Bhubaneswar stands as a unique confluence of ancient heritage, medieval grandeur, and modern urban dynamism. From its declaration as Odisha’s capital in 1948 to its rise as a smart city, the city’s transformation mirrors a larger cultural and social shift—marked by planned beginnings, unplanned expansions, and a constant negotiation between tradition and modernity
Himanshu Patnaik
Bhubaneswar regained its status as the capital of the state on 13th April 1948. Post-coloniality and cultural specificity at the juncture of modernity was the novel paradigm shift from then on. Meteoric has been its rise from a capital city of 70 years to the smartest and cleanest city of today, adding to it a dynamic vibrancy.
Amidst the recency of its episodic modernization, the trail is traceable from the state. Secretariat and Assembly to cultural centers like Jayadev Bhawan, Museums, Rabindra Mandap, from Utkal University and OUAT to KITT, SOA, from Bapuji Nagar to mushroom growth of nagaras and viharas, from dichotomies of villages (Old Town to Patia and Baramunda) to centers of urbanization, from Raju Sahu’s hotel to KFC, Star Hotels, from natural parks to today’s badly maintained parks, from Govt. Hospital to AIIMS and the best ones in the country the change is evident.
From dense forests to concrete jungle, the natural habitat of animals at Nandan Kanan and the botanical garden there, from planetarium to the science center, the world sports hub at Kalinga Stadium, from a non-descript airport in 1948 to an international airport today, from the herbal to today’s contaminated Redar Gourt water, and from a planned city to an unplanned growth to cap it all, this old city of temples has had new temples from Dhaul, ISKCON Rama to Jagannath, Sai and Goddess temples.
The adjacently located income Tax office and a Sri Mandira stand as an anachronism or damned impertinence Old Town’, the nucleus city carries today an aura of dispirited obsolescence amidst the city’s nascent cultural pluralism and integration, and like an old gambler, it is trying to balance the risk against the reward, today.
Oswald Spengler’s concept of culture versus civilization, cultural versus cosmopolitan sensibility, or ideational culture versus material civilization is the stark reality of Bhubaneswar today.
Bhubaneswar has demolished the myth of homogenized unidimensional notions of the definitional parameters of ‘social formation’. A mantle of injured dignity has been wrapped around Bhubaneswar today. But, everything said and done, there can be no denying the fact that Bhubaneswar epitomizes the synthesis of ancient wisdom, medieval splendor, and modern cognitive norms and values. Dimensional notions of the definitional parameters of ‘social formation’.
My father, Raisaheb Lokanath Patnaik, was entrusted (as S.D.O., Khurda in 1948) with the major responsibility of developing Bhubaneswar to its new form as the state capital. He could have arranged acres of land for himself here, but this honest officer par excellence never did so, and I stay today in an OSHB house. He also goes totally unmentioned in the annual celebrations’ reports on 13th April every year. Our custodians always play without a scorecard.
(The writer is former Professor and Head of PG Department of History, Utkal University. Views are personal.)
