OiAPTER III NON-COOPERATION-II During the post-June 1921 period, the Congress emerged as a cadre based party. The students, youth and government officials, who had left their careers to work for the Congress, became the mainstay of the party. Like a body of disciplined soldiers, they carried out the various programmes of the Congress. '!he implementation of each and every programme of the party required the initiative to be taken by the volun- teers or cadres. On the other hand, the people lent their cooperation to these cadres in various ways: they parti- c1pated in .1nd dPmonstrdtionsr offered food and other necessary help to the activists coming from outsider purchased khadi; contributed to the Swaraj fund; and took collective pledges not to take liquor and not to go to the government courts. The police retaliated by threatening the villagers and taking action against the activists. this phase, the Congress witnessed momentous events. present chapter discusses them in detail. During The l'he operations of the Non-Cooperation Movement between July 1921 to December 1922 could he divided into four ,)h·1Ses: i.e •• (i) from July 1921 to December 19211 (ii) from the beginning of 1922 till Chouri-Chaura episode; (iii) the post-Chouri Chaura till mid-1922; (iv) and the period of decline in the latter part of 1922. We would discuss the
Transcript
OiAPTER III
NON-COOPERATION-II
During the post-June 1921 period, the Congress emerged
as a cadre based party. The students, youth and government
officials, who had left their careers to work for the Congress,
became the mainstay of the party. Like a body of disciplined
soldiers, they carried out the various programmes of the
Congress. '!he implementation of each and every programme
of the party required the initiative to be taken by the volun
teers or cadres. On the other hand, the gen~r~l people lent
their cooperation to these cadres in various ways: they parti
c1pated in w~etinqs .1nd dPmonstrdtionsr offered food and
other necessary help to the activists coming from outsider
purchased khadi; contributed to the Swaraj fund; and took
collective pledges not to take liquor and not to go to the
government courts. The police retaliated by threatening the
villagers and taking action against the activists.
this phase, the Congress witnessed momentous events.
present chapter discusses them in detail.
During
The
l'he operations of the Non-Cooperation Movement between
July 1921 to December 1922 could he divided into four ,)h·1Ses:
i.e •• (i) from July 1921 to December 19211 (ii) from the
beginning of 1922 till Chouri-Chaura episode; (iii) the
post-Chouri Chaura till mid-1922; (iv) and the period of
decline in the latter part of 1922. We would discuss the
119
development in all these phases in the first section of this
chapter. In the second section, an attempt will be made to
evaluate the various aspects of the movement, namelya (i) the
mobilisation of the different sections of the people and theiJ
response to the movement1 (ii) the forms of mobilisation and
i agitation; (iii} and, finally, institutions like schools,
Ashrams and khadi centres and newspapers set up during the
course of the movement.
IA
Immediately after the failure of the UPCC to fulfill
the swaraj quota by the end of June 1921, the movement began
showing signs of decline. The national schools, particu-
1 larly the school dt Cuttack, wPre closed for sometime.
The local nationalist weekly, the SP.ba, of Sambalpur, which
used to report on the details of the Congress campaign,
reported nothing of that sort in July except some relief
activities by the Congress volunteers. The students and
teachers of local national school went to nearby villages
like Kurla and Manpur and worked as 'quacks' to prevent
2 cholera. At Kushupur in Cuttack district, where the Swaraj
panchayat had been established in March and the total number
of Congress members had gone upto 60 by the end of June,
3 the Congress activists did 'some relief work' in the village.
1. Seba, 4 July 1921. -2. Seba, 30 July 1921; Nilakantha Das, Atmajivani,
~3), p.156.
3. ~~ 17 July 1921.
120
At Chal<ulia in Singhbhum, the panchayat undertook a campaign
for prohibition and approached the liquor venders not to
4 sell liquor in the village in late July. In Puri also,
the Congress in the name of a 'non-official relie: committee'
sent volunteers to Dhutrapada and nearby villages to provide
famine relief. 5
The relative lull began as early as the last week of
June and was reflected in Gopabandhu's acceptance that the
target of fulfilling the 'quotas' could not be met by the
6 end of June 1921. This encouraged the liberals to organise
a campaign against Non-Cooperation. On 26 June, the liberals
held a meeting at Cuttack. The speakers, which included
Biswanath Kar, Braja Sundar Das, Chintamani Acharya and
Kalpataru Das, highlighted tl1e 'negative aspects• of i'Jon-
7 CoopP.ration. After th·~ir seth.lck in Ju.nudiY 1921 ovnr the
is!5ue of th(' r0Cf~ption given to ,'1adhu Sudan Das, this was
the first successful meeting of the liberals which went
through without any attempt by the non-coop.!rators to
capture it.
The relative nationalist decline in July motivated
the loyalists to mobilise the liberals to organise the
4. ~~ 6 Aug. 1921.
5. Searchl~gbt, 10 July 1921.
6. GB in samaj, 25 June 1921, in~· VI, p.118.
7. Utkal Seval<, 14 July 19 21.
121
ensuing UUC session outside the influence of the non-coopera-
tors. They suggested that if necessary a separate UUC should
8 be formed to avoid Congress influence.
While the decline of the Non-Cooperation Movement
encouraged the liberals and even the loyalists to grow, it of
motivated the non-cooperators to pursue the issueLregional
identity as a means to sustain the movement. In the first
week of July, the Sambalpur DCC met under the presidentship
of Dharanidhar Mi shra and formed a preparatory commit tee to
organise the annual UUC session at Jharsuguda. 9 Anant Mishra
became the Secretary and Mahabir Singh, a local Congress
leader from Jharsuguda, one of the members of the corrunl ttee. 10
In response to the proposed UUC session of 1922, the UPCC
leadership authorised the Congress members to wholeheartedly
work for it on its behalf 'since the goal of the UUC was
not contradictory to that of the Congress'. It advised the
local work~!rs frorn Sambalpur to form a committee for the
11 purpose. Since the UPCC did not apprehend that the libe-
rals and loyalists would try to capture the Oriya Movement
in the near future, it appealed to 'other political people'
16 Jajpur, Binjharpur, Banki, Pattamundai and Jenapur. At
Cuttack, on the mOdel of the SWadeshi movement of Bengal
in 1905, the volunteers of the Khilafat Commdttee and the
Congress Committee went on a procession and had a bath in
the local river. This was followed by the use of new khadi
and by rakhya bandhan (tying of rakhi). In the evening a
swadeshi ~was organised at the town hall. Khadi, sweets,
dolls and pictures of national leaders such as Gandhi and
Tilak were sold in the ~· There was also a meeting,
presided over by Ekram Rasul. The meeting was followed by
Swadeshi Kirtan and the bonfire of 'a few pieces of foreign
cloth •. 'One piece of cloth would be burnt at every inter-
17 val of the meeting', the press rP.ported. In othPr places
(mentioned above) , !chad i sales and Swaraj lei rtans were
. d 18 organJ.se • At Banlci th0 Utsav w<-1s rollo•.N·~d by a cas·~
of arson. ~e local school building was burnt and two
young Congress workers were .1pprehended by the ?Olice for
the act. At Salepur in Cuttack district, on the Utsav
Day the Swadeshi Kirtan party organized a fund collection.
Instead ok holding up a religious symbol, the kirtan people
held charkhas on their shoulders. A charkha mela was also
. d 19 organ1.se •
16. ~· 17. :.>eba,
18. s~ba,
19. ~·
Charlcha exhibition was seen to be essential
13 Aug. 1921.
6 Aug. 1921.
13 Aug. 1921.
27 Aug. 1921.
124
as it was felt that the major problem in the charkha campaign
was that the people were not acquainted with the charkha. 20
In mid-August, Cuttack once more witnessed a bonfire,
when a procession led by Gopabandhu moved in the town to
collect foreign cloth to be burnt in the evening of 14
August 1931.21
In Ganjam district by then some 17 Congress panchayats
had been active. In August alone, the panchayat volunteers
organised meetings in 116 villages. In some of the meetings
bonfires, known as 'cloth sacrifice', (Bastrapoda Jagna)
22 were organised. At Parala village, the workers picketed
the liquor bhati (distillery) for sometime, but 'could not
d th 1 . t' 23 persua e e manager to c ose l • In Balasore also the
picketing of liquor shops was organ.ised. I3esides, SWaraj
kirtan parties moved from village to village singing
nationalist songs and collecting the SWaraj fund. 24 Natio-
nalist songs, composed by local poets and activists such
as Birkishor Das and Banchhanidhi Mohanti, were sung on
these occasions. One of Banchhanidhi's poem went as
follows:
20. Rama Devi, ~- cit., p. 51.
21. Searchlight, 24 Aug. 1921.
22. ~, 13 Aug. 1921.
23. 1!2.!£. 24. ~-
125
How long would you remain sad?
How long would you tolerate the growing
sufferings?
Peace has been taken away
Instead, they have brought taxes and inflation.
You are deprived of food and clothes
You beg for them.
This rule has become unbearable. 25
In mid-August meetings were organised by the Khilafat
Committee. Mazhar-ul-Haq and Gopabandhu together toured
Cuttack, Puri and Chakradharpur, and attended meetings where
26 emphasis was laid on the boycott of foreign cloth.
Thr~ Orissa ledder::;hip, in ,) move to rarl..i cal i se the
Congress, strongly protested against the rasad and begari,
two forms of unpaid labour continuin<J in the zamindari
estates and native States, and warned the princes and
zamindars against behaving like the British Governments
1 If they did not stop these practices, after swaraj they
27 would have to face the consequences' the leaders wrote.
In some princely States and zamindari estates, the Congr:ess
activists entered in early August and enrolled members,
25. ~uoted in Ni tyanand Satpathy, 3a'Juj aru Sampratika, Cuttack, 1979, p.484.
26. ~. 27 Aug. 1921 ..
