Naveen Patnaik wants the Paika Bidroha declared as the First War of Independence

BHUBANESHWAR: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik left for New Delhi on Tuesday to participate in bicentenary celebrations of the ‘Paika Bidroha’, an armed rebellion against the East India Company at Vigyan Bhavan on July 20. An event that he wants the Centre to recognise as the “First War of Independence”.

The 1817 bloody rebellion near Khurda, predating the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, took place after the East India Company began taxing the rent-free land given to the Paikas for their military service to the King of Khurda.

In April, during the BJP National executive meet in Bhubaneshwar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had felicitated descendants of Paika and other such rebellions. “Unfortunately the narrative of India’s freedom struggle has been restricted to few families, few dynasties and few events in our history. But, the freedom struggle was people’s movements filled with sagas of dedications and sacrifices spanning over 700 to 800 years,” he had said.


Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had already promised to appropriately honour this historical event, during his Budget speech.

Unwilling to let the BJP walk away with all the credit, the BJD government has also made a few announcements. On the eve of his departure, the Odisha Cabinet approved a proposal for the culture department to officially ask the Centre to declare the 1817 rebellion as the first war of Independence in India. It trumps, efforts by the BJP, to form a committee and make a similar recommendation.

Making a formal request in a letter to Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday, Patnaik wrote, “Since the colonial rule of India had its origins in the East India Company, the genesis of the events that led to the Sepoy Mutiny and their further consequences need to be traced back to earlier instances of the organized rebellion against the East India Company. Of such earlier resistances and rebellions, the Paika Rebellion stands out prominently as it was essentially a broad based people’s movement. It played the role of a torchbearer and catalyst in shaping a people’s movement of resistance, which ultimately led to the Indian Independence movement.”

In March, the state had organized a three-day programme in Khorda to commemorate the event. Patnaik had earlier also written to Minister of Railway, Suresh Prabhu, asking for a special train service, from Khurda to Mumbai, named of the leader of the rebellion Buxi Jagabandhu Jagabandhu Bidyadhar.