The Union Cabinet Minister Dharmendra Pradhan visited Buxi Bazar, Cuttack, on Autonomy Day celebrations for Cuttack Municipal Corporation. He unveiled a statue of Buxi Jagabandhu and inaugurated Netaji Park, which was built on the old jail premises. On his way to the vehicle from the stage, a media person asked him about the name of the institution that bears the memory of Sir T. E. Ravenshaw. To this, Pradhan replied, “I think that the name of the institution needs to be changed as it’s the name of someone who caused the loss of lives of lakhs of Odias back in the 19th century.”
Some people reacted to this opinion, exaggerated it, and raised it in the State Assembly too. Some intellectuals have even organised round table meetings. Why is this bothering them so much? So many things could be said that might hurt many of us. But is it untrue that the Collectors of Puri and Balasore have repeatedly informed Commissioner Ravenshaw that by 1866, the outbreak of famine, popularly called Na’anka Dhurbhikhya, had been felt, but he still needed to pay heed? Famine doesn’t happen suddenly. It’s not a flood or a cyclone that occurs suddenly and goes away. The outbreak of famine is like an incurable disease.
In the last 50 years, there has been no famine in India. The government is addressing the shortage of food grains even if crop loss is due to unseasonal rains. What is said to be the Na’anka famine is not only about the year 1866 but also about a severe crop loss due to heavy floods in 1867. People died of starvation. The atrocities of government officials were no less. Ravenshaw turned the cane at it. After the flood, people fell ill and died like moths. The lives of 3 million people had no value in the colonial rule. Today, it is a matter of regret that the sighs and the cries of the deceased do not echo in the ears of these Ravenshaw lovers. Are those who commemorate Ravenshaw’s love for the Odia language not listening to the cries of millions of Odias who lost their lives during Na’anka?
History is ruthless. After 146 years, no one will be disparaged to analyse the reasons behind the decision to change the name of Cuttack College to Ravenshaw College in 1878. The Union Minister asked the intellectual class to debate the justification for naming the educational institution after Ravenshaw. But some don’t mind mocking his views. One of the arguments behind those who have opined against the name change is that Ravenshaw prioritised the Odia language. I will talk about this later, but in the last one and a half hundred years, some stories have become prevalent today which cannot be traced back in history. For example, English medium schools and colleges in Odisha began during Ravenshaw’s time; Ravenshaw installed the canal irrigation system, etc. It is as if Ravenshaw has done all this as a note of atonement.
According to the data, the first English school was established in Cuttack in 1822. In 1841, the government took over its management. It was known as Cuttack School. It was the district school in 1851. In 1875, it was named after Ravenshaw. If our wise men searched for official records, they would know how the renaming was done. Intermediate classes began in the school in 1868. In 1876, it became a degree college. The name was Cuttack College, affiliated with the University of Calcutta. The first chairman of the college was Samuel Edger. There were only 19 students in the college. In 1878, on the repeated request of Mayurbhanj Maharaja Krushna Chandra Bhanja Deo, the name of Cuttack College was changed to Ravenshaw College. Why? Was it intended to reconsider the decision to exclude the Badampahar region from Mayurbhanj Garhjat and bring it under direct British rule? Was that an attempt by King Bhanja Deo to take over the Keonjhar throne?
The college received permanent status in 1881. By the end of the 19th century, only 94 students had graduated. Science Intermediate opened in 1912. After that, the college’s progress accelerated. No one in pre-independence India had ever thought of changing the name of this college. It’s normal not to. In independent India, however, repeated voices have been raised about this. There have been demands for a name change, whether in the fifties, sixties, or even the eighties. Former Minister Niranjan Patnaik must have remembered all these developments.
Our attention should be drawn to two things. There are two things to be noted from Pradhan’s brief statements. The first is the justification for the naming after Ravenshaw to remain in force, and the second is Pradhan’s personal views. With this, the issue of the development of this higher educational institution is associated as well. I don’t doubt the national sentiments of those who feel proud to call themselves Ravensavien as per the English name, but don’t they feel equally proud, if not more than that, as Cuttackian or Odia? I will also discuss the above two aspects in this column. However, party politics is being dragged out instead of considering the issue seriously. With mere perceptions such as Pradhan is a Minister at the Centre, a BJP leader, etc., some people have criticised him in an ugly manner while taking out a torch march with their stand against the name change debate. Why should one listen to those not ready to listen to other opinions? This is the kind of behaviour that the Communists once showed. Not surprisingly, cases have been registered in the police station under the Arms Act against those protesting the name of Ravenshaw.
