TRIBAL REVOLTS IN INDIA: FOR UPSC AND BPSC MAINS EXAM.

After the battle of Plassey in 1757, the political control of the East India Company increased and by the end of the eighteenth century, the British emerged as the main power in India. As the company gained the political sphere it becomes imperative to introduce and implement policies in the fields of land revenue, law and order and set up an administration. The implementation of such policies created turmoil in Indian society and led to changes. moreover, the company's main aim was to utilize the resource of India for the development of England.
The changes led to dislocation in the socio-culture, economic, and political life of people. The subsequent turmoil led to the outlook of rebellion in different parts of the country. The rebellion was not confined to the later period of the British Empire but was a constant feature of it from its very beginning, culminated into the revolt of 1857. 
Erosion of traditional forms of authority and increased economic pressure were two basic reasons for these uprising. The establishment of the British empire in India was a prolonged process of piecemeal conquest and consolidation and the colonization of the economy and society. This process produced discontent, resentment, and resistance at every stage.
SOCIAL BASE OF REBELLION: At a time when the newly created class of urban intelligentsia was reaping of the benefits of the British rule, it was the traditional sections of society whose lives had been almost completely changed for the worse, who rebelled.
CAUSES OF INSURRECTION: The major causes of the insurrection taken as a whole was the rapid changes the British introduced in the economy, administration, land revenue system. These changes led to the disruption of agrarian society, causing prolonged and widespread suffering among its constituents.
Above all colonial policy of intensifying demands for land revenue and extracting as large amount as possible produced as veritable upheavals in Indian villages.
for example- In West Bengal, in less than 13-year land revenue collection was raised to nearly double the amount collected under Mughals.
The pattern was repeated in other parts of the country as the British rule spread, and aggravating 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 welfare of the cultivators.
Thousands of zamindars and Poligars lost control over their land and its revenue either due to the extinction of their right by the colonial state or by the forced sale of their rights over land because of their inability to meet the exorbitant land revenue demanded.
Peasants and Artesian, as inducted earlier, had their own reason to rise up in arms and side with the traditional elite, increasing demands for land revenue were forcing a large number of peasants into growing indebtedness or into selling their lands. The new landlords, bereft of any traditional paternalism towards their tenants, pushed up rents, to ruinous heights and evicted them in case of non-payment. The economic decline of the peasantry was reflected in 12 major and numerous minor famines from 1770-1857.
The new courts and legal system gave a further fillip to the dispossesses of land and encouraged the rich to oppress the poor. flogging, torture, and jailing of the cultivators for arrears of the rent or land revenue or interest on debt were quite common. The ordinary people were also hard hit by the prevalence of corruption at the lower levels of the police, judiciary, and general administration. The British official, William Edwards wrote in 1859 that police were "a scourage to the people" and that their oppression and exaction from one of the chief grounds of dissatisfaction with our governments.
 The ruins of the Indian handicraft industry, as a result of the imposition of the free trade in India and levy discriminatory tariffs against Indian goods in Britain, pauperized million of artesian. The misery of artesian was further compounded by the disappearance of their traditional patrons and buyers, the princes, chieftains, and zamindars.
Scholarly and Priestly were also active in inciting hatred and rebellion against foreign rule. The traditional rulers and ruling elite had financially supported scholars, religious preachers, priests, pundits, and maulvis and men of arts and literature.
CLASSIFICATION OF UPRISING;

1. Political religious movements- Fakir uprising, sanyasi uprising, Pagal panties, Wahabis movements, Faraizi movements, Kuka movements, Mopalah movements.
2. movement by disposed of Rulers and Zamindars: Velu Thampi, Poligars rebellion.
3. movements by the dependents of the disposed of Rulers: Ramosai uprising, Gadkari revolt, Sawantwadi revolt.
4. Tribal movements:
5. first phase 1795-1860: Santhal uprising and Khond uprising.
6. second phase 1860-1920: Munda uprising and Koya uprising.
7. Third phase 1920-1947: Rampa uprising and Chenchu tribal uprising.
8. Frontier tribal movements: Khansi uprising, Singphos uprising, and Rani Gaidiniliu's Naga movements.

