Tribal Revolts in British India

Birsa Munda and the Ulgulan, 1899–1900

Birsa was born on 15 November 1875 at Ulihatu, in what is now Khunti district, Jharkhand. His Munda people held land under the khuntkatti system, in which the descendants of the family that first cleared a village owned the land jointly. By his youth that system was eroding. Outside lessees (thikadars), moneylenders and traders, whom the Mundas called dikus, were taking land, and landlords demanded unpaid labour (begar).

Birsa answered with religion and politics together. He preached one God and a clean, sober life, and his followers called him Dharti Aba ("father of the earth"). In late 1899 he turned the faith into a rising. Ulgulan means "great tumult", and on 24 December 1899 his followers shot arrows at churches and police posts in Ranchi and Singhbhum districts. On 9 January 1900 troops met them at Dombari Hill, where bows and arrows faced rifles. Birsa was captured in 1900 and died in Ranchi jail on 9 June 1900, officially of cholera.

The rising failed, but it worked on official minds. The Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908 recognised khuntkatti rights and limited the transfer of tribal raiyats' land to outsiders. The jail where Birsa died is now a museum in Ranchi.

The Revolts at a Glance

Dates for the early risings vary between books, so the table gives the safest span. The revolts are in time order, and the pressures behind them are explained straight after.

Why They Rose: Four Pressures

The revolts are scattered over 150 years and across half the subcontinent, yet the grievances repeat. Learn the four pressures and you can guess the cause of any rising in the table above.

Many risings also had a religious side. Leaders such as Birsa and Jatra Bhagat offered a cleaner way of life, a single God and the promise that the old order would return. That is why UPSC calls them "movements" as often as "revolts". Hul (Santhal) and Ulgulan (Munda) are simply the community words for rising and tumult.

The Santhal Hul, 1855–56

The Santhals came to the Rajmahal hills because the British invited them. In 1832 the Company demarcated a large tract as Damin-i-Koh, "the skirts of the hills", to settle Santhals who would clear the forest. At first the rents were light. Soon they rose, and moneylenders, zamindars and officials followed the farmers in, with forced labour, false weights and ruinous interest.

On 30 June 1855 a gathering at Bhognadih, under the brothers Sidhu and Kanhu with Chand and Bhairav, declared that Company rule had ended. Thousands rose, raiding mahajans and officials, and the Company answered with troops and martial law. Sidhu was killed and Kanhu was captured by 1856. In the same year the government carved out the Santhal Parganas as a separate district, outside the normal laws. Jharkhand marks 30 June as Hul Diwas. The Santhals' later spiritual revival, the Kherwar or Sapha Har movement of the 1870s, preached one God and a purer life.

Forest Risings: Bhumkal and Rampa

The forest was the second battlefield. The colonial state wanted timber for railway sleepers and ships, so the Forest Acts divided woodland into reserved, protected and village forests, and curbed shifting cultivation, grazing and the gathering of minor produce. In Bastar, Bhumkal (the local word for "earthquake") shook the state in 1910 when forests were reserved. Led by Gunda Dhur, the rising was put down within months, but the reservation plan was scaled back.

In the Godavari hills, Alluri Sitarama Raju turned anger over the Madras Forest Act of 1882 and forced road labour into a guerrilla campaign. From August 1922 his band raided police stations for weapons. He was captured and executed in May 1924, and the hill people remember him as Manyam Veerudu, "hero of the jungle".

The Law That Followed Each Defeat

The pattern is one of the most useful in the chapter: each major rising was crushed, and then a protective law followed. Remember the pair, not the story.

The idea of leaving tribal areas under special rules was carried into the Government of India Act 1935 as "excluded" and "partially excluded" areas, and from there into the Constitution as the Fifth and Sixth Schedules. Under the Fifth Schedule the Governor can make regulations to stop tribal land passing to non-tribals. The Forest Rights Act 2006 and PESA 1996 are the modern answers to the grievances of land and forest. Our article on the special provisions and Schedules covers them, and the British land revenue systems explain the first pressure.

How UPSC Has Asked It: Past Papers Solved

UPSC asks the Damin-i-Koh question over and over, then rotates through the rest. Six solved questions follow.

Practice MCQs (with answers)

1. "Ulgulan", the name of Birsa Munda's rising, means
   1. the great march
   2. the great tumult
   3. the sacred forest
   4. land to the tiller
2. Janjatiya Gaurav Divas, observed since 2021 on 15 November, marks the birth anniversary of
   1. Sidhu Murmu
   2. Alluri Sitarama Raju
   3. Tilka Manjhi
   4. Birsa Munda
3. The Santhal Hul began in June 1855 at Bhognadih under
   1. Sidhu and Kanhu
   2. Birsa and Gaya Munda
   3. Buddhu Bhagat and Joa Bhagat
   4. Alluri Sitarama Raju
4. The Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908 was a response to
   1. the Santhal Hul
   2. the Kol rising of 1831-32
   3. the Munda Ulgulan
   4. the Tana Bhagat movement
5. Which pair of revolt and leader is correctly matched?
   1. Rampa 1922-24: Birsa Munda
   2. Rampa 1922-24: Alluri Sitarama Raju
   3. Kuki rising: U Tirot Sing
   4. Bhumkal: Sidhu and Kanhu
6. The Kuki rising of 1917-19 in Manipur began over
   1. recruitment of labour for the First World War
   2. a ban on shifting cultivation
   3. a salt tax
   4. the reservation of forests
7. U Tirot Sing, who fought the Anglo-Khasi War of 1829-33, was from
   1. Odisha
   2. Bastar
   3. Manipur
   4. Meghalaya
8. The Tana Bhagats of Chotanagpur became known in the 1920s for
   1. joining the Ghadar Party
   2. opposing Congress
   3. following Gandhi, spinning khadi and carrying the tricolour
   4. turning to Christianity

Quick Revision