Chapter 4 - Tribals, Dikus and the Vision of a Golden Age Notes
1. How Did Tribal Groups Live?
→ The tribal people of India were involved in a variety of activities by the
nineteenth century.
→ Some were jhum cultivators
• Some of them practised jhum cultivation (shifting cultivation).
• This was done on small patches of land, mostly in forests. The cultivators
cut the treetops to allow sunlight to reach the ground, and burnt the
vegetation on the land to clear it for cultivation.
• They spread the ash from the firing, which contained potash, to fertilise the
soil.
• They used the axe to cut trees and the hoe to scratch the soil in order to
prepare it for cultivation.
• They broadcast the seeds, that is, scattered the seeds on the field instead
of ploughing the land and sowing the seeds.
• Once the crop was ready and harvested, they moved to another field. A field
that had been cultivated once was left fallow for several years, Shifting
cultivators were found in the hilly and forested tracts of north-east and
central India.
• The lives of these tribal people depended on free movement within forests and
on being able to use the land and forests for growing their crops. That is the
only way they could practise shifting cultivation.
→ Some were hunters and gatherers
• In many regions tribal groups lived by hunting animals and gathering forest
produce. They saw forests as essential for survival.
• The Khonds were such a community living in the forests of Orissa. They
regularly went out on collective hunts and then divided the meat amongst themselves.
They ate fruits and roots collected from the forest and cooked food with the
oil they extracted from the seeds of the sal and mahua.
• They used many forest shrubs and herbs for medicinal purposes, and sold
forest produce in the local markets.
• The local weavers and leather workers turned to the Khonds when they needed
supplies of kusum and palash flowers to colour their clothes and leather.
• At times they exchanged goods - getting what they needed in return for their
valuable forest produce. At other times they bought goods with the small amount
of earnings they had.
• Some of them did odd jobs in the villages, carrying loads or building roads,
while others laboured in the fields of peasants and farmers. When supplies of
forest produce shrank, tribal people had to increasingly wander around in
search of work as labourers.
• But many of them - like the Baigas of central India - were reluctant to do
work for others. The Baigas saw themselves as people of the forest, who could
only live on the produce of the forest.
• It was below the dignity of a Baiga to become a labourer. Tribal groups often
needed to buy and sell in order to be able to get the goods that were not
produced within the locality.
• This led to their dependence on traders and moneylenders. Traders came around
with things for sale, and sold the goods at high prices. Moneylenders gave
loans with which the tribals met their cash needs, adding to what they earned.
But the interest charged on the loans was usually very high. So for the tribals,
market and commerce often meant debt and poverty. They therefore came to see
the moneylender and trader as evil outsiders and the cause of their misery.
→ Some herded animals
• Many tribal groups lived by herding and rearing animals. They were pastoralists
who moved with their herds of cattle or sheep according to the seasons.
• When the grass in one place was exhausted, they moved to another area.
• The Van Gujjars of the Punjab hills and the Labadis of Andhra Pradesh were
cattle herders, the Gaddis of Kulu were shepherds, and the Bakarwals of Kashmir
reared goats.
→ Some took to settled cultivation
• Even before the nineteenth century, many from within the tribal groups had
begun settling down, and cultivating their fields in one place year after year,
instead of moving from place to place.
• They began to use the plough, and gradually got rights over the land they
lived on. In many cases, like the Mundas of Chottanagpur, the land belonged to
the clan as a whole.
• All members of the clan were regarded as descendants of the original
settlers, who had first cleared the land. Therefore, all of them had rights on
the land.
• Very often some people within the clan acquired more power than others, some
became chiefs and others followers. Powerful men often rented out their land
instead of cultivating it themselves.
• British officials saw settled tribal groups like the Gonds and Santhals as
more civilised than hunter-gatherers or shifting cultivators. Those who lived
in the forests were considered to be wild and savage: they needed to be settled
and civilised.
2. How Did Colonial Rule Affect Tribal Lives?
→ During British rule, the lives of tribal people changed.
→ What happened to tribal chiefs?
• Before the arrival of the British, in many areas the tribal chiefs were
important people. They enjoyed a certain amount of economic power and had the
right to administer and control their territories.
• In some places they had their own police and decided on the local rules of
land and forest management. Under British rule, the functions and powers of the
tribal chiefs changed considerably.
• They were allowed to keep their land titles over a cluster of villages and
rent out lands, but they lost much of their administrative power and were
forced to follow laws made by British officials in India.
• They also had to pay tribute to the British, and discipline the tribal groups
on behalf of the British. They lost the authority they had earlier enjoyed
amongst their people, and were unable to fulfil their traditional functions.
→ What happened to the shifting cultivators?
• The British were uncomfortable with groups who moved about and did not have a
fixed home. They wanted tribal groups to settle down and become peasant
cultivators.
• Settled peasants were easier to control and administer than people who were
always on the move. The British also wanted a regular revenue source for the
state.
• So they introduced land settlements (they measured the land), defined the
rights of each individual to that land, and fixed the revenue demand for the
state. Some peasants were declared landowners, others tenants.
• The tenants were to pay rent to the landowner who in turn paid revenue to the
state. The British effort to settle jhum cultivators was not very successful.
• Settled plough cultivation is not easy in areas where water is scarce and the
soil is dry. In fact, jhum cultivators who took to plough cultivation often
suffered, since their fields did not produce good yields. So the jhum
cultivators in north-east India insisted on continuing with their traditional
practice.
• Facing widespread protests, the British had to ultimately allow them the
right to carry on shifting cultivation in some parts of the forest.
→ Forest laws and their impact
• The life of tribal groups was directly connected to the forest. So changes in
forest laws had a considerable effect on tribal lives. The British extended
their control over all forests and declared that forests were state property.
