Kalahandi district

Kalahandi, a district of ,, was known as Mahakantara (Great Forest) in ancient India. It is also known as Karunda Mandal, which means treasure of precious stones like karandam (Manik), Garnet (red stone), Beruz, Neelam (blue stone), and Alexandra etc.

Maharaja Pratap Keshari Deo, The Ex-Maharaja of Kalahandi, in one of his articles expressed his view that the historical significance of naming Kalahandi as Karunda Mandala is based on the availability of Corundum in this region.

Maa Manikeswari (the goddess of Manikya), the clan deity of the Naga kings of Kalahandi may have also necessitated the adoption of the name.

The present District of Kalahandi was a former. After Indian Independence, Kalahandi joined with the on January 1, 1948, and was subsequently merged with Orissa on November 1, 1949. The former capital of the State of Kalahandi, Junagarh, located 26 kilometers from Bhawanipatna has a well-built fort and a number of temples of pantheon, with sculptural evidence of the rite of.

The language spoken by the people of Kalahandi is different from oriya. It comes under the langauge chain. language is basically spoken through out western orissa.

District Overview
Kalahandi occupies the southwestern portion of Orissa, bordered to the north by the Districts of and, to the south by the District of , to the west by the Districts of  and  (Chhatisgarh) and to the east by the Districts of  and. It has an area of 8,364.89 square kilometers and ranks 7th in area among the 30 districts of Orissa. The District Headquarters is at Town which stands almost to the eastern border.

The District is primarily agricultural, with over half the district area covered with dense jungle forest. Industry is very limited, but and  deposits have been commercially exploited.

History
Kalahandi hits the headlines in newspapers for the repeated drought situation that has broken the economic backbone of the cultivators. A long history of drought covering more than a century in Kalahandi has occurred. Drought had occurred in Kalahandi in 1868, 1884 and 1897. The famine of 1899 which is otherwise known as Chhapan Salar Durbhikshya has seriously influenced the people to such an extent that if a child hankers for food, her mother tells the child “why are you hankering like a drought-affected child of Chhapan sal?" “The effect of the famine,” according to the District Gazetteers, “were of a magnitude unprecedented in any previous famine.” This famine left a terrible socio-economic gloom in this area. In 1919-1920 another drought occurred followed by cholera, influenza and malnutrition due to lack of foodstuff. A series of drought in 1922-1923, 1925-1926. 1929-1930 1954-1955 and 1955-56 occurred in Kalahandi.

The terrible drought of 1965-66, which occurred in Kalahandi, totally broke down the economic backbone of the people. Due to lack of rain, three-fourth crop production failed. The effect of the drought continued to be felt in 1967. As regards this drought, the following description from the District Gazetteers is worth quoting. “The bulk of the population which constituted the landless agricultural labourers became unemployed due to suspension of all sorts of agricultural operations. The worst sufferers were the landed gentry, who, because of the drought, could not reap a harvest nor could they take to manual labour to which they were not accustomed. The pastures lost the greenery and the bovine population therefore was equally starved. Everywhere there was an acute shortage of water.”

Again in 1974-75 and in 1985 drought occurred like the Human Census occurring once in ten years. After the severe drought of 1956 and 1966, the rich cultivators of this area came down to the status of middle class cultivators and the middle class cultivators into ordinary one. They all turned into Sukhbasis. The daily wage labourers and landless are generally called Sukhbasi in Kalahandi meaning those who live happily. A proverb for ‘sukhbasi’ runs thus: ‘Gai nai goru, sukhe nid karu’ which means the men without cattle have happy sound sleep. Continuous occurrence of drought along with the irregular rainfall has resulted in crop failure and thus people became poorer to poorer. The Bureau of Statistics and Economics, Orissa has analyzed the rainfall of South Western Kalahandi and has reported that ‘there is a year of drought in every three or four years’.

