Paika Rebellion (1817)

The Paiks of Odisha were the traditional landed militia (‘foot soldiers’ literally) and enjoyed rent free land tenures for their military service and policing functions on a hereditary basis. The English Company’s conquest of Odisha in 1803, and the dethronement of the Raja of Khurda had greatly reduced the power and prestige of the Paiks. Further, the extortionist land revenue policy of the Company caused resentment among zamindars and peasants alike. Common masses were affected by the rise in prices of salt due to taxes imposed on it, abolition of cowrie currency and the requirement of payment of taxes in silver, etc.

Bakshi Jagabandhu Bidyadhar had been the military chief of the forces of the Raja of Khurda. In 1814, Jagabandhu’s ancestral estate of Killa Rorang was taken over by the Company, reducing him to penury. The spark was lighted by the arrival of a body of Khonds from Gumsur into the Khurda territory in March 1817. With active support of Mukunda Deva, the last Raja of Khurda, and other zamindars of the region, Bakshi Jagabandhu Bidyadhar led a sundry army of Paikas forcing the East India Company forces to retreat for a time. The rebellion came to be known as the Paika Bidroh (rebellion). The initial success of the rebels set the whole province covering Odisha in arms against the British government for some time. Jagabandhu, declared an outlaw, along with other rebels, was sheltered by the Raja of Nayagarh. Although Dinabandhu Santra and his group surrendered in November 1818, Jagabandhu evaded British vigilance. In spite of rewards offered, none of the people of the province betrayed their leaders. Though Khurda was back under Company control by mid-1817, the Paika rebels resorted to guerilla tactics. The rebellion was brutally repressed by 1818. Priests at the Puri temple who had sheltered Jagabandhu were caught and hanged. Paiks on the whole suffered greatly. In 1825 Jagabandhu surrendered under negotiated terms. (Some sources say he was captured and died in captivity in 1829).

The Paik Rebellion succeeded in getting large remissions of arrears, reductions in assessments, suspension of the sale of the estates of defaulters at discretion, a new settlement on fixed tenures and other adjuncts of a liberal governance.