History of the State

History of the State as an Administrative unit and changes in its component parts.

At the height of their power in the 15 th century AD, the Gajapati Kings of Odisha ruled over a kingdom, extending from the Ganges in the north to the Kaveri in the far south. But already in the early 16 th century, the Gajapatis lost great portions of their southern dominion to Vijayanagar and Golkonda. The dismemberment of the Odia-speaking central region began immediately after the downfall of the kingdom in 1568, when the present Ganjam district was conquered by Golkonda and when, in the early 17 th century, the districts north to the river Subarnarekha were annexed to the Bengal Sub Area of the Mughal Empire. The fate of Odisha was further determined in 1751 when the Marathas conquered central and western Odisha whereas southern and northern Odisha remained under the rule of the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Nawab of Bengal respectively. And when, in the year 1803, Odisha was finally conquered by the East India Company, the districts of Ganjam and Midnapore, already several decades ago, had become part of its fast expanding territory.

The East India Company had no intention of unifying the Odia-speaking territories which it had conquered piece by piece during a period of more than half a century. On the contrary, after further reorganization of those Odia-speaking areas which lay outside the Odisha Division, the Odias were administered by five separate political authorities, i.e. Bengal and its Odisha Division, Chota Nagpur, the Central Provinces, Madras and the Garhjat Mahals or feudatory states of Odisha .

The formation of the linguistic province of Odisha in 1936 may be regarded as one of the landmarks in the history of the evolution of the Indian Union. The demand for linguistic states, which became so conspicuous in India after independence had its genesis in the movement of the Odia-speaking people for a separate province on the basis of language during the later half of the British rule. This movement had a long and chequered history ranging from the last quarter of the nineteenth century till the new province was created on the 1 st April, 1936.

The British conquest of India was carried on according to prevailing political situations as well as military conveniences of the conquering power. In the process of territorial conquests the traditional compositions of the socio-cultural affinities of the various Indian people were very much neglected. As one of the major linguistic communities of the Indian subcontinent, but placed under several administrative jurisdictions, the Odia people suffered the injustice of dismemberment for nearly a century since the British conquest of Odisha in 1803. Ganjam and other Odia-speaking areas south of the Chilika lake remained tagged to Madras; Midnapore to Bengal; Singhbhum, Seraikela and Kharsawan to Chota Nagpur Division; Sambalpur and Chhatisgarh feudatory states to the Central Provinces. Thus, when the British occupied Odisha in 1803 it was confined to the three coastal districts of Puri, Cuttack and Balasore.