chapter iishodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/14974/6/06...seers in 1901, steadily dropped in...
TRANSCRIPT
CHAPTER II
NON-COOPERATION MOVEMENT - I
Formation of the Utkal Provincial Congress Committee
(UPCC) and the Non-Cooperation resolution at Chakradharpur
in December 1920 marked the initial assertion of nationa-
list identity in Orissa. Gradually the liberals, who formed
a part of nationalist movement but opposed Non-Cooperation
were marginalised. The loyalists backed the liberals and
tried to maintain their political existence. They tendered
unqualified support to the Government and opposed th~ Non-.. cooperation programme cluring 1920-21. The liberals' .support
to th(! loy,_ilists furth,..,r alienated thPm from mainstream
nationalist politics und helped the mod~ra te national Ljts
to become the sole represf'ntative of the nationalist move-
ment in Orissa.
The conquest of nationalist .idf•ntity was hiJtorically
inevitable. lt was only a matter of time. Being aware of
this, in the last two years of the second decade of 20th
century, the optimistic moderate nationalists challenged
the liberals; but more than that they prepared the ground
for the forthcoming congress movement in Orissa. They
could do this because of the favourable conditions created
around various national and local issues. The first section
of the chapter would cliscuss these developments preceding
63~~o
the :·1on-Cooperation :vtovement in Orissa.
A mom~ntum had been creat~d in Orissa by the Pnd of
June 1921. The Congress tried t::> fulfill the quota of
enrolment of primary r!lembers to th·? party, collection
of Tilak Swaraj fund and thp wide use of charkhas. ln
the second section we would be discussing the movement
upto the end of June 1921. HowPvPr, a genr>r<'ll evaluation
of the various aspects of the mov•'m•c~n t viOuld be done in
the following chapter which wouln also concentrate on
Non-Cooperation.
In thjs chapter, att0mpo:.s woulrl be made to see whe
ther throughout th<· period nationul .md local issues
tocwth<~r WI'H' hiqhli<jht•-·d for mass mobilisation.
issues alon·:~ could not have been US"'d for a mass campaign.
Ri'lther they were combined with local political issues. ln
othr~r worris, decisions of the All India Con,Jress Committee
taken in the light of national is:;ues intermixed with
local conditions to achieve the maximum involvement of
the people. But this intermixing did not divert the
UPCC from tne overall stLlt'---gy of th·~ ~lationdl Congress
and the anti-colonial struggle. Instead it helped to
create an awareness of local ethos and facilitated creation
of a mass base for the Congress.
I
In the year 1918 severe drought and in 1919 floods
aggravated the agrarian crises in Orissa. The coastal
64
districts of Cuttack, Puri and Balasore and their adjoining
Garjats were severely affected by these natural calamities.
Other regions were also affected though to a lesser extent.
Scarcity, price rise, starvation, migration and deaths were
the obvious outcome of the crises. Expressed in terms of
seers to the rupee, the average price of rice rose to 15
seers in 1901, steadily dropped in the next three years to
20 seers in 1904, and rose to 6 see{S in 1920. It finally
settled at 12 ~ in 1930. 1 From the drought and flood
affec~ed Orissa large scale migration took place during
this period. The official sources observed that in the
less affected areas there was 1 scarcely a household 1 which
did not send .:~t least on,.,. member to Calcutta or elsewhere
for some months in a year; while in the more affected
areas the majority of the population had emigrated and the
2 local post offices received a steady flow of money orders.
The consequent famine due to fLood ancl drought also
witnessed spread of epidemics such as influenza and malaria
which killed thousands of people, leading to partial de-
population in 1021. The census figures available for the
three coastal districts clearly indicate the severity of
the famine and the epidemics:
1. Final Reoort on the Revenue Settlement of Orissa, 1922-32 (h<?reafter S.R. of Orissa), Patna, 1934, p.4.
2. Ibid., p.s.
65
Districts Population in
1901 1911 1921
Cuttack 20,60,313 21, 09, 139 20,64,678
Puri 10,17,284 10,23,403 9,51,651
Balasore 10,73,642 10,55,568 9,80,054
Source: S.R. of Orissa, 1922-32, p.4.
Tho? nationalist press highlighted the ar;rari-=m crisis
in 1918, 1919 and 1920. The Dipika reported that there was
acute scarcity in Puri district and 80% of the chulhas,or
hearth~remained unused for days together in 1918. 3 Quoting
the of fict al sources, the Praj a Mitra of Aska reported that
in 1919 alone thr~re wen~ over 20,')00 deaths comp.:1red to
1),205 births in the British Orissa. 4 Even the Sambalpur
Hiteishini, a loyalist paper, stated that price rise, caus-
ing incalculabLe distress to the pr-opl:~, ·..ta::. spect.1cular in
th . 1 5 e pr~nce y states.
The nationalists held the Government responsible
6 for the poverty and consequent death of people. They
demanded an official enquiry headed by some non-of~· ici al
members and bla~ed the Government for its failure in provi
ding adequate relief to the drought and flood victims.7
3. Dipika, 2 Nov. 1918.
4. PraJa ~·1itra, 30 Jan. 1920.
5. SH, 25 Jan. 1919. /-
6. Dipika, 16 March 1918.
7. Resolution passed in the UUC of 1919. Utkal Sevak, 8 Jan. 1920.
66
They also demanded suspension of rent collection till the
. d 8 situation lmprove • The Dipika even justified all strug-
gle·S by the native people for 'a square meal' as natural
and commented that the politics which was not concerned
9 about •a square meal' was worthless.
During the famine, the nationalists did not remain
confined to criticism of the Government and thereby exposure
of the anti-people character of colonial rule. Besides
exposure, they organised famine relief programmes them-
selves and created the image of a better alternative to
colonial rule. Publication of the Samaj on 4 October 1919,
• to expose the Cbvernment's neglect of relief duties' and \
'to co-ordinate the relief work', clearly in~icated the
10 two-fold strategy of the nationa Listso Gopabandhu and
other Satyavadi teachPrs organised relief cilinps in many
places. By 1920, con~act had b~en m~de with Gandhi and
People's Society of India for relief. A.V. Thakkar of the
society visited Orissa and subsequently 'P 0 ople's Famine
11 Relief Committee' was formed on 11 May 1920. The relief
measures established the nationalists as the champion of
8. Ibid.
9. Dipika, 2 March 1918.
10. Introduction by Radhanath Rath, in GBR, Vol.II, 1977, Cuttack, p.J.
11. Samaj, 15 May 19:?0, in GBR, (Gopabandhu Rachanavali), Vol.II, p.65.
67
people's cause and popularised them even in the remote
corners of the state.
During post-World War I period, a general impression
was created that nationalism had reached a 'new stage•, 12
when people were strong enough to ask for 'home rule' and 13 'SWaraj'. Time had arrived for 'Swaraj' rule. India
could no more tolerate the discrimination between the
'whites' and 'natives'. The new stage of nationalism or
the momentum in Indian national life, of which the 'last
Congress at Calcutta' was the symbol, was quite deep rooted.
The nationalists found these roots in the rise of Asia's
power in the 20th century, the breaking of illusions regar-
ding the 'superiority of th~ whites' during the War, rise
of Indian bu~iness class and the emergence of political
consciousness among Indian women. Exposure of the true
nature of the ~,irst 1'/orld War - thd t the colonial powers
were eager only to divide and re-divide ~1e colonial empire
-was also seen as the cause of the momentum. 14
The nationalists refuted in their relP.ntless criti-
cism of colonialism the claim of the Government that the
country was powerful and prosperous under British rule.
12. Dipika, 12 Jan. 1918.
13. Dipika, 26 Jan. 1918.
14. Dipika, 12 Jan. 1918.
68
When the people were half-naked and half-fed, how could
the country become powerful, the Dipika asked.15
The
nationalists justified the people's resentment on war
loans and conscription over which there had been tribal
revolts in Mayurbhanj leading to assault on the recruiting
officer and damage to the local railway station in 1917,16
and questioned the Government: haw could a poverty stricken
weak people be us~d in the army? How could such poor
people be asked for a loan?17
In the wake of the new stage of nationalism, the
anti-Bengali parochial attitude was condemned and the
Bengalis settled in Orissa were said to hove equal share
in the uuc. 18 Gopabandhu uSkPd those who preached anti-
Ben9ali feelinC] to give it up u.s such feelirxJS - whPther
of being Oriya or BenrJali or Marhatti or Telugu - were
harmful to national awakening. He also assured the out-
siders, i.e., Bengali's ljving in Orissa, that such narrow
feelings were nurtured by only a handful of Oriyas. 19 In
its search for national identity, the Dipika wrote that
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
Dipika, 20 April 1918.
Orissa District Gazetteer, Mayurbhanj, CUttack, 1967, p.82.
Dipika, 25 May 1918.
Dipika, 16 Feb. 1918.