27. GB in samaj, 23 July 1921, in~· IV, p.174.
126
collected the swaraj fund and organised public meetings
against the wishes of the local princes. In Kanika, Madhu-
sudan Patnaik entered from Balasore, while Nilakantha Das,
Chandra Sekhar Mishra and Mahabir Singh went to Rajpur
estate in Sambalpur district and enrolled some 22 members
28 there. In Madhupur estate (Cuttack) also, some Congress
volunteers entered for campaigning in late August. The
local prince dismissed a primary school teacher on the
charge of giving them shelter. 29
In Kanika, the prince had ordered a 'private• settle-
30 ment which led to an increase in rent. During the latter
part of 1920, when Gopabandhu had visited Kanika in connec-
tion with the flood relief work, the peopl•"' had apprised
28. Seba, 27 Aug. 19211 Prafulla Das (an activist of ~Kanika agrarian movement in 1921-22), 'Kanika Peasants• Movement, 1921-22s A Historical Appraisal', in 2!:!fE.• 'JN, 1989, p.157.
29. ~· 3 Sept. 1921.
30. Kanika was a permanently settled estate. But under a provision of the Orissa Tenancy Act, 1913, while the survey and settlement record was being prepared, the zamindar (the Prince of Kanika) and the tenant had to agree as to the rent which should be recorded as payable for the tenure or holding. In actuality the zamindar hiked the rent at regular intervals and coerced the tenant to accept the agreement. Hence there was a growing difference between the ~evenue fixed by the government settlement and the rent recorded in the agreement. Since the fixation of rent was privately done by the zamindar, the settle~ ment was locally called Private Settlement. See f'-f'atulld ·. Das, 2£• £!!., p.151.
127
him of the hardships and the inhuman oppression unleased
by the prince, Rajendra Narayan Bhanj Deo, who was also a
leader of the UUC and a member in the Bihar and Orissa
31 Legislative Council. Gopabandhu and othP.r nationalists
had reacted against such oppression, but their notion of
an all-class movement had restrained them from directly
intervening in the States. At Jayantigarh in August 1921,
people from Keonjhar and r1ayurbhanj were refused Congress
membership by Godavarish Mishra. Besides the all class
movement notion, heavy penalties for political work in
32 the States were dnother cause for such refusal. The more
enthusiastic local cadres, however, took up the cause.
Subsequently the provincial le.=tders endorsed th,-.ir action.
In Kanika, Madhusudan Patnaik, A.B. Acharya and some oth,~r
activists from Cuttack Pntered the State and reported about
33 the oppression there in the nationalist press. In mid-
August, Babaji Ram Das, another provincial level leader,
went to Aul and Kanika, two adjoining zamindari estates,
for Congress campaigning. On 15 August, he addressed the
31. Prafulla Das, 22• £!!., p.154.
32. For example, in Keonjhar State for one day's hartal (16 May 1921) 11 people were arrested. Except two minor students from Satyavadi School, who were sentenced to 9 days simple imprisonment with 5 rupees fine, all others were sent·~nced rigorous imprisonment ranging from 3 years to 7 years with fines ranging from ~.2500 to ~.sooo. Utkal Sevak, 15 Dec. 1921; ~· 3 Sept. 1921; Searchlight, 26 Aug. 1921.
33. GB in Samaj, 20 Aug. 1921, in ~' Vol.VI, p.139.
128
students of Kanika high school, organised a bonfire of foreign
cloth and strongly criticized the prince and the Government
34 for the plight of the people. The Congress organisation
was now started, leading to enrolment of members, boycott
of school by some six students and a few resignations from
the estate service. Chakradhar Behera, who had resigned in
early August in protest against the 'private' rent settlement,
joined the Congress. Anand Chandra Jena, a native of the
estate, resigned from Kendrapada Local Board to jump into
35 the movement.
Soon after the meeting and the bonfire, Ram Das was
arrested.36
But other activists from Cuttack DCC like Jadu-
mani Mangaraj, Saral a Dev i and A.B. ,\chary a continued to
. h . . k 37 ., h d organ.tse t e peasantry 1n Kan~ a. t-rom t r~n onwar .s,
until April 1922, the Congress intimately organised the
Kunika movement, one of the major agrarian movementsof 1921-
22.
Around the same time the Congress activists moved
outside Orissa to organise Oriya labour. Thus, Krishna
Chandra Ray, Nibaran Chandra Ray and Jagabandhu ·rripathy
sudan Patnaik, Bhagirathi Mahapatra and Babaji Ram Das, who
was arrested in mid-August,were regularly visiting the estate
and were organising the Congress. By the beginning of 1922,
some 400 Congress members had been enrolled, many charkhas
supplied and some Swaraj fund collected. The village revenue
officers, locally known as Mustagirs, had been deprived of
their land rights and other privileges in the new settlement
103 and, hence, were helping the Congress against the prince.
As mentioned by a ;'")ar ticipant, toea l workers had assured
that 'swaraj tenants • wo•--1ld not h·1Ve to puy r('nt c1 nd in c ... 1se
'they' (tenants) were defeatf~d by the army of the prince,
104 Gandhi Sena would com0. from Ranchi to their rescue. This
created a feeling of nPar immunity among them and a strong
desire to join the no-rent campaign en mas~~·
Due to all th•"'Se developm.:>nts, when the Kanika Congress
called for a no-rent campaign it was very successful. Out
of 36000 rupees, only 6000rupees could be collected at the
nh d t 'k 105 e ance ra e at Kan~ a. Some ryots, howevPr, vacillating
102. Prafulla Das, ££· sU·· p.lSS.
103. ~., pp. 148 and 159.
104. ~-· pp. 1 S8-59.
105. samaj, 28 Jan. 19 22; ~I 4 feb. 1922.
149
between rent and no-rent, paid the rent at the old rate in
the sub-treasury of Kendrapada under a provision of the
106 Tenancy Act. On 20 January 1922, another meeting was
organised at Ayetan. This was attended by Congress volun-
teers, Santha Behera and Anant Das, from Chandbali (British
Orissa). Around 2000 tenants gathered. The police issued
prohibitory orders which led to the shifting of the Congress
f f i t b M dh ' 10 7 o . ce o near y a apnr.
Kanika movement, although sponsored by the local
Congress, had the belssings of the provincial Congress.
The Samaj and the ~, two main organs of the nationalists,
108 highlighted the success of the no-rent campaign. In
order to extend such 'aggre3sive' civil disobedience move-
ment to other nationalist pockets and to intensely organise
the Oriya Labour Union in Calcutta, the UPCC called a
meeting on 12 February 1922 at Cuttack. Plans were also
made to fix the date as the 'Nationdl Movement Anniversary
Day', when some hectic campaigning in the form of picketing
and general hartal with meetings and fund collection would
take place. 109 In Sambalpur the momentum of the movement
106. Mah a tab, Sadhanar Pat he, p. 61.
107. Samaj, 25 Feb. 1922.
108.
109.
Samaj, 28 'Jan. 1922; ~, 4 .F'eb. 1922.
Searchlight, 12 Feb. 1922.
150
got expressed in the form of peas.mts' resist,mce to settle-
ment operations in January 1922. Due to 'boycott' by the
peasantry in at least two camps,work stopped leading to the
summoning of the Director of Land Revenue to the town. 110
All these factors explain th~? growing strength and
increasing hold of the Provincial Congress by early February
1922. The Chauri Chaura incident, howev~r, upset its plans
and programme.
On 5 Febru~ry 1922, 22 policemen were killed by a mob
at Chauri Chaura in the Gorakhpur district of U.P. Conse-
quently, the Con-gress Working Committee met at Bardoli on
12 ~"'ebruary 1922 and call,:>d off the Civil Disobedience Move-
rnent, which was propOficcl to heqin from th·~ 2nrl wr~Pk of
r'ebruary 19 22. The Non-Co-op··r"ltion 1•1ovemf'nt, which was
more to be confined to only constructivP programmes, was
. 1- - j d 111 v 1 rtua ly aban( one •
In Orissa the nationalist press and the elder leaders
condemned the violence in Chauri Chaura and justified the
suspension of the ensuing Civil Disobedienc·~ Movement. '!'he
Samaj wrote that the primary duty of non-cooperators was to
maintain peace. If that was not done, a SWaraj movement
112 was not its worth. The Seba described the incident as
11 0 • F RB 0, F i 1 e No • 18 of Jan • 1 9 2 2 , Horne Po 11 •
111. P. Sitaramayya, 2£· cit., p.235.
112. Samaj, 18 .t?eb. 1922.
151
peopi~'s saytani (barbarism), and justified the suspension
of the movement after that, 'as fight for swaraj was a peace-
war in which no weapon could be used. Since weapons were
not sufficient at •our' hands, if they were used, •we• would
be swayed away like a piece of straw in the great current of
113 a river', the paper w~ote. The elder leader, Gopabandhu,
said that, even if the non-cooperators were not involved in
the violence, it was a shameful act and would delay 'the
114 attainment of SWaraj. Before Chauri Chaura, referring
to the violence in Bombay and Madras, he had asked the
volunteers to restrain themselves and not to let such
incidents happen in Orissa. An indisciplined body and
loose mind would not be able to sustain SWaraj even after
. i h d 115 l. ts atta nment, e asserte • Because of hi3 stronq
faith in good means for good ends, the abrupt suspension
of the movement did not sur9rise hirn. Rather he wrote
that the time, strength and convenience :nust bP- looked
into, before the commencement o:- the Civi 1 Disobedience
Movement, •for it was not a children's game•. 116
The other section of the Con<]ress, compnsing student
cadres and youth leaders, however, resr>nted the abrupt and
117 unilate~al decision to suspend t~e movement. They
113. ~· 18 Feb. 19 22.
