Chapter I
Introduction
Chapter II
Background
Chapter III
Socio economic Life
Chapter IV
Assault of the Confederacy - Rise of Surendra Sai
Chapter V
Growing Popular Discontent
Chapter
VI
The people rise in
rebellion against the Agent of Imperialism
Chapter VII
Trial of Surendra Sai
Chapter
VIII
Epilogue
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Abstract
Surendra Sai
Pioneer of a Complete Revolution (1857)
by Capt. R. K. Mishra
Compiled by Siddhartha Tripathy
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...the little district of Sambalpore isolated as it is
and srrounded on every side by the territories of feudatory
Chiefs and Zamindars, render for events which could not occur
in any other part of India. It behoves us to ensure more caution
and to gaurd against every contingency...
- Cummberleigie |
In the center of the Mahanadi, near Jaunan,
there is an island called Hirakud. Every year, beginning March or
sometime later,... a large number of people, as many as five thousand,
assembled and raised temporary embankments ...
... Men brought gravels and helped the women in the process of washing,
in search of either gold or diamond ...
...Prof. Ball wrote that one stone, weighing 672 grains or 210.6
carats was seized by the Maratha Commandment... its weight would give
it a high rank amongst the largest diamonds in the world.
.....From 1840-1857, the two brothers remained
in jail, Surendra was 31 and Uddant was younger to him. Surendra Sai's
absence was felt all the more when Narain Singh died in 1849 and the
British annexed Sambalpur according to "the doctrine of lapse". The
country came under an oppressive government which believed in collecting
as much revenue as possible, breaking traditional ownership, depriving
the people of their own judicial system and above all impoverishing
their principal deity of their resources. The British escheated the
villages, which were donated by the Chouhan rulers for the maintenance
of the temple..... |
.....In one respect, the movement in Sambalpore
was unique. In all other cases, individual claimants who were deprived
of their throne, fought alone with their own army or received the assistance
of the mutinied sepoys - in some other. In the case of Sambalpore, all
the rulers of the Confederated States of Sambalpore unitedly appealed
for the restoration of the Sambalpore Raj. Another important aspect
of the struggle in Sambalpore was that the participants took recourse
mostly to non-violent methods similar to the struggle launched later
under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. These methods were submission
of petitions, sending deputations and observing peaceful non-cooperation
like "no-tax campaign" and boycott of offices and office work.... |
.......The Chauhans introduced the concept of
the confederacy, so that the small states can offer resistance against
the big powers like Mughals, the Marathas and later on the British East
India Company. These confederated states within Sambalpore (Eighteen
Garjats) had been enjoying several factors of commonality. This union
of the small states was based on the principle of common defense and
respect for mutual autonomy. |
Dayanidhi Naik, the spy, who had been feeding
the Superitendent of Police, with all information against insurgency,
was rewarded for the services he had been rendering to the ruling class.
But the village he was assigned as his reward, subsequently came to
be known as the "The Terrain of the Traitor" the Oriya equivalent
of which is "Baiman Tikra".
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