TRIBAL INSURGENCY IN COLONIAL CENTRAL INDIA (1774-1930)

BY LALITA MATHUR (PROFESSOR, DEPT. OF HISTORY) SAROJINI NAIDU GOVT. GIRLS PG (AUTONOMOUS) COLLEGE, BHOPAL.

Our understanding of tribal insurgency in colonial India remains trapped between colonial historiography, from the standpoint of which tribal insurrections were violent infractions of public peace, mere law and order problems, and nationalist historiography, which is inclined to view them as lesser developed manifestations of nationalist and socialist sentiments. How then should tribal insurgency be analysed and represented? Tribal uprisings in colonial India are as old as colonialism itself. The phenomenon developed with the establishment of British rule in India in the mid-eighteenth century, and ended only when independence had been achieved. Historians have only broadly analysed non-tribal uprisings, but have, by and large, ignored the rebellions of these forest people, particularly in Central India i.e. present day Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. This paper attempts to study the tribal mood, to critically analyse the goals, ideology and methods of organization, the types of movements, their strategies, repercussions and the significance of these rebellions in Central India. The British were primarily concerned with preventing their newly acquired dominions from disintegrating like the moribund empire of the Mughals under the impact of tribal insurgency. Tribal disturbances in many forms, and on scales ranging from local riots to warlike campaigns spread over many districts, were endemic throughout British

2 rule in India. My effort is to analyse these revolts in their historical perspective. My hypothesis is that tribal insurgency was the necessary antithesis to colonialism. The establishment of British power in India was a prolonged process of piecemeal conquest and consolidation, and the colonialisation of the economy and society. This process produced discontent, resentment and resistance at every stage. This popular resistance took three broad forms: civil rebellions, tribal uprisings and peasant movements. The series of civil rebellions which run like a thread through the first hundred years of British rule, were often led by deposed rajas, nawabs or their descendents, uprooted zamindars and landlords, and ex-retainers and officials of the conquered Indian states. The backbone of the rebellions, their mass base and striking power came from the rack-rented peasants, ruined artisans and demobilized soldiers. These sudden, localized revolts often took place because of local grievances, although for short periods they acquired a broad sweep, involving armed bands of a few hundreds to several thousands. The major cause of all these rebellions taken as a whole was the rapid changes introduced by the British in the economy, administration and land revenue system. These changes led to the disruption of the agrarian society, causing prolonged and widespread suffering among its constituents. Above all, the colonial policy of intensifying demands for land revenue and extracting as large an amount as possible produced a veritable upheaval in Indian villages. To aggravate the unhappiness of the farmers was the fact that not even a part of the enhanced revenue was spent on the development of agriculture or the welfare of the cultivator. Thousands of zamindars lost control over their land and its revenue either due to the extinction of their rights by the colonial state or because of the forced sale of their rights over land because of their inability to meet the exorbitant land revenue demanded. The proud zamindars resented this even more when they were displaced by rank outsiders government officials, merchants and moneylenders. Thus they, as also the old chiefs who had lost their principalities, had personal scores to settle with their new rulers. Peasants and artisans had their own reasons to rise up in arms and side with the traditional elite. Increasing demands for land revenue were forcing a large number of peasants into indebtedness or into selling their lands. The new landlords, bereft of any

3 paternalism towards their tenants, pushed up rents to ruinous heights and evicted them incase of non-payment. The economic decline of the peasantry is reflected in the numerous famines that took place between 1770 and 1857. The new courts and legal system gave a further fillip to the dispossessors of the land and encouraged the rich to oppress the poor. Flogging, torture and jailing of the cultivators for arrears of rent or land revenue or interest on debt were quite common. The common people were also hard hit by the prevalence of corruption at the lower levels of the police, judiciary and general administration. The petty officials enriched themselves freely at the cost of the poor. The police looted, oppressed and tortured common people at will. William Edwards, a British official, wrote in 1859 that the police were a scourge to the people, and that their oppressions and exactions form one of the chief grounds of dissatisfaction with our government. Another major cause of the rebellions was the very foreign character of British rule. Like any other people, the Indian people too felt humiliated at being ruled by foreigners. This feeling of hurt pride inspired efforts to expel the foreigner from their lands. The rebellions began as British rule was established in Bengal and Bihar, and they occurred in area after area as it was incorporated into colonial rule. There was hardly a year without armed rebellion in one part of the country or other. Prominent among them were the Bhil uprisings of 1818-1831. These almost continuous rebellions were massive in their totality, but were wholly local in their spread, and isolated from each other. They were the result of local grievances, and were also localised in their effects. They often bore the same character, not because they represented common national or common efforts, but because they represented common conditions, though separated in time and space. Socially, economically and politically, the semi-feudal leaders of these rebellions were backward looking and traditional in their outlook. They still lived in the old world, blissfully unaware and oblivious of the modern world which had knocked down the defences of their society. Their resistance offered no societal alternative. It was centuries old in form, ideological and cultural content. Its basic objective was to restore earlier forms of rule and social relations. Such backward looking, scattered, sporadic and disunited uprisings were incapable of overthrowing foreign rule. The British succeeded in

