Publisher's Synopsis
The present work is a recast version of a Project financed by University Grants Commission, New Delhi to which the author owes a deep dept of gratitude. It proved to be an uphill, but nonetheless interesting and provoking, task in so far as many hitherto unknown sources came to limelight to revisit earlier works and make the present one. The participation of the people in general and the Zamindars, the Maufidars, Garhtteas and Gauntias of the feudal order in particular of a comparatively hinterland of the country - the Sambalpur Tract (Odisha) during the 1857 Mutiny and aftermath is a landmark. It may be corroborated from the statement of Maj. A.B. Cumberlege, Deputy Commissioner, Sambalpur (1864-66): I do not wish for a moment to be considered an alarmist but the circumstances of the little district of Sambalpore isolated as it is and surrounded on every side by the territories of the feudatory Chiefs and Zamindars, render it possible for events to happen there, which could not occur in any other part of India. It behoves us therefore to ensure more than an usual amount of caution and to guard against every contingency.The problems in the path of investigation were many and significant and, honestly speaking, a few of them could not be solved even at the present state of information. Be that as it may, considerable labour has been done to gather pieces of information by extensive travels in the nook and cranny of the Zamindaris and interacting with people, to analyze them in proper perspective and fill up the hiatuses in the developments of eventful five years (1857-62) as far as possible.
