Class 8 Social Science Tribals Dikus and the Vision of a Golden Age Exam Notes

Class 8 Social Science Tribals Dikus and the Vision of a Golden Age Exam Notes. Please refer to the examination notes which you can use for preparing and revising for exams. These notes will help you to revise the concepts quickly and get good marks.

Covers the following topics:

These Class 8 Social Science exam notes on Tribals, Dikus and the Vision of a Golden Age cover the characteristics of tribal societies, how tribal groups lived as jhum cultivators, hunters, herders and settled cultivators, how colonial rule changed tribal life through chiefs, forest laws and trade, the life and movement of Birsa Munda, and the major tribal rebellions such as the Khasi, Santhal and Manipur revolts.

Topics Covered

1. Characteristics of the tribal societies
2. How did tribal groups live?
3. How did colonial rule affect tribal life?
4. A closer look

Introduction

The British took over a large area under cultivation. They took over the political power and adopted the expansion policy. They encroached upon the natural habitat of the tribals, which disturbed the tribals and resulted in widespread revolts. The lands of the tribals were used for cultivating cash crops such as indigo, jute and poppy.

Who were the tribals?

The tribals are also called adivasis. They are a group of people united by a common name and language. Mostly they lived isolated from the rest of society and shared a common territory and culture.

India is the homeland of many tribes such as the Khonds, Khasis and Santhals. The tribals lived in forests and hills. The landless tribals were forced to become labourers at very low wages. The tribals were further exploited by moneylenders, who forced them to work as coolies in mines and factories.

The tribals enjoyed freedom to such an extent that any move to restrict their freedom and rights was objected to by them. The East India Company took away the forest lands and handed them over to traders. Tribal people who depended on the forest for food and fodder had to watch the destruction of their livelihood and identity.

The British, with their ruthless expansion policy, put the tribals in miserable conditions, which made them revolt. The powerful revolts were as follows:
- Bhils in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra
- Mundas in Bihar
- Kols in Maharashtra, Bihar, Bengal and Odisha
- Gonds and Khonds in Odisha
- Mers in Rajasthan
- Khasis in Meghalaya
- Santhals in Bihar and Bengal

The discontent made these tribals revolt against the British very soon.

Characteristics of the Tribal Societies

Most tribes had customs and rituals that were very different from those laid down by the Brahmans.
These societies also did not have the sharp social divisions that were characteristic of caste societies.
All those who belonged to the same tribe thought of themselves as sharing common ties of kinship. However, this did not mean that there were no social and economic differences within tribes.

How Did Tribal Groups Live?

Tribes as Jhum Cultivators: North Eastern Region

Some tribes practised jhum cultivation on a small piece of land. The cultivators cut trees and burnt vegetation so that they could use the land. They spread the ash from the fire, which contained potash, to make the soil fertile. Trees were cut with axes, and the soil was scratched with hoes to make it fit for cultivation. Seeds were scattered on the field. Once the crops were harvested, the farmers shifted to another field. The cultivated field was left for some years so that it could regain its fertility.

This was called jhum or shifting cultivation. It was practised in the hilly and forested parts of north-east and central India. The people of this tribe remained confined to the forests.

Tribes as Hunters and Gatherers: Orissa and Central India

In several regions, tribals earned their livelihood by hunting and gathering forest produce. The Khonds of Orissa belonged to this community. They went for regular hunting and then divided the meat among themselves. They also ate fruits and roots collected from the forest. They cooked their food with oil, which they extracted from the seeds of trees and the malwa flower. Shrubs and herbs from the forests were used for medicinal purposes. Local weavers and leather workers depended on the Khonds for the supply of 'Kusum' and 'Palash' flowers for dyeing leather and clothes.

People of the forests got rice and grain in exchange for their valuable forest products. Some of them worked in fields, carried loads or did other odd jobs to earn a living. If the supplies of forest produce shrank, the tribals faced many difficulties. However, the Baiga tribes of central India lived only on the produce of the forest. They thought it undignified to work as labourers.

Tribal groups often bought products that were not produced in their locality. For this, they had to depend on traders and moneylenders, who gave them loans at high interest rates. This reduced the tribals to a state of debt and poverty. Moneylenders and traders were thus the cause of their misery.

