ABSTRACT
Gopinath Mohanty who writes in Odiya was a bureaucrat and administrator known to be sympathetic to the marginalised in his official dealings and his stories can be termed broadly humanistic. The viewpoint in histories is generally from above and his tone is one of mild regret at the injustices that he sees, wishing them away as it were rather than trying to see conflicts as essentially unresolvable – since they are caused by ‘politics’, i.e.: struggle for control in relationships. He tries to maintain the neutrality of a wise administrator in his stories and he does not readily accord agency to his victims to react to the perfidies they are subjected to by others. This ‘regret’ of conflict rather than trying to understand its unavoidable basis in interpersonal politics finds extensive expression in his stories centred on the family. What this uncomplicated ‘regret’ suggests about his viewpoint is that it is uncomfortable with change when change itself is unavoidable, which might make his ideology seem ‘statist’ although it is benevolent and sympathetic to those more unfortunate in society.
