Kasti Dakua was born in a Kandh tribe family in village Kusubida in Nayagarh in 1912. As he was born in a poor family he earned his livelihood by working as a daily labourer and selling forestry products.
In 1942 when the Quit India movement was gaining momentum, the peoples’ protest movement in many princely states in Odisha was also rising in vigour. In Nayagarh this movement was led by Sridhar Das and Ramachandra Mohanty. On 17 August 1942, the agitated people plundered the house of an exploitative money lender Bhagaban Chaudhury in Odagaon. Police, therefore, unleashed a reign of terror in that village by oppressing many households and molesting women. When this was protested by Bhubaneswar Rajguru, an eighty-year-old man he was also severely beaten by the police. Being infuriated by this incident, the people raided a guest house of the king in Barkola and burnt the firearms stocked by the police there. Thereafter they raided the Nuagaon police station under the leadership of Kasti Dakua whose main target was Benudhar Pattnaik, the sub inspector. When they were entering the police station on 10 October 1942, the police fired at them and shot Kasti Dakua dead. The death of Kasti however, intensified people’s fury more which when reached an uncontrollable point forced the Raja to negotiate with them. Thus the sacrifice of Kasti yielded some relief to the people.