114. GB in Sa:TJaj, 18 _:'eb. 19 221 in GBR, v 1, p.267.
115. Samaj, 28 Jan. 1922.
116. GB in Sarna j, 18 r,eb. 192 2, in ~· VI, p.266.
117. SamaJ, 18 .t-,eb. 1922.
152
questioned why the no-land revenue campaign in Bardoli
was stopped, when the incident had occurred in Chauri
Chaura, and not in Bardoli. 118
The UPCC meeting at Cuttack,
held on 5 March 1922, witnessed heated debates between
the two groups of Congress leaders on the question of
violence, with Gopabandhu asking others to 'take an opti
mistic view of Bardoli resolution•.119
The suspension of the Non-cooperation Movement was, ...... -·
however, not considered to be the end Of the SWaraj move-
ment. It was seen by many as only a thaharo (halt) call
given by the general of the army. 120
The UPCC leadership
beUeved it to b~ a t.,ctical move, since •one ster back-
W<1rd was dS imnort.'lnt riS ·ln•~ stcE1 forward' in a war. The
reason for :>uch .-, mcNe would bP hest known to th•' gen·:·ral
alone. i\ step backw,Jrrl. could not b·~ tantamount to de fent
. 121 ~n th·~ war.
t''Ollowing the Bardoli resot uti on, the UPC2 wi thdrew
aggressive civil disobedience. The Kanika no-rent campaign,
being then the only aggressive movement, was thus le~=t half
way. The volunteers who had come from outside left Kanika
118. ~· 18 Feb. 1922.
119. Searchlight, 19 March 1922.
120. ~· 18 ?eb. 1922.
121. GB in S.:1maj, 4 ~arch 1922, in ~, VI, pp. 279-80.
153
and the Congress offices were clos~d at Raj Kanika and
. 121a Ayetan in m1.d-?ebruary 1922. The owners who had given
their houses to the volunteers for Congress use were badly
beaten up by the police in late May and were forced to
122 'bear their sufferings alone'.
/\s a body of loyal workers, the UPCC and tht• volun-
teers ~ided by the working com~itten's d~cision. Howev~r,
confusion gripped and dilemma prevailed in the Congress
circles. It :narked the end of this phase of agitation in
mid-February 1922. The wave which had been created over
the period of time remained untapped due to the leader's
cornmi tment to r~ans that would justJ fy the end:
IC
During the post-Chauri Chaura and post-Bardoli
resolution period, the movement continued uninterrupted
till the end of April 1922. At Kanika it remained in the
form of a campaign for payment of rent at the old rate
while in other nationalist pockets it emphasised prohi-
bition, swaraj panchayats and co-ordination of national
education. This active phase was accompanied by police
repression leading to large-scale arrest of leaders and
~adres. The cadre-based move~nt was made cadre-less.
Decline set in very soon.
121a. Prafulla Das, £2• ~., ~· 161.
122. Dipika, 24 ~ay 1922.
154
The UPCC and the volunteers, as a loyal~body of the
Congress Working Committee, withdrew from the Kanika agita-
tion. But because of their strong commitment to the people
and the growing desire to fight feudal oppression, they
tried to resolve the dilemma facing them. As a way out
they decided to organise a sep2r4te States' Peoples' Confe-
renee in the princely States outside of the Congress to
fight for the due rights of the ~t~tes' peoples. The UPCC
decided in mid-February 1922 that if the Garjat people
in general and Kanika P'~Ople in ;-'articular desired to :Jar·t:i-
cipate in the Congress movement, they could do so outside
. 12 3 the1r st.>tes. On the advice of the tJPCC, th·~ Balasore
JCC took OV"r the ch.:trge o~' the nov.;mPnt in Kanika ut its
meet.incJ un 12 i'1arch 1c122.124 'r'ill then it was divided
bL~tween Cut tack and Balasore. The Kanika unit of the
Congress would have its head of~icP dt Chandbali, on the
border of the ·~statP, in !3alasore district. Madhusud.::m
125 Patnaik was put incharge of the unit. The shifting of
the Congress office from Ayetan and Madhapur of Kanika
to Chandbali transformed the lattPr into a strong nationa-
list base. In the nearby 25 villages, Swaraj panchayats
were s~t up which '.':ere put under a :nahasabha at Chandbali;26
People from Kanika carne and join•::d the Congre:::>s at Chand-
bali. Thus, a:ter some in1 ti al confusion following the
123. samaj, editorial, 18 feb. 19 22.
124. Samaj, 8 l\f)ri l 192 2.
125. Ibid. -126. samaj, 4 March 1922.
155
Bardoli resolution, things settled down in Kanika. The
Balasore DCC would lead the movement from Chandbali and
the cyots would join it at Chandbali. The UPCC at its
meeting at Cuttack on 6 March 1922, among other things,
allowed de~ensive civil disobedience and gave sanction to
the movement in Kanika. With Bhagirathi Mahapatra and
A.B. Acharya, two leaders intensely involved in Kanika
agitation, a C'.)mmi t tee was constituted to give necessary
127 permission to that effect.
During the Satyagraha week (6th to 13th April), the
local Congress organised various programmes and the move-
ment reached its peak. Si nee the beg inning of llpril, the
ryots started paying rent at Kendrapada sub-treasury at
the old rate, J.e., there was~ mid-way between a no-rent
campaign and a rent poyment. They also flouted the fon·st
128 1 aws and illegally cut the tr~=>es from the reserve forest.
During the 3atyagraha week, at Patarpur village in Kanika,
a crowd of people assaulted the Civil Court peons who went
to serve notices on the debtors in the es~ate on 8 April
1922. Consequently, police rushed from Kendrapada and
arrested 5 P-=rsons who were immediately rescued by a crowd
of 2000.129
On 9 April 1922, at Rajkanika, gramsabha
127. Searchlight, 19 March 1922; Samaj, 11 l'iarch 1922.
128. Samaj, 22 April 19.22.
129. Searchlight, 16 Jun~ 192~1 r'RBO, File No.l8 of April 1922, Home Poll.
156
(Panchayat) volunteers removed the Khaki uniforms of some
est~te officials, particularly peons, and forced them to
wear khadi and join the anti-Raja movement. 130 On 13 April,
a general hartal was observed and a procession with kirtan
and slogans marched from Chandbali to Ghanteswar, a village
within Kanika. 131
After an unusual calm of five days, the local police
arrested a ryot, Padan Jena, of Patarpur village for non
payment of rent on 18 April. Soon he was rescued from
police custody by the gramsabha. 'I'he visit of the Cuttack
Police Superintendent, with a contingent of armed police
on 21 April to assess the situation and, if possible, to
rearrest Padan Jf>na, was Sf?'~n o.s a retr,·at in thP. ryot
circles. 'I'hc hope of imminent victory intensified the
wave. The different gramsabhas organised barricades on
the way to Patarpur village, where the police had to come
again to re-arrest Padan Jena and oth~r ryots rescued
from police custody. On 23 April, the Police Superinten
dent reappeared with a larger contingent. The ryots, who
had gathered to attend the Praja Mahasabha, boldly faced
the police, who were trying to prevent it moving further.
Subsequently, there was police firing, leading to the death
of two ryot leaders, Basu and Bisuni, and injury to many
130. searchlight, 16 June 1922.
131. samaj, 22 April 1922.
157
more. 132 After the incident, the police arrested some 150
ryots including their leaders such as Dinabandhu Khandaitray,
Anand Jena, Srikrishna 11ahala and Madhusudan Patnaik. Dukhini
Kanika, a collection of poem, composed by Anand Jena, was
proscribed. The book, describing thP feudal oppression and
133 ryots' plight, had created a stir among the people.
During the post-police firing ctays, the prince descri-
bed the agitation as a p.1rt of the ;Jon-Cooperation liovcm0nt
in order to get maximum support of the colonial police and
134 to seal off the agrarian djscont-(~nt of the movement.
135 Other loyalists supporten the prince. The liberals
also describ,~d the pri nee as 'a great son of Orissa' and
appealerJ to the people 'not to bl arne him for the isolated
incident of ~olice firing•. 136
The Congress, on the otlwr hand, in a declining stage
and with little cadre base for ortjar1ising a movement in the
near future, tried to highlight the Kanika movPm~nt as a
purely agrarian movement with 'no instigation from the
Congress circles'. 'Was the mel i that occurred some twenty
years ago in Kanika a handiwork of non-cooperators? Are
the melis in other princely States instigated by the
Congress?' it asked. 137 While the ahadra~ Sub-Divisional
132. Searc~light, 15 June 1922; Pra:ulla Das, ££• cit., p.162.
133. Samaj, 6 May 1922.
134. Rajendra Narayan Bhanj Deo•s letter to Biswanath Kar, 26 June 1922, in Gadjat Basini, 12 Aug. 1922.
135. Gadjat Basini, 1 July 1922.
136. Biswanath Kar quoted in Gadjat Basini, 5 Aug. 1922.
137. samaj, 13 May 1922.
158
Congress Conference on 16 and 17 May 1922 condemned the
police firing and subsequent arrests in Kanika, the UPCC
in its meeting at Balasore on 14 May 1922 constituted a
Congress Committee with plans to includ~ some outside
leaders to enquire into the Kanika atrocities. 138 Before
the enquiry started, Gopabandhu Das, the head of the
committee, was arrested on 31 May and other Congress
offices at Kendrapada, Cuttack and Balasore, etc., were
139 searched. ·~ile in police custody, Gopabandhu appeal~d
to the ryots of Kanika 'not to get disheartened and to
fight till the last to get their due rights•. 140
The association of the Congress in the Kanika movement
Its rt:•Lusal to accept after the
police firing as d p~rt of non-cooperation was only a
tactical move. This fact was well in ev irlence in Madhu-
sudan Patnaik's declaration in the Kenrlrapada court. uuring
his trial in 1922, he said: 1 /\ .. s n~qards Kanik.~, when the
tenants had been naying their rt~nts for thf• lu:>t :six years
and when they have suspended their rents this year, it is
clearly beLieveJ th,-1t the alL-lndia 'novement is solely
responsible. 'dhile 1 was in charge of' this part of India,
I am responsible for breach of peace 1•
141
138. Sarnaj, 20 i·1.1y 1922; Searchlight, 4 June 1922.
139. Samaj, 6 i-!dy 19 2 2 and 10 June 19 2 2.
1 'w • .ibid.
