Tathagata Satpathy (born 1 April 1956) was a member of the 12th, 14th, 15th and

16th Lok Sabha Members of the 16th Lok Sabha were elected during the 2014 Indian general election. The elections were conducted in 9 phases from 7 April 2014 to 12 May 2014 by the Election Commission of India. The results of the election were declared on 16 May ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. He represented the

Dhenkanal Dhenkanal is a town and a municipality in Dhenkanal district in the state of Odisha, India. Geography Dhenkanal is at . It has an average elevation of 80 metres (262 feet). Demographics As per the 2011 India census, Dhenkanal had a p ...

constituency of

Odisha Odisha (), formerly Orissa (List of renamed places in India, the official name until 2011), is a States and union territories of India, state located in East India, Eastern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by ar ...

, and was re-elected for the fourth time in 2014. He was a member of the

Biju Janata Dal The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) is an Indian regional political party with significant influence in the state of Odisha. The party was established to uphold the legacy of former Chief Minister Biju Patnaik and to address the unique socio-economic ...

( BJD) political party, and the party's

chief whip The Chief Whip is a political leader whose task is to enforce the whipping system, which aims to ensure that legislators who are members of a political party attend and vote on legislation as the party leadership prescribes. United Kingdom I ...

in the

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, also known as the House of the People, is the lower house of Parliament of India which is Bicameralism, bicameral, where the upper house is Rajya Sabha. Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by a ...

. He took voluntary retirement from politics in March 2019. He is not an active politician ever since.

Life and work

Tathagata Satpathy is the second son of former

Chief Minister

Nandini Satpathy Nandini Satpathy (9 June 1931 – 4 August 2006) was an Indian politician and author. She was the Chief Minister of Odisha from June 1972 to December 1976. Early life Nandini Satpathy was born on 9 June 1931 as Nandini Panigrahi to Kalin ...

and Devendra Satpathy. He is the owner and editor of the daily Odia newspaper, '' Dharitri'', and the English daily, '' Orissa Post''. Tathagata educated at St. Columba's School in New Delhi and Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry, he has studied Philosophy, English and French. He had done his mother language, Oriya, by self study. Tathagata entered active politics in the mid 70s as a teenager opposing the

Emergency An emergency is an urgent, unexpected, and usually dangerous situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment and requires immediate action. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening ...

clamped by the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party, or simply the Congress, is a political parties in India, political party in India with deep roots in most regions of India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first mo ...

( INC). While both his parents were long time Congress members, Tathagata has been opposed to that political party since before his career in electoral politics began early. He joined active politics in the late 1980s when Sri

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 Uni ...

took him into the

Janata Party The Janata Party (JP, ) is an unrecognised political party in India. Navneet Chaturvedi is the current president of the party since November 2021, replacing Jaiprakash Bandhu. The JP was established as an amalgam of Indian political partie ...

and he got elected to the

Odisha Legislative Assembly The Odisha Legislative Assembly is the unicameral state legislature of Odisha state in India. The seat of the Legislative Assembly is at Bhubaneswar, the capital of the state. The Legislative Assembly comprises List of constituencies of Odisha ...

and became an MLA in 1990. While his party kept changing its name from Janata Party to

Janata Dal Janata Dal () was an List of political parties in India, Indian political party which was formed through the merger of Lok Dal, Indian National Congress (Jagjivan), and the Jan Morcha on 11 October 1988—the birth anniversary of Jayaprakash Na ...

and later

, but he never changed his party. He went on to become a Four term Member of Parliament till 2019 by winning the Dhenkanal-Angul Lok Sabha seat in 1998, 2004, 2009 and 2014 general elections. His nephew Suparno Satpathy had unsuccessfully contested him in 2014 for the office of MP

. In March 2015, Tathagata Satpathy became the first Indian Member of Parliament to hold an official "Ask Me Anything" session on the content-sharing website

Reddit Reddit ( ) is an American Proprietary software, proprietary social news news aggregator, aggregation and Internet forum, forum Social media, social media platform. Registered users (commonly referred to as "redditors") submit content to the ...

. In April, Satpathy came forward in support of

net neutrality Net neutrality, sometimes referred to as network neutrality, is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all Internet communications equally, offering User (computing), users and online content providers consistent tra ...

, after the

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is a regulatory body set up by the Government of India under section 3 of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997. It is the regulator of the telecommunications sector in India. ...

(TRAI) come out with a consultation paper on over-the-top (OTT) messaging services. In December 2015, Satpathy had supported a bill to decriminalise homosexuality. The bill was introduced by INC leader

Shashi Tharoor Shashi Tharoor (; born 9 March 1956) is an Indian politician, author, and former diplomat, who has been serving as Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, since 2009. He is currently the Chairman of Committee on External Affairs. ...

. But, it was defeated with 71 against, 1 abstaining and 24 in favour.

Views and opinions

On net neutrality

In March 2014, the

(TRAI) released a formal consultation paper on over-the-top (OTT) messaging services and whether telecom operators should be allowed to charge separately for some messaging apps. Soon afterwards, Tathagata Satpathy wrote an

open letter An open letter is a Letter (message), letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally. Open letters usually take the form of a letter (mess ...

to TRAI stating his support for

. In the letter, he said such a policy would hinder the

Digital India Digital India is a campaign launched by the Government of India to make its services available to citizens electronically via improved online infrastructure and by increasing Internet connectivity. The initiative includes plans to connect ru ...

project and kill new startups. He said that he used such apps to interact with his constituency and this policy will hinder his functioning as a representative.

