Anglo-tribal encounters in colonial India

Anglo-tribal encounters in colonial India

Subject – History

Context – This year, Gujarat’s tableau will be special as it will commemorate a massacre of Bhil tribespeople in 1922 at the hands of British troops.

Concept –

• This year, Gujarat’s tableau will be special as it will commemorate a massacre of Bhil tribespeople in 1922 at the hands of British troops.
  • The massacre, dubbed ‘Gujarat’s Jallianwalla Bagh’, happened March 7, 1922.
  • Bhil residents of Pal Dadhvaav and Chitariya villages in what is today’s Sabarkantha district, gathered on the banks of the Her, a local river, to protest taxes imposed by the British.
  • The colonial government sent in the Mewar Bhil Corps. Its soldiers fired indiscriminately on the crowd of Bhil men, women and children. Some 1,200 Bhils perished in the massacre according to the colonial government’s own records.
• Tribal communities comprised 6 per cent of India’s population according to the 2011 Census. They are among the most marginalised people in the country today.

Important Anglo-tribal encounters in colonial India

• The first tribal revolt against the British was that of the Paharia leader, Tilka Manjhi. For 15 years, between 1770 and 1785, Manjhi organised armed resistance against the British East India Company in what are today’s Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
  • The region had come under the suzerainty of the Company after 1764, when it won the Battle of Buxar and with it, the Dewani rights or the right to collect revenue for the Mughal subahs of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha.
  • The Company’s entry made matters worse. In 1768 and 1769, when crops failed, officials increased the tax levy by 10 per cent instead of decreasing it. This triggered the Great Famine of Bengal in 1770, in the backdrop of which, Manjhi emerged.
  • Ultimately though, Manjhi was captured, tied to horses, dragged and hanged at Bhagalpur. But his revolt was only the beginning.
• That distaste burst forth in a series of revolts the most formidable of which was that of the Kol people.
  • Angered at their exploitation by the Company officials and non-tribal settlers, the Kols rose in revolt in Chota Nagpur in 1831.
  • Like the earlier rebellions, the Kol uprising too was suppressed and was over by 1833.
• These revolts were followed by one of the biggest uprisings to hit the Chota Nagpur plateau: The Santhal rebellion in 1855.
  • Having suffered atrocities at the hands of European officials, local moneylenders and zamindars, thousands of Santhals from the Rajmahal hills rose in revolt on June 30, 1855.
  • They wrought havoc across Jharkhand, south Bihar and West Bengal before the superior British war machine savagely put down the revolt.

Tribal groups in India’s North East

• The hills in India’s North East posed the biggest challenge for the British colonists. Whether it was the Nagas, Kukis, Lushais, Khasis or Garos, to name a few, these hill residents, for decades, bravely challenged the military might of the British colonialists.
• But the most shameful legacy of the Anglo-tribal encounter in south Asia is the term ‘Criminal Tribes’. The British branded a slew of groups including pastoralists, nomads, hill and forest dwellers and others who did not live a ‘settled life’ with the term in 1871.