141. ..:.uoteci in Prafulla Das, ££• ill·• p.166.
159
Outside Kanika, the constructive programme namely
Swaraj panchayats, prohibition and Khadi attracted the
attention of the Congress during the post-Chauri Chaura
period.
On 5th and 6th of March 1922 the UPCC met at Cuttack
for the first time after 'Chauri Chaura' and 'Bardoli', and
resolved to collect 50,000 rupees for e1e Til ak ?und and
to enrol one lakh members at latest by 30 June 1922. 'flhile
presiding over the meeting, Gopabandhu appealed to the
members to take an optimistic view of the Bardoli resolu
tion and to continu~ the constructive programme prescribed
by the ·.vorki ng Comrni t tee. 142 The volunteers, who had been
rPcruited by then, got involved in these programme. The
DCCs, particularly the Puri DCC endorsed the UPCC resolu-
143 tion on 12 March 1922.
In Balasore, the panchayats at block or thana level
formed a mahasabha and the mahasdbhas at district level
formed one birat Sabha. such organisation of panchayats,
which had begun during pre-Chauri Chaura phase, continued
uninterrupted. While the village panchayats met once in
a week, the mahasabhas and birat sabhas met once or twice
in a month to decide the more important issues. In late
142.
143.
Searchlight, 19 March 1922; Samaj, 11 March 1922.
Samaj, 18 March 1922.
160
February 1922, the leader of Basta mahasabha (with 10
panchayats), Rajkishor Patra, issued instructions to the
shopkeepers not to sell foreign cloth and to the parents
144 not to send their wards to government schools. The
volunteers at the forefront of the different sabhas made
efforts to implement these programme. Thus, the shop-
keepers at Basta were reported to have agreed to the
145 decision. In CUttack district, the volunteers of the
panchayats went to different villages like Madhuban, Arilo,
Patia, Tangi and Olakana during ~ days and maintained
general security and campaigned for Swadeshi by orqanising
146 Khadi sale.
Prohibition campaign during this pha3c! took the shape
of mobilisation of 'untouchables' and other 'low cas tt~' men,
the observable victims of liquor, by the Congress volun-
teers. Meetings of 'untouchables' were organised at
Jaleswar on 15th March and at Bateswar on 26th Harch
1922. Around 100 Bauris, a 'low caste' people,attended
the meeting at Bateswar with their behera and pradhan
'caste headman' and resolved not to take liquor and to
147 use khadi. In early April 1922, Kishor Chandra Rayguru,
an activist, soon after his relPase from police custody,
144. .Samaj, 4 March 1922.
145. Ibid. -146. Samaj, 25 !':arch 1922.
147. samaj, 1 April 1922.
161
organisPd such a meeting at Chhachina village of Ath<;arh. 148
During the Satyagraha week, the Sambalpur DCC organised
three meetings on 8th, lOth and 11th April in different
localities of sweepers and Chamars, held Bhagabat Path
(recitation of a holy book) and appealed to them to observe
149 prohibition. In all these meetings, the Congress members
being mostly caste Hindus spent time with the 'low caste'
people and fought untouchability at their own level. For
example, at Sambalpur, Dharanidhar Mishra, a Brahmin and
a deeply religious man, who organised the Bhagbat Path,
sat with the 'low caste' men in the same panda1. 150
Did such meetings serve the purpose of prohibition,
swadeshi carnpai gn, etc., and consequently help the process
of politicising ctnd activising the masses in the national
movement? This is a question often asked in this context.
Unfortunately, for <in answer one has to depend upon the
nationalist sources. On 6 May 1922, the village chaukidar
was asked by the Laikara thana officer (in Sambalpur
district) to send one Ratnakar, a Congress worker from
Jhirlipali, to the thana. A few days before hand, the
said volunt~er had organised the Gandas ('untouchables')
148. Samaj, 15 April 1922.
149. ~' 15 April 1922; Searchlight, 19 April 19.22.
150. Searchlight, 19 April 1922.
162
of the village to hold a meeting in which a collective
decision was taken in favour of prohibition. Now, instead
of Ratnakar, the Gandas went to the thana, told the officer
that they had voluntarily left drinking, and if the Govern
ment desired them to drink, l~t it supply liquor to them
151 free of cost.
Organisation of national schools and national educa-
tion was another pre-occupation of Congressmen which conti-
nued till mid-1922. In early February, the USSP {Utkal
National University) was reorganised. Kripasindhu Mishra
became its new secretary. A new syllabus was prepared upto
high,school standard. lt put emphasis on vocational
training in agricultur·· and carpentry, physical exercise,
newspaper reading, .md knowledge of Hindi. At secondary
leve.l, 152
there was a course on the Indian national movement.
From 3 April 1922, an examination was to be conducted for
5 days at 7 centres. These were Satyavadi, Cut tack, Sambal
pur, Jagatsinghpur, Balasore, Chakradharpur and Berhampur
153 Swaraj Ashram.
During the period, two new schools were set ups one
at Binjharpur in CUttack district in mid-March;154
and the
151. Searchlight, 24 May 1922.
152. Samaj, 4 Feb. 1922.
153. Samaj, 11 March 1922.
154. Samaj, 18 March 1922.
163
other at Budhipadar near Jharsuguda during the Satyagraha
week in Apri1. 155 Besides these, the Jagatsinghpur school
156 held its anniversary on 8 May and the Satyavadi school,
the oldest of all, planned to start college classes in early
June 1922. 157
The anniversary of Gandhi's visit (to Orissa) on
23 I1arch 1922 and tt1e Satyagraha week from 6 to 13 April
were celebrated which helped to sustain the movement.
Gandhi's visit day was observed in CUttack. A public
meeting was held. Bansidhar Mishra, A.B. Acharya and
Abdul Karim addressed the meeting. During the Satyagraha
week, a hartal was observed at Ba lasore, at Bhadrak and
1:3olgarh on 14 ,\pril, at Bhubanesw<'lr till noon on 14th, ;1t
D~lang (Puri) on 6th, and at Cuttack, Kendr~pada, Salepur,
Jajpur, l3ari and Sarnbalpur on 13th April. Meetings were
158 held and funds were collected at all these pLaces.
ID
Even thouqh prograrrune::; wr~r~ orqanised intermiLtently,
a decline set in amongst the rank and file of tlw Congress
by the bPginning of April 1922. During the organisation
155. Searchlight, 19 April 1922.
156. Searchlight, 17 May 1922.
157.
158.
Samaj, 10 June 1922.
~arnaj, 22 April and 29 April 1922; ~# 15 April 1922, Searchlight, 19 .~ril 1922.
164
of Satyagraha week, the ~ admitted that, due to non
availability o: workers, the Congress work was suf f'ering
. b 1 159 ~n Sarn a pur. Unlike previous times, the volunteers
did not approach the shopkeepers, as a result of which
the hartal on 13 April was 'voluntary •. l'1any shops be long-
. . . d d h d 160 ~nq to the Narwari bus~nessmen rema~ne opene on t e ay.
5arnbalpur, a major base 0 1' the non-cooperdtors since mid-
1920, complained in early May that the condition of the
national !>chool was mis,:>rable due to financial constraints~61
162 After a few days the school was closed.
Such news of decline was h~ard from other quarters
from April onwards. In early June the 3eba admitted that
tht•re wa:_; no new::; of Conqr•]SS activities in the preceding
163 w.~~~·k. At its meetinq of 14 May, the UPCC recognised the
vue as a ~'waraj institution, but could not take up the
responsibility of organising its annual session dw ... to
164 Ltck of sufficient manpower. In the next meeting at
Cuttack on 12 June, a resolution was passed to suspend the
organisation of the Oriya Labour Union at Calcutta for
1 pauci t::t of worko:-:rs and funds 1, and to request the 3arabazaar
159. Seba, 15 April 1922.
160.
161.
Searchlight, 19 April 1922.
Searchlight, 24 May 1922.
162. ~· 10 June 1922.
16 3. ~· 3 Jun~ 19 2 2 •
164. Searchlight, 9 June 1922; ~. 3 June 1922.
165
Congress Committee of Calcutta to look after it until the
UPCC was able to do so. 165 The decline had become so steep
that, after the arrest of Gopabandhu in end May 1922, the
UPCC could not reorganise the committee set up to enquire
into Kanika. As a result, Kanika repression remained un-
investigated, giving sufficient scope to the Prince and the
police to seal off the anti-feudal discontent, to malign
the Congress and to ruthlessly suppress the peasantry. Lack
of involvement of the Congress in Kanika during the post-
police firing days also created doubts in the minds of
local participants regarding alleged dissection by the
166 Congress.
The main cause of the dP.cline of the movement in
Kanika was police repression. The repression, which had
begun during the picketing ph Jsc in August and s~ptember
1921, wds gradually intPnsified with the risin~ intensity
of nationalist wave. After the Kanika firin!) episodr> alone,
some 150 people were put in police custody till the end of
165. Searchlight, 1::> June 1922.
166.Prafulla D~s,·..22··m.,p.161; Biswama'/ Pati' s whole argument is based on this theory of desertion by the Congress. Unfortunately, he argues.that the 'desertion' was due to the Congressmen's fear of the possible capturing of the leadership of the movement by the peasants and not due to the paucity of political workers and funds. see Biswamay Pati, 'Peasants, Tribals and the National Movement in Orissa (1921-1936) ', in Kapil Kumar, ed., Congress and Classes, Delhi, 1988.
