SALUR TALUK.
Lies next west of Bobbili, under the 3,000 feet plateau, the slopes of which, up to the main crest, belong to it but are included in the Agency. In the plains, four-fifths of the people are Telugus, but in the Agency nearly two-thirds of them are Játapus, Konda Doras and the more civilized classes of Khonds, amongst whom are a considerable sprinkling of Gadabas, who often occupy whole hamlets by themselves.
Korravanivalasa, an insignificant hamlet under the hills near Páchipenta, was the scene, in May 1900, of a riot attended with unusual and interesting circumstances. A Konda Dora of this place named Korra Mallayya pretended that he was inspired; and gradually gathered round him a camp of four or five thousand people, mostly hill men, from various parts of the Agency.
At first his proceedings were harmless enough, but in April he gave out that he was a re-incarnation of one of the five Pándava brothers; that his infant son was the god Krishna; that he would drive out the English and rule the country himself; and that to effect this he would arm his followers with bamboos which should be turned by magic into guns and would change the weapons of the authorities into water. Bamboos were cut and rudely fashioned to resemble guns, and armed with these the camp was drilled by 'the svámi,' as Mallayya had come to be called. The assembly next sent word that they were going to loot Páchipenta, and when, on the 1st May, two constables came to see how matters stood, the fanatics fell upon them and beat them to death. The local police endeavoured to recover the bodies, but owing to the threatening attitude of the svámi's followers had to abandon the attempt.
The District Magistrate then went to the place in person, collected reserve police from Vizagapatam, Párvatípur and Jeypore, and at dawn on the 7th May rushed the camp to arrest the svámi and the other leaders of the movement. The police were resisted by the mob and obliged to fire. Eleven of the rioters were killed, others wounded or arrested and the rest dispersed. Sixty of them were tried for rioting (of whom 57 were convicted) and three, including the svámi, for murdering the constables. Of the latter, the svámi died in jail and the other two were convicted and hanged. The svámi's infant son, the god Krishna, also died and all trouble ended at once and completely. Its odd mixture of religious enthusiasm, desire for loot and political aspiration differentiate this fitúri from most of its predecessors.
Páchipenta : Seven miles west by south of Salur, picturesquely situated on a slight eminence close under the hills; population 5,381. It is the chief village of the ancient zamindari of the same name which is scheduled in Act II of 1904 as inalienable and impartible and includes a considerable area on the hills which is often called 'Hill Páchipenta.'
Tradition says that Tamanna Dora, the first of the zamindar's family, was a naik of peons under Jeypore who held the fort of Téda (or Tyáda) on the plateau, and that he was appointed by Visvambara Deo I of Jeypore (1672-76) to guard the track which in days gone by led up from Páchipenta to the 3,000 feet plateau and the Jeypore country, and was given the title of Dakshina Kaváta Yuvarázu or 'lord of the southern portal.' Mr. Carmichael states that in 1754 when (see p. 31) Jafar Ali, Faujdar of Chicacole, called in the Maráthas to aid him against the Rája of Vizianagram and the French, the then Páchipenta zamindar Vírappa Rázu (who, according to Orme, had been dispossessed by Vizianagram) showed the Maráthas the way across the hills and down the Páchipenta track and was afterwards in consequence imprisoned for life in the Vizianagram fort. At his death in 1789 a small maintenance was allowed his son Mallappa Rázu, and this man was restored to the estate after the death of the Rája of Vizianagram (p. 53) in 1794.
He died in 1797 and the permanent settlement was made with his only son Annam Rázu, who was followed by a son Mallappa, who was succeeded in his turn by his son Annam Rázu in 1846. Owing largely to numerous alienations made by Mallappa Rázu, the estate was then heavily involved and it has ever since continued to be one of the most bankrupt and mismanaged properties in the district. In 1855, Mr. Smollett, the Agent, borrowed Rs. 11,500 from Vizianagram to clear off the estate's debts, and took the property under management for five years on his own authority until the money was repaid. It was then found that while the demand of the estate was only Rs. 6,000, land assessed at more than Rs. 10,000 had been granted away to relations and other mokhásadárs. For arrears of peshkash in 1866 and 1867 Karrivalasa and Tótavalasa (now separate estates) were sold and bought by the zamindar's brother-in-law Basava Manga Rázu. The former was sold by him, it may here be noted, in 1874 to Kákarlapudi Nílayamma, who afterwards disposed of it to its present owners, the Vizianagram family. The latter was given by him to his daughter, the mother of the present zamindar, as her dowry, and is still in her enjoyment.
In the next two years further arrears accrued, but the Collector found that they were being purposely permitted so that the property might be bought up in small bits by the relations of the zamindar's second (and favourite) wife to the detriment of his heir Jagannátha Mallappa Rázu, a son by the first wife whom he bitterly disliked. In 1869, therefore, the estate was again taken under management for five years. In 1875 Kotikapenta, which had been sold by the courts 1[1] and bought by Kákarlapudi Nílayamma, was registered as a separate estate. It also was afterwards purchased by the Mahárája of Vizianagram. In 1879 Dattivalasa and Márlavalasa were similarly sold 2[2] to the same lady and eventually bought from her by the Mahárája.
