NCERT 8 HISTORY CHAPTER 4

 4. Tribals, Dikus and the Vision of a Golden Age

• Tribes had certain customs and rituals that were very different
• There also social and economic differences within tribes, but mostly they thought themselves as sharing common ties of kinship
• Jhum Cultivators - In North-East and Central India, they practised shifting cultivation (slash and burn, called as Bewar in Madhya Pradesh)
• a patch of land is cleared and burnt, nutrients (potash) in soil used for cultivation
• Khonds in Orissa were hunters and gatherers, they went for collective hunts and divided the meat among themselves
• They exchanged goods (rice and other grains) in return for forest produce
• They also worked as labourers when the supplies of the forest produce shrank
• But the Baigas of Central India never work as labourers. They thought that to became a labourer was below their dignity  
• Tribals also depend on money lenders for cash needs (to buy and sell goods)
• some others were pastoralists
• The Van Gujjaris of Punjab hills and the Labadis of Andhra Pradesh - cattle herders
• The Gaddis of Kulu - shepherds
• The Bakarwals of Kashmir - reared goats  
• Mundas of Chottanagpur - regarded as descendants of the original settlers
• Tribals like Gonds and Santhals were more civilised than hunter-gatherers or shifting cultivators 

                                                        

    

     IMPACT OF COLONIAL RULE

• Previously tribal chiefs had certain power, they administered and controlled the territories
• But after the arrival of the British, they lost the authority and they also paid the tribute to the British 
• British introduced land settlements for shifting cultivators(nomadic tribes), also wanted a regular revenue from them
• But the efforts were not successful, tribals continued their traditional practice 
• British introduced reserved forests to produce timber where the tribal people were not allowed to move freely
• It resulted in shortage of labour for forest department, to ensure a regular supply of cheap labour, then the British allowed jhum cultivators
• Tribals reacted for colonial forest laws which resulted in:
• the revolt of Songram Sangma - 1906 in Assam
• the forest satyagraha - 1930s in Central Provinces
• In 18 CE, the East India Company encouraged silk production
• In Hazaribagh in Jharkhand - the Santhals reared cocoons
• the growers get Rs 3 to Rs 4 for thousand cocoons
• then exported to Burdwan or Gaya were sold at five times the price
• while the middlemen(dealers) - made huge profits
• In 19 CE, tribals worked in tea plantations(Assam) and in mining works in large numbers 
• These exploitations resulted in tribal revolts:
• The Kols Uprisings in 1831-32
• Santhal Rebellion in 1855
• The Bastar Rebellion - Central India in 1910
• The Warli Revolt - Maharashtra in 1940

     BIRSA MUNDA - A MUNDA RAJ

• An Indian tribal freedom fighter
• belonged to Mundas tribe in Jharkhand
• He wanted to free from oppression of dikus (outsiders - Britishers)
• He wanted Mundas to give up liquor, to led a good life as they had before the British rule 
• He turned against the missionaries and the Hindu Landlords, the British land policies were destroyed
• When he set up a Munda Raj, he was arrested in 1895 and jailed for 2 years 
• He died in 1900 of Cholera and the movement suppressed
• Significance of Birsa movement - forced to introduce new tribal laws and also showed that the tribals had the capacity to protest against colonial rule.