Person · Chauhan rebel leader
Veer Surendra Sai
Also known as Surendra Sai
Veer Surendra Sai (23 January 1809 - 28 February 1884), the Chauhan Rajput rebel who led the 1827-1864 Sambalpur rebellion against the British East India Company's annexation of the Sambalpur state in western Odisha. His 1857 uprising at Sambalpur Jail (where he had been imprisoned since 1840 for the earlier uprising) coincided with the broader 1857 Indian Rebellion. He led a seven-year guerilla campaign across the Sambalpur-Bargarh forests after escaping jail, before his final capture in 1864. He died at Asirgarh Fort imprisonment on 28 February 1884 after a 44-year imprisonment total. The 2017 Sambalpur Veer Surendra Sai University (renamed from VSSUT) and the 2017 Odisha Paika Rebellion bicentennial honoured his legacy.
- Date
- 1809–1884
- Function
- Social reform & movement
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Connections (1)
- Court associationBuxi Jagabandhu Bidyadhar
Veer Surendra Sai's 1827-1864 Sambalpur rebellion extended the earlier 1817 Paika Rebellion of Buxi Jagabandhu into the Sambalpur-Bargarh western Odisha region. Both leaders led chiefly-tribal armed resistance against the British East India Company's annexation of their traditional feudatory estates, with Surendra Sai's 44-year imprisonment-and-resistance campaign making him Odisha's longest-serving political prisoner.
Sources
Standard biography; regional historiography.
Open Veer Surendra Sai in the repository →