Di~ika, 27 July 1919, in~' Vol.VIII, CUttack, 19 ~, pp. 1- 3 •
69
'there may be differences within, but we are one Indian
nation. He together lost our independence sometime back,
now we together must fight for it.• 20 ~urther, the natio-
nalists stated that politics was not the only stream of
life through which Orissa should be integrated into the
great Indian nation. Rather in other streams 'such as
literature, culture and diama' also it shoulrl merge with
India. 21
The nationalists considered the loyalists and other
feudal elements to be stumbling blocks in the path of their
politics. In order to reach the common people, an1 thereby
to 1uvolve them in the process of the national movement,'
they took an anti-feurlal stand and of fercd thci r heartfelt
sympathy to the pPOple suffering from feudal oppression.
·rhe Utk.:lL Sevak condemned the Garjat as dark rule, locally
known as andhari mulak, and forecast that the oppression
22 there could not be contai~ed for long. The Utkal Dipika
questioned the legality of 'conscription' and 'war
loans• and indirectly offered its sympathy to the meli
in Mayurbhanj in 1917 and criticized the local prince who
23 was a party to such measures. Referring to the price
20. Dipika, 16 io-.eb. 1918.
21. Dipika, 24 Jan. 1920; Praja :1i tra, 30 Jan. 19 20.
22. Utkal Sevak, 17 June 1920.
2 3. Di,ei ka, 25 May 1918.
70
rise and consequent revolt in Daspalla in mid-1920, the
Praja Mitra blamed the Dewan, who at the instance of the
prince, purchased rice at cheap rates and forced the
peasantrY to buy it at 'CUttack price', higher than the
24 local rate. Copabandhu said that the fact that there
were lot of instances of inhuman oppression in many princely
states and peopl..,. who lived there for. generutions to']ether
would love to migrate at the earliest possible, only explai-
ned the inhuman conditions existing in the states. If the
princes didn't share power with the people and continued
to deprive them of 'knowledge and their due rights', the
Praja's rule, which was inevitable, might not forgive them,
25 he warned.
Montaque-Ch0.lmsford Reforms were introduced in 1918.
The UUC leadership had given a memorandum to the Reforms
Committee for a separCJte Oriya linguistic province • In
defence of their claim.facts and figures had been collec
ted in a book form. The book, The Oriya Movement, Being
A Demond For A United Province, was published in English
so as to aftract the attention of the Committee. 26 3ei ng
a signatory to the memorandum, Gopabandhu suggested in
the UUC of 1918 that, if Orissa was not accorded justice
2 4. P raj a Mitra, 6 Aug. 19 2 0.
25. ~a~aJ, 21 Febo 1920, in GBR, Vol.IV, Cuttack, P7f7.
1977,
26. Two Bachelor of Arts, £2• £!1•
71
after the Reforms, no Oriya should re~ain in the Government.
He himself offered to resign from the Bihar and Orissa Legis-
lative Council to which he had been elected in 1917, and to
1 h th f . 27 aunc e era o non-coo~x~ration.
The Reforms did not make Orissa a separate province,
nor did they give the expected •concessions' to other natio-
nalists of the country. The result was sharp criticism of
28 the Reforms by the nationalists all ov-·r the,, country.
In Orissa Gopabandhu went to the extent of saying that
even if the Congress had not been very •unhappy• with the
Reforms, Orissa would strongly oppose them, for the minimum
linguistic demands of the Oriya people had not been touched
29 upon. H~ held thn British Gov~rnment responsible for the
division of Orissa, the purpose t>ein;J to keep the people
numerically weak every where. He expected the whole of
30 Orissa to come forward to fight the British on the issue.
This marked a change in the nationalists• approach. Now,
instead of blaming the neighbouring middle class, they
hlamed the ~overnment for the 'Oriya' problem.
On 13 April 1919, police had fired on a large unarmed
crowd at Jalianwalabagh in Punjab. The firing, known as the
27. Dipika, 6 April 1918.
28. Surnit Sarkar, Modern India (18d5-1947), New Delhi, 1983, p.165.
29. Samaj, 10 Jan. 1920, in GBR, Vol.IV, p.68.
30. Samaj, 24 Jan. 1920, in~, Vol.IV, pp.72-73.
72
'Punjab killings•, had resulted in the massacre of hundreds
of people. A wave of horror and anger blew all over the
country. In Orissa, the 'killings• intensified the anti-
colonial feelings. The nationalists condemned the massacre
and described the subsequent enquiry as a farce. 31 They
appreciated the nationalist efforts at building a ~hahid
t1inar at Jalianwalabagh in memory of the killed. 32 Gopa-
bandhu hoped that • awakened Punjab' (Jagrat Punjab) would
never forget the atrocities and would reply by not co-
33 operating with the Government. The incident had such a
great impact that the UUC, which still had a considerable
number of liberals and loyalists in it, passed a resolution
in its Puri sessJon in 1q19 condemning the army atrocities
34 in Punjab. 'I'his shO\.Jed that many 1 ibe ra l s had also
changed their undP.rstanding of colonial rule. The change
was well evident in Gangadhar Meher. In a poem, Bharati
Bhabana (Mother lndia Realised), he sang: 'we (lndian)
understood the true character of British rule after the
incident in the land of five rivers (Punjab) and the
emergence of Gandhi on the Indian scene. Till then, we
thought you (British) were good•. 35
31. Dipika, 16 Jan. 1920.
32. Dipika, 24 Jan. 1920.
33. Samaj, 22 Nov. 1919, in GBR, Vol. N, p.so.
34. Utkal Sevak, 8 Jan. 1920.
35. Gangadhar Granthavali, p.290.
73
Emergence of Gandhi in Indian politics during the
post-1,.-Jar period contributed greatly to the process of natio-
nalist awakening in Orissa. Hay back in 1908, Gandhi, while
'fighting for the Indians in South Africa•, had been intro-
duced to the people as 'the leader of both Hindus and Muslims'.
The nationalists had hooed that 'people belonging to all
parts of the British empire would make common' cause with
36 him 'to save their national honour'. In 1915 when Gandhi
landed in India, it was but natural that the nationalists
rallied behind him as the centre of anti-colonial resistance: 7
They praJsed him as a man who stood 'higher' than, and who
held a position 'seldom attained' by, any Indian leader. 38
While Gopabandhu wrote to Gandhi about the flood and famine
. 39 and the consequent loss in Orissa, and sought his sugqestlons,
Braja Sundar Das appri!3ed hirn of thP Oriyu. linquistic pro-
, 1 40 o ems.
Identification with Gandhi was not confined to a few
intellectuals alone. In 1916-17, aftPr the local meli was
suppressed in Daspalla, a rebel, Govind Mishra, escaped and
joined the Sabarmati Ashr~~ of Gandhi in 1918. He was
probably the first person from Orissa to corne in personal
36. Dinika, 1 Feb. 1908, in RNNB, 14 t1arch 1908.
37. Mahatab, Gandhi 0 Odisa, (..,.tt()ck,IH9, fl.Li.
38. Dipika, 18 Sept. 19 20.
39. Collected Works of Gandhi, Vol.XVII, Feb.-June 1920, Ahrn9dabad, 196 5, p. 420.
40. l£i£., p.36.
74
41 contact with Gandhi, looking for his l~adership and guidance.
In response, Gandhi wrote on the local Oriya issues
like flood, famine and linguistic problems and drew the
attention of the rest of the country to them. On • .:<'amine
in Orissa•, he appealed to the people in the Navjeevan of
16 May 1920 and 20 June 1920, to come forward with relief,
because when 'some people die of hunger, others have no
42 right to eat in peace•. On 18 2ebruary 1920 Gandhi des-
cribed the division of Orissa as 'unreasonable and suggested
that the people of the country• should examine 'the Oriya
' 43 movement with sympathetic care and attention•. Besides
giving publicity to Orissa's problems, he helped the f:amine
reliP.f progr.:1mme and instJlled confid0nce in the minds of
loc.:tl reLief workPrs. 44
Such care and attention from a
national leader further intensified the common n.1.tional
feelings in Orissa.
The nationalist criticism of the Governm·~·nt, princes the
and zamindars on the eve ofLNon-Co-op.-:ration Movement was
accompanied by the inculcation of a sense of courage among
the ordinary people that they could change the fate of the
nation, if they wanted to do so. To Gopabandhu, if unity.
41. Hahatab, Gandhi 0 Odisa, p. 4.
42. Collected 1-lorks of Gandhi, Vol.XVII, pp.420 and 498.
43. Ibid., p.36.
44. Gopabandhu (GB) in Samaj, 15 May 1920, in~· Vol.II, p.65.
75
was forge·.i among the rnulias (toiling masses), all zamindars,
45 rnaliks and mahaj ans would bow down before them. He 1 ~n-
ted that the mulias of 'our country' didn't easily protest,
unlike the workers of the western countries. 46 _ The Dipika
justified the labour strike for higher p~y in Jumshedpur
in 1920. If the owners did not realise th~ distrPss of the
workers and were stub born, such ::;trikes would be natural,
0 d 47 1. t com:ne n te • Gopabandhu in his mass appeal to protest
against injustice, compared the Raja (ruler) to a killer
or baja, and the praja to a victim or para, and asked people
to unite against the rulers, to bring the Praja rule ann to
48 put an end to Raja's rule.
