The 15th President of India, Droupadi Murmu, belongs to the tribal community. Her surname ‘Murmu’ connotes her clan lineage from the Santhal community. President Murmu in her first speech on the occasion of her assumption of office as President of India also highlighted the significance of tribals in the freedom struggle. Greeting everyone with the traditional tribal ‘Johar’, President Murmu recalled the four most significant tribal revolutions, Santhal, Paika, Kol, and Bhil revolution.
Of the four mentioned tribal revolutions, Santhal was one of the most organised and impactful revolutions in the history of India. Santhal’s uprising provided inspiration for successive freedom struggles. This was the first time before the 1857 revolt when Indians instilled the fear among Britishers that they are not unbeatable anymore. Fed up with the despotic colonial rule, the Santhal uprising provided a ray of hope to Indians.
The cruel revenue policy of the British
After the Battle of Pladessy in 1757, the East India Company (EIC) had effectively taken control of Bengal. In order to consolidate its power in India, EIC adopted a range of socio-economic policies. To finance their India conquest project, they adopted stringent land revenue and law and order rules.
In 1793, Lord Cornwallis, the Governor General of Bengal brought systematic changes in administration. With the ultimate goal to ‘loot’ people, Cornwallis brought unprecedented reforms in revenue, police, and administration.
Under the Permanent Settlement System, they gave landlords perpetual and hereditary rights to collect fixed land revenue from the people. Through the auction, people’s land used to be auctioned and whoever bid to collect the highest fixed revenue, would become the landlord. Further, to implement the cruel land revenue policy, two distinctive systems of police and civil servant were created.
Santhal community facing the brunt of the cruel policy of EIC
In a systematic way, people started to lose their land to big landlords. They not only lost control over their land but also were forced to pay exorbitant revenue shares to landlords. To retain the land collection rights, landlords used to collect a very huge amount of revenue from the common people. Despite low productivity, producers had to pay the fixed amount as prescribed. In this way, they were forced to take loans from lenders at unimaginable 50 to 500 per cent interest rates and pay the tax levied on the land. Effectively, they would encircle themselves in the vicious cycle of loan and payment ultimately losing their lands.
Similarly, Santhal tribes, who traditionally consider nature as their mother, were forced to lose their land in a systematic way. Considering their unique relations with nature, EIC in 1832, demarcated Damin-i-Koh from Jharkhand’s Rajmahal Hills region and gave it to Santhals. Initially, they followed the non-interference policy in Santhal affairs but with time, they were also forced to pay exorbitant land revenue.
For example, in 1838 the annual ground rent of the Damin-i-Koh amounted to 2,000 rupees, and the number of Santhal villages to nearly 40 with a population of about three thousand. But, by 1851, the annual rent rose to Rs. 43,918 and the number of Santhals, who were induced to the Damin-i-Koh, increased to 82,795 living in 1,473 villages, of which only 1,164 paid rent.
The permanent settlement had created a vicious cycle of loan and payment. Unable to generate revenue, they were forced to take a loan from money lenders. It is said that money lenders used to pick up a stone on the way, and having painted it with vermilion to show the correctness of its weight, arrived at the farms of their debtors, who had then to provide for the boarding expenses of their creditors’ parties.
By weighing with the help of the aforesaid piece of stone, money lenders took away almost the whole produce of the lands of their debtors, still leaving them overburdened with debt.
Further, in case of default, they granted leases of Santhal villages to the non-Santhals.
The police, the revenue, and the court, on behalf of EIC, exercised a combined system of extortions, oppressive exactions, forcible dispossession of property, abuse, and personal violence, and a variety of petty tyrannies upon Santhals.
Sidhu Murmu and Kanhu Murmu: The leader of the Rebellion
Against this tyranny of EIC, Santhals were boiling in anger, it needed but a spark to kindle the fire. This spark came from two brothers named Sidhu and Kanhu of Bhagnadihi, situated a mile from Barhait, with their brothers Chand and Bhairab and two sisters Phulo and Jhano.
Religion often acts as a great stimulating force among the average masses, and here also the story of a miraculous divine revelation inspired the Santhals to take prompt and open measures to remove their distresses.
On the 30th of June, 1855, about 10,000 Santals met at Bhagnadihi, when the divine order that the Santhals should get out of their oppressors’ control was announced to them by Sidhu and Kanhu. The Santals declared their determination to do away with the EIC system and set up a government of their own.
They marched in different directions with bows, poisoned arrows, axes, and swords with the sole purpose to eliminate oppressors EIC and their foot soldiers. Raising slogans of ‘end of Company’s rule’, they went on a rampage in the Rajmahal areas. They captured a large part of Rajmahal Hills, Bhagalpur district, and Birbhum and attacked government buildings, police stations, and money lender’s houses.
Suppressing the revolt with a brutal hand, EIC enforced martial law in the region. With the help of local Zamindars and Nawabs, they were successful in suppressing the revolt. With the arrest and execution of Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu, the rebellion was finally brought to an end.
The success of the Santhal revolt
Although the revolt was brutally suppressed, the revolt became a landmark event in Indian history. The valour of Santhals became the common storytelling in the region. It broke the British’s unbeatable dogma and inspired many rebellions on the same line.
With the leadership of Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu, the revolt provided a successful model of revolt, which was later followed in the 1857 First War of Independence. It ignited the sense of unity among Indians and catalysed nationalism feelings.
In the success of the revolt, Britishers enacted the Santhal Paraganas Tenancy Act. The act provided a non-interference policy in tribal affairs and recognised their natural rights on their land. Santhal uprising became a model in the course of the freedom struggle and their leaders became immortal in the hearts of Indians. President Murmu’s election to the highest post of the nation is a tribute to her Santhal clan.