History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c44.92.1

v2.c44.92.1

We must now return to the copies of original correspondence preserved, regarding certain disturbances in the Mayurbhañj State. We learn from a dispatch sent to the Hon’ble Court of Directors of the East India Company, by the Judicial Department of the lower provinces, i. e., Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, on the 23rd October, 1833, of disturbances which had taken place in the Mayurbhañj State. In 1821 four of the five *Pirs* in the Bāmanghāṭi Subdivision of that State had been forcibly annexed by the British Company and now formed into the district of Singhbhum in Bihar. These four *Pirs* were entirely inhabited by Kols and therefore the local name for this territory was Kolhan. The remaining *Pir* remained under the Mayurbhañj State subject to the control of the Commissioner of Katak in his capacity of Superintendent of Tributary Mahals in Orissa. There was one *Sarbarāhkār* in charge of all five *Pirs*. The four *Pirs* of Tāi, Bharbharyā, Aulā and Lālgaḍh being in British territory the *Sarbarāhkār* now imagined himself to be independent of the Rājā of Mayurbhañj and owing obedience only to the Agent to the Governor-General on the South-western frontier at Hazaribagh, inspite of the fact that he still held land within the Mayurbhañj State. The *Sarbarāhkār* had evidently gained over Captain Wilkinson, who recommended the transfer of the entire Bāmanghāṭi tenure to the Commissioner of Orissa.