The nationalists' rAnchant for 'praja rule' attruc-
ted the:n towar~s the Bolshevik Resolution in Russia. Gopa-
bandhu oriyanised the term 'Bolshevik' into bala sebi
(worshipper of labour) and said that in order to bring
equality between the rich and the poor, the bala sebi
would overthrow all rajakula (empires) in the world. \-.'hen
the poor peasantry worked hard for its minimum living,
why s~ould a handful of Raj as and zamindars and other rich
people suck their blood like leeches and squander the
45. Samaj, 17 Jan. 1920, in GBR, Vol.VIII, pp. 66-6 7.
46. Samaj, 10 Oct. 1919, in ~~ Vol.VIII, p. 58.
4 7. Dipika, 13 March 1920.
48. Samaj, 31 Jan. 19 20, in ~~ Vol. VI II, p.71.
76
49 whole wealth, he asked. The Dipika prognosticated that
England might come under the grip of bala-sebi and conse-
50 quently all parts of the empire might enjoy equality.
In the first half of 1920, the nationalists high-
lighted the Khalifat issue and tried to arouse public sym-
pathy tor it. Referring to the issue, Gopabandhu remarked
that the British Government was betraying the Muslims who
51 had deep faith in the Sultan of Turkey. The Dipika warned
that if Turkey was betrayed, the Government could not expect
the Muslims of India to be faithful to the Raj.52
The wide acceptance of 'Hindustani' and 'Urdu' in
place of English in the Amritsar Congress of 1919 created
much hope in the local nationalist circles. It made the
Congress the real party of workers and peasants, they felt.
Gopabandhu wrote that the people of Orissa were v~ry happy
to hear of this, because the path (adoption of popular
language) the Congress selected then had already bP•"n
adopted by them in the uuc some 16 years ago. He drew a
few more similarities between the UUC and the Congress and
urged the people to merge the two since there was very
little difference between them. 53
49. Samaj, 31 Jan. 1920, in~, Vol.IV, p.74.
50. Dipika, 25 Sept. 1920.
51. Samaj, 13 March 1920, in ~· Vol.IV, p.so.
52. Dipika, 15 Jan. 1920 and 31 Jan. 1920.
53. Samaj, 3 Jan. 1920, in~, Vol.IV, p.67.
77
Gandhi • s appeal for non-violent mass movement further
stimulated nationalist awakening in Orissa. The Congress
had adopted the noJ-violent form of struggle, but it was
with the advent of Gandhi that the form acquired a new mean-
ing. Mahatab in an interview later on articulated the
contemporary Oriya view. People were restive against foreign
rule after the world war. Th~y were looking for a way out.
Gandhi showed the ways how everybody could participate in
the struggle without fear. His doctrine of fearlessness
54 attracted many people towards nationalism. Gopabandhu
described the non-violent form adopted by the Congress to
be most suitable to the conditions in Orissa. Orissa was
known for its 'patience• and 'tolerance' which were essential
for a non-violent mass movement. It seemed the movement
based on non-violence had been prescribed specially for
Orissa by the Congress, he said. Moreover the identity
that the Orissa people were striving for was finally recog-
55 nised by the country, he pointed out.
The strategy of politicising, activising and mobili-
sing the people soon started bearing fruits, when youth
groups emerged at various places dedicated to the nationalist
cause. One such group was the Bharati Mandir at CUttack.
54. Interview with Mahatab, recorded by Hari Dev Sharma, at CUttack, 7 July 1973, (for the Oral History Project, NMML, New Delhi} p.4.
55. Samaj, 30 Oct. 1920, in Q!!.E1 Vol.VIII, p.lOl.
78
Started as a nationalist study circle in the latter part of
1919, Bharati Mandir was formed by a group of young men,
such as Harekrishna Mahatab, Nabakrishna Choudhury, Nitya-
nand Kanungo, Prahalad Sahu, Basir Ahmed, Nikunja Das and
56 Bhagirathi Mahapatra. The post-war awakening, the flood
and famine followed by the Government's indifference and
nationalists• reliet works brought the group closer to
57 the nationalist politics in Orissa. Earlier the Satya-
~group had emerged. Through its school and newspapers,
the group regularly helped in the percolation of nationalist
ideas among students and others. Similar political groups -
formal and informal - emerged among the Oriya students in
58 Madras, Calcutta and Patna. Non-Co-operation Movement
which began in the latter half of 1920 was the sum total
of the activities of these politicized people, their collec-
tive attempts at mobilising others as well as themselves,
their struggle against colonial rule and their contribution
to the process of nation mdking.
IIA
At the all India level, the Non-Cooperation Movement
was launched formally on 1 August 1920 on the Khalifat
issue. Lokmanya Tilak passed away in the early hours of
56. Rama Devi, Jivana Pathe (Autobiography), CUttack, 19~4, p.46.
57. Mahatab, Sadhanar Pathe, p.23.
58. Sabyasachi, 22· £!1., p.lO.
79
1 August, and the day of mourning and of launching of the
movement began simultaneously. In response, the Khilafat
Movement started at a few places in Orissa also.
Sarnbalpur was one such place where the movement
emerged as an attempt to unite the Hindus and the Muslims
as well as to mobilise the common people on some basic
economic demands. It all started on 14 August when a
protest meeting was organised against the increasing price
of rice. Speakers such as Dasarathi Mishra, Janardan
Supakar and a local Muslim leader Ladabhai 'nlaria urged
the deputy commissioner to supply rice at a concessional
rate, so that the Kinikhias (poor people - not peasantry -
who buy rice) such as carpenters, weavers, blacksmiths and
wage labourers miqht not suffer. Around 200 such kinikhias
had attended the meetinq. 59 The mobilisation of kinikhias
and the Khilafat meetings converged on 5th and 6th of
September. Interestingly the meetii"XJS were organised in
a local Hindu temple, Somnath gudi, and were presided by
Ladabhai 'nlaria. Moreover, a Hindu religious preacher,
swami Brahmanand Saraswati, was one of the main speakers
in one of the meetings. The resolutions passed in the
meeting were again interesting. They decided that a Khilafat
Branch Commdttee would be set up and funds would be collected
59. Utkal Sevak, 9 Sept. 1920.
80
to help the Khilafat Movement. For cow protection, Hindus and
Muslims would keep a cow in each family. A memorandum
signed by both Hindus and Muslims would be sent to the
Central Provinces Government to stop the slaughter house
at Ratona in Sagar district (that was the nearest slaughter
house that they had heard of). Muslims of Sambalpur were
thanked profusely, for avoiding cow slaughter at the time 60
of last Bakr Id.
In mid-September, the same people, who had organised
the Khilafat Sabha, formed a delegation and suggested to
the deputy commissioner of Sambalpur to buy rice at the
market rate and to supply it at a cheaper rate to the ~-
khias till the new crops were harvested and the price came
down. 'nley calculated that in that case the subsidy would
not be more than ~.2000.of which one thousand rupees would
be compensated by the local municipality. The district
administration, however, showed indifference, further incur-
61 ring the wrath of the nationalists.
In November and December, more meetings were held
and resolutions passed on behalf of the Khilafat Sabha. On
12 November 1920, a meeting was followed by the formation
of a 5Waraj Sabha and a Gorakhini Sabha (cow protection
60. Ibid. -61. Otkal Sevak, 23 sept. 1920.
81
committee). Formed in the local Somnath temple, all the
sabhas had almost the same people as members. They were
three different committees to fight different problems by
complementing each other. The Khilafat Sabha emphasised
on more funds to the Khilafat committee in its fight for
justice and the Swaraj Sabha decided to boycott the ensuing
election to the Legislative Council and to accept the
Congress line for the achievement of SWaraj, while the
Gorakhini Sabha stressed on cow protection, because cows
were not mere 'religious symbols' but symbols of 'economic
prosperity•. The three Sabhas combinedly passed the follow-
ing resolutions in response to the Non-Cooperation programme
of the Cong resss to spread • SWadeshi'; to establish national
schools; to set up 'panchayats•; to boycott elections-and J
to boycott the 'durbar• or British court. 62
On 27 November 1920, in another meeting, 'Maulana
Saab', a Khilafat leader from Nagpur, came to speak. The
meeting was followed by collection of funds for the forth-
63 coming Nagpur Congress. Referring to the Maulana's speech,
the nationalist press commented that the people could hardly
believe that the Government could be criticized so fearlessly.
Meetings addressed by outside leaders not only attracted more
people, but also inculcated a stronger sense of courage
62o Utkal 5evak, 18 Nov. 1920.
63. Utkal seva.k, 2 Dec. 1920.
82
among them.64
The Non-Cooperation resolution to boycott elections
worked effectively. The Utkal Sevak, which noted with
sadness that due to limited franchise only some dhanaban
(rich), bhumiban (landlords) and bidyaban (educated) could
65 vote, reported after the elections that out of 280 voters
only 28 voters came to vote in Sambalpur. Among the Muslims,
66 none turned out to vote.
ln Puri, another nationalist pocket, the UUC inte-
grated the Non-Cooper~tion programme with local issues and
attempted to involve the people on a large scale. The Puri
DCC, formed since 1916 by Gopabandhu and his Satyavadi
colleagues, fully endorsed the Non-Cooperation resolution
in a meeting held on 2 October 1920. Resolutions were
passed to boycott the Legislative Council, to spread
swadeshi, to run charkhas, and to establish national
67 schools in different places.
