Veer Surendra Sai: A Valiant Fighter Against British Imperialism; Know About 1857 Rebellion In W Odisha

Bhubaneswar: The valour of Veer Surendra Sai, the freedom fighter from Odisha who stood up against the British till his last breath, has remained unknown and unsung.

Surendra Sai was born in 1809, in the small town of Khinda about 21 miles from Sambalpur. His revolution against British colonialism started in 1827 AD  when he was denied the throne of Sambalpur. He valiantly fought against the British authorities till 1864. He was in favour of downtrodden tribal people who were being exploited by the British. He spent 37 years in jail in two phases: the first phase being 17 years (1840-1857) and the second being 20 years (1864-1884).

On his birth anniversary, let’s salute this hero and know more about his brave resistance against the British and extraordinary sacrifice for the good of his countrymen.

>> Surendra Sai was a direct descendant of Madhukar Sai, the Chauhan dynasty’s 16th-century Maharaja of Sambalpur. As Maharaja Sai had no son, Surendra Sai who then represented the Rajpur-Khinda family, asserted his claims for the ‘Gadi’ of Sambalpur. The British refused him this right because he was a man of independent thinking and instead allowed his widow Rani Mohana Kumari to rule over the state, which was against the local customs and laws of the land.

>> When Rani Mohan Kumari proved herself an incapable ruler and people revolted against her authority, the British sent her to Cuttack to remain as a pensioner in 1833 and installed an old Zamindar Narayan Singh, an offspring of the Chauhan family as the ruler. This led to a chaotic situation with his right to the throne being challenged by other contending members of Rajpur-Khinda family led by Surendra Sai and a revolt by Gond (tribal) people.

>> While Surendra Sai was mobilising his supporters for rebellion, Narayan Singh’s men killed Balabhadra Deo, the ‘Gond Zamindar’ of Lakhanpur, who was a supporter of Surendra Sai. There was a spontaneous revolt thereafter with his supporters murdering the father and son of Durjaya Singh, the unpopular ‘Zamindar’ of Rampur who was a supporter of Narayan Singh. Though Surendra Sai had no role in it, the British implicated him in this case and arrested him and his uncle Balaram Singh and brother Udyanta Sai in 1840. They were sent to the Hazaribag Jail, where Surendra Sai spent 17 years till the mutineers broke it open in 1857.

>> Through the Doctrine of Lapse, Sambalpur was annexed by the British when Narayan Singh died heirless on September 10, 1849

>> Surendra Sai and his supporters then revolted against British imperialism over Sambalpur. The rebellion of Sambalpur in 1857 was mostly a tribal rebellion with Zamindars of Ghens, Kolabira, Paharsirgira, Machida, Kodabaga, Laida, Loisinga, Lakhanpur, Bheden, Patkulanda, espousing the cause of Surendra Sai. They fought the British through guerrilla warfare from 1857 to 1862.

>> As Surendra Sai persisted even after the end of the Indian Revolution in 1858, the British military resources were mobilised against him, and the brilliant Generals who had been credited with putting down rebellions in other parts of India were sent to Sambalpur to put an end to his uprising.

>> The resistance movement of Sambalpur came to an end with Major Impey’s policy for the voluntary surrender of rebels as the latter was convinced by his conciliatory gesture to restore peace and order in the long-troubled district. Surendra Sai too started negotiations and surrendered on May 16, 1862.

>> Some British officers were not happy with the conciliatory measures and pressed for Surendra Sai’s arrest. On January 23, 1864, Surendra Sai, his son and close followers were arrested at his residence in the Khinda village.  They were kept in the Nagpur Jail till April 1866 and thereafter sent to the Fort of Asirgarh in present-day Madhya Pradesh, where Surendra Sai was confined till the end of his life and even lost his eyesight.

>. There are no authentic records regarding the last days of Surendra Sai. According to the Commandant of the Fort of Asirgarh, Surendra Sai, one of the State prisoners died on February 28, 1884, at the age of about 90.

Surendra Sai’s main objective was to drive the British out of Sambalpur. Though he failed to achieve it, he will be always remembered as one of those valiant fighters who defied British colonialism in the pre-nationalist period.

(With inputs from magazines.odisha.gov.in)