Besides a long history of drought, the socio-economic traditions following in the society are the main cause behind the class distinction among the people of Kalahandi. The fact that the agricultural products the rural Kalahandi are being controlled by the urban businessmen is one of the causes of social class distinction. Moreover the customs of loan and mortgage current in the society are the major sources of exploitation. Certain forms of mortgage like Bandha, Kalantaria, Bandhasaheji, and Katti, and that of labour systems like goti, halia (annual servant, bahabandha and Kalibhuti, thika) etc. have debacle the normal way of peasant life. Along with the drought the problems such as rural unemployment, non-industrialization, growth of population and rapid deforestation are some of the major problems of Kalahandi. Hence being gripped both by nature and men, the rural inhabitant of Kalahandi has found no other way of survival. As a result either he has migrated from his motherland or lived in the wasteland as a crippled soldier.

In NEWS
Kalahandi has been in the news since middle of 1980s when reported sale of a child by its parents due to financial crisis. That article led the then Prime Minister to pay a visit to the district and brought the district to the attention of the national stage for its acute  and. Subsequently similar reported cases of starvation deaths and sale of children have led to the announcement of a host of relief efforts and development projects. Prime Minister announced the famous KBK project (Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput) in 1994. Nonetheless, Kalahandi has not been able to take off despite of hosts of programmes, largely because of lacuna at implementation stage. As the basic infrastructure is dismal state, the development progress is very slow.

But some development in the recent past has shown some sign of progress. The, second biggest in the state has changed the landscape of southern Kalahandi, leading to two-three crops in a year. Because of this, blocks like Bhawanipatna, Jayapatna, Dharamgarh are witnessing rapid agriculural growth. , a major processor has made major investments in the Kalahandi-Koraput range. Once this project is completed, it could be a big catalyst for industrial development in the region.

Recent Developments
Kalahandi also is an example of disparity /contrasts that exist in many part of developing/underdeveloped world. On the one side, this district is famous for famine and starvation deaths: this is the same district that boasts of among the Highest Number of Rice Mills in Orissa. The number of rice mills in the district was around 150 in the year 2004-05. More than 70% have been built in the five years after commissioning of the Indravati project. The rice mill business is so lucrative that businessman from adjoining districts and states have invested directly or indirectly. Most of the rice mills purchase from the government allotted villages through  and sell the rice to. As many rice mills are competing for paddy, the price paid the farmers has increased in the recent past.

Orissa government has also set up a private medical college with a tie up with one South India based organisation in Junagarh block of Kalahandi. This has the potential of changing the health infrastructure of the adjoining blocks in the locality.

Attractions
Ampani (Budharaja Temple), Karlapat, Phurlijharan, Thuamul Rampur (Tea park), Bhawanipatna (Maa Manikeswari Temple and many other old temples), Jaipatna and Mukhiguda (Indravati dam/lake, Hydroelectricity Power Generator), Gudahandi, Dharamgarh (Bhimkhoj) and Tangri Dangar, Asurgarh, Junagarh.

Dance attraction from Kalahandi district are Ghumra dance, Dalkhai dance, Kandha dance, Parja dance, Badikhel dance, Ushkuusha dance, Singlia dance (Dance with Nishan, a musical instrument), Nat (a musical composition like Gitinatya or theater), Ramlila, Dannat (Tribal musical composition on Krishna-Radha romance in Kalahandia dialect).

Political Affluence
Politically, the district does not have much importance in state or national politics. Mr Vikram Keshari Singdeo, sitting MP(BJP) and third time MP from the district has not yet received any Union Ministry or political post. Mr Bhaktacharan Das, MP during the Chandrasekhar regime (1990-91), was part of the union ministry in the Railway and Sports department. No other MPs in last two decades have made it to any important post of national or state level. Among the MLAs representing the district, two MLAs Mr Bhupinder Singh and Mr Jagannath Pattnaik have been among the senior leaders of. Despite both of them being in an important ministry like Revenue and Tourism, they failed to make it to limelight