Jagatsinghpur district is one of the thirty districts of Odisha in the eastern coast of India. It became a new district on 1 April 1993 being separated from Cuttack district with its own headquarter in Jagatsinghpur town. Deltaic and partly littoral; the district of Jagatsinghpur is triangular in shape and small in geographical proportions. It is the smallest district in the state and covers a landmass of 1759 km2. It has a history of its own dating back to the 6th century AD, having contemporaneity with the Prachi valley civilization.
History Jagatsinghpur, being on the Odisha Coastal Plain, has much of the same history as the rest of Coastal Odisha. It was briefly ruled by the Mauryas: several coins from Mauryan period have been found in the district. Afterwards it formed part of the Chedi kingdom of Kharavela. Although Samudragupta conquered the territory during his extensive conquest, no evidence suggests the later Guptas controlled Jagatsinghpur directly. However Gupta support to Buddhist monasteries in the region has been recorded.
The history of Jagatsinghpur comprises the conglomeration of Hindu, Muslim, Maratha and British realms. The East India Company established their arsenals at Hariharpur in 1600. Understanding of the origin of the name of Jagatsinghpur and its nomenclature mostly depends upon the legends. Legend says the name of Jagatsinghpur (formerly Hariharpur) has come into existence as a revenue village, either in Mughal or Maratha rule after the name of Jagatsingh, the son of Bhagat Singh, an Amildar in Cuttack-Puri Sarkar or Cuttack Chakada since 1786. Bhagat Singh worked as an Amildar either in Mughal or Maratha rule. The Maratha administration kept the place under their jurisdiction and appointed Jagat Singh in 1748 to collect revenue. He collected the Peshkush and Nazrana and remained an unchallenged and uninterrupted administrator for a pretty long period.
As per the report of S.L. Maddo, the Settlement Officer, there was a tradition to name some villages after Amildars of that area. Jagatsinghpur had already become a revenue village before 1877 as per the revenue map of Jagatsinghpur village in 1877–78 Settlement. The said legend is partially tenable because of the total that the administrative unit Amil was introduced by Mughal rule which 4 continued during the Maratha rule also. Prior to Maratha rule the name Jagatsinghpur as a village did not exist. The British navigator Bruton who visited this place in 1633 did not mention Jagatsinghpur in his report. The very same place according to him was Hariharapur, a prosperous village. Hariharpur was an important village before the first half of the seventeenth century and it was declared as a Pragana under Cuttack Chakada during Maratha rule. The then Jagatsinghpur revenue village was not so important to be declared as Pragana or Thana till 1817.
During the Paika Vidroha (Rebellion of Paikas) in 1817, Hariharpur was a Thana. The then Jagatsinghpur became more prominent than Hariharpur for which the British administration renamed Hariharpur Thana as Jagatsinghpur Thana. During Maratha rule both Lala Kruparam Roy, Bada Dewan (Senior Dewan) and Lala Haribansa Roy, Sana Dewan (Junior Dewan) were inhabitants of village Lalasahi Jagatsinghpur and by exercising their power and position they reaffirmed their native village as Jagatsinghpur. Jagatsinghpur established its importance after it became a Thana and then the British rule declared Jagatsinghpur as a Sub-division in 1866 but the status of Sub-division was withdrawn in 1874 on account of low revenue collection. After independence, Jagatsinghpur was once more declared as a Revenue Sub-Division in 1967 and subsequently Jagatsinghpur Sub-Division was declared as an independent revenue district in April 1993 by the State Government.
Consequent to the bifurcation of old Cuttack District into four new districts, the Jagatsinghpur District was created on 1 April 1993. The new district was inaugurated by the then Chief Minister Biju Patnaik in an auspicious ceremony. The foundation stone to the District Collectorate was laid in November 1995 by the then Deputy Chief Minister Basant Kumar Biswal and it was inaugurated in November 1997.
Independence movement The district had a large contribution to the freedom struggle of the country. It was Gopabandhu Das, the chief animating force, making Congress activities popular in Odisha. From the beginning of his career, he had associated himself with different sessions of the Congress. In 1920, after the special session of the Congress at Kolkata, Gopabandhu decided to carry on Congress programme in Odisha launched by Mahatma Gandhi. The Utkal Provincial Congress Committee was constituted early in 1921 and Gopabandhu became its first president. The arrival of Mahatma Gandhi in Cuttack on 23 March 1921 galvanized the Non-cooperation movement. It was Gopabandhu who translated the speeches of Gandhi which prompted the people to join the Non-cooperation movement. Under his leadership, by 30 June 1921, the Utkal Pradesh Congress Committee collected Rs.21000/- for Tilak Swaraj fund and enrolled 39000 Congress members. To carry out Congress programmes and to train workers and volunteers, Alaka Ashram was established in the district in the year 1922. To establish this Ashram, Gopabandhu Chaudhury, Bhagirathi Mahapatra and Pranakrushna Padhiary acted as the chief mobilizing force. It also became the meeting place of young volunteers (Banarsena) and published a weekly Utkalika edited by Sarala Devi, spreading Congress ideas like boycott of foreign cloth, law court and government institutions etc. The district had its contribution to the Civil Disobedience movement. Gandhiji had started this movement by breaking the salt law on 6 April 1930.
