Rajmahal hills
Topic: Peasant and Tribal Resistance under Company Rule · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Colonialism and the Countryside"
Meaning
The Rajmahal hills are hill ranges in present-day Jharkhand, near the Ganga. In the late eighteenth century the Paharias lived here. They depended on forest produce and shifting cultivation, and they saw the whole region as their land. The area became a frontier where the hill people clashed with settled farming on the plains, which the British were pushing forward.
Example
From about the 1780s the British brought in Santhal settlers. By 1832 part of the foothills was marked out as Santhal land, called Damin-i-Koh. Santhal villages there grew from 40 in 1838 to 1,473 in 1851. The Paharias were pushed into the dry, rocky upper hills and became poor.
Don't confuse with
- Chota Nagpur: a nearby plateau in Jharkhand where the Kol Uprising of 1831–32 took place. It is a different region.
Related concepts
- Paharia
- Shifting cultivation
- Augustus Cleveland
- Paharia pacification policy
- Stipendiary chief
- William Hodges
- Aquatint
- Picturesque