While working under thls broad Non-Cooperation
framework, the Puri DCC organised a meeting of rvots and
sarbarakars (v~llage officers or a category of peasants,
who as government intermediaries collected rents from the
64 • Ibid.
65. Utkal Sevak, 26 Feb. 1920.
66. Utkal Sevak, 2 Dec. 1920.
67. Dipika, 9 Oct. 1920.
83
peasants, but were denied full rights over land) of Khurda
region at Khandagiri on 8 Oct. 1920. Attended by many
people from nearby villages (estimated at 100 villages)
and presided over by Gopabandhu, the meeting set up two
committees - one, to fight for the rights of Sarbarakars
and the other, to fight against the rigorous forest laws
in Khurda, which had stopped even sale of head loads of
fire wood and thereby had caused great hardship to the
tribals and peasants. Besides, the meeting discussed the
elements of Non-Cooperation and the leaders appealed to
68 the people to abstain from November elections.
On 16 October, Gopabandhu and his nationalist collea-
gues organised a meeting of the primary school teachers,
'whose salary was even less than that of municipality
69 sweepers•, at Jatani in Puri district. Around 300
teachers attenned it to chalk out a plan and a programme
for a strike to demand higher salaries. An executive
committee was set up and plans were made to collect funds
for the ensuing strike. The comrrlittee decided to have
its next meeting at Satyavadi school, the centre of natio-
70 nalist activities.
68. Dipika, 16 Oct. 1920.
69. Utkal Sevak, 22 April 19201 Praja Mitra, 28 May 1920.
70. Dfaika, 6 Nov. 1920; Fortnightly Report fro~ Bihar a Orissa (hereafter FRBO), Deposit, File No.66 of December, 1920, Home Poll.
84
On 22 November 1920, an election boycott meeting
was held at Puri. In the meeting, Gopabandhu, who had
already resigned from the Bihar and Orissa Legislative
Council in early September 1920, 71 said that the council
was meaningless, for the Government never intended to give
equal rights to Indians, which was well evident from the
Rowlatt Bill, Punjab killings, Treaty with Turkey and the
Government's neglect of duties during Puri famine. Jaga-
bandhu Singh, another DCC leader, emphasised that elections
71a and councils would have some meaning only after swaraj.
Appeal for boycott of elections was also made by Gopabandhu
72 in the Samaj. ConsP-quently in the Puri municipality, the
voting was not mon~ than 20%, while in the rural areas of
the district despite threatening by the Police- it was
73 even less •
. The nationalists• attempt to integrate the Non-Co-
operation Movement with local issues soon started bearing
fruits when the Oriya Movement became militant and broad
based. After the UUC came under the grip of the moderate
nationalists and the Non-Cooperation was in the offing
71. Gopabandhu, The Legislator, GBR, CUttack, 19'1'7, p.v.
71a. Dipika, 26 Nov. 1920.
72. Samaj, 25 Sept. 1920, in GBR, Vol.IV, p.116.
73. GB in Samaj, 11 Dec~ 1920, in ~, Vol.VI, p.14.
85
in early 1920, the confrontationist attitude was well ref-
74 lected in the UUC programme. Now mass meetings were held
75 regularly at different places. Suggestions were made to
recruit full time activists and to involve the peasantry
76 in the movement. In August, the nationalists warned the
Government that the movement would continue till Orissa was
'11 made a separate linguistic province. As early dS December
1919, the UUC set up •save Orissa Fund' (Odiya Rakhya Panthi}
to co~lect funds from the public78
and, thereby, to evoid
79 'bowing down• before the 'rich people' for expenses. By
the end of 1920, the Orissa Movement was so integrated with
the Congress programme that participation in the Nagpur ~Js
Congress of 1920 was also considerGdLan aid to the Oriya
linguistic issue. Greater participation from Orissa in
the all India movement would mean more support from the
80 Congress to the Orissa movement, the nationalists hoped.
74. After 1920, the term 'moderate nationalist' does not appear appropriate. Henceforth we will use the term •nationalist• to describe the erstwhile moderate nationalists.
75. Dipika, 14 .r~eb. 1920.
76. Dipika, 13 March 1920.
77. Praja M1 tra, 5 Aug. 19 20.
78. Utkal Sevak, 29 Jan. 1920.
79. Praja Mitra, 14 May 1920.
so. DiEika, 6 Dec. 19 20.
86
IIB
In necember 1920, the nationalists attended the Nagpur
Congress; on their way back to Orissa they participated in
the uuc at Chakradharpur and formally took over its leader-
ship and formed the UPCC. From January 1921 onwards the
UPCC co-ordinated the Non-Cooperation Movement and provided
it leadership in Orissa.
In the first week of January 1921, the nationalist
campaign attracted the school students of Sambalpur. After
their return from the Nagpur Congress and UUC session the
local leadership organised a meeting on 2 January to discuss
the Non-Cooperation Movement and the forthcoming UUC session,
81 proposed to be held in the district. Students of the
local zilla school attended the meeting and decided to
respond to the Congress call. On 4 January around 100
students boycotted their classes and went on a procession
which converged in a ptlblic meeting at t-,razer club. Presided
over by Ladabhai Tharia, the local Khilafat leader, the
meeting decided to open a national school. From 5 January,
with no teachers, no hostel and with virtually no class
room the school started at the ~'razer Club. 82 I:o..,or nearly
a week, regular meetings were held, demonstrations led
and wall writings asking other students to boycott schools
a;>peared in different parts of the town. Mostly the Muslim
81. Utkal SevaJc, 13 Jan. 1921.
82. Utkal Sevak, 6 Jan. 1921.
87
students and rural students such as Abdul Mazid, Laxmi
Narayan Mishra, Bhabani Mishra, Krutartha Acharya, Beni-
83 madhab Supakar and Jagannath Mishra were active.
After a week the tempo subsidised. The rural
students required a hostel, which the national school
did not have. There was no class room which disillusioned
many other students. Moreover, the students did not know
what to do after the boycott of schools, leading processions
and holding meetings in the evening. Many students returned
to the government school. The headmaster, who till then,
had not taken any action, served notices to the guardians
of all the students. The warning once again inflamed the
students as well as many guardians, mostly belonging to
the Muslim community. They withdrew their wards from the
government schools. Once again the tempo was built up.
The students, their guardians and the local Congress
leaders made combined efforts to reorganise the national
84 school and the Non-Cooperation Programme in Sambalpur.
In mid-January, the enthusiastic students and the
Congress leaders invited the Sambalpur students studying
at Calcutta to chalk out initiatives needed to carry
8 3. ~tkal Sevak, 20 Jan. 1921.
84. Ibid. -
88
85 forward the struggle. Bhagirathi Mishra, a law student
there, contacted Nilakant;1a Das, a former teacher of Satya
vadi school and then a lecturer in Calcutta University.86
Bhagirathi along with Gopabandhu and Nil akantha started
87 for Sambalpur to participate in the movement.
The forms of movement in Sambalpur included various
activities. On 17 January 1921 the students, guardians and
some lawyers welcomed the nationalists coming from Calcutta
at the railway station. A huge procession was taken out
88 and the people received them with Chandan and garlands.
Sloqans like 'Gandhi ki Jey', 'Bande Mataram', 'Maulana
Saukat Ali K.1 Jey' and 'Maulana Mohammad Ali K1 Jey' were
raised repedtedly. The whole town was coverea by the pro-
cession which conv0 rged in a meeting at Balibandha. The
tempo had risen ao high that even a few government officials
and some lawyers, who never took. part in Congress activities,
89 came out to join the procession and attended the meeting.
85. Nilakantha Das, Atmajivani (1963), p.154.
86. Nilakantha Das, who hailed trom a lower middle class family, had been forced to leave the Satyavadi school in 1918, when he could not any more mdnage on the sma~1 amount of salary g1ven to him by the school. The school being financially not well equipped offered a meagre amount to ita teachers. Nilakantha Das, Gr-mthavali ~ 1963) ~ p.81.
87. Utkal Sevak, 20 Jan. 1921; NilaKantha Das, ,\trtl-Jjivani --(1963), p.154.
sa. Nilakantha Da.::s, ibid. , p.224.
89. Utkal Sevak, 20 Jan. 1921.
89
After the meeting some students took an •oath to serve the
nation • while some more students announced their decision
not to sit in the forthcoming Entrance Examination. On
19 January the national school was organised once again.
Some 80 students left the Zilla school for the second time
90 and joined the national school.
The liberals had participated in the election of
November 1920. Madhu Sudan Das, after his election, joined
the Bihar and Orissa Government as a minister. The loyalists
congratulated him.91
The liberals organised public receptions
for him at different places like Cuttack and Puri in the
first half of January 1921. Boycott of th·~se liberal meet-
ings became a p."1rt of Non-Cooperation campaign at those
places. The Samaj satirically described Madhu Sudan Das
as 'An octoqenerian government servant• and criticized the
92 organisers of the receptions. Due to nationalist boycott
only eight to ten people attended the Puri reception orqani-
sed in the first week of January. At Cuttack, in contrast
to the Puri meeting, the Non-Cooperators attended the meeting
held on 9 January, captured the dias, elected their own man
to the chair and passed resolutions condemning'-the reception
93 as well as Madhu Sudan Das for acceptance of office.