• Some forests were classified as Reserved Forests for they produced timber
which the British wanted. In these forests people were not allowed to move
freely, practise jhum cultivation, collect fruits, or hunt animals.
• How were jhum cultivators to survive in such a situation?
• Many were therefore forced to move to other areas in search of work and
livelihood. But once the British stopped the tribal people from living inside
forests, they faced a problem.
• From where would the Forest Department get its labour to cut trees for
railway sleepers and to transport logs?
• They decided that they would give jhum cultivators small patches of land in
the forests and allow them to cultivate these on the condition that those who
lived in the villages would have to provide labour to the Forest Department and
look after the forests. So in many regions the Forest Department established
forest villages to ensure a regular supply of cheap labour.
• Many tribal groups reacted against the colonial forest laws. They disobeyed
the new rules, continued with practices that were declared illegal, and at
times rose in open rebellion.
• Such was the revolt of Songram Sangma in 1906 in Assam, and the forest
satyagraha of the 1930s in the Central Provinces.
→ The problem with trade
• During the nineteenth century, tribal groups found that traders and
moneylenders were coming into the forests more often, wanting to buy forest
produce, offering cash loans, and asking them to work for wages.
• In the eighteenth century, Indian silk was in demand in European markets. The
fine quality of Indian silk was highly valued and exports from India increased
rapidly.
• As the market expanded, East India Company officials tried to encourage silk
production to meet the growing demand. Hazaribagh, in present-day Jharkhand,
was an area where the Santhals reared cocoons.
• The traders dealing in silk sent in their agents who gave loans to the tribal
people and collected the cocoons. The growers were paid Rs 3 to Rs 4 for a
thousand cocoons.
• These were then exported to Burdwan or Gaya where they were sold at five
times the price.
• The middlemen - so called because they arranged deals between the exporters
and silk growers - made huge profits.
• The silk growers earned very little. Understandably, many tribal groups saw
the market and the traders as their main enemies.
→ The search for work
• The plight of the tribals who had to go far away from their homes in search
of work was even worse. From the late nineteenth century, tea plantations
started coming up and mining became an important industry.
• Tribals were recruited in large numbers to work the tea plantations of Assam
and the coal mines of Jharkhand. They were recruited through contractors who
paid them miserably low wages, and prevented them from returning home.
3. A Closer Look
→ Through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, tribal groups in different
parts of the country rebelled against the changes in laws, the restrictions on
their practices, the new taxes they had to pay, and the exploitation by traders
and moneylenders.
→ The Kols rebelled in 1831-32, Santhals rose in revolt in 1855, the Bastar
Rebellion in central India broke out in 1910 and the Warli Revolt in
Maharashtra in 1940. The movement that Birsa led was one such movement.
→ Birsa Munda
• Birsa was born in the mid-1870s. The son of a poor father, he grew up around
the forests of Bohonda, grazing sheep, playing the flute, and dancing in the
local akhara. Forced by poverty, his father had to move from place to place
looking for work.
• As an adolescent, Birsa heard tales of the Munda uprisings of the past and
saw the sirdars (leaders) of the community urging the people to revolt.
• They talked of a golden age when the Mundas had been free of the oppression
of dikus, and said there would be a time when the ancestral right of the
community would be restored. They saw themselves as the descendants of the
original settlers of the region, fighting for their land (mulk ki larai),
reminding people of the need to win back their kingdom.
• Birsa went to the local missionary school, and listened to the sermons of
missionaries. There too he heard it said that it was possible for the Mundas to
attain the Kingdom of Heaven, and regain their lost rights.
• This would be possible if they became good Christians and gave up their “bad
practices”. Later Birsa also spent some time in the company of a prominent
Vaishnav preacher. He wore the sacred thread, and began to value the importance
of purity and piety.
• Birsa was deeply influenced by many of the ideas he came in touch with in his
growing-up years. His movement was aimed at reforming tribal society. He urged
the Mundas to give up drinking liquor, clean their village, and stop believing
in witchcraft and sorcery.
• Birsa also turned against missionaries and Hindu landlords. He saw them as
outside forces that were ruining the Munda way of life. In 1895 Birsa urged his
followers to recover their glorious past. He talked of a golden age in the past
- a satyug (the age of truth) - when Mundas lived a good life, constructed
embankments, tapped natural springs, planted trees and orchards, practised cultivation
to earn their living.
• They did not kill their brethren and relatives. They lived honestly.
• Birsa also wanted people to once again work on their land, settle down and
cultivate their fields.
• What worried British officials most was the political aim of the Birsa
movement, for it wanted to drive out missionaries, moneylenders, Hindu
landlords, and the government and set up a Munda Raj with Birsa at its head.
The movement identified all these forces as the cause of the misery the Mundas
were suffering.
• The land policies of the British were destroying their traditional land
system, Hindu landlords and moneylenders were taking over their land, and
missionaries were criticising their traditional culture.
• They arrested Birsa in 1895, convicted him on charges of rioting and jailed
him for two years. When Birsa was released in 1897 he began touring the
villages to gather support. He used traditional symbols and language to rouse
people, urging them to destroy “Ravana” (dikus and the Europeans) and establish
a kingdom under his leadership.
• Birsa’s followers began targeting the symbols of diku and European power.
They attacked police stations and churches, and raided the property of
moneylenders and zamindars.
• They raised the white flag as a symbol of Birsa Raj. In 1900 Birsa died of
cholera and the movement faded out.
• However, the movement was significant in at least two ways.
* It forced the colonial government to introduce laws so that the land of the
tribals could not be easily taken over by dikus.
* 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 specific way, inventing their own rituals and symbols of struggle.
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