Revolts

Revolts In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the land tenures and revenue settlements of the Company’s government had fundamentally disrupted the Indian rural society and affected the peasantry in an unprecedented manner. In the early days of revenue farming system, the peasantry was oppressed by the revenue contractors and company officials who imposed high revenue demands and collected them forcibly. Initially the peasants sent a petition to the Company’s government asking for redress. But when their appeal for justice went unheeded, they organized themselves and resorted to direct action. They attacked the local cutchery (revenue collector’ office), looted gain stores and refused to pay revenue. A peasant movement of the 1840s and 1850s was the Malabar rebellion in present day Kerala. The Mappillas were the descendents of Arab traders who had settled in this region and had married the Malabar women. Gradually the Mappillais became dependent on agriculture and turned into a community of cultivating tenants, landless labourers, petty traders and fishermen. When the British took over Malabar in , they sought to revamp the land relations by creating individual ownership in land. The traditional system provided for an equal sharing of the net produce of the land by the janmi (holder of janmam tenure), the kanamdar (holder of kanam tenure), and the cultivator. The British system upset this arrangement by recognising the janmi as absolute owners of land, with right to evict tenants, which did not exist earlier. Apart from that, over-assessment, a huge burden of illegal cesses and a pro-landlord attitude of the judiciary and the police led the peasants to live in conditions of extreme poverty. A series of incidents therefore occurred in Malabar throughout the nineteenth century. Three serious incidents occurred in Manjeri in August , in Kulathur in August – both in south Malabar – and in Mattannur in the north in January . British armed forces were deployed XI History - Lesson - - Early Resistance to British Rule Jagirdars, thikadars (revenue farmers) and moneylenders grabbed the land owned by them. Birsa, born in a poor share-cropper household in , declared himself a divine messenger to drive away the British and establish Munda rule in the region. Under his influence the Mundas strongly opposed non-tribals occupying tribal lands. He urged the Munda cultivators not to pay rent to the zamindars. Birsa Munda led a revolt in the Chotta Nagpur region. The indiscriminate slaughter of Munda women at Sail Rakab did not deter the followers of Birsa. The British authorities issued a warrant for Mirsa’s arrest and put up a reward for his capture. Birsa became a martyr in Ranchi jail ( June ). His name continues to inspire the tribals of the region.