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Chapter 6: The Southern Fire
If Khurda gives the famous rebellion, Parlakimedi and Ghumsar give the long one.
Southern Odisha and the Ganjam region resisted British authority repeatedly from the late eighteenth century into the 1830s. These were not isolated disturbances. They formed a sustained pattern involving zamindars, Bisois, Doras, town peons, Khonds, rival claimants, and local communities trying to preserve their own system of rule.
Odisha’s early resistance was not only the Paik Rebellion.
The Early Ganjam Resistance
The English first encountered serious difficulty in Ganjam.
Narayan Deo of Parlakimedi resisted in 1767-1768 after the Company tried to assert authority. He withdrew into inaccessible country, returned when troops left, and disrupted the arrangement imposed by the British.
In Ghumsar, Vikrama Bhanja resisted Company pressure in the 1770s. He avoided direct defeat by using shelter, surprise, and local support. Company detachments suffered from sickness and ambush. Small forces could be cut off.
Other areas such as Mohiri, Athagad, Khallikot, Jalantara, Budarsingi, and Surangi also entered this early Ganjam unrest. The region remained unsettled for decades.
The lesson was simple: Company possession on paper did not mean obedience in the hills and zamindaris.
Parlakimedi, 1799-1800
The Parlakimedi rising of 1799-1800 shows how local loyalty worked.
Gajapati Deo resisted the Collector’s orders and failed to pay tribute. The government confined him, his son, and his cousin. Instead of pacifying the estate, this helped ignite rebellion. Town peons and inhabitants joined. Detachments were attacked. Tekkali was affected. Jagannath Deo, a rival claimant from the same house, joined the rising.
This is important. Internal rivalry did not prevent common resistance when the issue became the dignity of the house and hostility to alien control.
The British tried warnings, threats, and military force. They also used one member of the ruling family against another. Purusottam Deo and Durga Raj helped restore order because they had legitimacy inside the same social world.
The rising ended, but the reason behind it did not vanish. The people wanted rule through an authority they recognized, not through a distant Company apparatus.
The Rising Of 1814
Parlakimedi again became disturbed around 1813-1814.
Padmanabh Deo’s management alienated Bisois and local groups. They demanded his removal. When civil authority failed to control the situation, troops were called.
The Bisois seized officials, surrounded forces, and stated grievances. Their demand was not vague disorder. They wanted removal of a manager they regarded as oppressive and illegitimate.
Here again, the British had a problem that could not be solved by revenue logic alone. The estate was not only a source of payment. It was a living political society with factions, honour, hereditary roles, and local expectations.
Parlakimedi, 1821-1836
The later Parlakimedi disturbances were even more complex.
There were court factions around the Raja, his wife, Pata Mahadevi, other female members of the house, diwans, peons, Bisois, and rival advisers. British officials tried to manage the estate but repeatedly became entangled in local factional politics.
The common raiyats suffered most. Houses were plundered and burned. Revenue collection failed. The estate was attached. Court of Wards arrangements did not solve the deeper problem.
In 1831, a serious rising broke out. Rebel leaders took possession of western and southern divisions of the zamindari. They cut communication, captured sepoys, attacked bungalows, and attempted to wipe out British authority in those areas.
This was not a short emotional outburst. It was a coordinated attempt by local forces to recover control.
Russel’s Method
George Russel was appointed Special Commissioner to deal with the Parlakimedi crisis.
His method shows British statecraft at work.
He gathered evidence against leaders. He used some local chiefs against others. He tried to understand hill routes and food supply. He secured grain in the plains so rebels in the hills would face shortage. He captured forts, appointed new Bisois, and broke the unity of rebel groups.
Major Baxter’s death during operations against the hill chiefs shows that the resistance was dangerous. But the British advantage lay in persistence, intelligence, and division.
Once some Bisois and Doras were won over or neutralized, the old solidarity collapsed. Leaders were captured, hanged, transported, or confined.
The tie that held the chiefs together was broken by British diplomacy.
Why Parlakimedi Matters
Parlakimedi and Khurda reveal two different kinds of resistance.
Khurda’s Paik Rebellion was sudden, poorly planned, and centred around one great leader, Jagabandhu. It made a dramatic impact but lasted only a short time as an open military movement.
Parlakimedi was different. It was sustained, organized across many local forces, and rooted in a long desire to preserve an internal system of government. For about seventy years, the people of the region resisted British authority in repeated waves.
This makes Parlakimedi one of the most important early resistance centres in Odisha.
It should not be treated as a footnote to 1817. It is its own chapter in the history of anti-colonial resistance.
Ghumsar, 1835-1836
Ghumsar produced another major rising.
Dhananjay Bhanja fell into arrears. The British threatened resumption. He withdrew to his fort and then into the hills. After his death, resistance continued under Brundaban Bhanj, Jagannath Bhanj, Dora Bisoi, Bonio Khond, and others.
The geography mattered. Ghumsar’s hills and Maliah tracts gave rebels shelter. Khond participation made suppression more difficult. British detachments were attacked; officers and sepoys were killed. Rebels moved toward Daspalla, Nayagarh, and Baud borders.
But again, British pressure closed the space. Chiefs of neighbouring estates were compelled to hand over fugitives. Troops entered the hills after the rains. Leaders were captured or killed. Dora Bisoi escaped, but new chiefs were appointed in place of rebel-aligned ones.
By the end of 1836, the second major Ghumsar rising was put down.
The Southern Pattern
Southern Odisha’s resistance had a different character from Khurda.
It was more deeply tied to hill forts, Bisois, Doras, peons, and zamindari management. It often began as a dispute over succession, tribute, arrears, or diwan control. But beneath those immediate issues was a larger refusal: local society did not accept alien interference in its internal order.
The British understood this and responded by changing that order. They did not merely defeat leaders. They replaced them, divided them, rewarded rivals, appointed new chiefs, and made former rebels instruments of government.
That is how a resisting region was slowly domesticated.
From Ganjam, the resistance moves deeper into the hills: Khondmals and Angul.