Santhal rebellion
What was the Santhal rebellion?
What caused the Santhal rebellion?
Who led the Santhal rebellion?
How did the British administration respond to the Santhal rebellion?
Santhal rebellion, an uprising by thousands of members of the Santhal tribe in 1855–56 in eastern India, under the rule of the British East India Company (1757–1858). The movement was a reaction to exploitation by local moneylenders and landlords and policies of the British administration in the Bengal Presidency. Also known as the Santhal Hul (hul, meaning “revolution” in Santhali, is also spelled hool), the rebellion was eventually quashed by British armed troops over six months and led to the death of an estimated 15,000–20,000 Santhal. The uprising precipitated the formation of a new district called the Santhal Parganas, where the Santhal were granted greater autonomy and safeguards against exploitation. The Santhal rebellion is regarded as one of the most significant anti-British revolts prior to the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Background
Santhal settlement
The Santhal mainly inhabited the jungles of the Chota Nagpur plateau and other parts of southern Bengal in the mid-18th century and engaged in agriculture and hunting. Amid a shortage of labor following the Bengal famine of 1769–70 and the imposition of fixed rents under the British government’s Permanent Settlement Act of 1793, non-tribal zamindars (landlords) offered the Santhal high wages and cheap land rents to clear forests and bring more land under cultivation. This resulted in many Santhal migrating to the low-lying districts around the Rajmahal Hills (in the northeastern reaches of modern-day Jharkhand state) between 1793 and 1810. However, after the Santhal cleared and cultivated the land, the zamindars typically hiked rents, leading some Santhal to migrate out of these farmlands.
In the 1830s the British East India Company, then governing the Bengal Presidency, encouraged the Santhal to settle in and clear uncultivated forest land for agriculture within the Damin-i-Koh (“Skirts of the Hills”), a government-owned estate in the valleys of the Rajmahal Hills, to boost land revenue. To entice the Santhal, the British offered land leases within the Damin-i-Koh at affordable rents payable directly to the company instead of zamindars. While several thousand Santhal continued to live and work on zamindari lands outside the Damin-i-Koh and some as day laborers in British-owned indigo plantations and railways, the Santhal population in the Damin-i-Koh surged from some 3,000 in 1838 to about 83,000 by 1851. As this population grew, the company raised tax rates, and revenue from the estate skyrocketed about 600 percent in that period.
Causes of the Santhal rebellion
In the years leading up to the start of the rebellion in 1855, the Santhal faced widespread exploitative practices and administrative failures at the hands of dikkus (“outsiders”) who settled in and around the Damin-i-Koh. In the lean months between harvests, the Santhal often turned to mahajans (traders and moneylenders from other regions of Bengal and northern India) for loans, who typically charged interest rates between 25 and 500 percent, used faulty weights and scales, entrapped borrowers in bonded labor, and seized land, cattle, and crops as debt repayments. In the Damin-i-Koh zamindars sometimes encroached on lands bordering the enclosure while naib sazwals (government revenue collectors) overtaxed the Santhal for personal gain. The Santhal had little legal recourse, largely because British-administered courts were distant and mahajans and zamindars often bribed darogas (police officers who also functioned as deputy revenue collectors) and court officials. Santhal leaders raised some of these concerns with the company-run government the year before the rebellion, but they were largely ignored.
The rebellion
Caught in a web of unchecked exploitation, a number of Santhal turned to dacoity (armed robbery) and banditry, targeting mainly mahajans and other dikkus. Urged by the zamindars, Mahesh Lal Dutta, a daroga whom many Santhal considered corrupt, arrested and beat Bir Singh Manjhi, a leader of a bandit gang who claimed that he had been granted divine powers by a Santhal deity. The police also arrested and punished several other members of the tribe—some seemingly innocent—in early 1855.