90. ~.; Searchlight, 4 Feb. 1921.
91. Gadjat Basini, 8 Jan. 1921.
92. Quotea in Gadjat Basini, 20 Jan. 1921.
93. GB .in ffiaj, 15 Jan. 1921, in GBR., IV, p.138; Searchl g t, 19 Jan. 1921.
90
94 Madhu Sudan 1 s effigy was burnt at the meeting place and
pamphlets were distributed satirically asking Madhu Sudan
•to draw his annual salary of ~.60,000 from the malaria of
l 95 Ba.lasore, famine of Puri and floods of Cuttack. The
successful boycott unfurled the Non-Cooperation campaign
in Cuttack leading to the setting up of a national school
96 and swaraj Ashram in mid-January.
In the latter half of Janudry 1921, the movement
gainea strength and its flames reached many other nationa-
1ist pockets. On 21 January, Satyavadi was declared a
national school and its relation with the Government .nd
the government controlled Patna University were severed.
The declaration led to a financial iOSS of ~.20,000 which
the Government had promised to 97
sanction for the school.
As in Sambalpur, conversion of Satyavadi into a
national school was mainly the handiwork of students. The
achool, founded 1n 1909, was conceived on nationalist line
with littie relation with the Government and the Unl.ver!::iity.
But 1.n 1914-15, it souqht University afti!iation for the
purpose of University degrees. The students and their
guardians had pressuri sed the nationalists for such
94. Rama Devi, Jivan Pathe, p.47.
95. Mahatab, Sadhanar Pathe, p.29.
96. AB Patrika, ( Amri t Bazaar Patrika), 20 Jan. 1921.
97. GBR, Vol.1, p.2S. -
91
affiliation. The financial constraints also forced them
(nationalists) to seek gov~rnment grants. But launching
of Non-Cooperation reversed the scene. The school was
once again declared a national institution. The students
being engulfed by the spirit of ~Jon-Cooperation demanded
the breaking of relations with the Government. They even
managed to get their guardians' consent to that effect.
They threatened to boycott the institute if it was not
declared a national school at the earliest. 98
Besides the Sambalpur, CUttack and Satyavadi schools,
99 a school also came up at Chakradharpur at this stage.
The Chakradharpur school li k.e the Satyavadi had been es tab-
lished earlier. ln 1918, when the satyavadi school suffered
a financial crisis, a teacher, GoddV<lrish Mishra, left the
.Saty.1vadi and started a similar kind of school at Chakradhar-
pur. Financed by the local Oriya community, the school
mainly aimed at spreading Oriya language and literature
100 in the outlying tracts.
The Sambalpur and CUt tack national schools which
unlike the other two didn't have teachers to start with
9~. Appeal by Gopabandhu, Samaj, 3 Jan. 1925, in GBR, Vol.I, p.190.
99. Samaj, 12 Feb. 1921, in GBR, VOl·.VI, p.28.
100. Introduction by Radhanath Rath, in~· Vol.I, p.12.
92
recruited nationalist teachers and senior students who had
left government inst~tution~ as teachers. Thus in Sambalpur,
NilaKantha Das became the headmaster and Bhagirathi Mishra,
Anant Ram Beherd, Ambika Patnaik, Chandra Sekhar Mishra,
Sankar Prasad Padhy, Siba Kumar Mishra and Bansidhar Mishra
101 became teachers. Ganesh Prasad Padhy and Chakradhar
Panda, two engineering students from Patna, joined there
102 ,ts technical teachers. In tbe CUt tack school, some
six graauates who had given up their studies at Calcutta,
joined as teachers.103
In the beginning of Februury, the
UPCC constituted a national educational council, called
Utkal SWarajya Sikhya Parishad (hereafter USSP), and
brought all the schools under it. Gopabandhu, who had
been worklng on national education since the beginn~ng
of the country, ~no Nanda Kishor Das, a post-graduate,
were respectively made the President and Secretary of the
Counci1.104
In late January and early February 1921, some more
meetings were he!d ~n CUttack and Sambalpur, the two main
nationalist pockets. Organised by the local COngress leaders,
101.
102.
10 3.
104.
Utkal Sevak, 3 Feb. 1921.
Seba, 18 May 1921.
,\B Pat r 1 k a, 2 :J Jan • 19 2 1.
Samaj, 12 Feb. 1921; Nanda Kishor Das, Mo Jibana Janjala (Autobiography), CUttacJc, 1981, p.28.
93
the meetings often witnessed scenes of 'pledges' being taken
by students and lawyers to give up their respective govern
ment institutions and 'to work for the nation•. 105 Besides
this the movement could not make much progress. Many items
such as prohibition, setting up of panchayats, etc., could
not be touched upon. In early February, the UPCC seems to
have realised this and tried to reorganise itself by conti-
tuting several bodies to co-ordinate the different varieties
of activities and to spread the movement to other areas. In
early February, the UPCC issued a notification to elect a
regular body to replace the earlier ad hoc body of the UPCC.
DCCs were constituted. Known Congress leaders were nominated
as presidents of their respective districts. Accord.inqly,
Niranjan Patnaik became the president ot Ganjam DCC, Jaga-
bandhu Singh of Puri, Bnag1rathi Mahapatra of Cuttack, Hare-
krishna Mahatab of Balasore, Dharanidhar Mishra of Sambalpur,
106 and Godavarish Mi.shra of .Singhbhum. To recruit volunteers
tor the Swaaeshi campaign, panchayats and prohibition, Utkal
Swarajya Sebak Sangh was formed. The UPCC also realised that
for these campaigns at least five thousand rupees would be
requirea every month. To raise this funa, Utkal swarajya
Panthi was stdrted. 107 To coordinate the national schools,
105.
106.
10·/.
Utkal Sevak, 10 Feb. 1921; Rama Devi, Jivana Pathe, p. 42.
Mahatab, Dasabarasara Odisa (1935), CUttack, 1977 (reprint), p.29; Utkal Sevak, 24 Feb. 1921.
SaJil.~, 1~ Feb. 1921, in .Q!!B, Vol. VI, p. 28; Searchlight, '6"'"'Feb. 19 21.
94
~had been formed. 108 At the district level, Sakha
Sangh for fund collection and Sebak Sangh for Swadeshi,
panch ayat and prohibition campaigns were formed. They
had to work uuder their respec t:.i ve occs. 109
Formation of different bodies wa~ followed by infil-
trat1on of the Congress workers and students into the
interior ~reas ln February and March. As a result many
SWaraj panchayats were reported to have been set up in the
110 villages of Sambalpur. In Puri district local Congress
leaders such as Anant Mishra and Jagabandhu Singh moved
to the interior areas such as Balipatna and campaigned for
111 SWadeshi and panchayats and against untouchability.
In Chakradharpur, the Scbak Sangh undertook a tour to
112 campaign for SWadeshi and prohibition. There were
also reports of Congress meetings in Diqpahandi village
where Harihar Panda from Ganjam spoke on Non-Coop~ration
on 16th and 17th March. 113 In early March, DCC workers
from Balasore enrolled some 150 primary members at Bhadrak
in a few hours• time which, Gopabandhu explained, was
108. Samaj, 12 Feb. 1921, in~· Vol. VI, p.32.
109. Utkal Sevak, 10 Feb. 1921 and 3 March 1921.
110. Utkal Sevak, 3 March 1921.
111. Utkal Sevak, 10 March 1921.
112. Utkal Sevak, 3 March 1921.
113. Gadjat Basini, 2 April 1921.
95
because of people's urge to identify with the Congress. 114
Rama Devi, an housewife, but closely associated with some
Congress activists of those days, recalled later that at the for
Cuttack Congress swaraj Office, excep~one or two activists
(generally A.B. Acharya and Bhagirathi Mahapatra to co
ordinate and distribute work) all others used to go to the
nearby villages to return in the evening. CUttack was
surcharged with the nationalist spirit. The momentum was
further intensified by the news that Gandhi would visit
in late Harch. 115
It was against this background that Gandhi came on
a tour. He reached Bhaarak on 22 March and subsequently
covered all districts except Sambalpur1which he promised
to visit in May 1921. Mass meetings were organised at
Bhadrak, Cuttack, Puri and Berhaq>ur and as ,expected Gandhi 116 addressed them as the main speaker.
In his speeches, Gandhi emphasised Hindu Muslim
unity as the first condition of Swaraj. In a separate
meeting with the Muslims of CUttack on 23 March, he des
cribed non-cooperation as the only means to redress the
114.
115.
116.
Samaj, 5 March 1921, in GB~ Vol. VI~"~45.
Rama Devi, .2a• £!S., pp.51 and 52.