166
their trial in mid-June 1922. Out of them not less than
144 people were convicted. Their punishment ranged from
a monetary fine of 10 rupees to one year's rigorous improve
ment. 167 There were also other varieties of repression.
Peasant leaders like Dinabandhu Khandaitray, Jayram Ray,
Anand Jena and Aswini Palai were expelled from the estate,
167a their property confiscated and their families tortured.
All those who had enrolled as primary members -- in the
beginning of January 1922, there were already 4000 primary
members -- were brought to the Raj Kutcher! and beaten up
168 mercilessly. The entry of the Congress workers from
British Orissa into Kanika was strictly censored. The
nationalists complained in mid-June 1922 that any attempt
169 to that effect led to physical torture. \-.Jhile the Seba
comp:1red the Kani ka repression to 1 Jali anwalabagh of 1919 •
and thr: worst hdppeni n(J in 1 Kaliyug', the .Sami'!j dc~scri-
b d i I l I 170 e t as . .lr;ny ru e •
Kanikct hod its repercussions in other placc=s also.
The Congress offices at Cuttack and Kendrapada wPrc searched
167. Gadjat Basini, 1 July 1922; Searchlight, 16 June 19 22.
167a. Prafulla Das, ~· cit.,. p.163.
168. 3eba, 24 Juno 19 22.
169. ~, 17 June 1922.
170. 5eba, 6 :·lay 1922; samaj, 6 May 1922.
167
and many leaders such as Gopabandhu, Bhagirathi Hahapatra
and A.3. Acharya were arrested after the firing. They
were convicted for a long period; A.B. Acharya for one
171 year, Gopabandhu and Bhagirathi for two years. Other
militant leaders like Babaji Ram Das, Rajkrishna Bose and
Jadumani i•Jangaraj had been convicted earlier. In June
end, Harekrishna Mahatab (conviction for one year), and
in August, Nilakantha Das, Balakrishna r-lishra, 3harat
GhosaL and Narasingha Patnaik were arrested at Pur1. 172
In other places like Bhadrak, Sambalpur, Balasore, Jagat
singhpur and Ghumsar activists were arrested. 173 Since
they neither came out on bail nor paid the monetary Eine,
they had to go to jail for the wholP. pr-riod. Arrest of
Laxmi Narayan M.ishra, trwn a student of national school,
at Bargarh on 31 March 1922 could be seen as an example.
He rer:used to come out on bail, and when he was faced with
a 50 rupees fine or ·:me lllOnth simple impri soni'TY'nt, he
preferred the latter. Subsequently his relatives paid
the fine. But he applied to the court that nobody could
deposit the fine on his behalf, and he should be taken
back to jail.174
Riqht from the beqinninq, at every
171. Samaj, 1 July 19 22.
172. Samaj, 8 July 19 22 and 2 Sept. 1922.
173. Seba, 3 June 19 22 and 10 June 1922.
174. Searchlis:zht, 24 May 19 2 2.
168
single stage the movement required the initiatives to be
taken by the activists. Hence, with their confinement in
jail, the political initiatives could not be taken, and
the movement suffered badly. 175
Besides, new cadres could not be recruited due to
the fear created by the police in the country side. During
the 'Gandhi Visit Day' celebration, the Jajpur police with
the help of village chaukidars threatened that shouting of
Gandhi slogans would fetch 6 months jail or 1000 rupees
fine. 176 In late June, 4 students were rusticated from
the Khurda school on the charge of visiting the Congress
AShram. 177 After the raid of Bolgarh Ashram and seizure
of some cotton and charkhas on 29 June, the police threa-
tened the villagers sympathising with the Congress acti-
178 vists. In the first week of August, the police entered
into the Ashrams at Cuttack, Puri, Khurda, Banapur and
179 Satyavadi and threatened the local people. The impact
of the police raids and threats began to isolate the
Congress. People were afraid of becoming Congress members.
They believed that Congress was illegal. In late July,
175. ~I 10 June 1922.
176. Samaj, 25 March 1922.
177. Samaj, 1 July 1922.
178. samaj, 8 July 1922.
179. Samaj, 5 August 1922.
169
the Puri DCC secretary clarified the position in a press
180 statement. But fear had gripped the people by then.
In late March and April 1922, incendiarism began in
different nationalist pockets, which the nationalists
believed to be a form of police repression. It began
in Cuttack from 17 March, spread to Puri, Kakatpur, K.hurda
and Begunia. Everywhere hundr~d of houses were set on
fire. 181 In Cuttack alone the fire continued till 28 March
1922. The Congressmen blamed the police and formed defence
squads to catch the culprits at different places. Subse-
quently, one constable was beaten up and was brought to
the Swaraj Ashram for punishment by the volunteers. Gopa-
bandhu Choudhury and Bhagirathi Mahapatra formed the jury
to decide the punishment. In another incident, 5 constables
and one police inspector were caught and beaten up by the
volunteers and people on the charge of incendiarism. 182
The police was suspected to such an extent that the people
organised a social boycott against them. The success of
the boycott was evident from the fact that the entire
Cuttack town police in a joint letter complained of boycotts
and threatened to resign if the non-cooperators were not
Punished adequately. 183 Th li i h d 1 1 e po ce repress on a c ear y
180. Samaj, 26 August 1922.
181. ~, 15 April and 22 April and 20 May 1922; Search-g I 7 April 1922; ~~ 8 and 15 April 1922.
182. FRBO, File No.18 of 1922, March, Home Poll.
183. Ibid. -
170
intensified the divisions between the police and the
Congress.
Besides repression, disillusionment in the rank and
file contributed to the decline of the involvement. As
early as February 1922, people questioned the relevance
of the movement when swaraj could not be achieved and
land revenue could not be abolished. 184 In Kanika, the
ryots had enrolled themselves as Congress members on the
assurance (or at least belief) that rent would not be paid
after swaraj. 185 When the no-rent campaign began in mid-
January 1922, their belief was confirmed. After the
Bardoli resolution, they were asked to pay the rent at
the old rate of Kendrapada. But even this could not be
sustained after April 1922, leading to great disillusion-
ment among the people.
'!be nationalists put forward their own defence. '!bey
described SWaraj as a state of mind which could be attained
when there was perfect fearlessness in the mind. The
success of the movement depended on the amount of fearless-
ness created within. '!be police and the court were no
more symbols of fear in the country and the courts no
longer had grip over people. Moreover, due to the movement,
there was unity among the people. Hindus and Muslims went
184. ~, 4 Feb. 1922.
185. FRBO, File No.18 of Sept. 1921, Home Poll.
171
to jail together. The success of the movement lay there,
the nationalists pointed out. 186 To Gopabandhu, the move-
ment also created an all-India feeling. Those who believed
that there could be no unity among people having different
187 languages, religions and castes were proved wrong. Af,ter
his arrest in May 1922, to the liberals who believed that
the Oriya linguistic movement had suffered due to non-
cooperation, Gopabandhu said that the swaraj movement
had saved Orissa from parochial feelings. It had integra-
ted Orissa into the motions and emotions of India and
188 therein lay the success of the movement.
Such rhetoric, however, did not help the Congress
to overcome the s(~nse of disillusionment which increasingly
enveloped the rank and file over this period of time. This
was evident from the fact that the UPCC, which had nonuna-
ted Jamini Kant Biswas as the party secretary in its
Cuttack meeting on 12 June, had to organise another
meeting on 22 JUne to change the nomination, since Biswas
had not accepted the office. Mahatab was given the post,
only to be arrested on 30 June 1922. 189
186. ~~ 21 Jan. 1922.
187. GB in Samal, 8 April 1922, in ~~ VI, p.301.
188. GB in Samaj, 10 June 1922, in ~~ VI, p.323.
189. Searchlig:ht, 18 June and 30 June 1922.
172
From mid-1922 onwards the party evolved strategies to
overcome the phase of decline. Since most of the provincial
leadership had been put behind bars, the: responsibility fell
on the local level leaders. For this purpose, they used
cultural symbols and took up general local issues.
In late June 1922, the local leaders mobilised the
priests of Puri to publish that the Lord Jagannath would
only accept khadi and his car could only be drapped in
country-made cloth durinq the famous car festiva1. 190 Since
the Lord and the Puri car festival was an all Orissa culture,
this appeal by the priests had certain impact outside Puri.
Thus, at least at two places, Berhampur and Panchpada
(Sambalpur), the car was drapped in khadi and the Lord
was made to use only khadi during the festival in July
1922. 191 The use of khadi by the deity pushed up the sales
of khadi and the Balasore khadi centre alone planned to
sell rupees 3,000 worth of khadi in Puri during the car
festival. 192
In the winter of 1922, peasants resisted settlement
operations in Balasore. Survey and settlement operations
190. Searchlight, 25 June 1922; FRBO, File No.18 of July 1922, Home Poll.
191. ~, 8 JUly and 15 July 1922.
192. FRBO, File No.18 of July 1922, Home Poll.
173
damaged paddy fields at the time of harvesting and the
people carrying on the operations (such as amins and settle
ment officers) demanded undue material and manual help
from the peasants during the crisis (agricultural) time.