The Salt Satyagraha was a powerful movement in Coastal Odisha. The first batch of Satyagraha, led by Gopabandhu Chaudhury and Acharya Harihar, started for Inchudi from Swaraj Ashram at Cuttack. Kujanga was another important centre of salt Satyagraha. Rama Devi, Malati Devi, Sarala Devi, Rani Bhagyabati Patamahadei and hundreds of women volunteers joined the movement and violated the salt law. The centres of salt Satyagraha in the district were Chatua, Kaliapata, Paradeep, Erasama and Daradia. Apart from the organisation of salt Satyagraha, marches, boycott of foreign cloth, propagation of Khadi, picketing before excise shops and other constructive programmes formed part of the civil disobedience movement. This movement was withdrawn in May 1934. Sarala Devi was the first woman freedom fighter and satyagrahi from Jagatsinghpur in the freedom struggle. On 8 August 1942, the All India Congress Committee in its meeting at Bombay passed the Quit India resolution and gave a call for mass struggle to achieve freedom. Centres of Congress movement like Swaraj Ashram at Cuttack, Bari Ashram at Binjharpur, Alaka Ashram at Jagatsinghpur, Kendupatana Spinning Centre, etc. were declared unlawful. Prominent Congress leaders were taken into custody by 10 August 1942. The Quit India programmes included attack on post offices, police stations, tahasil offices and such other public offices to paralyze the administration and force the British to quit India. Such incidents occurred in the wake of the movements at various places such as Tirtol, Erasama and Jagatsinghpur. It became a forceful movement to make India free. Notable freedom fighter of the district Surendra Nath Dwibedi came to lime light by taking part in the Quit India movement. After years of struggle, finally the country became independent and the district moved forward in the path of modernization and development.
Archaeological Importance The District Jagatsinghpur, earlier a part of the Cuttack District is rich in archaeological remains. Coins, inscriptions, images and monuments are main historical antiquities known in the district. Silver, punch marked coins have been reported from the district of Cuttack, Puri, Mayurbhanj, Bolangir and Ganjam. A trove comprising 379 silver punch marked coins was discovered from a hillock at Salipur police station and they belong to Maurya period. In 1931–32, imitations of Kushan coins also known as Puri Kushan coins were discovered from undivided Cuttack district. Odisha was not directly ruled by Guptas although a few gold coins of Guptas were found from the state. In the district of Cuttack, an archer type gold coins of Chandragupta-II, was discovered from Lalitgiri. It has the standing figure of the king as an archer, Garuda standard on the obverse and Goddess Laxmi on the reverse. Gold coins weighing 5 to 7 grains, called Ganga fanams have been discovered from Danduasinghpur under Jagatsinghpur police station. These fanams are attributed to the rulers of the Eastern Ganga dynasty. The various symbols on the obverse include a crouching bull, sankha, chakra etc. while on the reverse ankush, kuthara and some numerals.
The religious belief and rituals of the people find expression in the archaeological monuments of the district which includes temples and images of various pantheons. The temples generally follow the Kalingan temple style in having a curvilinear superstructure for the sanctuary and pidha deula, for the frontal porch. The Lingaraj Mahadeva temple near Balia, on the bank of Biluakhai river, is an important specimen of the early series of the temples and can be assigned to the 8th to 9th centuries. The small Rekha temple is Triratha in plan and has Mahisamardini as one of the Parsvadevatas. The Singhnath Siva temple in an islet of the Mahanadi at Singhnath is the most important Siva temple of the 9th century A.D. The Amangai temple in another island of the Mahanadi near Kandarpur is now in ruins. Its pyramidal Jagmohan seems to be a later addition, but the Deula, pancharatha in plan, is a developed specimen of the Kalingan style. Sathalpur in Jagatsighpur sub-division had a temple for Saptamatruka and the images still exist there. Buddhist images of the district hail from Tarapur and Paradeep garh. The image of Lokeswar at Paradeepgarh, worshipped as Bisnu-Lokanath, is a unique temple of Gajaprustha style.
The department of State Archaeology was set up in 1965. Dr. Nabin Kumar Sahu, an eminent historian had made an initial attempt to make a survey of many important archaeological sites in the district and later Sri P.K. Ray, Superintendent, State Museum had identified 19 old monuments which are still maintained by the State Government. With the grant made available from the 10th and 11th Financial Commission, Sri B.K. Rath, Superintendent, State Archives in his recent survey (2005–2006) has found out a number of monuments in the blocks of Kujang, Balikuda, Naugaon, Tirtol, Jagatsinghpur, Raghunathpur and Biridi which belong to the 7 th century and post 7th century AD. This indicates that a civilization had flourished in this track around 4th and 5th century AD along with the Prachy Civilization on the southern side of the river Devi. Though there has been no excavation so far in this district, old sculptures and archaeological remains are available in plenty in the Lingaraj Temple, Balia; Kundeshwara and Sathalapur, Kosthi, Dhanisho, Kantara, Nasik, Paradeep Garh, Somanatha temple of Chatra, Tirthamatha of Tanra and Nandigram of Naugaon.