write in short about tribal revolts in chota Nagpur and North East.
Answers
The Britishers and rich Indian land lords were given the right treatment for their exploitation of the people and resources of the land. Sidho and Kanho were also two legendary heroes of the Santhal tribals of Chotanagpur who fought against the oppressive rule of the British Raj.
However, the most celebrated and popular tribal leader of the tribal clan was Birsa Munda. The British colonial system intensified the transformation of the tribal agrarian system into feudal state. As the tribals with their primitive technology could not generate a surplus, the non-tribal peasantry were invited by the chiefs in Chotanagpur to settle on and cultivate the land. This led to the alienation of the lands held by the tribals. The new class of Thekadars were of a more rapacious kind and eager to make most of their possessions.
By 1874, the aborigines had completely lost their proprietary rights, and had been reduced to the position of farm labourers. To the twin challenges of agrarian breakdown and culture change, Birsa Munda along with his clan responded through a series of revolts and uprisings. The movement sought to assert rights of the Mundas as the real proprietors of the soil, and the expulsion of middlemen and the British. He was treacherously caught on 3rd February 1900 and died in mysterious conditions on 9 June 1900 in Ranchi Jail. Although British government declared that he died of cholera, his body had no symptoms to prove it.
Birsa Munda lived for a very short span of 25 years, but was capable in arousing the tribals and mobilizing them. After his death the movement faded out. However, the movement was significant in at least two ways. First it forced the colonial government to introduce laws so that the land of the tribals could not be easily taken away by the dikus. Second it showed once again that the tribal people had the capacity to protest against injustice and express their anger against colonial rule. They did this in their own way, inventing their own rituals and symbols of struggle. Birsa Munda is today regarded as a god among the tribals.
The 20th century saw the dawn of the British policy of “Divide and rule”.