Laxman Nayak, born on 22 November, 1899, was a tribal civil rights activist of South Odisha in eastern India. He belonged to Bhuyan tribe of Odisha. He was born in Tentuliguma village of the Koraput district and his father Padlam Nayak was a tribal chiefand ‘Mustadaar’ under ‘JeyporeSamasthanam’ in the then Madras Presidency.

The local administration worked as a subsidiary of the British Government. The tribals under their administration were treated badly by revenue officials, forest guides and police constables, and were subjected to torture. Nayak organized the rebels successfully against exploitation by the officials of JeyporeSamasthanam. This brought him recognition as a potential tribal leader and the National Congress admitted Nayak into its fold.

His training inculcated in him a spirit for Nationalism and indoctrinated him with the Gandhian principles of truth, nonviolence and peaceful non-cooperation with the British Government. He carried a charkha, with the message of adult education and abstinence from alcohol to every tribal household of his area and brought about a total change in the rural scenario. He became the leader of mission in the Congress campaign in the Koraput Sub-division during the first ever election in 1936.

Responding to the call of Mahatma Gandhi, Nayak led a procession on 21 August, 1942 and demonstrated peacefully in front of Mathili Police Station. The police however fired at the demonstrators indiscriminately, which killed forty and injured more than two hundred people. The administration implicated Nayak in a case of murder and the death sentence was pronounced on him on 13 November, 1942. He was hanged on 29 March, 1943 in Berhampur Jail.