Gadjat Basin!, 9 April 192ll~abandhu Daa in SljaJ. 2 April l921, in GBR, Vol.VI, p.6S1 AB Patrika, March 1931. -
96
Khilafat wrongs and appealed to the Muslims to save the
honour of Islam, Hinduism and India. While he urged them
to live in amity and goodwill with the Hindus, he didn't
want to bargain with them 'with respect to cow-killing•. 117
In all the meetings, Gandhi banked upon the students
for the success of the movement. On 24 March at Cuttack,
the largest meeting .of the series, he encouraged them to
ask questions relating to their participation in the movement. of
Referring to a question~hether boycott of schools would
become futile if the Non-Cooperation Movement failed, Gandhi
replied that, even in that case, the students should 'boycott• this
schools s·incc~as nece~sary to avoid their'contact with the
polluted system of education and demoralising influence of
the Government•. He asked them to 'handle spinning wheel
for eight hours a day and spin out swaraj for themselves•.
He also asked a medical student to give up studies and join
the movement, for his participation would fetch 'medicine'
for 'thirty crores of people' in the country. He advised a
boy, who apprehended that his father's property might be
forefeited in the princely state if he joined the move-
ment, to do so and assured him that such arbitrary rules in
118 the native states would be d.bol i shed after swar aj.
117.
118.
Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol.XIX (Nov. 1920-April 1921}, pp.414-75.
~., p.476.
97
Gandhi often referred to the chronic famine and the
linguistic problem existing in Orissa and attributed them
to the colonial policy of the Government. At Berhampur, ,
where the linguistic issue haa taKen the shape of a contro-
versy between the Telugu and Oriya people, he said that he
hoped to solve the problem in a •statesman liKe manner' after
Swaraj. He strongiy 'favoured the linguistic d~stribution'
of provinces 1 whl.ch was essential for 'provincial advancement'.
But at the moment national advancement was to be preferred
119 to the re:st, the argued.
In Cuttack, Gandhi met the non-Oriya businessmen
(Marwaris and Gujratl.s) and appealed to them to contribute
funds to the national struggle generously. He also urged
them to boycott foreign cloth and 'popuiarise the spinn~ng
120 wheel through their customers •. In all the meetings,
Gandhi blunt~y criticized the 'English eaucated cla:ss•, for
it had been 'emascuiated by the coiOnlal education', and
the native princes, 'who had been victims to the slave-
owning (colonial) 121 system'.
Gandhi's stress on Hindu-Muslim unity and students'
participation)his attempt to involve the business class
which had been left out of the Oriya Movement and national
119.
120.
121.
~., p.485.
.!!!!£• 1 P• 4 74
Ibid. 1 P• 4 78. -
98
movement till then in the Non-Cooperation programme, his
commitment to both regional as well as national advancement,
and, finally, his criticism of tie 122 'English educated class'
and the feudal elements endorsed the UPCC's political moves
in Orissa which was prone to some regional peculiarities.
At the same time, his visit and meetings surcharged the
atmosphere. Non-Coop~ration now acquired a mass dimension
and spread to the different parts of Orissa.
Mass participation in the movement began with Gandhi's
visit when large number of people received him en route.
Everywhere the people welcomed him with traaitional music
and took him in large procession. At Bhadrak railway station,
where Gandhi entered Orissa, seventy two kirtan parties won·
123 reported to have taken him in a ~arge procession. In
Puri the crowa was so large that the meetincJ could be compa-
red with any of the largest meetings in India. It was larger
and bigger than the famous car festival of Lord Jagannath,
Gopabanelhu wrote in the Samaj. 124 Al. though such descriptions
may sound like nationalistic exaggerations, the generation
of momentum to the movement imparted by Gandhi's timely
visit cannot be under-stressed.
122.
123.
124.
The liberals were considered the 'English educated class' in Orissa, Rama Devi, 22• cit., p.51.
Mahatab, Gandhi 0 Odisa, p.14.
Samaj, 2 April 1921, in~, Vol.VI, p.67.
99
Reacting to the momentum after Gandhi • s visit, an
official report said: 'After Gandhi's visit the Non-Coope-
raters have secured a firmer foot-hold in Orissa than they
125 nad hitherto succeeded in doing•. The hopes of the
natiou~ist leadersh~p rose so high that the UPCC reso1veo
to contribute 3 lakh rupees to the Tilak Fund, 3 lakh
members for the congress and two lakh spinning wh~el by
the end of June 1921. Visibly optimistic Gopabandhu belie-
ved that if each individual contributed 2 paise, 3 lakh
rupees could b~ ~a~i1y co~lected, for people would readily
contribute. The task before the Congress was to send enough
cadres with the nationalist message to the people. He appea-
led to the studc·nts anci the youth to cofll(' forward <md take
126 up the task.
The mass dimension soon found reflection in a hartal
on the issue of •police zulum 1 ~t Cuttack in the last week
of March. In the cantonment area, the constables, as usual,
demanded vegetables at their own rate1
which was strongly
opposed by the local shopkeepers. In retaliation 50
constables attacked the shops. 'I'his resulted in the hartal
and a huge mass meeting with a gathering of some 15000
people. Resolutions •expressing strong sense of resentment
125. .fRBO, Deposit, File No.Sl of 1921, June, Home Poll.
126. GB in Samaj, 2 April, 1921, ~· Vol.VI, p.68.
100
and dissatisfaction at the act of police' and 'losing faith
in the present system of Government' were passed. Comment-
ing on the success of the hartal, tne Calcutta nationalist
press reported that 'a new page opened in the history of
Utkal'. 127
The hartal and meeting were followed by the
formation of an organisation of sweepers, Khansamas (cooks
and hotel boys) and washermen. Formed at the initiative
of the nationalists, the organisation further bridged the
gap between the educated intelligentsia and the ordinary
128 persons.
The All India Congress Committee in its meeting at
Vij ayawada on 31 and 1 April l<:J21 emphasised the collection of
the SWaraj Ti1ctk tund to the tune of one crore rupees, the
enrolment of one crore primary memb~rs to the Congress and
the running-of 20 lakh charkhas 1n the country by the end
of JUne 1921. Accordingly, quotas were fixed for each
province. The AICC also laid stress on th~ estdblishment
f j i i i . 129
o SWara panchayats and the campaign tor proh b t on.
From Orissa, Gopbandhu attended the meeting. In
view of the growing strength of the Congress in Orissa,
the AICC membership quota for the state was raisea from 7
127.
128.
129.
AB Patrika, 29 March 1921.
Ibid.
P. Sitaramayya, The History of the Indian National congress (1885-1935), Voi.r, Bombay, 1946, p.211.
101
to 12 member.;:,. The Tilak fund and primary membership quotas
were also increased from 3 .Lakh rupees and 3 laJch members
130 to 5 laxh rupees and 5 lakh members.
From 6th to 13th Apri~, Satyagraha week was celebra-
ted in different parts of tne state. The celebrat~on of the
weeK converged with the nationalists• attempts at fulfilling
the fund, membersh1p and chandla quotas. At Bal asore ~orne
four activ~sts gathered on 5 April and organised the ce~e-
bration of the week ~n t:he distr1ct. The district was dJvi-
ded into 4 units. Accordingly, Krishna Prasad Mahapatra
went to Basta and Nanda Kishor Das to Sore. Ghanashyam
Sahu, with Upendranath Panda and Banchanidhi Mohanty, camped
131 at Bhadrak, while Harekrishna Mahatab stayed at Balasore.
In Balasore town, announcement was made for a public meeting
on 6 Apri 1. To evf..• rybody • s surprise, the rnee ti ng turned the
into a hartal wi thLclosure of shops and boycott of local
zilla school by the students. According to Mahatab, around
3000 people attended the meeting, shouted the slogan 'Jey,
Mahatma Gandhi Ki Jey• and overnight transformed the town
132 into a nationalist base. During the Satyagraha week,
'
meetings were held regularly. They were followed by Swaraj
130. GB in Samaj, 9 April 1921, in~· Vol.VI, p.71.
131. Mahatab, Sadhanar Pathe, p.43.
132. l!?.!..S!·· p.39.
102
a fund collection andLmembership drive. The office of the
Congress at Balasore became an AShram, from where a weekly · the
paper,L SWarajya Samachar, was published for sometime. 133
In Bhadrak the Congress office became a swaraj panchayat
settling disputes at the local leve1. 134
DUring the Satyagraha week, the DCC ac~ivists in
Sambalpur mobilised, as a part of their prohibition campaign,
some .rvots growing excise products to withhold the government
contract. One such .rvot, Parameswar Beherd,whi lst submitting
an application to withhola the contract and contributing to
the prohibition campaign at his own individual level, was
135 assaulted by the Police in the court. In the town the
police had also harrasseri some Congress workers. F'or print-
ing a nationalist song composea by Nilakantha Das, Dharanidhar
136 Mishrd haa beP.n fined twenty five rupees. This song,
being sung in all processions, had created a stir among
the people and may be translated ns fol!owsa
Corne torward, give up gol ami
Oh great son of Indial
Why you malign your mother?
Don • t 1 ive as gol am.
133. ~-134. Interview with Mahatab, p. 38.
135. Utkal Sevak, 12 May 19 21.
136. GB ~n Samaj, 30 April 1921, in GB~ Vol.Vl, pp.83-d4.
103
Your golami helps the Raj in its business.
Everytlung goes across the sea.
But you are beggars at home.
Remember, school, kutchery and counci.l
Are chains of go!ami
Forget not
Freedcm, gol anu and naukiri are on.J.y states
of mind.
Liberdte the mind,
Let it decide what it wants
Break rel.=ttions with the Government.