Moreover, settlement was considered to be a prelude to
revenue hike. Local activists like Mathura Mohan Behera
and Nilambar Das, on the one hand, mobilised the peasantry
to boycott the survey staff at village level and, on the
other hand, approached the DCC and UPCC to take up the
issue to build up an Orissa wide movement. Their efforts
started bearing fruits when the villaqers in many places
refused to give houses to the survey staff and organised
a hartal on the day of their arrival in late October 1922. 193
Around the same time, Mathura Mohan and, in early November,
Nilambar Das were gagged by the police for 2 months. 194
In its meeting on 2 November 1922, the Balasore DCCs
(i) resolved to take up the issue and organise boycotts
everywhere in the district; (ii) it stated that it was
sad to note that the UPCC could not take any steps in this
regard; (iii) since the DCC did not have sufficient workers,
it requested the UPCC to send volunteers for the movement;
(iv) it also requested the nationalist newspapers to high
light the negative effects of the settlement, so that a
193. FRBO, File No.l8 of November 1922, Home Poll.; Sarnaj, 4 Nov. 1922.
194. Samaj, 4 Nov. and 18 Nov. 1922.
174
popular movement could be organised all over the state on
the issue. 195 The movement gained some ground when the
police declared Section 144 in Balasore town in late
November to counter the boycott of the survey staff arrl
the hartal in the market. 196 The settlement operation
was also postponed till 16 December 1922. By then the
officials hoped the harvesting would be over and the resi.s
tance min1mised.197
The success of the boycott movement in a novel form
was to be largely attributed to the popular discontent
against the settlement at local level e Otherwise with. a
few workers and little support from the UPCC, the DCC
would not have been able to organise it. But the initia~
tives taken by the second-rung nationalist activists were
not to be overlooked. This was also true of the khadi
movement in Puri during the car festival. They together
explain the increased use of creative faculties by the
people. Initiatives were taken at an appropriate time.
After the arrest of the known and tried leaders the move-
ment had come under the direction of local, younger and
inexperienced activists who perforce had no guidelines to
fall back upon. The youths were able to give expression
to their innovative faculties and youthful zest.
195. Samaj, 11 Nov. 1922; Seba,18 Nov. 1922.
196. Samaj, 25 Nov. 1922.
197. ~, 3 Dec. 1922.
175
II
Non-Cooperation was the first mass movement in Orissa.
Despite some informal links since late 19th century, it was
with the beginning of Non-Cooperation that a formal link
was established between the Congress movement outside and
the nationalists of Orissa. The local political movement
(UUC), which was largely confined to the educated sections
of the people and somehow concentrated more on regional
problems, got replaced by a provincial Congress which, on
the one hand, extended the movement beyond its educated
middle class base and, on the other hand, stretched it
beyond the regional geographical boundary by integrating
it into an all India movement. How far it was successful
in its mission is a question that needs to be asked at this
point. We will try to answer it in this section.
As pointed out in the beginning, this section would
have three sub-sections, one wi L 1 . be dealing with the
response of different sections of the people to the move
ment; the second will examine different forms of agitation1
and the third will evaluate the institutions created during
the course of the movement.
IIA
Response of different sections
(i) Students
Students formed the main constituent of the Non
Cooperation Movement in Orissa. Their involvement can be
176
traced to the students' conference organised by the side of
the UUC at Chakradharpur in December 19 20. They urged the
President of the conference to pass a resolution congratu-
1 ating the students who had boycotted the governrrent
colleges in Bihar and subsequently joined the non-cooperation
stir. The President, Biswanath Kar, a liberal, walked out
in protest and the resolution was passed symbolising the
198 students' whole-hearted support to the Congress movement.
Their participation was so preponderant that the liberals
and loyalists often criticised the movement as a purely for
students• (children's) game. 199 ExceptLa few like Gopa-
and many others would come under this category. After
the decline in national schools, almost all of them joined
the Congress movement as full time activists. Thus,
Laxmi Naz::ayan Mishra became the secretary and subsequently
207. Seba, 18 May 1921. -208. AB Patrika, 20 Jan. 1921.
208a. In May 1921 many students of the Sambalpur national school were reported to have rejoined the government school, for there were little classroom teaching in the national school since the teachers had gone on campaigning. Utkal Sevak, 12 May 1921.
209. Mahatab was the Secretary of Balasore DCC, Rajkrishna Bose and Jadumani Manqaraj emerged as youth leaders of Orissa. Utkal Sevak, 1 Dec. 1921; Rama Devi • .2£• ill•, p. 51.
180
President of Sambalpur District Congress, while Krutartha
Acharya devoted his full time to develop the Sambalpuri
210 handloom industry.
These students organised meetings, enlisted members
to the Congress in the interior, spearheaded demonstrations
and rendered help to all irrespective of differences in
211 times of illness and accident. Even in the Keonjhar
native state, as early as May 1921, two students of Satya-
vadi school, Bansidhar Behera and Bhikari Puhano, along
with a few others took the risk of campaigning only to
receive a long term of 3 years rigorous imprisonment from
the court. 212 The establishment of national schools at
certain places had been possible mainly due to the initia-
ti t \.. b h student ... 213 Th h t th i d ve aAen y sue ~ roug ou e per o
214 Satyavadi remained the centre of Non-Cooperation.
The full scale political involvement of the national
school students was endorsed by the Congress leadership.
In February 1921, Gopabandhu asked them to •cte-educate•
themselves from the classroom instruction and to join the
swaraj campaign in the villages. The national as well as
210. Sadhana, 5 Feb. 1923.
211. Utkal Sevak, 17 Feb. 1921; ~, 11 June 1921.
212. ·Searchlight, 26 Aug. 1921.
213. Appeal by Gopabandhu (1925) in ~, Vol.I, p.190.
214. FRBO, Deposit, File No.35 of Feb. 1921, Home Poll.
181
the best education at the moment was, he said, 'to spread
out into the countryside, spin there, teach spinning to
. 215 others and to talk about swaraj. During his Orissa
view visit, Gandhi ratified ·this 1 and prescribed the boycott
of schools and the campaign for swaraj to all students,
216 including those studying medicine.
Besides these, there were many other students who
stayed back in the government schools, but helped the swaraj
movement in their own way. Many rural students who could
not join the national school for lack of hostel accommoda-
tion there, invited Gopabandhu Das to their hostel in
Sambalpur Zilla school and held discussions with him in
February and March 1921. They often boycotted their classes
and joined the demonstrations along with the national school
students. 217 In Cuttack, the college students organised a
strike around the same time demanding the withdrawal of the
218 rustication order on a student leader. In late April
and early May 1921, when forest Satyagraha was organised
in Khurda, high school students went on a strike and
allegedly participated in the arson, felling of trees in
215. GB in Sarnaj, 5 Feb. 1921, in~, Vol.VI, pp.26-27.
216. AB Patrika, 31 March 1921, in Collected Works of Gandhi, Vol.XIX, p.476.
217o FRBO, Deposit, File No.42 of April 1921, Home Poll.
218. ~·
182
the reserve forest and other varieties of violent activi-
ti 219
es. In August 1921 the students of Kanika high school,
a large zamindari estate managed institution, went on a
strike and initiated the movement there. 220 While remain-
ing in their parent institutions, these students worked
as effectively as others in the movement. Their decision
to stay back in .the government institutions could be seen
as a tactical move because of non-availability of a hostel
in the national schools, or lack of a national school in
the locality, or else lack of sufficient nationalist
strength to convert the government school into a nationalist
221 one.
(i1) Lawyers
The UPCC leaders who were not students, were mostly
to the swaraj fund and enrolled themselves as primary
congress members. The Tilak Fund collected to the tune
of 2~000 rupees by the end of June 1922 came mostly from
small contributions often made by the poor of the village.
The example of Joranda, an interior village in Angul,
contributing 40 rupees during the Satyagraha week in 1921
and identifying itself with the nationalist cause, may
272 be specially mentioned in this respect.
There was a well co-ordinated link between the
peasants reaction and the mobilisation by COngress leader
ship. The nationalists, whether at local or provincial
level, highlighted those issues which reflected the .
peasants real discontente They could do so because they
themselves were part of rural society and had rich experiences
272. FRBO, Deposit, File No.51 of June 1921, Home Poll.
196
of the ground reality. As a result, the Khurda Forest
Satyaqraha broke out immediately after the series of natio
nalist meetings addressed by Gopabandhu and others in the
April and early May 1921; 273 the Kanika Movement became
intense after the frequent visits of Babaji Ram Das, A.B.
AcharyaJMadhu Sudan Patnaik and Jadumani Mangaraj in August
274 1921; the peasants there paid rent at the old rate at
Kendrapada Court following the Bardoli resolution and
the consequent withdrawal of the Congress to defensive
Satyagraha; and the assault and looting of Raj peons and
flouting of forest laws occurred in and around the Satya-
275 qraha week of 1922. The acceptance of such a link,
however, in no way undermines the idea of the fighting
capacity of the peasants, nor does it emphasize the role
of a leadership standing 'above• the general ~asantry.
It only attempts to show that the nationalist leadership
was the conductor of general discontent and the co-
ordinator of popular movements.
c) Tribalss llle tribals constituted a major section
of the rural population in Orissa, Kondhs, Kolhas, Sauras,
Bhuyans, Juangs and Binjhal being the major tribes - they
were living for centuries in relative seclusion and
273. GB in Samaj, 5 May 1921, in ~, VI, p.91. Prafulla
274. ~, 27 Aug. 1921; L Das, ~· ill·, p.159.
275. searchlight, 16 June 1922.
197
isolation. After the British appeared, there was a stir
felt and experienced in their midst. Revolts and uprisings
occurred throughout the period of colonial rule. At one
level, like other ryots, they resisted the changes brought
by the colonial administration, and fought the n~tive princes
276 and bureaucracy who acted as the agents of such changes.
At another level, unlike the Hindu ryots, they fought the
277 caste Hindu domination.
The nationalists mobilised the peasantry which included
the tribals, but remained more or less unaware of the tribal
question. Their attention was not drawn to this growing
socio-political problem. As the tribals were not approached
as a distinct group, their involvement in the nationalist-
led movement was meagre. Despite their fighting spirit,
they remained largely aloof from the Non-Cooperation Move-
mente However, they played an active role as part of the
peasantry, though not as distinct tribal groups.
