The Cult of Jagannath and the Colonial State
The acceptance of tribal deities as family and tutelary deities was a desideratum for state formation in tribal tracts in Orissa. The aboriginal and autochthonous tribals in this area experienced the process of integration and assimilation and the rulers legitimised their rule over these realms.
The combination of politics and religion was a dominant feature in Orissa since the origin of the Jagannath cult. Lord Jagannath was believed to be a tribal god worshipped as god Nilamadhav by the Savaras14. Under the process of Aryanisation, he was brought to Puri and was installed in a new temple by the king with the new name Lord Jagannath,The king as the representative of Lord Jagannath on the earth is seen as the moving Vishnu (incarnation of Lord Jagannath). The socio-cultural milieu created by the Jagannath cult in Orissa had actually facilitated regional integration and social solidarity among people. In 1230 AD, Anangabhimadeva III declared Jagannath as the sole state deity of Orissa and he was ruling under his Overlordship, thus, getting religious sanction for his political power (Mallik 2005:205-206). Frias Odoric (Stirling 1825:35), a European traveller, reported about the association of the Gajapati kings of Orissa with the Car festival of Jagannath in the year 1321. Later on, the Suryavamsi kings like Kapilendradeva and Purussottamdeva sought legitimation of their rule as both of them were usurpers of the throne. They claimed legitimacy achieved by maintaining an intimate linkage with the Jagannath cult of Puri. Even Kapilendradeva was not reluctant to call himself a servitor and described attacks on him as attacks on Lord Jagannath.
This relationship between the Gajapati15 kings of Orissa and the Jagannath cult of Puri culminated under the Rajas of Khurda (Shasini 2021:91). The Raja of Khurda declared himself as the local successor to the imperial Gajapatis after the defeat of King Mukunda Deva in 1568.
The Rajas of Khurda, after suffering defeats at the hands of the Mughal armies, turned their attention to Puri and enlarged their influence over the Jagannath cult. Thus, an intricate and ambiguous relationship developed between the temple and the palace. By maintaining their control over the temple and its rituals, the Rajas of Khurda claimed to be successors of imperial Gajapatis and granted certain privileges to the feudatory kings in order to get their loyalty and political support. The political power of the Rajas of Khurda declined after their defeat at the hands of the Marathas in 1751. Though the Marathas took over the administration of the Jagannath Temple in 1760, the Rajas of Khurda were able to maintain the ritual sanctity of their position and all the feudatory kings of Orissa looked at them with veneration. The temple played an important political role in the sense that it granted legitimacy and recognised the authority of the king over Orissa and its people.The relationship that the Jagannath Temple had with the colonial state should be understood in light of the colonial state’s adventure to control and govern a religious space with political connotation so that it can legitimately control the subject population through the colonial governance and its machinery. This was done within the broad framework of colonial legality and governmentality. After occupying Orissa in 1803 (O’ Malley 1979:19), the British purportedly went on to control the Jagannath temple of Puri as it was the religious as well as the political nerve centre of Orissa. The British arrested the Raja of Khurda and imprisoned him in the fort of Midnapore (also spelt Medinapur). The British made a detailed plan and administrative arrangements to govern the affairs of the temple and its resources as well as the pilgrims, thus exercising colonial governmentality over the Oriyas. The nascent colonial state in early 19 th century used various techniques of surveillance to control the temple and the pilgrims.
The British resorted to enormous documentation detailing out all the information about the pilgrims. The legal machinery such as the police was used to control the pilgrims. Charles Grome16, in 1805 submitted a report to the Company and prescribed the mechanism to govern the temple. In this way the sacred entity of the pilgrim was transformed into a subject category under the rudimentary colonial state. It used the dak (postal service), the legal machinery and brought surveillance over people through rigorous documentation, registration of pilgrims, and other bureaucratic arrangements. The colonial government’s obsession in controlling and ruling a religious space invited criticisms from the Evangelicals and the Christian missionaries, as well as the anxiety of the Oriyas. The Court of Directors in 1809 asked the Company to specify the degrees of interference in matters of native religious practices (Ghose 1848:34). Under constant pressure and criticism, the Company appointed the Raja of Khurda as the Superintendent of the Temple and assigned him the right to manage the interior economy of the Temple while retaining the power to remove the Superintendent as and when it wished. The Regulation IV of 1809 vested the superintendence of the temple in the hands of the Raja on a hereditary basis (Ghose 1848:34). The colonial bureaucracy institutionalised surveillance. The subject population were further controlled when the colonial bureaucracy used the labour of the prisoners of Puri and Cuttack jails to construct the New Jagannath Trunk road.Abolishing the violent superstitious rituals and customs of the natives was central to the colonial state building in India. It was necessary to justify the theory of ‘benevolent paternalism’ of the British. At the same time, it was also essential to maintain law and order to safeguard British commercial interests in India. For the Evangelicals and the Christian missionaries, indigenous rituals and customs were inhuman and against civilisation which needed to be rooted out by the British as part of its civilising mission.
