Friday, July 8, 2011

Resistance Against the British (contd-1)

Economic Causes
In most of the cases the disturbances were due to over assessment of land, heavy exactions from the cultivators, dispossession of old Zamindar families by process of auction sale or resumption, and depriving a large class of petty landholders of their tenure based on prescriptive service which was no longer required.
When the British authority was firmly established in Bengal the Raja of  Dhalbhum, (Dhalbhum (Bengali: ধলভূম) was the name given to parganas Supur and Ambikanagar in the Khatra area of present Bankura district in the Indian state of West Bengal.In the course of time, Dhalbhum kingdom was spread over a much wider area, across the western part of adjoining Midnapore district and the eastern and south-eastern parts ols Singhbhum district in present day Jharkhand) determined not to admit a Firringhee into his country, barricated all narrow passes, and offered a stiff resistance to the British forces. When the Raja was forced to flee, his nephew Jagannath Dhal was put in his place by the British (1767). But Jagannath proved equally refractory, and when Captain Morgan was sent against him, 'he found the whole country up in arms against the British authority.The Chuars, a class of wild tribes, joined the fray, and committed many acts of violence in 1770.They completely surprised Lieut. Nunn's force killed and wounded a considerable numberand cut down pickets of Sepoys. Ultimately British Government was compelled to make a peace treaty.
The exactions and oppressions of the notorious Debi Singh, whom Burke had immortalised in his speeches during the impeachment of Warren Hastings, led to a violent insurrection of the peasants at Rangpur in 1783.
In 1800, Chuars plundered several Maujas . Madhab Singh '\the brother of the raja of Barabhum, at the head of his Chuar followers, became so formidable that Wellesley's Government had to adopt vast measures for his apprehension. Other leaders of the time were Raja Mohan Singh, Zamindar of Juriah, and Lachman Singh who hurled defiance from his mountain stronghold of Dulma. The Chuar insurrection of 1799 had been attributed to the resumption of paik jagir hands in the Zamindari of the Rani of Karnagarh.