Status of tribal in relation to mainstream society: Tribal are located on the fringe of the mainstream society and constitute the lower stratum. The social, economic differentiation amongst them in comparison to the mainstream society was significantly less . the tribes were politically autonomous and had their own system of justice.
The economic base of the tribal population- shifting cultivation, hunting, fishing, and forest produce from the mainstay of their economic base. the use of forest products and shifting agriculture were very important parts of the tribal economy.
CAUSES OF TRIBAL REVOLT: 

• The imposition of land revenue settlement- expansion of agriculture by the non-tribals in tribal areas or over forest coverlet to the erosion of tribal tradition of joint ownership and increased the socio-economic differentiation in the egalitarian structure of the tribal society.
• Work of Christian Missionaries:  Brought about the further changes in the socio-economic and cultural equation of the tribal and the mainstream society plus in the turbulent time, the tendency of the missionaries to refuse to take up arms or in discouraging people from rising against the government made the missionaries to be viewed as an extension of colonialism and were often attacked by the rebels.
• increasing demand for goods from the early nineteenth century- first for the Royal Navy and railways, led to increasing control of the government over forest land. The establishment of the forest department in 1864, the government Forest Act 1865, and the Indian Forest Act in 1878 together established a complete government monopoly over Indian Forest. Shifting agriculture, a widespread practice amongst the various tribal community was banned from 1864 onwards on the reversed forest. Restrictions were imposed on the previously sanctioned timer and grazing facilities.
•  Extension of settled agriculture led to the influx of non-tribals in tribal areas. These outsiders exploited them and extension of settled agriculture led to the loss of land by the tribals which reduced them to agricultural laborers.
• Some of the tribal uprisings took place in reaction to the effect of the landlords to impose taxes on the customary use of timber and grazing facilities, police exaction, new exercise regulation, exploitation by low country traders and moneylenders and restrictions on shifting cultivation in the forest.
•  The rebellion by tribal were usually reactions against outsiders (Dikus), local landlords, and rulers, the support provided to the later by British administration and intervention by them in the life of tribals.  
• introduction of the notion of private property land could be brought, sold, mortgaged, which led to the loss of the land by the tribal.

Nature of Tribal Revolt: the colonial intrusion and triumvirate of trader, moneylender, and revenue farmer in sum disrupted the tribal identity to a lesser or greater degree. In fact, ethnic ties were a basic feature of tribal rebellions. The rebels saw themselves not as a discreet class but as having a tribal identity. At this level, the solidarity shown was of a very high order. Fellow tribal were never attacked unless they had collaborated with the enemy.
SANTHAL UPRISINGS:- Among the numerous tribal revolt, the Santhal Hool or uprisings was the most massive one. With the introduction of PERMANENT SETTLEMENT IN BENGAL IN 1793, the Santhal were employed as laborers with the promise of wages or rent-free lands. however, they were forced to become agricultural surfs, exploited at will, the first rebellion of messianic character erupted in 1854 under Birsingh of Sasan in Lakhimpur. The second Santhal Hool of 1855-56was marked by some of the worse features of elemental tribal passion and open denunciation of the British rule. The Santhal, who lived in the area between Bhagalpur and Rajmahal. known as "Daman-i-Kohi" rose revolt, made a determined attempt to expel the outsiders- The Dikus, and proclaimed the complete annihilation of the alien regime. The rebellion covering the district of Birbhum, Singhbhum, Bankura, etc. that was precipitated mainly by economic causes. The social conditions which drove them to insurrection were described by a contemporary in Calcutta review as follows.   

1. Zamindars, police, revenue, and the court have exercised a combined system of extortion, oppressive exactions, forcible dispossession of property, abuses and personal violence, and a variety of petty tyrannies upon the timid and yielding Santhals. usurious interest on loans of money ranging from 50% to 500%, false measure at Haut and Market, willful and uncharitable trespass by the rich by means of their untethered cattle, tattoos, ponies and even elephants, on growing crops of the poorer race, and such like illegalities have been prevalent. The company's government too protected the oppressors rather than redressing the grievances which turned them against the British.
2. Under the leadership of two brothers "Siddhu and Khanu" more than a thousand Santhals assembled in June 1855, when a divine order was issued asking Santhals to break the control of their oppressors and take possession of the country and set up a government of their own.
3. Within a month a rebellion has assumed a formidable shape. The rebels cut-off the postal and railways communication between Bhagalpur and Rajmahal proclaimed the end of the company's rule and commencement of the Santhals regime. They attacked the house of moneylenders, Zamindars, white planters, railways engineers, and the British Officials. the open war with the British continued till 1856 when the rebel leaders were finally captured and the movement was brutally suppressed.

 CHARACTERISTICS OF SANTHAL REBEL:

• Backward in nature- These areas were cut-off from the mainstream.
• Lack of vision- the uprisings was clearly showing a lack of vision of leaders.
• Traditional warfare- they fought with an axe, arrow, etc.
• non-progressive, unique culture. and against Dikus.
• REASON OF FAILURE:
• The weak military organization of Santhals against well-armed British forces.
• They suffered from lack of national leaders.
• no popular support and use of primitive weapons.
• lack of planning and scattered army.