Pratap Chandra Sarangi, the 'Modi of Odisha': We are celebrating Sarangi for all the wrong reasons
The 64-year-old BJP leader reportedly has seven criminal cases against him. But his now-famously 'simple lifestyle' has melted social media. This tells us more about us, and less about Sarangi.
A photo of a frail old man packing a suitcase went viral on Twitter a few days ago.
It was unlike the photos we get to see from our social media influencers — a simple, non-branded suitcase kept on a cemented floor; the man sitting cross-legged on the floor, engrossed in thinking of whether he is missing anything; not looking at the camera at all; a gamcha (with an Odia hemline) along with some nondescript things strewn here and there; a few people standing about barefoot.
People in Balasore knew that their ‘nana’ (as he is fondly called), Pratap Chandra Sarangi, was packing his bag for Delhi to attend Narendra Modi’s swearing-in ceremony.
But as PM Modi’s new cabinet was kept under wraps till the eleventh hour, it came as a surprise when the 64-year-old, popularly hailed as 'Odisha’s Modi', walked onto stage to take oath as a minister of state.
A politician, in the ideal scenario, is supposed to serve people. But the way social media exploded, seeing Sarangi taking his cycle out from his hut to visit his constituency, is clearly a statement on how our idea of a politician has become very far removed from the notion of sacrifice and service. Ironically, our strange acceptance of the richness of our netas — where we must constantly challenge this — shows now in our joy over the modest lifestyle of a Pratap Chandra Sarangi.
Also, the exultation over Sarangi points to another danger — how we love to glorify poverty.
Sarangi’s own journey has been long — and complicated. His roots are with the RSS, VHP and the Bajrang Dal. (He was Bajrang Dal coordinator in fact when Australian missionary Graham Stewart Staines and his two minor sons were killed allegedly by Bajrang Dal workers in Keonjhar, Odisha, in 1999).
In his youth, he wanted to join the Ramakrishna Mission at Belur Math. But he didn’t as he had to look after his mother who passed away last year. He stayed unmarried.
But these shouldn't be the reasons why we celebrate Sarangi.
Yes, he has a low profile. But that should not eclipse his sharp political calibre. He must not become Odisha's Narendra Modi; he can remain what he is.
He defeated Navajyoti Patnaik, son of state Congress chief Niranjan Patnaik, and BJP MP Rabindra Jena in a very close fight. At a time when money talks in politics, the poorest candidate fought against two rich candidates and won. That should be one reason we applaud him. Not his own lack of money — being modestly off is no mirror of a person's ethical being — and neither his past, which seems to have skirted a murder that Stained us all.