In the days leading up to the rebellion, rumors of supernatural warnings spread among the Santhal, including:
- Mythical human-eating snakes
- Roaming buffalo cows that brought death to houses at which they rested
- The sinking of a golden boat in the Ganges River
- The coming of unidentified people to kill the dikkus (“outsiders”)
- The birth of a suba (leader) to an unmarried woman
On June 30, 1855, two Santhal brothers, Kanhu and Sidhu, addressed a gathering of about 10,000 Santhal in the heart of Damin-i-Koh, claiming that they had been visited by Thakur Bonga (the great spirit), who had instructed them to rid their territory of outsiders—including mahajans, zamindars, and the British—and establish Santhal rule in the region. Messages were sent to zamindars, darogas, and the British government to that effect. Kanhu, Sidhu, and their two brothers Chand and Bhairav each assumed the title of suba (leader), and it was decided that the gathering would march to Calcutta (now Kolkata) to air their grievances to the governor-general of India, Lord Dalhousie. Roused by the movement, on July 1 a few Santhal men killed five mahajans in a market. Perhaps bribed by other mahajans, daroga Dutta confronted a group of Santhal on July 7. He was subsequently killed by Sidhu and then decapitated. This act marked the start of the rebellion.
Over the first fortnight of July 1855, the Santhal attacked and plundered markets, zamindari estates, railway lines, bungalows, and indigo plantations. They were possibly aided by members of oppressed Hindu castes. Estimates suggest that 60,000 people took part in the rebellion. As they spread across the region to seize nearby districts, the rebels killed several Europeans and Indian gentry. The company underestimated the scale of the rebellion at first but soon decided to stamp it out through military force. British-administered troops were called in from various parts of India, and a number of large battles and smaller skirmishes broke out in Santhal-occupied territory. Often taking cover in jungles, the Santhal fought mostly with bows and arrows, swords, and axes against the British troops’ firearms. Some of the most significant battles include the following:
- Maheshpur village (July 14–15, 1855): With 200 men and 30 elephants from the nawab (Muslim ruling prince) of Murshidabad and 50 company troops, Commissioner Octavius Toogood fought 5,000 Santhal. About 100 rebels were killed—the first blow to the rebellion. Kanhu and Sidhu escaped after being injured in the battle. Toogood’s troops later set fire to the nearby Bhagnadihi village, which housed the siblings’ home, the spiritual center of the rebellion.
- Narayanpur village (July 16, 1855): About 2,000 Santhal outnumbered and defeated a detachment of company troops in marshy conditions, killing an estimated 27 soldiers. For the Santhal, the victory was a testament to the rebellion’s divine sanction.
- Kumrabad village (August 16, 1855): About 4,000 Santhal rebels encircled Lieutenant George Fooks’s outpost at a river crossing. Short on provisions, Fooks’s 500 troops fired at the Santhal for three and a half hours. Company reinforcements arrived, and fighting continued for another 10 days. Fooks’s garrison eventually abandoned the village, and the Santhal set it on fire. While there are no precise estimates, scores were reportedly killed.
The rebellion lasted about six months. Internal differences arose among Santhal leadership, and Sidhu was apprehended in mid-August—betrayed by other Santhal leaders—and later hanged. The British colonial government imposed martial law in the region on November 10, 1855, to give the military further powers to quash the rebellion. The rebellion wound to a close shortly after Kanhu was captured in late November, and martial law was withdrawn on January 3, 1856. Kanhu was executed on February 23, 1856. An estimated 15,000–20,000 Santhal died during the rebellion—most from disease, hunger, and malnutrition, as agricultural work came to a standstill and many Santhal lived out of cramped makeshift camps.
Aftermath
When the rebellion ended, Santhal families faced homelessness and hunger, as villages had been torched and crops abandoned. Hundreds of rebels were held in overcrowded prisons, and some were sentenced to hard labor. The company government introduced administrative reforms to address many of the uprising’s perceived causes, though they also tightened British control over the region. The most significant change was the creation of a new district, the Santhal Parganas, established by an act on December 22, 1855, that encompassed Damin-i-Koh and parts of Bhagalpur and Birbhum districts. The district was governed by a special system that empowered the manjhi (village head), protected Santhal lands from non-tribals, allowed direct communication between the Santhal and the British administrators, and weakened the influence of police, zamindars, and revenue collectors. However, the area under the district (now an administrative division that includes six districts in Jharkhand) was reduced in 1857 following protests from indigo plantations and zamindars.