The Paika Rebellion, also called the Paika Bidroha, was an armed rebellion against the British East India Company’s rule in Odisha in 1817. The Paikas rose in rebellion under their leader Bakshi Jagabandhu and, projecting Jagannath as the symbol of Odia unity, the rebellion quickly spread across most of Odisha before being ruthlessly put down by the company’s forces.
They attacked British symbols of power, setting ablaze police stations, administrative offices and the treasury during their march towards Khurda, from where the British fled.
They were supported by the zamindars, village heads and ordinary peasants.
It is the first war of independence that started in 1817 much before the Sepoy mutiny of 1857.

The Paika rebellion had several social, economic and political reasons. The Paikas were alienated by the British regime, who took over the hereditary rent-free lands granted to them after the conquest of Khurda. They were also subjected to extortion and oppression at the hands of the company government and its servants. The extortionist land revenue policy of the company affected the peasants and the zamindars alike. A source of much consternation for the common people was the rise in prices of salt due to taxes imposed on it by the new government. The British authority deprived the zamindars and the local people of coastal region of their traditional rights to manufacture salt.
The British changed the currency system from cowrie to rupee. The villagers faced a lot of problems in handling the new currency and they were grossly exploited by the local mahajanas.

Annexation in the absence of a natural or adopted heir was enforced in the cases of Satara (1848), Jaitpur and Sambalpur (1849), Baghat (1850), Chota Udaipur (1852), Jhansi (1853), and Nagpur (1854).

The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) was an important peasant movement formed by Sahajanand Saraswati at the Lucknow session of the Indian National Congress (INC) in 1936. Swami Sahajanand, was elected the President, and N.G. Ranga, the pioneer of the kisan movement in Andhra and a renowned scholar of the agrarian problem, the General Secretary.

Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood in protest. Gandhi gave up the title of Kaiser-i-Hind, bestowed by the British for his work during the Boer War.
The massacre at Jallianwalla Bagh shocked Indians and many British as well. Congress boycotted this committee.
The Hunter Committee did not impose any penal or disciplinary action because Dyer’s actions were condoned by various superiors.
After the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the Chief Khalsa Diwan and other official priests of the Golden Temple at Amritsar had honoured General Dyer with a Saropa (robe of honour).