Santhal

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

Meaning

The Santhals (Santals) are a tribal people of the Munda language family who began entering Bengal around the 1780s [2]. Zamindars hired them to clear forest for farming, and British officials invited them into the Jangal Mahals. By 1832 they had been settled as plough cultivators in the Damin-i-Koh (the "skirts of the hills"), a government estate in the Rajmahal foothills [2].

They matter because their story shows what the Company wanted from farming: a settled cultivator who paid revenue every year. The same settlement that made them "model settlers" also produced the Santhal rebellion (Hul) of 1855 [2].

Explanation

Why the Santhals came and why the British wanted them

• Two forces pulled them into Bengal (from c. 1780s):
• Zamindars hired them to reclaim land. This meant turning forest and wasteland into farmland, so that rent income would rise.

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

• The Paharia experiment failed first.

• The British first tried to make the Paharias (hill people of the Rajmahal hills) into settled farmers.

• The Paharias refused to cut forests or touch the plough. They used the hoe and practised shifting cultivation (clear a patch, burn it, grow crops for a few years, then move on).

• The Santhals seemed the 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-cultivator does not.

Damin-i-Koh: how the settlement worked

• 1832: a large block of the Rajmahal foothills was marked out as Santhal land. This land was called Damin-i-Koh, "skirts of the hills" [2].
• Marking out the land meant three things:
• The land was surveyed and mapped.
• It was fenced off with boundary pillars (stone markers on the ground).

• It was kept apart from the plains farmers below and from the Paharias above.

• Terms of settlement:

• It was a government estate. Santhals got leases at low rent paid directly 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, change and its costs (1838–1851)

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

• Villages grew about 37 times, and the population about 27 times, in 13 years.
• The Company raised tax rates. Revenue from the estate rose by about 600 per cent [2]. (Britannica gives "about 83,000" for 1851 [2]. Use the NCERT figure, 82,000+, in the exam.)
• A wandering people settled down. Santhal myths and songs remember a long history of moving from place to place, "a tireless search for a place to settle". In their memory, that search ended at the Damin.
• The move into the market:
• They began growing commercial crops for sale (crops grown to sell, not only for the family to eat).

• This brought them into daily contact with traders and moneylenders. That contact later turned into debt and anger.

• The Paharias paid the price:

• They were pushed onto the dry, rocky upper hills.
• The best soils were now inside the Damin's pillars. So shifting cultivation had no fresh land to move to, and it broke down.
• Forests were cut for fields, so their hunting declined too.
• The result was slow, long-term poverty for the Paharias.

Result: the Hul of 1855

• 30 June 1855: the brothers Sidhu and Kanhu spoke to a gathering of about 10,000 Santhals in the heart of the Damin. They said Thakur Bonga (the great spirit) had told them to drive out the outsiders [2].
• The leaders remembered today are Sido–Kanhu, Chand–Bhairav and the sisters Phulo–Jhano [3].
• The British response:
• At first they underrated the rising.
• Then they sent in the army, declared martial law and captured Sidhu and Kanhu [2].

• Afterwards they created a new district, the Santhal Parganas, with special rules that gave Santhals some protection from outsiders [2].

• 30 June is now observed as Hul Diwas [3].

Time, place and evidence

• Period: from c. 1780s (arrival in Bengal) through 1832 (Damin marked out) to 1855 (the Hul), under East India Company rule.
• Place: the Rajmahal Hills and their foothills (Damin-i-Koh), on the edge of the Bengal plains. Today the Santhal homeland is the Chota Nagpur–Rajmahal belt [2].
• Key people: Sidhu and Kanhu, Chand and Bhairav, Phulo and Jhano [3]. Francis Buchanan, the Company surveyor, is also important.
• How we know about it:
• Company records: surveys, maps, the boundary pillars and revenue figures. These show the Damin as a revenue estate.
• Buchanan's accounts: he admired the cleared land, saying "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 oral tradition: myths and songs that remember a long wandering ending at the Damin.

Don't confuse with

• Paharias: also hill people of the Rajmahal hills, but they were hoe-using shifting cultivators who refused to cut forests. The Santhals were plough cultivators whom the British preferred.
• Damin-i-Koh vs Santhal Parganas: the Damin was the 1832 government estate for Santhal settlement. The Santhal Parganas was the new district created after the 1855 rising [2].
• Hul (1855) vs Ulgulan: the Hul was the Santhal rising led by Sidhu and Kanhu. The Ulgulan was the later Munda rising led by Birsa Munda, and it was followed by the Chhota Nagpur Tenancy Act, 1908 [3].
• Jangal Mahals vs Damin-i-Koh: the Jangal Mahals were the broad "forest estates" on the edge of the Bengal plains where the British invited the Santhals. The Damin-i-Koh was the specific area of land in the Rajmahal foothills that was marked out with pillars.

Prelims Hooks

• Damin-i-Koh means "skirts of the hills". It lay in the Rajmahal Hills foothills and was marked out as Santhal land in 1832 [2].
• Grant condition: one-tenth of the area had 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+ (NCERT figure). Revenue rose about 600 per cent [2].
• Rent in the Damin was paid directly to the Company, not to zamindars. Trap: it was not a zamindari area [2].
• Francis Buchanan wrote that the Santhals were "very clever in clearing new lands, but live meanly."
• 30 June 1855: the Hul began under Sidhu and Kanhu, who invoked Thakur Bonga [2]. The date is observed as Hul Diwas [3].

Mains Points

• The Company chose its farmer. The British wanted a settled, plough-using cultivator who paid revenue, not just any farmer. Choosing the Santhals over the Paharias shows that "improving agriculture" meant getting as much revenue as possible. It also shows how state preference could reshape a whole region within one generation.
• One group's gain was another's loss, and settlement led to revolt.
• The Damin pillars gave the Santhals the fertile foothills and pushed the Paharias onto rocky slopes. Colonial rule created conflict between tribal groups, not only between tribes and the state.
• Fixed land, rising taxes [2], commercial crops and dependence on moneylenders turned the "model settlers" of 1832 into the rebels of 1855.

• The chain ran from settlement, to debt and loss of land, to armed resistance, and then to 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 see it as a revenue estate. Comparing the two is a good example of using oral tradition alongside colonial documents as historical sources.

Related concepts

• Jangal Mahals
• Damin-i-Koh

Read more

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