(vii) Businessmen, Princes and Zamindars
This section of the propertied class played almost
a negative role during the Non-Cooperation Movement. This
was so mainly because of the official campaign against
the movement. In January 1921, the district magistrates
were instructed to remind the 'men of property' that they
276. See K. Mojurrrlar, The Ganjam Agency ••• 22• cit.
277. For details see, F. Deo, 22• £i1• Deo discusses the response of tribal groups of Nawapara Sub-Division in Kalahandi district to external pressure.
198
would be the first to suffer if the bounds of law and order
were broken. The sub-divisional officers were asked to put
aside all other works 'for the moment' and to tour as much
278 as possible to convey this message. The general apathy
of the propertied classes towards the Congress now became
intense.
The nationalists on the other hand, tried to mobilise
the different sections of the propertied class and ensure
their support to the movement.
The trade and business in Orissa remain largely in
the hands of outsiders such as Marwaris and Guj~r·atlis .. 279
During his visit, Gandhi convened a special meeting of
the businessmen of Cuttack and appealed to them for finan-
280 cial help to the Congress in Orissa. In late October
1921, some cloth merchants in Cuttack promised not to sell
foreign cloth. 281 But they did not keep the promise and
were fined by the national school students in November
1921. 282 At the time of the hartal during the Satyagraha
week in 1922, taking advantage of the decline of the
movement the Marwari shopkeepers opened their shops,
279. TOwards the close of 19th century Fakir Mohan in his long poem Utkal Bhraman (1892) la~ented that these outsiders domin.1ted business. Senapati, Granthavali (1857), p.202.
280. AB Patrika, 31 March 1921.
281. Searchliqht, 27 Oct. 1921.
282. ~, 3 Dec.1921.
199
283 while their local counterparts didn't. Even in the matter
of the Tilak swaraj Fund, their contribution was very little,
and the Congress leadership claimed that almost the entire
284 contribution came from ordinary people.
The antipathy of the princes and zamindars towards
the Congress was well known. The more vocal among them had
constituted the loyalist trend. They opposed the different
aspects of the Non-Cooperation Movement, described it as a
'disease• and thanked the people 'who were not affected by
it•. 285 However, they praised Gandhi 'for his prohibition
campaign' which would •materially help the low class people'
and accepted 'Gopabandhu and his colleagues• as basically 286
'devoted people except for their non-cooperation programme•.
IIB
Public meetings, processions, shouting of slogans,
followed by fund collection, enrolment of members to the
Congress party, formation of committees and passing of
resolutions constituted the main as well as popular forms
of the movement throughout the period. They had been
inherited from the UUC days and were considered the basic
forms of a political movement. A large number of people -
283. Searchlight, 19 April 1922.
284. GB in Samaj, 23 July 1921, in~, VI, p.136.
285. Gadjat Basini, 12 March 1921.
286. Gadjat Basini, 5 March and 2 April 1921.
200
a few actively while the majority passively - participated
in them. However, with the advent of non-cooperation, their
content changed. The movement being more confrontationist
and fearless towards colonial rule and other local oppre-
ssors, attracted more and younger people compared to the
UUC days. These forms were adopted actively since August
287 1920 and continued, sometime intermittently and some-
288 time intensely, till the end of 1922. Meetings addressed
by non-local leaders attracted more people and inculcated
a better sense of confidence among the people. Thus, the
Maulana Saab's meeting was to be organised in a big~er place in Balibandha and not in Somnath temple complex in
sambalpur in November 1920. His fearless criticism of
289 the British Government was a surprise to the audience.
Likewise, Gandhi's meeting in Puri also became bigg~,r •':;
290 than the • famous car festival of Lord Jag anna th •.
The meetings and demonstr~tions incorporated varied
creative forms like recitation of poems and humorous
appeals. In Sambalpur, the song •swaraj Bhaya Albat Hoga'
(reproduced in Chapter I above) was sung as a national
song in the meetings as well as in processions without
•any sense of co-ordination• and meetings were often held
spontaneously, 'with no decorum being maintained there'.
287. Utkal Sevak, 9 Sept. 1920.
288. Sama;,t, 25 Nov. 1922.
289. Utkal Sevak, 2 Dec. 1920.
290. GB in samaj, 2 April 1921, in ~, Vol. VI, p.67.
201
The speakers evolved their own language (mixture of Hindi,
Oriya and local dialect) and cracked jokes at the cost of
291 the Government. Gopabandhu, when his speech was censored
in early September 1921, composed a long poem 'Muka Minati'
{A Dumb Appeals) and asked his colleagues to recite it in
different meetings. The poem touched upon all aspects of
the Non-Cooperation movement like swadeshi, boycott, prohi-
bition, panchayat, khadi, etc., and suggested that they were
292 the only remedial course left to the native people.
The impact of the meetings, etc., in creating fear-
lessness among the people was reaching. In rural places
like Sasan (Sambalpur district) attendance in a meeting
could attract the threats from the local police that
Congress membership would lead to a jail term of 6 months
or a fine of ~.so. In Cuttack the police warned on 29 May
293 1921 against attendance in a'Gandhiwala' meeting.
Panchayats
The next popular item was the ~~raj panchavat. The
The Civil Disobedience Enquiry Committee headed by Motilal
Nehru appointed in 1922 reported that in all a total of 600
panchayats had been set up in Orissa out of which only 50
remained at the time of the visit of the Committee in August
291. Utkal Sevak, 20 Jan. 1921.
292. ~~ Vol.VI, p.168.
293. ~, 4 June 1921.
202
The nationalists claim of having put up over 600
panchayats when the movement was at its peak cannot be
ignored as a exaggeration since village panchayats occupied
a vital place in rural Orissa. Their replacement by British
courts had been strongly resented even way back in late
19th century. The nationalists had criticised the 'increa-
295 sing distress of the people' caused by the colonial court
296 and stressed the need for 'local panchayats'. Many
panchayats, which still remained in the villages despite
the changes brought by colonial judicial system, were
claimed as SWaraj panchayat with very little or some link
with the Congress. They served the same purpose as their
Congress counterparts, although they might not be Congress
panchayats in the strict sense of the term.
Nonetheless, there were some which were thoroughly
under the influence of the Congress activists. One among
them was the panchayat in Srijang village in Balasore.
Goura Mohan Das, a local activist, had initiated it. It
settled both criminal and civil cases and had become very
powerful as well as popular within a short period of time
in early 1921. 297 In Balasore some panchayats formed a
294. Selected Works of Motilal Nehru, (ed.) Ravinder Kumar, Vol.III, New Delhi, 1984, Appendix-V, p.134.
295. Dipika, 7 May 1887, in~, 4 June 1887.
296. Dipika, 20 May 1905, in ~, 3 June 1905.
297. Mahatab, Sadhanar Pathe, p.49.
203
mahasabha and some mahasabhas formed a biratsabha. The
birat sabha, being the parallel district court, issued
orders and decided cases of an important nature. The
panchayats, being the lower courts, implemented the orders
in their areas of in~luence. 298 In Bhadrak, the muffsal
(village) zamindars came to the mahasabha with their camp-
laints against the ryots who, they believed, would only
299 abide by the panchayats. In Jharsuguda and Cuttack,
among the Muslims the panchayats asked for prohibition.
Those who violated its orders -- there were two instances
300 faced social boycott at Jharsuguda and public humiliation
in Cuttack. 301
In mid-1921 thP.re were reports of criminal cases
being launched against some panchayats by the police, which
in a way reflected the increasing strength of the panchayats
302 in Orissa.
Prohibition
The campaign for prohibition was another popular
feature of the movement throughout the period. Its popu-
larity has to be seen in the context of the social taboo
associated with the consumption of liquor in the local
society. As early as 1812, the Government had observed
that there was no considerable rise in the excise revenue
298. Samaj, 4 March 1921.
299. Mahatab, Sadhanar Pathe, p.49.
300. ~~ 3 Dec. 1921.
301. Gadjat Basini, 16 April 1921.
302. GB in Samaj, 22 Oct. 1921, in~' Vol.VI, p.184.
204
because of the unpopularity of liquor and drugs. Moreover,
the regular consumers of liquor did not buy from the
303 licence-holder shops. In the 20th century the situation
had changed to some extent, but some degree of unpopularity
was still there. This gave an upp8r hand to the campaigners
for prohibition during the Non-Cooperation days. In the
wake of the movement, the Bihar and Orissa Government cir-
culated a list of all great men in history (which included
Moses, Alexander, Julius Caeser, Napoleon, Shakespeare,
Gladston, Tennyson and Bismark) who enjoyed their liquor,
and tried to nullify the campaign. This provoked the
nationalists to establish links between the •anti-welfare
colonial policy• and the official campaign for liquor
304 consumption. The ~:oci al taboo and colonial link with
liquor converged with each other and made th8 campaign
intense as well as popular.
The nationalists campaign for prohibition, which . 305
fetched support even from the loyalist quarters involved
instructions to the Swaraj panchayats, as discussed earlier,
and mobilisation of the 'untouchables', the target group
of liquor consumers. In February and March 1921, meetings
were held at Bargarh and Sambalpur when the • untouchables'
303. Board of Revenue Records, Cuttack, File No.18 of Sept. 29, 1812, in K.i1. Patra, Orissa Under East India Compan~, Delhi, 1971, Pel le
304. GB in Samaj, 19 March1921, in~, Vol.VI, p.56.
305. Gadj at Basini, ch 1921.
205
took collective oaths before their traditional goddess,
Karamsani, not to take liquor again in their life. The
students and teachers of Sambalpur national school congra
tulated them for this. 306 In January and February 1922
such oaths were taken by the Bauris ('untouchables•) and
Dhobis (washermen) in some places in Puri. Their caste
panchayat threatened to fine 25 rupees or else to outcaste
those who would violate the oath. Those who reported such
307 violation would be rewarded five rupees every time.