Three educational institutions have been named after Ravenshaw in Cuttack: Ravenshaw Collegiate School, Ravenshaw Girls’ School, and Ravenshaw University. The Government of Odisha converted Ravenshaw College into a university in 2006. At first, it was a unitary university. Later, the previous government amended the act to bring it at par with other universities. The university was shifted to the present red-coloured building constructed in 1921. Today, where the district court is functioning, it was first the collegiate and then the college. The place where the university is now established was called the Chakkar Padia. The then government identified the site, which belonged to the Maharaja of Mayurbhanj. At this place, the then Bihar-Odisha Governor Edward Gail laid the foundation stone of the college in November 1919. The college shifted to here in 1921. In 1916, the British government decided to bring Ravenshaw College under the jurisdiction of Patna University by enacting the Universities Act. At that time, there was mild opposition to this decision in Cuttack. However, on 1 October 1917, it became affiliated to Patna University.
After the establishment of Utkal University in 1943, Ravenshaw College became affiliated with Utkal University. The King of Kanika donated 55,000 Indian rupees to the library built in the middle of this new building. Rajendra Narayan Bhanja Deo was very influential by then and was also an English loyalist. He could have named the library after an English officer if he wanted. But he named it ‘Kanika Library’. A PG hostel called Mayurbhanj Kothi was also at OMP until the seventies. Its physics and chemistry blocks were also built with the grant of philanthropists. The P.G. classes of the English Department started in 1922 with the grant of the Queen of Sonepur. No one named anything either in their name or in the name of the British. So what is the reason behind this? Why was the Odia society attracted to Ravenshaw so much then? Was that because of Ravenshaw’s high-profile governance skills or anything else? No Odia lover can forget the extent to which the then Collector of Balasore, John Beams, did for the Odia language. But while no institution in Balasore has been named after him, isn’t it an exaggeration to have three institutions in Cuttack named after Ravenshaw?
By 1860, when the British government decided to spread English education in India, Macaulay’s report had already come. Based on this, British rule encouraged the establishment of schools and colleges. They needed clerks, lower-rung staff, and lawyers to run the courts. At the same time, a neo-rich class was needed that would respectfully look at and emulate Western civilisation and ignore its own heritage and culture. The British succeeded to a great extent in this regard. Those who had a love for the nation and a sense of nationalism took Western education but also had the determination to express their independent thoughts. The result was the independence of India. But it is a matter of regret that many in our country are still inclined toward Western values; they appreciate anything done by the West. Such people are now arguing for not changing Ravenshaw’s name. They are creating a mess as if someone is going to demolish the university. The university is there, and it will remain as it is. The debate is only about whether the name Ravenshaw sould be removed.
Here, I remember that during the previous government, it was decided to remove the training colleges in Odisha and merge them with the departments in the nearby education colleges. These colleges were named after eminent personalities of the Odia society. The Odisha government had decided to shut down 17 colleges, namely Radhanath Training College in Cuttack (named after Kabibara Radhanath Ray), Dr Parshuram Mishra Training College in Sambalpur and Dibakar Pattanaik Training College in Berhampur. This was strongly opposed. Why didn’t those taking out a torch march for Ravenshaw today open their mouths back then? Is Kabibara Radhanath Ray, Dr Parshuram Mishra, Kabi Samrat Upendra Bhanja, Dibakar Patnaik the pride of Odisha? Why is there so much anxiety about Ravenshaw? Why did no one cry when the nameplate of Abhimanyu Samantasinghar was thrown away in Bhubaneswar? Was it because he wrote Bidagdha Chintamani in Odia or because he was persecuted by the British rulers?
I would like to remind those quoting the biography of Madhu Babu, written by the eminent literary novelist Surendra Mohanty. Surendra Babu was not any historian. He also wrote an essay doubting the martyrdom of Baji Rout. I objected through my magazine at that time. Noted poet Sachi Routray also gave a befitting reply on the same. Today, some academicians are merely expressing their views on the visual media. However, they are not analysing the matter intellectually. People would appreciate it if these academicians could also express their nationalistic sentiments while giving research-based speeches. While the movement for freedom from British rule was going on, there were groups of people who showed utmost loyalty to the British. People like them will always be there in our society. In the Amrit Kaal of independent India, when the names and symbols bearing the memories of the colonial era and the colonisers are being changed, changing the name of Ravenshaw will not create any havoc. Rather, I would say that would be a national duty of ours.
