Modern India · Topic 7 of 20
Pre-1857 resistance to Company rule by elites, peasants and tribes
The Basics
By the mid-eighteenth century the East India Company had begun replacing Indian rulers, zamindars and poligars with its own officials and revenue farmers. This happened across Bengal, Bihar and beyond. It was not a single conquest but a long, piecemeal process. At every stage it produced discontent among those who lost power and income.
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From 1763 to 1800, Hindu monks (sanyasis) and Muslim mendicants (fakirs) rebelled across Bengal and Bihar. Displaced peasants, demobilised soldiers and dispossessed zamindars joined them. They had lost livelihoods after the East India Company tightened control over Bengal following 1757. The famine of 1770 added to their distress. These groups had traditionally moved freely, collecting alms and tribute. Company restrictions on this movement, along with new revenue demands, pushed them to revolt.
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Before the Company's expansion, tribal communities lived in relative isolation. These hill and forest belts included the Rajmahal hills, Chotanagpur, the Western Ghats, Odisha and the Andhra hill tracts. They practised shifting cultivation and used the forest for food, fuel and grazing. Their own chiefs governed them, settling disputes and sometimes collecting tribute from plains zamindars and traders passing through the hills.
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The Santhals had settled and cleared forest land in the Daman-i-koh area between Bhagalpur and Rajmahal. The colonial state had given them this land to bring under cultivation. But the state soon levied heavy taxes on this cleared land. Moneylenders, called dikus, charged very high interest, sometimes fifty to five hundred percent, and seized land when debts went unpaid. Zamindars also pushed their control over the Daman-i-koh area. Police, courts and revenue officials sided with the zamindars and moneylenders against the Santhals.
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