137 Everything will be all right.
In the vi llaJes people had been warned not to join the
Congress meetings. Against all thesP. police •atrocities•,
a hartal was called on 19th Aprll. This was followed by
a meeting on 25 l~ri1. 138 During the hartal, the local
press reported, the shops were hBl f clo3ed and the vege-
table vendors continued to sell in the market. When the
students patrol party was seen, the shopkeepers would
close their shops and the vendors would hid~ their goods
139 only to resume selling after the students• departure.
This explains two things: one, that the shopkeepers and along the
many other people were yet to be mobilised i· Congress lines1
137.
138.
139.
See Nilakantha Das, Atmajivani, 1986 (reprint), p. 188.
Utkal Sevak., 12 May 19217 Samaj, 30 April 1921.
Utkal sevak, 12 May 1921.
104
&nd two, that the Congress and students had helped each other
to grow as powers to reckon with.
During the Satyagraha week hartal was observed in
some other place~. The market was closed in Cuttack on
6 April and the activists were instructed to observe a fast
140 curing day-time throughout the week. At Khurda, the
Sarbarkars passed on the message of the nartal on 6 April
and incurred the wrath of the Government. Chaitanya
Patnaik, the leaaer of the SarbdrKars, was dismissed,
wh~le another leader, Dasrathi Pa~naik, was served a show
141 cause notice. The Satyagraha message reached Joranda,
an interior village in Angul elaKa and in response, 40
rupees could be collected there on one aay of the week
. ' 142 by the caares for the Tilak fund.
The recognition of the increasing strength of the
UPCC and the target of fulfilling the quotas fixea in the
Vijaywada AICC by 30 June further activated the leadership
ln late April and May. The leaders toured. all over the
state, held meetings, collected funds and enrolled members
of the Congress. From 21 April Gopabandhu undertook a
state-wide tour and visited Balasore, Chakraaharpur,
140.
·141.
142.
Rama Devi, .22· £.!...!:•, p. 54.
GB in Samaj, 7 May 1921, in~, Vol.VI, p.91.
FRBO, Deposit, File No.51 of 1921, June, Home Poll.
105
Chainbasa, Sambalpur, Jhar~uguda and Cuttack. At Balasore
he met the local Muslims and requested them to revitalise
the Khilafat comnu. ttee, constituted some time back in the
town. On 23 April, along with Dr. Rajendra Prasad, he
addressed a public meeting at Chakradharpur and collected
some 75 rupees for the Tilak fund. At Chainbasa also, both
Gopabandhu and Rajendra Prasad addressed a meeting and
collected some 50 rupees for the fund. On 25 Apcil another
meeting was organised at Sambalpur. Dharanidhar Mishra
and Gopabandhu addressed it and enrolled some members. On
26 April the Sambalpur district was subdivided into thana
units in the presence of GOpabandhu and promisr~s were made
by the local leadership to 'ul fi 11 the required quota. It
143 was 12,000 charkhas, 36,000 members and 36,000 rupef~s.
In late April and early May, Gopabandhu also toured the
interior villages of Khurda and Banki in the Puri district: 44
On 20 April, another leader, Jagabandhu Singh visited
Bhubaneswar and asked the crowd in a local festival to
pull back the car of Lord Jagannath because the temple
authorities had not used Khadi for the 'Lord'. When the
people pulled back, the police intervened. This resulted
in a Congress meeting, where Jagabandhu as-ked- the police
to apologise for its act. 145
144.
145.
Samaj, 30 April 1921, in ~~ Vol.VI, Appendix, pp.421-23J ~~ 11 June 1921.
GB in Samaj, 14 May 1921, in~~ Vol.VI, pp.92-93.
Searchlight, 27 April 1921.
106
In early May, such tours were also undertaken by
the district level leaders in Sambalpur. Anant Mishra,
a full time Congress activist from Puri, accompanied by
some activists from Sambalpur, toured the villages of
Bargarh and Remunda for several days, held meetings and
146 stayed the nights in the vil~ages. On 21 May Chandra
Sekhar Behera, Purna Chandra Das, Nilakantha Oas and Ratan-
singh Bhoi tourea Themra and its adjoining villages and
147 held meetings there. The intensive campaign in the
vil~ages resulted in the enrolment of many members to the
148 Congress.
In May, the newly founded nationalist weekly, the
Seba, gave a detailed break up of Congress members in the
different zone~ of the Sambalpur district and concluded
that untiil 19 May the DCC had already enro~1ea more than
2062 members. The district had been divided into two
sub-districts, i.e., Sambalpur ana Bargarh. Further,
Samba.J.pur had been sub-divided into some n~ne units&
(1) Sambalpur town (105 members), (2) Sambalpur with 21
vi~lages (19U members), (3) Bheden with 24 villages (244
members), (4) Mura with 25 villages (297 members),
146. ~, 18 May 1921.
147.
148.
~, 28 May 1921.
Searchlight, 1 June 1921.
107
(5) Dhama with 18 villages (149 members), (6) Mundher with
4 viilagea (7 members), (7) Jharsu~uda with 31 villages
(380 members), (8) Rampela with 11 villages (121 members),
and (9} Attabira with 15 villages (206 members). 149
In Cuttack, Puri and Singhbhum districts also the
momentum had not been lacking during this period. The
sources,which are scanty,inform us that in mid-May Nishamani
Das, the CUttack DCC Secretary, reached Tang! village, while
Braj Kishor Das went to villages like Brahmadeipur and the
Badalpur to set u~Swaraj panchayats and to collect the swaraj
fund. 150 At Chatara Chakada in Singhbhum district, an
eight member Congress Committee under Nanda Kishor Patnaik
was set up, and on 1 May a meeting was held at Taraipal
in Ganjam district. Krishna JagaU and Haldhar Mahapatra
151 had reached there to speak on Non-cooperation.
In Singhbhum the DCC was bifurc~ted into tour units
in May. They were Chakradharpur, Jamshedpur, Monoharpur
and Dhalbhum. Godavarish Mishra, ·the headmaster of a
national school, camped at Chakradharpur as the head of
the DCC and co-ordinated the activities of the different
nit 152 u s.
149.
150.
151.
152.
~· 28 May and 4 June 1921.
~· 28 May 1921.
~-~, 11 June 1921.
108
In a move to widen its base, so that the targets
could be reached, the UPCC actively linked up the tribal,
peasant and low caste discontents with the nationalist
mainstream. In an appeal, the nationalists askea the 'low'
caste and 'low' class people to enrol as Congress members,
for Congress membership would provide them a • sense of
equality' and •self-confidence'. The Congress and the
issue of SWaraj were not to be confined to a rich few.
Everybody had his rights over SWaraj. 153 In Khurda and
Banki region, Gopabandhu and some other leaders went on
a village to village campaign and mobilised the people
against forest laws, Chaukidari tax and Union Board tax
(locally known as latrine tax). Some latrines had been
set up 1n the villages by the Union Board and taxes tor
it were collected from the people. ·~ The nationalis: "~man-1 '
ded tnat such facilities were already there in the tural
areas and taxes need not be collected in the name of
latrines. 154
Some of the Sarbdrkars in Khurda had already iden-
tified with the Congress. One Chai tanya PatnaiK had been
dismissed on the grounds of harbouring Non-Cooperators in
his house. Another Sarbarkar, Dasrathi Patnai~, had been
153.
154o
GB in Samaj, 7 May 1921, in .Q!!S, Vol.VI, p.S"J.
GB in Samaj, 14 May 1921, in~' VOJ..VI, p.93.
109
a issuedishow c•use notice for ~s participation in the Satya-
graha wesK and consequent hartal on 6 April. In late April,
Gopabandhu held meetings with the Sarbarkars, highlighted
their problems in the nationalist press and further mobili-
155 sed them to join the movement en masse.
The UPCC's timely campaign resulted in the flouting
forest laws and resignation by some more Sarbarakars in May.
The Khurda high school students joined the movement by orga-
156 nising a long strike in the school. Besides the flouting
of forest laws, in the course of the Khurda movement of early
May, the school building was completely burnt down and the
houses of other local officials such as the Union Board
overseer, vete~ary assistant and dispensary nurse were
157 damaged. In Cuttack, the offices of the School Inspector
and of the College principal were set on fire around the
158 same time,leading to the arrest of a few students.
The need to fulfill the required quotas activaoed
the local Congress leadership to extend the sphere of the
movement to the native states, hitherto unaffected by the
Non-Cooperation Movement. In early May, the UPCC planned
155.
156.
157.
158.
GB in Samaj, 7 May 1921, in ~' Vol.VI, p.91.
FRBO, Deposit, File No.46 of 1921, June, Home Poll.
Ibid.
FRBO, Deposit, 63 of 1921, June, Home Poll.
110
to cross into the Garjats, otherwise 'British Orissa alone
159 would not be able to fulfill the target•. Strong
opposition to the Congress movement by the zamindars and
princes had already created a sharp dichotomy between
160 the Congress and the feudal elements. The logical
consequence was the infiltration of Congress activists
into some native states.