Tribals as Herders of Animals: North India and South India

Many tribal groups lived by herding and rearing animals. Tribals who were pastoralists moved with their herds of sheep. These include the Van Gujjars of Punjab, the Labadis of Andhra Pradesh, the Gaddis of Kulu and the Bakarwals of Kashmir.

Tribals as Settled Cultivators: Chotanagpur Plateau

Since the beginning of the 19th century, many tribal groups began settling down and cultivating their fields. They started ploughing land that was earlier not used by the tribals. Gradually, they even got rights over the land they lived on. The Mundas of Chotanagpur belonged to this class. Members of this class were considered the descendants of the original settlers, and all of them had equal rights on the land. Within the same class, some people were more powerful than others. Powerful men often rented out their land instead of cultivating it themselves.

The British considered settled tribal groups such as the Gonds and Santhals more civilised than hunter-gatherers or shifting cultivators. The British regarded those living in forests as wild and savage, and felt there was a need to make them settled and civilised.

How Did Colonial Rule Affect Tribal Life?

What happened to tribal chiefs?

Before British rule came to India, tribal chiefs were important people who enjoyed economic and administrative influence over the people. In several areas, they had their own police and local rules for land and forest management.

With the coming of the British, the rule and powers of the tribal chiefs changed considerably. They were allowed to keep their land titles and even rent out land. However, they lost all their power under British rule. They had to pay tribute to the British and lost much of the authority they had enjoyed earlier.

What happened to the shifting cultivators?

The British did not like tribals who wandered from one place to another. They wanted to see them as settled cultivators, because settled peasants could be controlled easily and gave a regular source of revenue to the state. The British therefore introduced land settlement. This was done by measuring land and fixing the demand of the state. Some peasants were declared owners of the land, while others were tenants. Tenants had to pay rent to the owners, who in turn paid revenue to the state. The British effort to settle jhum cultivation paid some dividends, but scarcity of water caused them some problems.

The British effort to settle jhum cultivators was not very successful. Jhum cultivators who took to plough cultivation often suffered, since their fields did not produce good yields. Facing widespread protests, the British had to 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 declared that forests were state property. Reserved forests produced timber, which the British wanted. In these forests, people were not allowed to move freely, practise jhum cultivation, collect fruits or hunt animals.

Once the British stopped tribal people from living inside the forests, they faced a shortage of labour to cut trees for railway sleepers and to transport logs.

Colonial officials came up with a solution. They decided to give jhum cultivators small patches of land in the forests and allow them to cultivate these on the condition that the villagers would provide labour to the forest department and look after the forests.

Many tribal groups reacted against the colonial forest laws. They disobeyed the new rules, continued practices that had been 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 exploiting them and making a good fortune for themselves. For example, the silk agents in Hazaribagh gave loans to the Santhal tribals who reared cocoons, and then collected the cocoons from them. The growers were paid a very low amount, Rs. 3 to Rs. 4 for a thousand cocoons. These cocoons were then exported to Burdwan or Gaya and sold at five times the price. The middlemen thus made huge profits, while 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. Tribals were recruited in large numbers to work in 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.

A Closer Look

Through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, tribal groups in different parts of the country rebelled against changes in laws, restrictions on their practices, new taxes and the exploitation by traders and moneylenders. The Kols rebelled in 1831-32. The Santhals rose in revolt in 1855. The Bastar Rebellion in Central India broke out in 1910, and the Warli Revolt in Maharashtra in 1940.

Birsa Munda

Birsa was born in the mid-1870s. 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 of the ancestral right of the community being restored. They reminded people of the need to win back their kingdom.

From the sermons of missionaries, Birsa heard that it was possible for the Mundas to attain the Kingdom of Heaven and regain their lost rights. Birsa also spent some time in the company of a prominent Vaishnav preacher. He wore the sacred thread and began to value purity and piety.

Birsa was deeply influenced by many of the ideas he came across in his growing-up years. He aimed at reforming tribal society. He urged the Mundas to give up drinking liquor, to clean their villages and to stop believing in witchcraft and sorcery. Birsa also turned against the missionaries and Hindu landlords, whom he saw as outside forces ruining the Munda way of life.

