Berhampur Diaries: Of Hero Worship & Pratap Swain

Hero worship is a phenomenon common to all cultures and civilizations, and the more decadent a culture the more vigorous is the manner of its myth-making habits. If one wanted to see a microcosm of the Indian state of the 1960s and 1970s, one’s visit to Berhampur would have sufficed to get a clear picture of our country.

Remember Ram Gopal Verma’s 1998 hit Hindi movie Satya? Replace Satya and Mumbai with Pratap and Berhampur, and you have a fair idea of my classic hero called Pratap Swain. Do I hear you say “ridiculous”? Of course, I am ridiculous, but certainly not Pratap, who by all accounts was a real-life hero of Berhampur,  not seen since he was killed in 1982. Like Satya, the innocent young man arriving in Bombay in search of a job and getting embroiled in the underworld after being falsely charged, and setting out to take revenge on the people who destroyed his life, Pratap’s life story was no less dramatic, exciting, and tragic. By all accounts, he is a perfect celluloid adaptation material.

Also Read: Berhampur Diaries: The Life And Times Of Rabi Mahapatra

Born in 1951 into a perfectly peaceful, middle-class family, he had a normal childhood like any one of his time. Taking to training in boxing at a young age of 14 or 15 years, Pratap had become a boxer of repute within the next few years, winning accolades and trophies in both district and state-level competitions. Tall, fair and handsome, Pratap presented a perfectly charming young man’s persona, enough to kindle heartaches in many women’s hearts. Always a friendly, kindly soul, Pratap was like a magnetic force that attracted friends and young followers alike to his side in an easy manner. Oozing tons of confidence and bathed in supreme courage, he presented a heroic figure of unimaginable strength and vigour. Added to all these attributes was his silent, faintly smiling demeanour that made him a hero who could be counted upon to protect your life and honour.

But if heroes come, can the villains be far behind? Of course not, Nature abhors such vacuums as it were, and there appeared on the path of Pratap too many who were terribly jealous of his rising popularity.  So it was that on a visit to see a movie in Utkal Talkies, Pratap and a few of his friends were attacked there by dozens of goons who were professional ticket black marketeers, pickpockets and extortionists. Rumour had it that Pratap must have taken at least 100 to 150 blows on himself alone, but was able to fight back his attackers and walk away from there, bleeding all over. Hell hath no fury as a tiger wounded and Pratap quietly took to healing his wounds and waiting to recover fully to avenge the assault on his manliness, self-respect, courage and innocence. Aggrieved beyond words at the unjustness of the unprovoked attack, Pratap was ready after a few days to get even with his attackers with his friends and acolytes.

Also Read: Berhampur Diaries: The Larger-Than-Life Figures Of 1970s

Also Read: Berhampur Diaries: The Larger-Than-Life Figures Of 1970s, Part 2

Raging with uncontrollable fury like a wounded bull or a tiger, or a gladiator in a Roman colosseum, Pratap waited for the opportune moment before striking with all his might on the gang, led by the infamous Panda brother duo called Paru and Uday. It was at the time, most probably, the bloodiest, the nastiest fight the town had witnessed so far, and had left scores with grievous injuries but thankfully no fatalities. What this led to was an open call to arms, an all-out war between the two fiercest boxers of the town, each with scores of friends and followers with them. Getting sucked into a spiral of violent attacks and counter-attacks was but a natural corollary, and Pratap eventually came to be known as the undisputed, most courageous youth leader of his time.

Events have a way of taking a life of their own, and we see Pratap getting sucked into further cycles of violence because of his excessive fondness of friends and their safety, security and honour. So that when one of his close friends called Nabin Deo was heckled, booed and beaten by B Kali, aka Kala Kali, Ranu Patajoshi, and others at Girija Square over a petty skirmish, Pratap didn’t blink twice before joining Nabin Deo in taking revenge on them by going with his large number of followers in a huge, open procession to Prabhakar Rao aka Prabha’s house in Park Street, where Nabin and Pratap believed they will find the attackers, as they were supposed to be followers of Prabha. It would have been one of the deadliest massacres Berhampur would have witnessed had not a large battalion of armed police arrived at the scene to avert it. The Prabha group too had got wind of the impending arrival of Pratap and Nabin, and were prepared with their own members to counter any assault. Though a large scale encounter between the two deadly groups was averted, Prabha was injured in the legs by the crude bombs that were hurled at them. It was a painful moment for Prabha to see Pratap with Nabin Deo as they were close buddies once with no history of bitterness between them, and Prabha told Pratap as much on his face about the unbelievable act of betrayal.

Also Read: Berhampur Diaries: My Childhood Heroes

Pratap’s image of being an invincible fighter had spread far and wide, with literally all the powerful political bosses of the time and police administration taking note of him. As the town looked at him in awe and wonder, his fame made him a superhero, at least in the eyes of all those huge number of people who were beholden to him in some way for the help they had received from him, financial or otherwise. Word spread quickly that the then Chief Minister of Odisha Nandini Satapathy and another Congress leader of repute Harish Chandra Buxipatra were grooming him to get him inducted into the Youth Congress to fill the void left by Rabi Mahapatra, and Pratap’s image soared skyhigh, and he was invested with a kind of charisma and mystique never heard of in those days in Berhampur.

Political rivalry between the Congress and the Communist parties having reached unprecedented levels of antagonism at the time, Pratap appeared to be the biggest threat, and it was alleged that the then Chhatrapur MLA Laxman Mahapatra, one of the tallest Communist party leader of Ganjam district at the time, was behind the conspiracy to eliminate him from the scene altogether.

Just as in the case of Rabi Mahapatra’s murder, conspiracy theories flew thick and fast that it was the Communist party that was behind it, this time too rumour gained ground that it was the same party activists that brutally assaulted Pratap in the village square called Narendrapur when he was returning from Taratarini temple on the afternoon of March 14, 1982, with his friend from Chhatrapur named Ganesh Reddy. Later it appeared that the Communist party had no hand in his murder, and it was a case of another intra-gang kind of rivalry. Pratap breathed his last from that brutal assault and the town was thrown into the kind of sorrow, grief and gloom never seen before. People reacted to the news of his death with utter shock and disbelief, and the town was witness to thousands of people following his funeral procession, with too many women among them wailing, crying inconsolably, with some even seen breaking their bangles on the way to the cremation ground. It looked as if the whole town was mourning the death of one of its bravest sons, who was working tirelessly for the welfare of less fortunate people of the town through his NGO called Orissa Nav Nirman Samiti, and had taken a vow of non-violence at the very temple he was returning from when he was surrounded and brutally killed.

1. An uneasy calm and peace seemed to have prevailed in Berhampur following the passing away of its brave hero, but the threat of retribution and revenge by Pratap’s kin and followers loomed large at all times. And it was not very long before Pratap’s younger brother Babu Swain alongwith a few friends of his  assaulted Laxman Mahapatra in broad daylight in front of Khallikote College with crude bombs and knifes, killing him on the spot. Thus finally the curtain came down on the long chain of violent political intrigues and conspiracies, gang wars, and deaths in the life of this little inglorious town.