In mid-May, some cadres entered Keonjhar and called
for a hartal. On 16 May the hartal along with a procession
161 and a public meeting was organised. While the cadres
from outside were sent out of the state, the local parti-
cipants such as Chema Tripathy, Nanda Kishor Puhan and
162 Jagabandhu Chakraborty were arrested by the local police.
Around the same tim8, Babaj i Ram Das entered Dhenkanal and 163
campaigned there. He was driven out of the~ state immediately.
Extension of the movement into the princely states
and the anti-feudal tendency of the local Congress did not
deter the UPCC from its notion of building of an all-class
;novement against colonialism. In the proposed all-class
movement it expected the princes and zamindars also to play
159.
160.
161.
162.
163.
GB in Samaj, 7 May 1921, in GBR, VI, p.87.
GB in Samaj, 23 July 1921, in GBR, VI, p.136; Mahatab, Sadhanar Pathe, p.43.---
Gadjat Basini, 25 June 1921; S.N. Patnaik, Odisara SWadhinata Andolanar Itihas, Cuttack, 1972, p.44.
~~ 11 June 19211 S.N. Patnaik, 2£• ~., p.44.
~, 28 May 1921.
111
an important role. It exposed the contradiction between
the princely class and the British Government, for the
latter 'never cared for the former except at the time of
war for "loans •• or for arranging 1 abourers', 164 and
appealed to the princes to give up fear and to help the
movement, at least in the less confrontationist items(like
( 1) contribution to the SWaraj fund, ( 2) prohibition,
( 3) the Swadeshi campaign and ( 4) the formation of swaraj
panchayats) and to contribute to the cause of SWaraj thett
165 'belonged to all classes and all parties of the people'.
However, such appeals did not bear any fruit. The
princes and zamindars remained a loyalist force of the
Government Jnd acted as strong irnpedirrents to the Congress
166 throughout the period. According to them, Non-Coopera-
tion remained an 'untimely' and 'ill-conc~ived' measure
167 for Orissa. They condemned the 'boycott' of schools by
the students and as also the estdblishment of national
schools, for 'no education w~s feasible without the help
167a and co-operation from the Raja and the Government'.
They opposed th.:~ idea of a SWadeshi panchayat because • there
164. GB in Samaj, 19 March 1921, in ~· Vol.VI, p. 48.
165. GB in Samaj, 20 Aug. 19 21, in ~· Vol. VI, p.139.
166. Mahatab, Sadhanar Pathe, p.43.
167. Gadj at Basini, 15 Jan. 19 21.
167a. Gadjat Basini, 26 March 1921.
112
f j d . . I 168 were chances o wrong u gement 1n l·t • Their allega-
tion against charkha was·that people could earn more by
d i thi 1 h b i . 16 9 Th h o ng some ng e se t an y sp nn1ng. ey, owever,
supported the prohibition aspect of the movement, for it
was harmless, on the one:hand, and could 'materially help
the low class people', the observable victims of liquor,
170 on the other.
Despite opposition from the princely class, the
movement did gain a firm hold by June. The official report
for the month observed that an impression had been created
that British Raj was fast approaching its end and a new raj
associated with the name of Gandhi was dbout to replace
it. 171 Among the common people, the report said, there
was a strong belief that the 3wardj ;novement and Gandhi
had been blessed by Lord Jagannath following a pact hetween
the Raia of Puri and Gandhi. Th~ Puri temple, the abode
of the Lord, would be closed ttll the attainment of Swaraj,
since the Lord was accompanying Gandhi in his nation wide
172 tour. Such beliefs, however, ~ere not endorsed by or
reflected in the nationalist newspapers of the time, nor
168. Gadjat Basin!, 30 April 1921.
169. GadJat Basin!, 4 June 1921.
170. GadJ at Basin!, 5 March 1921.
171. FRBO, Deposit, File No.51 of 1921, June, Home Poll.
172. ~-
113
were they created by the nationalist leadership. Nonethe-
less, if such official reports were true, they explain only
the growing popularity of the Congress and its movement in
Orissa. The UUC and its liberal and loyalist leadership,
despite their existence for nearly two decades, had not been
able to make such inroads among the masses.
In the nationalist circles, June was a period of
hectic activities, since by the end of the month the UPCC
had to contribute its tarqet share of the swaraj fund,
primary members and charkhas. ThP Khilafat Committee
which had been integrated into the Non-Cooperation Movement,
invited Mazrul Haque from Bihar to m~ke a tour. In mid-
June, Gopabandhu accompanied Haque and several meetings
were held in Musl i:n pockets 1 ike those in Sambalpur, Cu ttack
and Balasore. In the Sambalpur meetings, held on 18 June, ki
slogans such as 'GandhiLJey•, 'Hindu-Muslim Jey' and 'Bharat
Mata Jey' were raised. Haque, while strongly objecting to
cow killing, described the Hindus and Muslims as two brothers
fighting for one cause. 173 In early June Rajkrishna Bose,
during his campaigning at CUttack, was arrested and conse-
quently refused to be let free on a personal bond. People
went with him in a procession upto the jail and expressed
their solidarity with the movement. Following the arrest,
173. Utkal Savak, 23 June 1921.
114
protest meetings were organised in different places in
Cuttack town. The arrest, instead of breaking of the
174 tempo of the movement, helped it to spread. In Banki,
the local Charchika temple was made the office of the
Congress. In Jajpur and Salepur of Cuttack district and
Barpali and Kumbhari villages of Sambalpur district the
175 local congressmen held meetings and enrolled members.
With enrolm•:.nt of primary members and collection of the
swaraj fund as its main programme, the DCC formed several
units in Sambalpur. By 7 JUne, the nationalist press
claimed that the DCC had already enrolled 3,863 members.
In Singhbhum district, the membership rose to 2,500 and
176 the SWaraj fund to 1,000 rupees.
By 30 June the UPCC had ~nrolled a little over 40,000
primary members, collected 22,000 rupees for the SWaraj fund
and mobilised 15,000 charkhas to function. The district-
wise break up was as f•Jllows:
174. ~~ 11 June 19 2 1.
175. .!.1&£. 176. ~-177. ~~ 17 July 19 21.
115
While CUttack being the most populated district could
enrol more primary members, Sambalpur as the traditional
base of handlooms could mobilise more charkhas to run.\1'1 Singh-
178 bhurn,where two DCCs functioned, the membership and other
quotas had to be shared between the two PCCs. Moreover a
major portion of Orissa remained und~r the native states,
where the Congress movement was negligible. Out of 26 native
states, only in Keonjhar and Dhenkanal had some activities
been started. But even they had encountEil:dlarge scale repre-
ssion.resulting in the blockage of further progress of move-
179 ment there at le.3st for the time being. Besides, there
were some zamindari estates like Angul, Banki, and Rajpur
(near Jharsuguda) in MUghalbandi (British ruled) Orissa whPre
the local zamindars Wt.'re as hostile towards the Con.;rress as
180 were the native princes. For example, in Banki, adjoining
Tigiria and Badarnba native states, the revenue officPr and
the zamindar instructed the people not to provide shelter or
any other help to the Congress activists coming for campai-
gning. This created strong fear among the local people 'to
whom the revenue officPr and the thana of~icer were the
Government•. 181 In rural Balasore also, for fear of
zamindars, the people refused to provide minimum help to
178.
179.
180.
181.
One under the Bihar Pradesh Congress and the other Utkal Provincial COngress, see SUaj, 7 May 1921, in ~, Vol. VI, Appendix , p. 4 •
Utkal Sevak, 15 Dec. 1921.
GB in Samaj, 23 July 1921, in~, VI, p.137.
GB in Samaj, 14 May 1921, in ~, VI, p.92.
116
182 the activists. Such hostile approach made the Congress
campaigning more difficult and the chances of fulfilling
the quota more remote.
The leadership realised before the expiry of the
time that the quotas could not be fulfilled. In a desperate
move it appealed to the regional Oriya identity of the
people in an effort to fulfill the quotas. Non-fulfilment
of the quotas would brin~ shame to all people of Orissa
183 including the government officials, it pointed out.
not Despite all efforts, when the quotas were~met, instead
of being disappointed, the leadership described the perfor-
mance as very encouraging. In two/three months the Congress
could collect such a big amount from tho:! poverty stricken
people and could initidte a mass :novement, which the liberal
leadership had failed to do in nearly two decades despite
184 its base among the rich people. Th,, lesser response to
the UPCC comp~red with other states was attributed to the
lack of a sufficient number of cadres to carry the message
185 of non-cooperation. Gopabandhu gave an assurance that
even after June the UPCC would work to fulfill the quotas
with renewed vigour. For this, the party would bank upon
182.
183.
184.
185.
Mahatab, Sadhanar Pathe, p.43.
GB in Samaj, 25 June 1921, in~, VI, p.118.
GB in Samaj, 23 July 1921, in~, VI, p.137.
GB in Samaj, 25 June. 1921, in ~ VI, p.118.
117
the students and the youth and not on the lawyers and
other such 'English educated' people 'who had shown their
186 general apathy' to the movement. The gap between the
liberals and the nationalists created since the early days
of 20th century was yet to be bridged and every relative
failure of the Congress was, thus, attributed by the natio-
nalists to the liberals.
186. GB in Samaj, 23 July 1921, in~' VI, p.137.