4 pacifying the rebel areas one by one. They also gave concessions to the less fiery rebel chiefs and zamindars in the form of assessments so long as they agreed to live peacefully under alien authority. The more recalcitrant ones were wiped out. The suppression of these rebellions was a major reason why the Revolt of 1857 did not spread to the south and most of western and eastern India. The historical significance of these uprisings lies in the fact that they established strong and valuable traditions of resistance to British rule. The Indian people were to draw inspiration from these traditions in the later nationalist struggle for freedom. The tribal uprisings were marked by immense courage and sacrifice on their part, and brutal suppression on the part of the rulers. The tribals had cause to be upset for a variety of reasons. The colonial administration ended their relative isolation and brought them fully within the ambit of colonialism. It recognized the tribal chiefs as zamindars and introduced a new system of land revenue and taxation of tribal products. It encouraged the influx of missionaries into tribal areas. Above all, it introduced a large number of moneylenders, traders and revenue farmers as middlemen among the tribals. The middlemen were the chief instruments for bringing the tribal people within the vortex of colonial economy and exploitation. The middlemen were outsiders who took possession of tribal lands and ensnared the tribals in a web of debt. In course of time, the tribals lost their lands and were reduced to the position of agricultural labourers, share-croppers and rack-rented tenants on the land they had earlier brought under cultivation and held on a communal basis. Colonialism transformed their relationship with the forest. They had depended on the forest for food, fuel and cattle-feed. They practiced shifting cultivation, taking recourse to fresh forest lands when their existing lands showed signs of exhaustion. The colonial government changed all this. They usurped the forest lands and placed restrictions on access to forest products, forest lands and village common lands. It refused to let cultivation shift to new areas. Oppression and extortion by policemen and other petty officials further aggravated distress among the tribals. The revenue farmers and government agents also intensified and expanded the system of begar making the tribals perform unpaid labour. All this differed from region to region, but the complete disruption of the old agrarian

5 order of the tribal communities provided the common factor for all tribal uprisings. These uprisings were broad based, often involving the entire population of a region. The colonial intrusion of the triumvirate of trader, moneylender and revenue farmer disrupted the tribal identity to a lesser or greater degree. In fact ethnic ties were a basic feature of the tribal rebellions. The tribals saw themselves not as a distinct class but as having a tribal identity. At this level the solidarity shown was of a very high order. Fellow tribals were never attacked unless they had collaborated with the enemy. At the same time, not all outsiders were attacked as enemies. Often there was no violence against the non-tribal poor who worked in tribal villages or who had social relations with the tribals, such as telis, gwalas, carpenters, potters, weavers, washermen, barbers, drummers, bonded labourers and domestic servants of outsiders. They were not only spared, but seen as allies. In many cases the rural poor formed a part of the rebellious tribal bands. The rebellions often began at a point where the tribals felt so oppressed that they felt they had no alternative but to fight. This often took the form of spontaneous attacks on outsiders, looting their property and expelling them from their villages. This led to clashes with the colonial authorities. When this happened, the tribals began to move towards armed resistance and elementary organization. Often, religious and charismatic leaders messiahs emerged at this stage and promised divine intervention and an end to their suffering at the hands of outsiders, and asked their fellow tribals to rise and rebel against foreign authority. Most of these leaders claimed to derive their authority from God. They also often claimed to have magical powers, for example, the power to make bullets ineffective. Filled with hope and confidence, the tribal masses tended to follow these leaders to the very end. The warfare between the tribal chiefs and the British armed forces was totally unequal. On one side were drilled regiments armed with the latest weapons, and on the other were men and women in roving bands, armed with primitive weapons such as stones, axes, spears, bows and arrows, believing in the magical powers of their commanders, The tribals died in lakhs in this unequal warfare, but they, nonetheless, carried on their war against those who were trying to interfere with their culture, traditions and freedom.

6 The major revolts that took place in the colonial Central India between the eighteenth and twentieth century were as follows: 1. The Halba , Bhopalpatnam and Paralkote Revolts , which occurred between 1774 and 1825. 2. The Tarapur Rebellion (1842-1854) 3. The Maria Rebellion( 1842-1863) 4. The Koi Revolt ( 1859) 5. The Muria Rebellion ( 1876) 6. The Ranis Rebellion (1878-1882) 7. The Bhumkal in Bastar ( 1910) 8. The Forest Satyagraha in the Central Provinces ( 1930). We can therefore conclude by saying that peasant and tribal discontent against established authority was a familiar feature of the 18th and 19th centuries. While the British realized that it was not possible to carry on administration successfully among a people seething with discontent, all these movements were eventually put down by superior force. It was only in the twentieth century that the movements emerging out of this discontent were marked by a new feature: they were more deeply influenced by, and in their turn, had a marked impact on the ongoing struggle for national freedom.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(1) ARCHEOLOGICAL SOURCES ( A ) Epigraphics 1. 2. Dongar inscription of Daryadeo, relating to the suppression of the Halba Rebellion; Epigraphia Indica, IX; 166. Pattabhishek Mahotsava of Bhairamdeva; Epigraphia Indica;ibid.