In 1895 Birsa urged his followers to recover their glorious past. He also wanted people to work on their land once again, settle down and cultivate their fields.

The British became alarmed at the political aim of the Birsa movement, which wanted to drive out the missionaries, moneylenders, Hindu landlords and the government, and to 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. British officials arrested Birsa in 1895, convicted him 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 against the dikus and the Europeans. 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.

The movement was significant in at least two ways. First, it forced the colonial government to introduce laws so that the land of the tribals could not be easily taken over by dikus. Second, it showed once again that tribal people had the capacity to protest against injustice and to express their anger against colonial rule.

Case Study: Tribal Revolts

Khasi Rebellion

The Khasis inhabited the regions near the Jaintia and Garo Hills. They aimed to drive out lowland strangers from their land. They raided Gnawings in 1829 and killed a number of Britishers and Bengalis who were involved in construction activity in their region. With a strong force of about 10,000 Khasis under the leadership of Tirut Singh, they gave a tough time to the British. The British burnt many of their villages, forcing them to surrender in 1833.

Assam Rebellion

Near the time when the Khasis revolted, the Raja of Assam, Kumar Roopchand, called upon the Naga, Garo and Khanti tribes to revolt against the British. They killed a number of British officers, but the superior weapons of the British forced them to surrender in 1839.

Naga Rebellion

In 1844 the Nagas revolted in Dimapur and killed many British officers. It took the British force three years to curb the rebellion.

Kuki Rebellion

The Kukis lived in Manipur and revolted three times between 1826 and 1849. They killed a number of British officers before their power declined in 1850.

Tribal Revolts in Chotanagpur: Kol Rebellion

In 1820 the Kols of Chotanagpur revolted against the entry of British officers into their territory. They gave a stiff resistance to the British officials before surrendering in 1827.

Munda Rebellion

The Munda rebellion took place in 1830 against the new revenue and judicial administration introduced by the British. The rebellion spread to Ranchi, Palamau and Hazaribagh. The Mundas killed thousands of foreign settlers. The British were finally able to curb the rebellion by 1837.

Santhal Rebellion

The Santhal rebellion took place in 1855-56. This rebellion was not so much against the British as against oppressive zamindars and mahajans. Two brothers, Kanhu and Sidhu, played a major role in this rebellion by cutting postal and railway lines. They also attacked European bungalows. The British, however, took swift action and forced them to run to the jungles. It took time before the British curbed the rebellion by 1856.

Manipur Revolt

In Manipur, the British declared war on 27 April 1891. This war was due to a misunderstanding between the British and the Princess of Manipur.

When the king died, his eldest son Surchandra succeeded to the throne, which brought the two families against each other. In this family fight Surchandra was defeated, and he took refuge in the British residency.

The British interfered in the internal issue and finally arrested the new king, Tikendrajit, and his supporters. In commemoration of this event, a monument named Bir Tikendrajit Park was constructed.

Meghalaya Revolt

The British wanted to link the Brahmaputra and Surma valleys, for which they had to construct a link through the Khasi Hills. The British had imposed a house tax in that area, which was resented by the locals, but the revolt was suppressed by the British very soon.

In AD 1860 income tax was levied, which provoked another revolt. This time the revolt was so strong that the British had to take up seven regiments to suppress it. The revolt was led by U Kiang Nangbah, who was captured and hanged publicly.

In AD 1872 another revolt broke out in the Garo Hills. The British sent troops to establish their control in the region. The people, led by Pa Togan Sangma, confronted the British army using crude weapons, but he could not match the British and was finally defeated.

Other Revolts

The Kharwar or Sapha Har movement rose in 1874 under the leadership of Bhagirath Manjhi. The movement popularised the idea of one god and brought social reforms. It attacked British policies.

The tribal movement of 1914 had nearly 26,000 tribal participants. The leader, Jatra Oraon, advised people to give up animal sacrifice, drinking and other social evils. He organised the people for a non-violent protest against exploitation by moneylenders and the British. Jatra Oraon advised his followers to oppose the taxes, but the British suppressed the revolt.

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