On legalisation of cannabis

Tathagata Satpathy has criticised the ban on

cannabis in India Cannabis in India has been known to be used at least as early as 2000 BCE. In Indian society, common terms for cannabis preparations include charas (resin), ganja (flower), and bhang (seeds and leaves), with Indian drinks such as Lassi#Bhang ...

, while pointing out the long history of its usage as a ritual and recreational intoxicant. He has said that cannabis was banned in

while alcohol was not, because of "an elitist bias" as cannabis was a poor man's drug. He has said the addiction depends on person's character and not on the intoxicant. He has suggested an amendment to the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 to allow recreational and medicinal usage of marijuana. During his "Ask Me Anything" session on

in March 2015, Satpathy admitted that he smoked

cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae that is widely accepted as being indigenous to and originating from the continent of Asia. However, the number of species is disputed, with as many as three species be ...

when he was young. In August 2015, during the monsoon session of the Parliament, he proposed the decriminalisation of cannabis. In December 2015, he repeated his proposal during the winter session, saying that banning cannabis has forced villagers to turn to alcohol.

On homosexuality and moral policing

Tathagata Satpathy has condemned the

Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code Section 377 is a British colonial Penal Code provision that criminalized all sexual acts "against the order of nature". The law was used to prosecute people engaging in oral and anal sex along with homosexual activity. As per a Supreme Court of I ...

, which criminalises

homosexuality in India Homosexuality in India has shown its presence in most of the traditional native philosophies of the nation, and legal rights continue to be advanced in mainstream politics and regional politics. Homosexual cohabitation is also legally permitt ...

, calling it "archaic" and called for its repeal. He had supported a bill introduced by INC MP

to decriminalise homosexuality during the 2015 winter session of the Parliament. When the bill was defeated, Satpathy called it a very sad day. Satpathy has also condemned moral policing and called for a repeal of laws banning pornography in India.

On privacy and Aadhaar

Tathagata Satpathy has raised concerns that the

Aadhaar Aadhaar (Hindi: आधार, ) is a twelve-digit unique identity number that can be obtained voluntarily by all residents of India, based on their biometrics and demography, demographic data. The data is collected by the Unique Identification ...

project could be used for

mass surveillance Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by Local government, local and federal governments or intell ...

ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it ...

in the future. He has questioned why a new identity card project was created despite having several identity cards systems. He has also criticised the decision to present the Aadhaar Bill, 2016 as a

money bill In the Westminster system (and, colloquially, in the United States), a money bill or supply bill is a bill that solely concerns taxation or government spending (also known as appropriation of money), as opposed to changes in public law. Con ...

. He pointed out that although the bill allows the sharing of biometric under circumstances of national security, there was no concrete definition of national security included in the bill.

On religious laws and missionaries

Satpathy supports the implementation of a Uniform Civil Code in

. He has criticised those current laws which are based on various religions, saying that the world is moving beyond religious scriptures and such laws only divide the society. He has also said that a lot of

faith-based foreign aid Faith-based may refer to: * Faith-based organization * Faith-based marketing * Faith-based community organizing * Faith-based school * White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships White is the lightest color and is ac ...

comes to

through

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Miss ...

. They offer the poor

Dalit Dalit ( from meaning "broken/scattered") is a term used for untouchables and outcasts, who represented the lowest stratum of the castes in the Indian subcontinent. They are also called Harijans. Dalits were excluded from the fourfold var ...

s free education and jobs, this results in mass conversions to

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

. Satpathy has said that politicians should use the dictionary definition of

secularism Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on naturalistic considerations, uninvolved with religion. It is most commonly thought of as the separation of religion from civil affairs and the state and may be broadened ...

to avoid confusion.

Other opinions

Satpathy has supported the inclusion of Members of Parliament under the

Jan Lokpal Bill The Jan Lokpal Bill, also referred to as the Citizen's Ombudsman Bill, was a bill drawn up by civil society activists in India seeking the appointment of a Jan Lokpal, an independent body to investigate corruption cases and complete the investig ...

to curb corruption. In December 2015, he criticised the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2015 during a debate, saying that the government was favouring big corporations with such laws. He has also criticised the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana calling it flawed and that it looks good only on paper. He said it forces him to choose only 8 villages from his constituency for development out of 3000. Satpathy has opposed the proposal to make

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

the

national language '' '' A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection— de facto or de jure—with a nation. The term is applied quite differently in various contexts. One or more languages spoken as first languag ...

. Satpathy has criticised the construction of new

nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP), also known as a nuclear power station (NPS), nuclear generating station (NGS) or atomic power station (APS) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power st ...

s in India, claiming that most of the world was now moving away from nuclear energy. He has also claimed that

Areva Areva S.A. was a French multinational group specializing in nuclear power, active between 2001 and 2018. It was headquartered in Courbevoie, France. Before its 2016 corporate restructuring, Areva was majority-owned by the French state through t ...

nuclear firm of

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

sold outdated technology to

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

. He has also said that the centre should release the data regarding the safety of nuclear power plants as they are in other countries.

Personal life

Satpathy is married to Adyasha Satpathy who works as the CEO of ''Dharitri'' and ''OrissaPOST''. They have a son and a daughter.

References

External links

Tathagata Satpathy
Lok Sabha
Tathagata Satpathy Twitter
* https://tathagatasatpathy.com/site {{DEFAULTSORT:Satpathy, Tathagata 1956 births Living people Lok Sabha members from Odisha India MPs 1998–1999 India MPs 2004–2009 India MPs 2009–2014 India MPs 2014–2019 People from Dhenkanal district Biju Janata Dal politicians Janata Dal politicians