7 3. 4. Hiralal,RB ( ed.) Inscriptions of the Central Provinces and Berar; Nagpur, 1932. Lele,CB (ed.) Parmara Inscriptions in the Dhar State; Dhar State Historical Series. (B) Sphragistics 1. Seals of Bhyrodeo in Ghasidas Museum, Raipur. 2. Coat of arms, piled in a ditch of Kaccapal village, Abhujmar, used by the British during the 1910 Rebellion. ( C ) Numismatics (1)Gold Medal awarded to Sardar Bahadur Nizam Shah of Kujru in 1912 on his suppression of the 1910 Rebellion. (2)Silver medal awarded to Baijnath Negi of Barsur in 1912 on his suppression of the 1910 Rebellion. (II) Unpublished Sources 1. The Chhattisgarh Divisional Records ( Civil Secretariat, Nagpur) 21 volumes. 2. The Nagpur Residency and Secretariat Records Covering the period 18121874) are a very valuable source of information. 3. The C.P.Civil Secretariat Bundle Correspondence. (III) Archival Sources 1.The National Archives, New Delhi. Foreign, Secret, Political and Home Department Proceedings: the above volumes cover a large part of the period under study, particularly the rule of Mahipaldeo and Bhupaldeo. 2. MSS Records: Secret Consultations 1783-85 ( Bengal) Public Consultations !783-86 ( Bengal) Revenue Consultations, 1785-86 ( Bengal) Abstracts of Letters received from Bengal, Vol.4, 20th Oct,1783-10th Aug,1789. Abstracts of Despatches to Bengal, Vols.1,2. Minutes of the Court of Directors.

8 Minutes of the Secret Committee. Minutes of the Board of Control. Letters from the Board of Control to the Court of Directors. Secret Despatches, 1788, 86A. 3.Central India Agency Records, Indore and Bhopawar; Serial No.XXLIV, File No.1/1800-2014-1859. ( These files contain Reports that various rebels have been expelled for their participation in anti-government activities). 4. Eastern States Agency Records ( 1858-1947): These files contain various Acts and Laws in force; Annual Administration Reports of Kanker, Jashpur, Raipur, Sambhalpur, Raigarh and Bastar. (IV) Notes, Reports, Letters, Manuals, Orders Published/Unpublished. (V) Oral Records 1. Bhumkal Geet: the folk song on the 1910 Bastar Rebellion, sung by the Bhatras in Netanar region of Bastar. This song commemorates the heroism, valour and sacrifices of Gunda Dhur and other prominent rebel leaders of the Bhumkal of 1910. 2. Other folk songs which refer to the 1910 rebellion and present the story of British oppression in Bastar. 3. Interviews with several elderly persons of Bastar, who had heard legends from their forefathers of incidents regarding tribal retaliation to British oppression. SECONDARY SOURCES 1.Atal,Yogesh: Adivasi Bharat ( Hindi); Rajkamal Prakashan, Delhi, 1965. 2.Chaudhuri,SB: Civil Disturbances during British Rule in India ( 1765-1857); World Press, Calcutta,1955. 3.Desai, AR: Tribes in Transition in Romesh Thapar(ed) Tribe, Caste and Religion in India;Macmillan India Ltd; Delhi; 1977. 4.Guha, Ranajit: Neel Darpan: The Image of a Peasant Revolt in a Liberal Mirror; Journal of Peasant Studies ( vol.2); Oct.1974. 5.Haimendorf, C. Von Furer: Tribes of India; Oxford University Press, London,1982. 6.Hobsbawm, EJ: Primitive Rebels; Manchester University Press; 1959.

9 7.Hislop,S:Papers Relating to the Aboriginal Tribes of Central Provinces left in MSS (ed) R.Temple, Nagpur, 1866. 8. Hasnain, Nadeem: Tribal India; Delhi;1966. 9.Stokes,Eric: The Peasant and the Raj;Cambridge University Press, 1978. 10.Sundar,Nandini: Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthroplogical History of Bastar( 1854-2006); Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2007. REPORTS, GAZETTEERS AND JOURNALS 1. Administration Reports of CP and Berar 1862-1933 ( Old Secretariat Library, Bhopal). 2. Police and Jail Administration Reports. 3. Archeological Survey of India Reports by Cunningham. 4. Civil and Criminal Judicial Reports 5. Epigraphia Indica- ASI. 6. Imperial Gazetteer of India, Govt. Printing Press, Calcutta, 1909. 7. District Gazetteers. 8. Indian Historical Review- ICHR. 9. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society- Cambridge. 10.Man in India Ranchi. 11.Journal of Social Research USA ( Quarterly Journal). 12. Journal of Peasant Studies Routledge, USA, UK.