In 1880 the zamindar Annam Rázu died and was succeeded by Pedda Mallappa, the elder son of his second wife, who died in June 19U6 and was followed by his eldest son Lakshmi Narasimha Rúpa. The property was again in arrears and was again attached. The new incumbent was urged to enquire into the extravagant alienations made by his predecessors and to put the estate on a sound footing by resuming as many as possible, but instead of doing so he took to raising money by alienating afresh a number of villages which had already been parted with, and thus leaving the ryots at the mercy of two or more claimants to their assessments. The lawless oppression of these mokhásadars has necessitated on more than one occasion the intervention of the authorities; vetti, or forced labour, is still commonly exacted; and recently the zamindar attempted arbitrarily to double his assessments, with the result that a number of the ryots emigrated to the Nandapuram country of the Jeypore estate.
In 1905 the zamindar asked Government to treat him as an incapacitated proprietor and take the estate under their management, but the insolvent state of the property rendered this step inadvisable. The Mahárája of Bobbili holds a decree for some 3¼ lakhs against the property and the civil courts have ordered its sale. Four villages, including the head-quarters Páchipenta, have already been sold and bought by the zamindar of Tuni, and others must also be brought to the hammer at an early date.
Sálúr, the head-quarters of the taluk, is a union of 16,239 inhabitants situated 570 feet above the sea on the bank of the Végavati, five miles from the foot of the Pottangi ghát. It contains a station of the Schleswig-Holstein Lutheran Mission and its travellers' bungalow is picturesquely placed on high ground overlooking a winding reach of the river. Before the Pottangi ghát was begun, Sálúr was a small place, but, as soon as traffic began to come down from the hills by that route, its situation raised it into importance as a trade mart, and when, in 1884, the ghát was improved into a cart-road the place very rapidly expanded from a village to a busy town. Unluckily, the site is cramped and shut in by the river, a big tank and wet fields: the soil is soft and dries slowly; no one supervised the sudden growth of the place; the new houses were run up anyhow and anywhere on no plan and with narrow, crooked lanes between them; and Sálúr is now so notorious for its dirt and general unloveliness that men say its name must surely be derived from the French sole.
The importance of its trade, however, is undeniable. It has a very big weekly market; is the timber-yard of the Agency adjoining, the Pottangi ghát being the only outlet for that commodity; and also deals largely in all kinds of produce from the hills (such as niger and gingelly seed, mustard, myrabolams, rice and ragi); exports thither salt, tobacco, kerosine, beads and other jewellery, and cloths; and collects, for transmission to Bimlipatam, the jute and castor crop of the adjoining villages of the low country. The merchants of the place keep up, at an annual cost of Rs. 800, a flourishing Véda school maintained from the proceeds of self-imposed fees levied on all their purchases.
The town is the head-quarters of the inalienable and impartible ancient zamindari of the same name, the proprietor of which resides in a house built within an old mud fort which is as little dilapidated as any in the district. According to tradition, the estate was originally granted by the Visvambara Deo of Jeypore already several times mentioned to a chief on whom he conferred the lofty title of Boliyaro Simho, or 'mighty lion.' Like its fellows, it was eventually absorbed by Vizianagram. Mr. Carmichael says that when the English first obtained the country, the then zamindar, Sanyási Razu, headed a revolt against Vizianagram and in consequence lost the hunda of Makkuva. On his death in 1774 the Vizianagram Rája confiscated the whole of his estate, imprisoned his three sons in the fort of Dévapalli near Gajapatinagaram, but released them on a small allowance in 1793.
After the fight at Padmanábham (p. 53) the estate was handed over by the Collector to Rámachandra Rázu, Sanyási Rázu's eldest son, who died in 1801, and with whose son, another Sanyási Rázu, the permanent settlement was effected in 1803. This man died in 1830, and was succeeded in turn by his son Náráyana Rámachandra Rázu; by the latter's minor son, Sanyási Rázu (who was a ward of court until 1855) in 1846; and by this man's son (another Náráyana Rámachandra) in 1869.
Náráyana Rámachandra was a minor, and the Court of Wards managed the estate until he came of age in 1879. He was a weak individual who was totally incapable of restraining the extravagance and mismanagement of his mother, and at the end of three years he was 2½ lakhs in debt and earnestly begged Government to take over the management of the estate and get it and him out of their embarrassments. Government accordingly assumed charge at the end of 1882, but by April 1883 the zamindar had changed his mind and wanted his estate back again. It was restored accordingly. He died of leprosy on the 8th September 1894, and as his heir Sanyási Rázu, the present proprietor, was a minor, the estate once more came under the Court of Wards. It was over seven lakhs in debt, of which 5½ lakhs were due to the Mahárája of Bobbili, who had a mortgage on almost half the property. To help clear off this, Peddapenki and nine other villages were sold to Bobbili in 1897 and now form a separately-registered estate. Other subsequent alienations included the sale by public auction in the same year of Mukavalasa; the subdivision of Bhúdévipéta in 1899; the grant of Kásidhoravalasa in 1900; and the registry of Gangachollapenta and three other villages in the name of the zamindar's grand-mother. These four also now form separate estates. The zamindari was handed back to its owner on 22nd May 1906 on his attaining his majority, and by that time all but Rs. 25,000 of the debt had been cleared off.