It is not new in Odisha to raise voices for renaming higher educational institutions after Ravenshaw. An eminent historian in the book ‘Ravenshaw College — A Temple of Learning of Odisha’ wrote that when greater Odisha was formed after the merger of Princely Estates, there was a strong demand in the State to change the name of Ravenshaw. There was a demand to name it after nationalist leader Utkalamani Pt Gopabandhu Das. During a student movement in the late sixties, the students were adamant about removing Ravenshaw’s name. Even in the 1980s, public opinion was that Ravenshaw’s name should be removed. A Congress leader also demanded that the educational institution be named after revolutionary leader Dharanidhar Bhuyan. Last year, union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, while attending a function at Ravenshaw Girls’ School, also criticised the naming. To sum up, between 1949 and 2023, generations of Odias have opposed the naming of this educational institution. And their protest is not baseless.
A little bit of history will reveal who T.E. Ravenshaw was. He was born in July 1827 in Bath, Somerset region of England. His father, John H. Ravenshaw, was a member of the East India Company. His grandfather, John Goldsborough Ravenshaw, was once the chairman of the East India Company. Thomas Edward Ravenshaw came to India in 1849 to join the civil service under the East India Company and was in service until the end of 1881 in various positions in different parts of the country. He joined as the Revenue Commissioner of Cuttack in 1865. He was also the superintendent of 19 princely states. In the famine of 1865-66, i.e. the Na’anka, more than 1 million people died in the districts of Cuttack, Puri and Balasore alone. This number was compiled by the local zamindars. I won’t go into how reliable that estimation is, but several princely estates, namely Nilagiri, Athagarh, Tigiria, Badamba, Narsinghpur, Dasapalla, Khandapara, Nayagarh and Ranpur, were not included in these three districts at that time. Along with these princely states, the Odia people died prematurely due to famine in other princely estates as well. The shocking account of human flesh being consumed by the survivors was published in the Utkala Dipika.
The commissioner used to stay at Lalbagh, which later became Raj Bhawan. It is currently functioning as the Bhawan. At that time, Gauri Shankar went to some places to check on the rice shortage in Cuttack to understand the truth of the news and published eyewitness accounts on the Utkala Dipika. The newspaper mentions that rice was not available in Cuttack at that time. In Chandini Chowk, government shops were opened, and those deployed to control the crowd at the outlet used to beat up people and drive them away. Instead of rice, the beatings became unbearable – writes Gauri Shankar. How far is Chandini Chowk from Lalbagh Residence? Wouldn’t the lack of rice and the plight of the people fall on the ears of Ravenshaw?
Rice was not available in Puri’s markets, and neither was it available to buyers in Cuttack and Balasore. The collectors of these three districts have repeatedly drawn attention to such a grave situation. By then, people had already started dying of starvation. By the time the rice arrived on the ship, the monsoon had arrived. The news of the ships returning to Calcutta, as they could not come to shore due to rain, has also been published in the Utkala Dipika.
Meanwhile, in the Baleshwar jail, the inmates were taken to an open space due to a cholera outbreak among the inmates whilst some tried to run away, and Ravenshaw gave the order to open fire on them. One of the prisoners was caught injured, and his leg was amputated at the behest of Ravenshaw. Later, Ravenshaw ordered that those who were robbing and taking away rice from the houses of the rice-bearing people should be caught and beaten with whips instead of being brought to jail. For the first time, Ravenshaw himself saw weak, helpless women and children returning empty-handed from the relief centres called Chhatra, run by landlord Shyamanand Dey; only a few strong men could cut the crowd and collect rice, and the people were fighting among each other even for a handful of rice.
Due to the Santhal rebellion in the Badampahar area of Mayurbhanj Garhjat, Ravenshaw went to Mayurbhanj and wrote in a letter, after enquiring about the plight of the starving population –”I am swarmed with poor hungry wrenches… I saw a poor wretch, said to be insane, who had been found devouring a human body… he had better be sent to the Doctor and examined, or it will get abroad that people are reduced to eating one another.”
Is this statement of Ravenshaw an expression of his remorse or hatred towards the Odias? To the extent that the British Commissioner of the East India Company caused the distress of the common Odias, he was also the patron of the tyranny of the kings and the zamindars. Therefore, it seemed obvious then for our kings to praise Ravenshaw. It is not surprising at all that those who advocated for these kings also praised Ravenshaw. At that time, Gauri Shankar was the one who recorded the picture of that time in the Utkala Dipika, which motivated us to get rid of the colonial mindset and be rooted in nationalist sentiments. Otherwise, as soon as greater Odisha was formed after the merger of the princely estates, there would not have been a demand in the Odisha Assembly to remove Ravenshaw’s name.
Auhor: Shri Bhartruhari Mahtab
Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Cuttack, Odisha
