Biju Patnaik

Bijayananda Patnaik (5 March 1916 – 17 April 1997) was an Indian politician and aviator. He served as the 3rd Chief Minister of the State of Odisha from 1961 to 1963 and from 1990 to 1995. He was also the 14th Steel and mines and 1st Coal Union Minister of India from 1979 to 1980 and from 1977 to 1979 and a member of Lok Sabha from Kendrapara from 1977 to 1985. He is the father of Naveen Patnaik, also a former CM of Odisha.
Biju Patnaik was born in an aristocratic Karan family. His parents lived in Ghumusar Nuagam, Bellaguntha, Ganjam district, around 80 km from Bramhapur. Biju Patnaik's father Laxminarayan Patnaik was the Dewan of Paralakhemundi Estate under Maharaja Krushna Chandra Gajapati. Biju Patnaik was educated at Ravenshaw College in Odisha but, due to his interest in aviation, dropped out and trained as a pilot. Patnaik flew with private airlines but at the start of the Second World War he joined the Royal Indian Air Force. He eventually became the head of air transport command. While in service, he developed an interest in nationalist politics and used air force transports to deliver what was seen as subversive literature to Indian troops. He was jailed by the British for dropping political leaflets to Indian soldiers fighting under British command in Burma and flying clandestine missions that carried Congress Party leaders from hideouts across India to secret meetings that charted the independence struggle. However Patnaik remained committed to fighting the Axis Powers.
Patnaik met with Jawaharlal Nehru during his participation in Indonesian freedom struggle and became one of his trusted friends. Nehru viewed the freedom struggle of the Indonesian people as parallel to that of India, and viewed Indonesia as a potential ally. When the Dutch attempted to quell Indonesian independence on 21 July 1947, President Sukarno ordered Sjahrir, the former prime minister of Indonesia, to leave the country to attend the first Inter-Asia Conference, organised by Nehru, in July 1947 and to foment international public opinion against the Dutch. Sjahrir was unable to leave as the Dutch controlled the Indonesian sea and air routes. Nehru asked Patnaik, who was adventurous and an expert pilot, to rescue Sjahrir and other Indonesian resistance fighters who were fighting their Dutch colonisers. Patnaik and his wife Gyanwati, flew to Java, dodging the Dutch guns, he entered Indonesian airspace and landed on an improvised airstrip near Jakarta. Using left-over fuel from abandoned Japanese military dumps, Patnaik took off with prominent rebels, including Sultan Sjahrir and Achmad Sukarno, for a secret meeting with Nehru at New Delhi and brought out on a Douglas C-47 (Dakota) military aircraft reaching India via Singapore on 24 July 1947. For this act of bravery, Patnaik was given honorary citizenship in Indonesia and awarded the 'Bhoomi Putra', the highest Indonesian award, rarely granted to a foreigner. In 1995, when Indonesia was celebrating its 50th Independence Day, Biju Patnaik was awarded the highest national award, the Bintang Jasa Utama.
In 2015, Sukarno's daughter Megawati Sukarnoputri recounted how it was Patnaik who suggested she be named Meghavati or "daughter of clouds". She, whose full name is Diah Permata Megawati Setiawati Sukarnoputri, later became Indonesia's first female president, serving from 2001 to 2004.
In 2021, the Indonesian Embassy in New Delhi designated a room in the name of Patnaik. On the walls of the Patnaik room are photographs, newspaper clippings and letters that document Mr. Patnaik's secret assignments to fly out Indonesian leaders, as well as his relations with the Indonesian leadership.
Patnaik flew many sorties on his Dakota DC-3 from Delhi Safdarjung Airport on 27 October 1947, after the first Dakota DC-3 (Reg. No: VP 905) flown by Wg. Cdr. KL Bhatia landed in Srinagar Airport early morning. He brought 17 soldiers of 1-Sikh regiment commanded by Lt. Col. Dewan Ranjit Rai. He flew low on the airstrip twice to ensure that no raiders were around. Instructions from Prime Minister Nehru's office were clear: If the airport was taken over by the enemy, he was not to land. Taking a full circle the DC-3 flew ground level. Anxious eyeballs peered from inside the aircraft – only to find the airstrip empty. Nary a soul was in sight. The raiders were busy distributing the spoils of war amongst them in Baramulla.
Patnaik's political ideals were centered in socialism and federalism. His strong advocacy for equal resources to all Indian states who needed such, made him a champion of his Odia constituents.