During the Satyagraha week of 1921, as a part of the
prohibition campaign, some ryots were mobilised to withhold
their contr.1ct for the cultivation of excise products in
308 Sambalpur.
Besides, after the formation of the volunteer corps
in early January 1922, picketing was organised before liquor
shops and at the time of the auction of excise licences.
There were reports of such picketing in different parts of
Balasore, Ganjam and Cuttack. In Balasore, the picketing
continued for 15 days (morning), in Ganjam, it led to many
arrests and, in Cut tack, the date of the auction was post-
309 poned on the eve of the auction.
306. Utkal Sevakt 10 Febo 1921 and 17 March 1921.
307. Samaj, 21 Jan. and 11 Feb. 1922.
308. GB in Samaj, 30 April 1921, in ~, VI, p.84.
309. Samat, 21 Jan. and 28 Jan. 1921.
206
Swadeshi
swadeshi was an important form of the non-cooperation
campaign throughout the period. Since it had been inherited
from the UUC days and was considered a less confrontationist
stance, the nationalists tried to use it as the basis of an
all-class movement. The princes and zamindars were appealed
310 to encourage its spread in their areas of influence,
. 310a the lawyers were asked to spin in 'the1r free tim~•,
the peasants to grow cotton and the village carpenters to
make charkhas, 311 and the women to wear khadi. 312
The SWadeshi, which primarily meant sale and use of
khadi, promotion of handloom cloth, the use o~ charkhas and
the growing of cotton, continued uninterrupted throughout
the period. i::ven during the time of the decline of the
movement in mid-1922, when other forms of work suffered a
major setback, the UPCC met at Cuttack (12 June) and formed
a committee consisting of Gopabandhu Choudhury, Niranjan
Patnaik and Nilakantha Das to draw a scheme for a khadi
campaign and to concentrate on that. The DCCS were advised
313 to open a sep~rate khadi cell. In literature, poems
like Tanti Bahuna (the weaver weeps) and Arat Geet (charkha ·
310. GB in Samaj, 20 Aug. 1921, in~· VI, p.139.
310a.Ibid., p.143.
311. In Sambalpur, the DCC supplied cotton seeds at a concessional rate, ~. 13 May 1921.
312. GB in Samaj, 8 Oct. 1921, in~, VI, p.174.
313. Searchlight, 12 June 1922.
207
song) were composed which described the decline of handi
crafts during British rule and the greatness of charkha.
314 These poems were sold in the market by Congress workers.
The impact of Swadeshi campaign was far reaching. In
Sambalpur, it led to the promotion of a dying handloom cloth
industry. Due to its decline, hundreds of weavers, locally
called Tanti, belonging to 'low castes•, had been either
forced to beg or reduced to eke out a living as landless
315 labourers, or forced migrate to the tea gardens of Assam.
Nearly one lakh weavers lived in the district. The local
khadi centres and swaraj offices became sale counters for
316 their handloom cloth, cotton, yarn and charkhas. At
Puri charkhas were used at those plnces where the panchayats
worked effectively. Thus, in Bolgarh elaka, 1500 charkhas
and panchayats in every village existed simultaneously in
early February 1922. 317
The use of khadi was seen as a great contribution to
Swaraj. In Jajpur, in March 1922 the local authorities
threatened to dismiss a clerk, for he refused to give up
khadi.318
Because SWadeshi was identified with the Congress
314. ~~ 27 Aug. 1921.
315. Sadhana, 1 Dec. 1927.
316. ~~ 11 June 1921.
317. sarnaj, 4 Feb. 1922.
318. ~~ 25 March 1922.
208
creed, the princes and zamindars did not help substantially
in its promotion, although they did not oppose it on any
ideological ground. 319
Boycott
Boycott was a new form of agitation in Orissa compared
to Swadeshi. Since it involved militancy, boycott (by which
we mean here, boycott of foreign cloth) drew the attention
of the students and youth, who formed the main base of the
congress in Orissa. Thus, after its adoption in Bombay
AICC in July 1921, the movement regained its momentum from
August 1921 onwards.
Boycott was carried on in three different ways. At
one level, bonfire was organised at different places. Known
as Bastrapoda Jagna (cloth sacrifice) it was held on occa
sions like Tilak Utsav (1 August), Gandhi Day (2 October)
and Prince Boycott Day (17 November) at nationalist pockets
like Jharsuguda, Berboi, Bhadrak, Berhampur, Cuttack, Kanika
320 and Sambalpur. Since it involved great deal of cost
(foreign cloth to be burnt was costly) often it was symbolic.
Thus, according to a nationalist source, in 1921, one piece
of foreign cloth was burnt at short intervals during speeches
at a meeting with kirtan at Cuttack during the Tilak Utsav;21
319. Gadjat Basini, 5 March 1921.
320e ~, 15 oct. 1922.
321. ~~ 6 Aug. 1921.
209
Because of the cost, the bonfire, although popular, could
not be massive. On such occasions, picketing was also held
as a part of the boycott. While in Cuttack picketing was
organised before foreign cloth shops by prominent Congress-
322 men and volunteers, in Balasore it was held to block
the movement of bullock carts carrying foreign cloth (in
323 3rd week of November 1921). In January and February
1922 also, along with the liquor shops, foreign_ cloth shovs
were picketed in Ganjam, Balasore and Cuttack. Another form
of boycott was the instruction by the panchayats to the
businessmen to stop selling foreign cloth. It became popular
i B 1 d . i 324 n a asore 1str ct.
Swadeshi Mela was also a form of mass app~al during
the Non-Cooperation. Mainly concentrating on the khadi
campaign, a mela was of two varieties, i.e., one being
organised by Congressmen and the other being traditional
in nature but used by the Congress activists for their
purpose. The first variety of mela was to be witnessed
on occasions like Tilak Utsav (1 August) and Gandhi Day
(2 October). For example, on Tilak Utsav Day in 1921, a
SWadeshi ~ was organised at Cuttack. For all practical
purposes it was a market where khadi, sweets, dolls and
322. Utkal Sevak, 27 Oct. 1921.
3 2 3 • U tk al Sev ak, 1 Dec • 1 9 2 1 e
324. Samaj, 4 March 1922.
210
pictures of Congress leaders such as Gandhi and Tilak were
sold. The mela also witnessed bonfire of foreign cloth,
. 325 meetings and slogan shouting by the activists. Like-
wise on Gandhi Day in 1922 a khadi exhibition was held at
Bolgarh in Puri district. Children participated in a
spinning competition and were given prizes by the local
Congress Committee. At Bhadrak also the Gandhi Day was
celebrated in a similar fashion. 326
The traditional melas were also used by the Congress
for the nationalist campaign. Such melas with a religious
meaning usually attracted many people and the party acti-1
vists with a bundle of khadi would try to turn them into
an arena of political propaganda. Thus, the Tribeni mel a
at Banmalipur in Puri district witnessed on 27 January
1922 picketing by and arrest of 3 Congress activists. The
police provocation soon inspired many others to join
slogan shouting, hartal and stone throwing at thP police
327 station anct at the quarters of the police officer •
During the famous Rath Yatra (car festival} in July
1922, the Puri temple priests were mobilised to drape
the deity in khadi and the Balasore DCC planned to sell
325o ~~ 6 Augc 1921e
326. Samaj, 7 Oct. 1922.
327. Searchlight, 19 March 1922; Samaj, 11 Feb. 1922.
211
328 Khadi worth 3,000 rupees at Puri. Similarly at the
famous Sivratri mela at Huma in February 1922 the Congress
workers from Sambalpur were found selling khadi and collec-
329 ting swaraj fund. Because of their socio-religious
appeal, these melas attracted more people than the Congress
melas. Secondly, the UPCC which often complained of paucity
of manpower did not have to spend any thing in terms of
either manpower or money for the holding of these melas.
Probably because of these reasons Congressmen put greater
emphasis on the second variety of ~, although the first
variety was not ignored. The Congress activities in the
mela created a general political awareness anrl served the
same purpos·~ as other forms of agitation.
Songs
songs formed an important part of nationalist agita-
tion. Songs written and sung during the moverrent were of
two categories. The first category~ being composed by the
Congress activists and leaders, contained a political
meaning with direct appeal to the countrymen to jump into
the struggle against British rule. In this reg~rd mention
may be made of SWaraj Bhaya Albat Hoga by Nilakantha Das
which created a stir among the people of Sambalpur in
328. FRBO, File No.18 of 1922, July-Aug. Home Poll.
329. Searchlight, 8 March 1922.
212
early 1921. The song was subsequently proscribed and the
publisher was fined (Rs.25) in April 1921;30 Besides,
Gopabandhu's Muka Minati (September 1921) and Banchhanidhi
Mohanty's SWarajya Binar Pratham Jhankar (1921) come under
this category. These songs were sung in meetings and demons-
trations. Banchhanidhi's songs (also Bir Kishor Das' songs)
were used in kirtan in Balasore district. (Mentioned earlier).
The second category of songs were Bhajans and
Kirtans. With their religious undertone, these songs
form a part of the kirtans. The kirtans formed an impor-
tant part of mass appeal during the Non-Cooperation. To
repeat, kirtans were held On many political occasions
like Gandhi's visit (March 1921), Gopabandhu's arrest and
subsequent trial at Khurda in October and November 1921
and during the Satyagraha w'-ek celebration from 6 to 13
April in 1921 and 1922 Bhajans or traditional religious
prayer-songs were sung at the time of kirtan. 331 Kirtan
intensely involved a large number of people (between 20 to
30 to 60 to 70) in a single cultural item and held them
together ~or a long time (3 to 4 hours}. With its own
cultural appeal, kirtan provided social sanction to the
different Congress programmes. It created a local ethos
