Tribal Movements in India

Introduction
 Tribals such as Chuars, Kols, Bhils,
Santals, Oraons, Hoes, Hays,
Manipuris and Garos organised
uprisings against oppression by the
English East India Company and the
British Administration.
Tribe
Meaning:
 a group of people of the same
race, and with the same customs,
language, religion, etc. living in a
particular area and often led by a
chief.
 Uprisings of Tribals

 Numerous uprisings of tribals have

taken place beginning with one in Bihar
in 1772, followed by many revolts in
Andhra Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar
Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam,
Mizoram and Nagaland.
 The important tribes involved in revolt in the
nineteenth century were
 Mizos (1810),
 Kols (1795 and 1831),
 Mundas (1889),
 Daflas (1875),
 Khasi and Garo (1829),
 Kacharis (1839),
 Santhals (1853),
 Muria Gonds (1886),
 Nagas (1844 and 1879),
 Bhuiyas (1868) and
 Kondhas (1817)
Scholars worked on Tribal Studies
 Some scholars like
 A.R. Desai (1979),
 Kathelen Gough (1974) and
 Ranajit Guha (1983) have treated tribal movements
after independence as peasant movements.
 but K.S. Singh (1985) has criticized such approach
because of the nature of tribals’ social and political
organisation, their relative social isolation from
the mainstream, their leadership pattern and the
modus operandi of their political mobilization.
Nature of Revolt
 Tribal's’ community consciousness is
strong.
 Tribal movements were not only
agrarian but also forest based.
 Some revolts were ethnic in nature as
these were directed against zamindars,
moneylenders and petty government
officials who were not only their
exploiters but aliens too.
Reasons for the revolt
 When tribal's were unable to pay their loan or the
interest thereon, moneylenders and landlords
usurped their lands.
 The tribal's thus became tenants on their own
land and sometimes even bonded laborers.
 The police and the revenue officers never helped
them.
 On the contrary, they also used the tribal's for
personal and government work without any
payment.
 The courts were not only ignorant of the
tribal agrarian system and customs but also
were unaware of the plight of the tribal's.
 All these factors of land alienation,
usurpation, forced labor, minimum wages,
and land grabbing compelled many tribes
like Munda, Santhals, Kol, Bhils, Warli, etc.,
in many regions like Assam, Orissa,
Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra
Pradesh, Bihar, and Maharashtra to revolt.
 The management of forests also led some tribes to
revolt, as forests in some regions are the main
sources of their livelihood.
 The British government had introduced certain
legislations permitting merchants and contractors
to cut the forests.
 These rules not only deprived the tribal's of
several forest products but also made them
victims of harassment by the forest officials.
 This led tribes in Andhra Pradesh and some other
areas to launch movements.
 How did the tribal groups live?
 Jhum cultivation
 This type of cultivation is usually found in forests
and hilly areas
 Some were hunter’s and gatherer’s
 They hunted deer, pig etc and gathered for their
survival
 Some were herderer’s
 Many tribal's lived by herding and grazing animals
they are nomads
 Problem of British with shifting cultivation
 They wanted shifting cultivators to settle down and
become peasants.
 As people engaged in shifting cultivation move around a
lot, so calculating tax is very hard.
 Settled cultivation in those areas where water was
scarce.
 Jhum cultivators who were forced to take up settled
cultivation suffered, because their fields hardly gave
good yield.
 Facing widespread protests, the British had to
ultimately allow them the right to carry on shifting
cultivation in some parts of the forests.
How did colonial rule affect tribal lives?
 During pre-colonial time tribal chiefs
enjoyed many administrative and
influencing rights.
 but during the colonial period there
was a loss of power for the tribal chiefs
they had to obey.
 British law and the government
restricted the rights of the tribal chiefs.
Forests law and their impact
 The British extended their over all
forests and declared that forests were
state property.
 Some forests were classified as reserve
forests which was used to produce
timber which the British wanted.
 The colonial officials allowed some
land for Jhum cultivation that they
would provide labor for the forests
department for looking after forests.
 Impact
 Many tribal groups reacted against the colonial
forest laws.
 They disobeyed the new rules, continued with the
practices that were declared illegal .
 Such was the revolt of Songram Sangam of 1906 in
Assam.
 Many people for example like moneylenders,
traders for purchasing raw goods and lending
money, these traders made huge profits but only a
meager amount reached the producers.
 The condition of people who went to towns for
work was not also better.
 The Tribal's were paid low wages, and prevent them
from returning home.
 Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
Tribal's rebelled against the forest laws .
 The Kolas rebelled in 1831-32
 Santhal rose in revolt in 1855
 The Bastar Rebellion in central India broke out in
1910 .
 Warli revolt in Maharashtra on 1940
After independence, the tribal movements may be
classified into three groups:
1. Movements due to exploitation by
outsiders (like those of the Santhals and
Mundas),
2. Movements due to economic
deprivation (like those of the Gonds in
Madhya Pradesh and the Mahars in
Andhra Pradesh), and
3. Movements due to separatist tendencies
(like those of the Nagas and Mizos).
 The tribal movements may also be classified on the
basis of their orientation into four types:

1. Movements seeking political autonomy and

formation of a state (Nagas, Mizos, Jharkhand),
2. Agrarian movements,
3. Forest based movements, and
4. Socio-religious or socio-cultural movements (the
Bhagat movement among Bhils of Rajasthan and
Madhya Pradesh, movement among tribal's of south
Gujarat or Raghunath Murmu’s movement among
the Santhals).
S.M. Dubey (1982) has classified them in four
categories:

 (a) Religious and social reform

movements
 (b) Movements for separate
statehood
 (c) Insurgent movements and
 (d) Cultural rights movements.
Tribal Revolts
 Chuar revolt
 Khol revolt
 Santhol revolt
 Khond Revolt and
 Manipuri, Khasia and Garo uprisings
in the north-east after 1826
 Sanyasi
 Rampa revolt
 Birsa Munda revolt
Santhal Revolt
(1855 – 1856)
 The Santhal Revolt (1855-56)
 The Santhals were a hardworking, peace-loving and
simple folk, living mainly off agriculture in the
dense forests of Bankura, Midnapur, Birbhum,
Manbhum, Chota Nagpur and Palamou.
 The Permanent Settlement brought these lands
under Company’s revenue control.
 The Santhals fled oppressive zamindars and
Company staff and settled down in the hill tracts of
Rajmahal and clearings in Murshidabad forests.
 They started farming here as well, calling it Damin-
i-Koh.
 But here too their oppressors followed them and
exploitation started in full swing.
 Local moneylenders cheated them with high
interest rates of 50% to 500%.
 The simple-minded Santhals reeled under loans
and often had to lose everything, even themselves,
if loans were not paid back.
 Shopkeepers gave them short weight.
 British soldiers and employees forcibly took away
their livestock; even the women were not spared.
 Course
 Two brothers ,Sidhu and Kanhu, rose against these
dreadful activities.
 On 30 June 1855, 10,000 Santhals assembled at the
Bhagnadihi fields and pledged to establish a free
Santhal state.
 Common people like blacksmiths, potters, carpenters
and weavers supported them.
 Other leaders were brothers Chand and Bhairav, Bir
Singh and Pramanik.
 The rebels’ ranks swelled and they numbered nearly
50,000.
 Postal and rail services were thoroughly disrupted.
 The rebels targeted railway stations, post offices,
police stations, European bungalows and zamindars’
houses.
 They bravely fought with only bows and arrows with
the armed British soldiers and nearly brought British
rule down from Bhagalpur to Munghyr.
 Trouble spread to Birbhum and Murshidabad as well.
 Several British armies were dispatched to quell the
rebellion.
Result
 At last in February 1856 the uprising was
suppressed and 23,000 rebels were slaughtered.
 Sidhu, Kanhu and other leaders were hanged,
prisoners got jail terms of 7 to 14 years and 36
Santal villages were destroyed.
 The Santhal Revolt was essentially a peasant
revolt.
 People from all professions and communities
such as potters, blacksmiths, weavers, leather
workers and doms joined in.
 It was distinctly anti-British in nature.
Birsa Munda Uprising
(1895 - 1900)
Birsa Munda Uprising
 In 1895 Birsa, a tribe urged his followers to
recover the past glory, a golden age were the
tribals held their heads high.
 He talked of a golden past were Mundas led a
good life, constructed embankments, tapped
natural springs, planted trees and orchards,
practiced cultivation to earn their living.
 As the movement spread the British officials
decided to act.
 They arrested Birsa in 1895, convicted him on
charges of rioting and jailed him for 2 years.
 When Birsa was released in 1897, he began to
gather support against the British by using
traditional methods.
 They attacked police stations and churches, and
raided the property of moneylenders and
zamindars.
 They raised the white flag as a symbol of Birsa Raj.
 In 1900 Birsa Munda died of cholera and the
movement faded out.
Significance of the movement of Birsa Munda

 It showed that the Tribals could protest

against injustice and express their
dissatisfaction over the colonial rule

 It introduced laws so that the govt. could

not take away the land of the tribals