Koshal has to happen simply because of evolutionary process. Odisha is becoming unmanageable and ungovernable. Twenty of thirty districts are under the sway of Naxalites! The evolutionary process is further accelerated by the de facto policy of the state: top down rather than down up development. This has led to over concentration of developmental resources in the sixty mile zone. This mantra of top down policy has resulted in the uneven developmental in the state. The recent struggle to establish IIM in Sambalpur is a stark reminder of this policy. (The predicted disastrous failure did not happen, did it!) Another example is the bizarre episode of lawyers in Cuttack having a strike to prevent even the possibility of a branch of High Court in Koshal area! And Naveen Babu makes an election promise to recognize Koshali under 8th schedule, the Odia intellectuals from the sixty mile zone under the leadership of Dr. Debi Prasanna Patnaik, who was honored for his effort for making Odia as a classical language, are mounting a spirited opposition! Now the members of same group are forcing the hand of the government to make Odia official language of the state, and to create an Odia university! This top down policy is taking away focus on the rural and tribal Odissa where most of the population lives, and promoting Smart city in the sixty mile zone, further deploying meagre state resources into already developed zone. These gentlemen forget that 22.5 of the population of Odisha are Adivashis, who rarely appear in the radar at all, except making them dance in the streets of Bhubaneswar in national events, and exhibiting their folk art in the Rajpath of the capital. Another instance of making them “cigar store Injuns” of North America !While I applaud the effort of KISS for doing something, anything at all, for Adivashi kids, the policy of bringing these kids to capital for their education is wrong. How the communities of these Adivashis living in remote areas are going to improve by this is beyond me. Why can not the state take high quality education to these areas instead?
Fighting against formation of Koshal means delaying the inevitable, and delaying optimal development of the region. It will also take years to undo the damage the state government has done to the region. One can only hope that Odisha government looks at the enlightened outlook of the UP government. Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and more recently, Telangana – all are better off as separate entities. Status quo means perpetuating stagnation, and years of lost opportunities.
