Understanding Fakirmohan

Understanding Fakirmohan Biswamoy Pati RABI SHANKAR MISHRA and Jatindra Naik (January 19, 1991) raise certain points centred around my paper/rejoinder (April 8, 1989 and October 20, 1990). It is really surprising to find Mishra and Naik accusing me of highlighting Fakirmohan Senapati as a champion of the language of the peasants. My basic thrust was to locate Fakirmohan's shift to the 'spoken' language from the 'high', Sanskritised Oriya, in a context when the existence of Oriya as an independent language was being questioned. It was not my remotest objective to present the case for Fakirmohan. In fact, I had tried to project exactly the opposite of what I have been accused of