Damin-i-Koh

Topic: Peasant and Tribal Resistance under Company Rule · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Colonialism and the Countryside"

Meaning

Damin-i-Koh ("skirts of the hills") was a large area of land at the foot of the Rajmahal Hills. By 1832 the British had marked it out with boundary pillars as land for Santhal settlers, and they ran it as a government estate [2]. It matters because it shows how Company land policy remade a whole region. The Santhals settled there, the Paharias were pushed out, and the same land became the centre of the Santhal rebellion of 1855 [2].

Explanation

Background: why the British created it

• The Santhals began entering Bengal around the 1780s. They moved in groups, cleared forest and farmed.
• Two forces pulled them in:
• Zamindars hired them to reclaim land. This means turning forest and waste land into farmland so that rent income would rise.

• British officials invited them into the Jangal Mahals (the "forest estates" on the edge of the Bengal plains).

• The Paharia failure came first. The British had first tried to turn the Paharias (hill people of the Rajmahal Hills) into settled farmers.

• The Paharias refused to cut forests or use the plough.

• They used the hoe and practised shifting cultivation (they cleared a patch, cropped it for a few years, then moved to fresh land).

• Why the Santhals were seen as "ideal settlers":

• They cleared forest with energy.
• They ploughed deep and grew a surplus.
• A settled ploughman pays a fixed revenue every year. A shifting hoe-farmer does not.

Main features of the Damin

• Demarcated by 1832. A large block of the Rajmahal foothills was set aside as Santhal land.
• How the land was marked out:
• It was surveyed and mapped.
• It was enclosed with boundary pillars (stone markers on the ground).

• It was kept separate from the plains farmers below and from the Paharias in the hills above.

• A government estate. The Company offered land leases at low rent. Rent was paid straight to the Company, not to a zamindar [2].

• Condition of the grant: at least one-tenth of the area had to be cleared and cultivated within the first ten years.

Growth, 1838–1851

	1838	1851
Santhal villages in the Damin	40	1,473
Santhal population	3,000	82,000+

• In 13 years the number of villages grew about 37 times, and the population about 27 times.
• The Company earned more and more. As farming spread, revenue flowed into Company coffers.
• The tax burden also rose. The Company raised tax rates, and revenue from the estate went up by about 600 per cent in the same period [2].
• Settled farming changed Santhal life:
• The Santhals began growing commercial crops for the market, not only food for the family.
• This brought them into daily contact with traders and moneylenders. That contact later led to debt and anger.

Results: the Paharias' loss and the road to revolt

• The Paharias were pushed uphill. They lost the lower slopes and were confined to the dry, rocky upper hills.
• Their way of farming broke down:
• Shifting cultivation needs a steady supply of fresh, fertile land.
• The best soils were now inside the Damin, fenced off by pillars.
• With no new land to move to, the system collapsed. Hunting also declined because the forests had been cut down.

• The Paharias became poorer over time. This was a slow ruin, not a single blow.

• The Damin became the centre of the revolt.

• On 30 June 1855, the brothers Sidhu and Kanhu spoke to about 10,000 Santhals in the heart of Damin-i-Koh.

• They said Thakur Bonga (the great spirit) had told them to drive out the outsiders [2].

• How the British responded:

• At first they did not take the rising seriously.
• Then they sent in the army, declared martial law and captured Sidhu and Kanhu.
• After the revolt they created a new district, the Santhal Parganas. It had special rules that gave Santhals some protection from outsiders [2].

Time, place and evidence

• Period: East India Company rule in Bengal. The Santhals began coming in around the 1780s, the Damin was demarcated by 1832, it grew fast between 1838 and 1851, and the revolt broke out in 1855.
• Place: the foothills of the Rajmahal Hills, in the Chota Nagpur–Rajmahal belt. The Santhals speak a language of the Munda family, and this belt is their homeland today [2].
• Key people and groups: the Santhals (settlers), the Paharias (displaced hill people), and Sidhu and Kanhu (leaders of 1855) [2]. The leadership is officially remembered as Sido–Kanhu, Chand–Bhairav and the sisters Phulo–Jhano [3].
• How we know about it:
• Company records: surveys, maps, boundary pillars, revenue returns and village and population counts.
• Francis Buchanan, a Company surveyor. He praised the cleared land, writing "what a glorious country this might be made". But he also wrote that the Santhals "are very clever in clearing new lands, but live meanly", meaning they worked hard but lived poorly.

• Santhal myths and songs. They remember a past of constant wandering, "a tireless search for a place to settle". In their memory, that search ended at the Damin.

• Today: 30 June is marked in India as Hul Diwas, in memory of the rising [3].

Don't confuse with

• Jangal Mahals: the "forest estates" on the edge of the Bengal plains, where British officials invited Santhals in general. Damin-i-Koh is a specific block of the Rajmahal foothills, marked out with pillars by 1832.
• Santhal Parganas: the district the British created after the 1855 revolt, with protective rules for Santhals [2]. The Damin was the earlier (1832) settler estate, created to earn revenue.
• Paharias vs Santhals: the Paharias were the hoe-using shifting cultivators of the upper hills who refused the plough. The Santhals were the plough-using settlers of the Damin.
• Hul (1855) vs Ulgulan: the Hul was the Santhal rising led by Sidhu and Kanhu from the Damin [2]. The Ulgulan was the later rising led by Birsa Munda [3].

Prelims Hooks

• Damin-i-Koh means "skirts of the hills". It lay at the foot of the Rajmahal Hills [2].
• Demarcated as Santhal land by 1832 and enclosed with boundary pillars. Grant condition: one-tenth of the area to be cleared and cultivated within the first ten years.
• 1838 → 1851: villages grew from 40 to 1,473, and population from 3,000 to 82,000+. Use the NCERT figure, 82,000+, not "about 83,000".
• Trap: the Damin was a government estate. Rent was paid directly to the Company, not to zamindars [2]. Estate revenue rose about 600 per cent between 1838 and 1851 [2].
• Francis Buchanan said the Santhals were "very clever in clearing new lands, but live meanly."
• Order of events: Santhals enter Bengal (c. 1780s) → Damin demarcated (1832) → revolt under Sidhu and Kanhu (30 June 1855) → Santhal Parganas district created [2]. 30 June is Hul Diwas [3].

Mains Points

• Colonial land policy picked its farmer.
• The British wanted a plough-using, settled, revenue-paying cultivator, not just any farmer.
• They chose the Santhals over the Paharias. This shows that "developing agriculture" under the Company really meant getting the most revenue it could assess and collect.

• One choice by the state redrew the social map of a whole region in a single generation. One group's gain (Santhals in the fertile foothills) was another group's ruin (Paharias on rocky slopes). This is a good example of colonialism creating conflict between tribal groups, not only between tribe and state.

• Settlement led to revolt.

• Fixed land, rising tax demands [2], commercial crops and debts to traders and moneylenders turned the "model settlers" of 1832 into the rebels of 1855.
• The chain was: settling down → debt and loss of land → armed revolt → the protective rules of the Santhal Parganas [2].

• The same pattern appears later in Birsa Munda's Ulgulan and the Chhota Nagpur Tenancy Act, 1908 [3].

• Memory versus record. Santhal songs remember the Damin as the end of a long wandering. Company records remember it as a revenue estate. Comparing the two is a ready answer point on using oral tradition alongside colonial documents as sources of history.

Related concepts

• Santhal
• Jangal Mahals

Read more

• The Santhals: pioneer settlers of Damin-i-Koh