In 1946 Patnaik was elected uncontested to the Odisha Legislative Assembly from North Cuttack constituency. In 1952 and 1957 he won from Jagannathprasad and Surada, respectively. In 1960 he assumed the presidency of the state Congress. Under his leadership, the Congress Party won 82 of 140 seats and Patnaik (representing Chowdwar constituency) became the chief minister of Odisha on 23 June 1961 and remained in the position until 2 October 1963 when he resigned from the post under the Kamaraj Plan to revitalise the Congress party. He was the Chief Minister of Odisha at the age of 45.
Patnaik was close to Indira Gandhi who took over the Congress Party in 1967. However, they clashed in 1969 over the presidential election. He left the Congress and formed a regional party—the Utkal Congress. In the 1971 assembly poll, his party did reasonably well. Patnaik then re-established contact with his old friend Jayaprakash Narayan and plunged into the JP movement as it picked up momentum in 1974. When the Emergency was declared in 1975, Biju Patnaik was one of the first to be arrested along with other opposition leaders.
He was released in 1977. Later, in the same year, he was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time from Kendrapara and became Union minister for steel and mines in both the Morarji Desai and the Charan Singh governments until 1979. He was re-elected to the Lok Sabha again in 1980 and 1984 from Kendrapara as Janata Party candidate despite the Congress wave in 1984 following Indira Gandhi's death. With the Congress defeat in 1989, he bounced back into the political limelight. However, after playing a key behind-the-scenes role in manoeuvring V. P. Singh to the Prime Minister's post, he again chose to go back to Odisha, and prepared for the assembly election. In 1990 state assembly election, the Janata Dal received a thumping majority (two-thirds of the assembly seats) which saw Biju Patnaik being the Chief Minister of Odisha for the second time until 1995.
Patnaik was re-elected to the Lok Sabha in 1996 from Cuttack and Aska constituencies as a Janata Dal candidate. He retained the latter until his death on 17 April 1997 of cardio-respiratory failure.
In 1992, Patnaik left this quote for the people of Odisha;
"In my dream of the 21st century for the State, I would have young men and women who put the interest of the State before them. They will have pride in themselves, confidence in themselves. They will not be at anybody's mercy, except their own selves. By their brains, intelligence and capacity, they will recapture the history of Kalinga."
Patnaik set up Kalinga tubes, Kalinga Airlines, Kalinga Iron work, Kalinga Refractories and the Kalinga, a daily Odia newspaper. In 1951 he established the international Kalinga Prize for popularisation of Science and Technology among the people and entrusted the responsibility to the UNESCO. The projects which he was known to have spearheaded includes the Port of Paradip, Odisha Aviation Centre, Bhubaneswar Airport, the Cuttack-Jagatpur Mahanadi highway bridge, Regional Engineering College, Rourkela, Sainik School Bhubaneswar, Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology-Bhubaneswar, NALCO (National Aluminum Company), Talcher Thermal Power Station, Balimela Hydel Project, HAL-Sunabeda and the Choudwar & Barbil industrial belts.
He also established the Kalinga Cup in football.
Patnaik was married to Gyan Patnaik, who belonged to Punjab, due to which he is known as a son-in-law of Punjab as well. Patnaik's wife too was a pilot. She was the first Indian woman to get a commercial pilot's license. In the 1940s, Gyan Patnaik accompanied Biju in the freedom struggle movement and evacuation of British families from Rangoon when the Japanese laid siege on the region.
Patnaik's younger son, Naveen Patnaik, was Chief Minister of Odisha until June 2024. His daughter, Gita Mehta, was an author. His elder son Prem Patnaik is a Delhi-based industrialist.
The Government of Odisha has named several institutions after the name of Biju Patanaik. They include the Biju Patnaik Airport at Bhubaneswar, the Biju Patnaik University of Technology, Biju Patnaik Stadium at Nalco Nagar, Angul etc. Also his son Naveen Patnaik made his birthday 5 March as the Panchayat Raj Divas, a holiday in Odisha in his memory. The Biju Patnaik 5 Rupee commemorative coin was released in 2016. The glimpse of Biju Patnaik's stature can be understood by the fact that when he died, his coffin was wrapped in the national flags of India, Russia, and Indonesia.
A commemorative Postage stamp was released by India Post to mark his 102nd birth anniversary.
Patnaik was an avid Bridge player.