It has been a long time that great sons and visionaries of our land built the foundation of the Orissa we live in today. Yet, on this occasion, merged in the sense of pleasure, is a sense of despair, hope and dreams for my state within me. There are miles to go before we can truly be proud inheritors of the state’s legacy.

Seventy-five years ago when Orissa became a separate state on this day, we were saying that the state is a picture that presents a dichotomy of enormous physical resources, particularly mineral and forest wealth, and the grinding poverty of people. That poverty of people and plenty interims of physical resources co-exist in this unfortunate state even today. That dichotomy has to be removed. That is my dream for the state.

The deprived section of people is yet to enjoy the benefits of the enormous physical resources we have. As a school student, I had heard that Gandhiji had said “Orissa is the epitome of poverty”. Even today, economists say that the irony in the state is an example of how mineral and forest wealth can co-exist with poverty of people. I deeply wish the state has an economy that is based upon an optimal use of its physical resources, thereby maximising the state’s level of prosperity, in other words, a much higher GDP as they call it. That can happen not only by appropriate use of the resources of mining and forest, but starting along with big industries, agro-based and forest based industries that can be utilised by local people making employment generation easier. Because large-scale industries have a tendency of not providing per capita income in terms of the investment. This is a priority I believe.

Along with this, there must also be an appropriate measure that is designed to see that the per capita income of people goes up. In other words, some kind of a distributive justice must be implemented because Orissa still has a large number of people below the poverty line, tribals and backward sections, whose living standards are far below the national average. Distributive justice means that as the state’s income rises, some amount also reaches the less fortunate and deprived, by a system of taxation and social justice. This way the larger volume of wealth that is generated is not concentrated in a few hands but reaches out to the masses. Part of that will be, by a considered measure, towards educational and health facilities.

Today education is power. Particularly, the state of education in our tribal regions is far from satisfactory. Even less satisfactory is the state of women’s education in the state as a whole and in tribal areas in particular. The same applies for health facilities. Proper nutrition, health and education, will give them a better deal in the state’s development and they’ll be in a position to participate in the development efforts and absorb the benefits of industrialisation and economic growth of the state. Along with these, social justice is priority as well, since it can ensure that the poorest sections receive the benefits of development if education and health facilities spread to rural areas, marginalised sections and the less fortunate.

Here I must mention, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had once made a profound statement that in developing the tribal areas, we should not make them a blotting paper of our (meaning the urban) cultural system. Referring to my book on primary education for tribals, Bringing Them To School, I must state that in Orissa, with its 62 tribal groups, including 13 primitive tribes, a different and careful approach must be chosen to spread education. The state, which is a virtual ethnographic museum, must retain the universal value system that tribals hold in terms of love for life and solidarity in community.

Once this is done as a kind of socio-economic change, equally important is the preservation of the variety of cultural resources and cultural patterns we have. Most of us only take pride in our great heritage and do nothing about keeping it safe and promoting it. Sadly, it is often forgotten, that as inheritors of a great heritage, we have a greater responsibility on our shoulders to keep up to it by adding to it and furthering it. We cannot afford to behave like the children of a zamindar who live on whatever their forefathers left.