Many European travellers wrote in detail about Jagannath and his Car festival since the 14 th century. Thomas Bowrey’s (Ghose 1848:34) account is more informative. His accounts described in detail how people voluntarily casting themselves under the wheels of Lord Jagannath were crushed to death. This was considered as the most noble and heroic act in order to attain a sacred death. The practice of self-immolation of pilgrims under the car of Lord Jagannath has been reported by William Bruton (Ghose 1848:34) when he visited Puri in 1632 A.D. According to him, it was the belief of the pilgrims that they would attain heaven if they got killed under the wheels of Lord Jagannath’s chariot. Sebastain Manrique (Ghose 1848:34) in 1636 said that people used to immolate themselves under the car of Jagannath. Bernier in his travel account had mentioned this practice in 1676. Apart from blind religious beliefs he pointed out another dimension of the practice. According to him, the huge crowd, the arduous journey, and the fatigue squeezed people to death who used to fall on the ground in the way of the car. Colonel Harcourt who came to Puri in 1803, however, said that though the pilgrims had talked about the self-immolation practice, much of the observations were based on exaggeration (Ghose 1848:34). Andrew Stirling (1825:27) writing in 1825 said he witnessed three cases of self-immolation; and one of the cases was accidental. In other two cases, the devotees were suffering from incurable diseases and in order to relieve themselves from this burden of life they preferred this mode of suicide. James Fergusson in 1837 told about how the people were delighted to be present at Puri during the Car festival despite so much written accounts of horror stories about the death of people during the Car festival (Ghose 1848:34). Claudius Buchanan who visited Orissa in 1806 provided the horrible accounts about the temple, its festivals, and customs (Ghose 1848:34). He particularly narrated the practice of pilgrim’s self-immolation under the chariot of Lord Jagannath. William Bampton and Sutton’s preaching against idolatry received violent opposition from people (Ghose 1848:34). Charles Buller, the then Commissioner of Cuttack wrote back to the Court of Directors of the East India Company that he had not seen horror and wretchedness during the Car festival. He reported to have seen one case of self-immolation under the wheels of the car (Ghose 1848:34). He vehemently denied that this ritual practice was an established duty thrown upon on any sect of Hinduism. Thus, it can be said that the selfimmolation of the pilgrims during the Car festival was not so an established and religiously sanctioned practice unlike the Meriah sacrifice17 of the Khonds18. The cases reported by the European travellers and British officials were primarily individual in nature and took place out of blind devotion of the devotees to get relief from the pain and sorrow in their life.The Pilgrim Tax in Puri was collected since Mughal rule and also continued during the Maratha and British period. The political economy of the colonial state justified the collection of this tax in the capacity of a legitimate ruler (Patra 1968:292). The British claimed to have spent the pilgrim tax in developing various amenities for the pilgrims as well as in facilitating smooth administration. But in reality the tax was an important source of government revenue collected to strengthen the surveillance mechanism over the people. The Christian missionaries opposed the collection of Pilgrim Tax and described it as “inhuman, impolitic and unchristian”. In 1831, Lord William Bentick (Patra 1968:293-294), however, supported the collection of Pilgrim Tax for the smooth conduct of religious rites, care, and protection of pilgrims. But Charles Grant criticised the Company and accused it of patronising idolatry. In 1833, the Court of Directors banned the collection of Pilgrim Tax, ceased the interference of the British on the rituals, customs, and the internal economic affairs of the temple (Ghose 1848:36).
Further, it is said that the police force required for the maintenance of peace and security of the pilgrims would be paid out of the general resources of the country (Ghose 1848:36-37). Act 10 of 1840 abolished all of the taxes and fees upon pilgrims. However, the lands of the temple were still under the control of the revenue authorities before it was finally transferred to the Superintendent of the Temple (the Raja of Khurda) in 1843 under the direction of the Court of Directors.Thus, legitimacy to British rule in colonial Orissa was sought to be established by the East India Company by first locating the place of Jagannath and his temple in the hearts of Oriyas. The East India Company conspicuously brought the temple and its patron (the Raja of Khurda) within the broad framework of colonial political economy. The instrument of the ‘Rule of Law’ facilitated the task by enforcing rigorous surveillance over the subject population. The efforts to abolish and regulate the superstitious religious rituals displayed the benevolent paternalism of the alien ruler. The East India Company generated huge revenue from the vast landed properties of Jagannath and by collecting Pilgrim Tax which helped it in conducting the administration smoothly. It enabled colonial governmentality over the subject population through surveillance (Shasini 2021:93-94).
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