The Sunset Law

The infamous “Sunset Law” ushered in the NAA’NKA Durvikhya of 1866 in Odisha.

  In 1803 British occupied Orissa & its capital changed from Cuttack to Calcutta. Accordingly the court language changed from urdu to english. The actual control went to the middle men- the english educated bengali bhadralok.

   British were interested only in revenue. As per the ‘Sunset Law’ all defaulting Zamindaris were auctioned before the Sunset in Kolkata without any information to the owner. The Odia landowner was not aware that his land was being auctioned in Kolkata. This was a windfall for the bengali civil servants who were in the most convenient position to usurp them at throw away price.

   This led to rise of a new breed of bengali Zamindars in Odisha. These Bengali Zamindars who have usurped these land by the despicable ‘Sunset Rule’ stayed in Kolkata, didn’t ever looked after their tenant farmers. Their only aim was to collect as much tax as possible through their managers and spend lavishly. The magnificent Kothis and Lavish Jalsaghars in Calcutta were funded by the farmers of Odisha. This broke down the Odia upper middle class & led to the Na’ank Durvikhya of 1866 .(the great famine which killed 10 lakh heads) .

   3 generations of ‘Tagore’s wrote & painted their masterpieces with the blood & sweat of farmers of Kendrapara where their tenants were dying in starvation.

In such a time ‘The Orissa Tenancy bill, 1911’ was moved in the undivided Bengal legislative assembly.

  This bill had the infamous clause-13 that states that “every transfer, by sale or gift shall be invalid unless made with the consent of the landlord”. So the poor Odia Farmer in need cannot even sell his own land without running to Kolkata. The ultimate sufferer was Odisha agriculture.
Madhusudan was 18 years old in 1866 and was victim of such an apathy. He belonged to such a ruined odia landed family because of the Kolkata controlled landlord system.

Later on when he rose to be the member of legislative Assembly of undivided Bengal he fought tooth & nail against the infamous Orissa Tenancy bill.

   The then Viceroy lord Hardinge writes, “In 4 days time Orissa is going to be separated from Bengal. This bill seems to be rushed through the assembly by bengali landowners who have considerable interest in it.”

Notwithstanding, the consistent opposition of Madhusudan, the Bill was rushed through the Bengal Council in a great hurry under the direct pressure and manipulation of the big landlords of Bengal, who possessed vast amount of landed estates in Orissa.

The Bill was finally passed in the year 1913.
This ruined the agriculture in Odisha and put the state half a century behind their neighbors.