiring error”! Look, hiring great people is brutally hard. New managers are lucky to get it right “half” the time. And even executives with decades of experience will tell you that they make the right calls only 75 percent of the time – and that too when they are at the very best of a hiring season. The problem is, though, that the stakes are so high right now. Never has it been considered so very important to field the team with the best players. Every smart idea matters. Every ounce of passion makes a difference. You cannot have a black hole in your organization where a star should be, can you? And don’t you think that if ever there should appear one, especially one who has just been hired, you should get rid of the same, at the earliest possible!
