The Samadhi site of saint-poet Bhima Bhoi at Khaliapali, a small village in Subarnapur district, located at about 20 km from the district headquarters was in a bad shape. Bhima Bhoi had set up an Ashram there for propagation of the Mahima cult and composed most of his Bhajans and the wdely acclaimed Smruti Chintamani there. The upper caste people were averse to the activities of the saint-poet. The Government too was callous to look after the renovation of the site after Bhima Bhoi died and his disciples and fans erected his Samadhi there. For long years the place remained neglected with the old monuments in tatters.
However, under the leadership of one laxman Agrawal, some steps were taken to renovate the site. A committee was formed to organise “Maghamela” every year. Former Collector Alekh Chandra Sahu had great respect for the place and visited several times. At his instance, a small rest shed was constructed. He was interested in the development of the place, but could not do much.
In March 1999, I met Sadanand Agrawal and Chhatradhari Agrawal of Sonepur, while I had just started my work as the Project Director of DRDA. I came to know about the great literary activities of Sadanand Agrawal through such meetings. They wanted that I should visit Khaliapali to see the place. Besides briefing me about the Samadhi place of Bhima Bhoi, Sadanandji gave me some literature to read about Mahima Dharma.
My knowledge about the saint poet and his preaching was only limited to an article, which I had read in the school book, years ago. The poet's revolutionary poem had been quoted in some stanzas of that article. The article had no mention about the fact that it was from Khaliapali. Curiously, I went to see the place. I was shocked to see the utter neglect of the place. Everything was mostly in ruins. The main temple resembled like another forgotten monument of Odisha. Stray animals were at ease inside the premises. A big cowshed sheltering hundreds of cows quite close to the main temple did not make the sight pleasing.
The living rooms in mud houses of the saints were too close to the shrine to give any comfort in accessing to the sanctum sanctorum of the temple. However, unlike any other such shrine in ruins, the place was full of life and activities. A group of saint-followers were living there while carrying forward the traditions. The villagers used to gather and join the sadhus to chant bhajans every evening after their working hours. Various events of their lives were linked to the activities and traditions of the shrine. The villagers narrated about the lives, activities and sacrifices of Bhima Bhoi, his family members, his ardent followers like Hari Panda, Basu Panda etc. The place had not lost any importance in the eyes of the people of the area, who had witnessed the rise and fall in the prosperity of the Ashram.
Soon after, I became the Collector of that place and got command over administration and resources. We were thinking about development of the place. Sadanandji was quite full of ideas. He had initiated efforts to register a trust to look after the place in a permanent manner. I suggested keeping the officials of the district administration in the trust for greater interests. Accordingly, a trust deed was registered to make all round development of the place, including the holy Samadhipitha. In the trust, Collector, Sonepur, Sub-Collector, Sonepur and Chief Baba of the Samadhipitha are ex-officio members. Sadanand became its Managing Trustee.
During the time when we were looking for resources, I came to know about the Sonepur Trust Fund. An amount of Rs12,10, 800.00 totally unaccounted for had been deposited in a fixed deposit in the bank, which had also earned an interest of Rs23, 3,782.80 by the date of maturity. As the administrator, Sonepur Trust Funds, I took custody of the entire amount and decided to spend for the improvement of the place, after discussion with the Sub-Collector, Sonepur, who was acting as the Officer-in-Charge of the fund. He was a very dedicated officer and was in total agreement with all my ideas.
I shared the ideas with a number of officials like the Executive Engineer Bishnu Charan Majhi of DRDA, Sanatan Sethi, BDO of Sonepur Block, besides others. Sadanandji and the people at Khaliapali had several reasons to be happy and assured full support to take up the work. We started with a lightning speed as election to the Parliament was to be held very shortly and the model code of conduct would come into effect prohibiting all new works. The funds were placed with Block Development Officer, Sonepur. The Executive Engineer of DRDA and other Engineers of the block worked round the clock. The estimates were prepared to give a different look to the place. The local villagers would execute the work under the Block Agency. We were determined to make things happen. The ideas were to relocate the cowshed to another place, away from the Samadhi place, to construct durable shelter for the Sudhus living there, to provide certain amenities and facilities. Out of the Sonepur Trust Fund, we constructed office-cum-reading room, saint sheds, Sauchalaya (bathing complex), Bhajan Mandap, Gate, Kitchen, Mata Matha etc.
For a comprehensive development, we needed more funds and wanted to pool resources from various schemes to take up a number of development works. I put forth a proposal in the Zilla Parishad to construct a road to the Samadhi place and briefed the members about my ideas to make improvements at Khaliapali keeping in view the importance that the place deserved. An amount of Rs15 lakh was sanctioned under the Rural Connectivity Programme, and a black topped road was made for about 11 km connecting the Samadhipitha to the main road. I sought approval from the Special Relief Commissioner to utilize Rs2.50 lakh out of the unspent amount of the Drought Grant to undertake roadside plantation work for beautification of the avenue.
As we needed more money to complete the buildings inside the Samadhi place, an amount of Rs3.30 lakh was spent out of Employment Assurance Scheme for the purpose of accommodation of saints, guests, library, museum etc. Horticulturist Pradhan wanted some amount to create lawn, garden inside the premise, for which we sanctioned an amount of Rs70,000.
Earlier, Sadanandji had approached the Government for the sanction of funds to undertake repairs to the main temple and construction of a boundary wall. After I followed up, we received a grant of Rs3 lakh from the Culture Department of the State Government for the purpose. To increase production of food grain from the temple land, we dug a bore well under Krishak Kalyan Karyakarm involving a subsidy of Rs27,000. It irrigated about 30 acres of land, and produced enough food grain for the saints living there.The cowshed housing more than 100 cows was shifted to a better and more appropriate location about 1km from the Samadhi place.
Spontaneously, five villagers came forward to donate their land to the Trust. The donation in few months was about 7.53 acres of land. While the boundary wall and gate was under construction, one person namely Bhikari Barik wanted the gate to be constructed over his plot where his house stood. He demolished his shelter and a gate was constructed thereon. The labourers working at the site donated part of their wages to the fund of the Samadhipitha Trust for more improvement. Sadanandji took steps to publish a quarterly magazine titled “Mahima” by the Trust. It was decided to select one person every year for conferment of Bhima Bhoi Samman, who should have contributed to the mankind as per the preaching and ideals of Bhima Bhoi. Since then, the magazine is being published.
With the efforts of Sadanand and his team, mobile health camp, legal awareness camps were successfully conducted. Most of the works were completed within few months with the active involvement of officials and the local people, who volunteered wholeheartedly. The result was that the place wore a completely new look by the time of Maghamela during the year 2000, which attracted more than 10,000 people, exceeding the figures of previous years. More number of visitors even from faraway places started coming to Khaliapali to have glimpses of the place and seeking the blessings of the Samadhipitha. Every evening, hundreds of villagers gathered around the Sadhus to listen to their soul-searching bhajans at the Bhajan Mandap.
As it stands today, the place has become an important destination for the purpose of tourism and pilgrimage in western Odisha.
(The writer is Chief of Census Operations, Secretary of Fisheries and ATD Department and ex-Collector of Subarnapur)