Pravir Chandra Bhanj Deo, King of Bastar (''Pravir Chandra Bhanj Dev'' 25 June 1929 – 25 March 1966) was the 20th Maharaja of

Bastar State Bastar state was a princely state in India during the British Raj. It was founded in the early 14th century by Annamaraja, a brother of the last ruler of the Kakatiya dynasty, Prataparudra II. It is today used to refer the same region, called Ba ...

Bastar (state) - History and Genealogy
'' Queensland University''.Bastar - History

The Imperial Gazetteer of India ''The Imperial Gazetteer of India'' was a gazetteer of the British Indian Empire, and is now a historical reference work. It was first published in 1881. Sir William Wilson Hunter made the original plans of the book, starting in 1869.< ...

, 1908. v. 7, p. 122. who was shot in 1966 after a long career championing the rights of his subjects and in particular those of tribal peoples. He represented the Jagdalpur Assembly constituency in the undivided

Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly The Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha or the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly is the unicameral state legislature of Madhya Pradesh state in India. The seat of the Vidhan Sabha is at Bhopal, the capital of the state. It is housed in the ''Vidhan ...

following the general election of 1957. He was the last ruler of Bastar state, which was established by a branch of the Kakatiya dynasty. The Bastar region was part of greater Kalinga kingdom and an extension of Trikalinga. The Kakatiya dynasty adopted the "Dev" or "Deo" surname in line with other feudal kings of Odisha under the Gajapati Kingdom in the medieval period. Pravir was born on 25 June 1929 and was educated at

Rajkumar College, Raipur Rajkumar College (or RKC) in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, is one of the oldest K-12 foundations of India. It was founded by Sir Andrew Fraser in the year 1882 at Jabalpur. The School functioned at Jabalpur till 1892 and thereafter, shifted to its presen ...

. He succeeded to the throne on 28 October 1936. He was married to Rajkumari Shubhraj Kumari of

Patan, Rajasthan Patan is a city in the Indian state of Rajasthan. In the 12th century, it became the centre of a minor state called Tanwarawati or Torawati, ruled by a Tomar family. Battle of Patan In the eighteenth century the great Maratha warrior Alijah ...

, daughter of Raj Rishi Rao Saheb Udaya Singhji and Rani Trilokya Raj Lakshmi of Patan, on 4 July 1961. He was immensely popular among his people, as he took up the cause of the local tribal people, and provided political leadership against exploitation of natural resources of the region and corruption in land reforms. On 25 March 1966 he was killed, along with many of his tribal followers, when

police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...

opened fire on the King and a group of supporters at his palace in

Jagdalpur Jagdalpur is a city in Bastar district in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh. Jagdalpur is the administrative headquarters of Bastar District and Bastar Division. It was earlier the capital of the former princely state of Bastar. It is the fo ...

.''The Indian Princes and Their States'', by Barbara N. Ramusack. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2004. . ''Page 210''.A king mulls over two strategies
The Hindu, 25 April 2013. (Story about Pravir Chandra's great-nephew.) The official death toll was twelve, including the king, with twenty wounded; the police had fired sixty one rounds. The district magistrate was reported as stating that Pravir Chandra was leading armed

adivasi The Adivasi refers to inhabitants of Indian subcontinent, generally tribal people. The term is a Sanskrit word coined in the 1930s by political activists to give the tribal people an indigenous identity by claiming an indigenous origin. The term ...

s against the police, who fired in self-defence.

References

1929 births 1966 deaths People from Chhattisgarh Assassinated royalty Political repression in India Assassinated Indian people People murdered in Chhattisgarh People shot dead by law enforcement officers in India People from Jagdalpur Place of birth missing 1966 murders in India {{India-royal-stub

See also

References