Protest Movements against Colonial Rule | ISC Class 11 History Notes

This note covers three protest movements against colonial rule in India between 1859 and 1900: the circumstances that produced the Indigo Uprising of 1859, the Deccan riots of 1875 and the Munda Uprising of 1899-1900, the course and leadership of each, the groups that took part, the impact each had on colonial policy, a timeline, how the three differed from one another, and what the sources tell us.

What was the background of rural protest in colonial India?

Colonial rule changed who owned land, who paid revenue and who grew what. From the late eighteenth century the East India Company built its raj in the countryside through new revenue settlements, new courts and new commercial crops.

Each of these changes created winners and losers, and the losers often resisted.

In Bengal the Permanent Settlement of 1793 fixed the revenue that each zamindar had to pay. The Company pegged the demand high, arguing that the burden would decline as prices rose.

The revenue was invariable regardless of the harvest, and under the Sunset Law a zamindari could be auctioned if payment did not come in by sunset of the specified date.

Over 75 per cent of the zamindaris changed hands after the Settlement, and in Burdwan alone there were over 30,000 pending suits for arrears of rent payment in 1798.

Below the zamindar stood the ryot, the peasant who paid rent, and beside him the jotedar, a rich ryot who was also a trader and moneylender.

Jotedars controlled local trade and moneylending, cultivated land through sharecroppers called adhiyars or bargadars who handed over half the produce, and deliberately delayed payments to the zamindar. Their rise weakened zamindari authority.

Two further changes mattered for the movements in this note. First, the Company wanted cash crops for export, and indigo became one of the most profitable.

Second, in the dry Deccan, which the Company took over from the Peshwa in 1818, the ryotwari revenue system fixed a cash demand on each cultivator, payable whether or not the harvest was good.

In the Rajmahal hills of eastern India, meanwhile, the expansion of settled agriculture swallowed up pastures and forests on which hill folk depended. These pressures set the stage for the protests that follow.

Definition: A protest movement is an organised, collective action by a group of people against a policy, a practice or an authority they consider unjust.

In colonial India such movements were usually local, were often led by people with local standing, and most sought relief from a particular grievance rather than the end of British rule, though the Munda Uprising went further.

Why did the Indigo Uprising of 1859 break out, and what followed?

Indigo was in demand in Europe as a blue dye for cloth. European planters in Bengal and Bihar advanced money, called dadan, to peasants to grow indigo on part of their land, and then bought the crop at a price they fixed themselves, well below its market value.

The advance, the price and the weighing were all controlled by the planter, so the ryot rarely knew what he would receive.

The system tied the peasant to the planter. A ryot who had taken an advance could not easily leave the crop, and the land used for indigo could not be used for food grains.

When the planters pressed harder to recover their advances, the burden fell on the cultivator. Peasants in Bengal found the terms oppressive and began to refuse to grow indigo.

The resistance came to a head in the autumn of 1859, when the ryots of Govindpur village in Nadia district, led by Digambar Biswas and Bishnu Biswas, gave up indigo cultivation. The refusal soon spread to Jessore, Pabna and other districts of Bengal.

The ryots' main weapons were a strike against sowing indigo and a rent strike against planters who had become their landlords, but they also fought back when the planters' armed retainers, the lathiyals, raided their villages. Their demand was firm: no more indigo on their land.

The planters responded with lawsuits and with force. The Bengali press took up the ryots' cause, above all Harish Chandra Mukherjee's paper the Hindoo Patriot, and Dinabandhu Mitra's play Nil Darpan (1860) showed the planters' cruelty on the stage. In 1860 the government appointed an Indigo Commission to enquire into the system.

The Commission reported that the planters' methods were oppressive and that the ryots had genuine grievances. Later in 1860 the government declared that ryots could not be compelled to grow indigo. Within a few years indigo cultivation had almost disappeared from Bengal, and the planters moved their business to Bihar.

The uprising thus showed that organised peasant refusal could force a colonial government to enquire into, and partly restrain, the power of European planters.

Note: A common confusion is to treat the Indigo Uprising as a revolt against British rule itself. It was a protest against a particular system of cultivation and the planters who ran it.

The ryots wanted fair terms and the freedom to grow food crops, not the end of colonial government.

Why did the Deccan riots of 1875 break out, and what followed?

In the Bombay Deccan, the British introduced the ryotwari settlement in the 1820s. Revenue was assessed directly on each ryot and had to be paid in cash.

The first demand was so high that many ryots fled their villages. Prices fell sharply after 1832 and famine struck in 1832-34, yet the demand was not reduced when the harvest failed. To pay the revenue the ryot borrowed from the sahukar, the village moneylender, usually against the security of his land.

Once in debt, the ryot found it hard to escape. The moneylender charged high rates of interest, and the bonds were often written in a form the borrower could not read or check.

The Limitation Law of 1859 made loan bonds valid for only three years. Moneylenders made the ryot sign a fresh bond every three years, with the unpaid interest added to the principal, so the debt kept growing. When the ryot could not repay, the moneylender took over the land.

The cotton boom made matters worse. During the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865, cotton from America almost stopped reaching Britain, and Bombay merchants and Deccan sahukars advanced money freely to ryots to grow cotton. When the war ended in 1865, American cotton returned, the demand for Indian cotton fell, and the moneylenders refused further credit and pressed for repayment. At the same time the revenue demand was raised when the settlement was revised.

Late in 1874 ryots in some villages of Poona district began a social boycott of the moneylenders. On 12 May 1875, a market day, ryots gathered at Supe in Poona district, attacked the sahukars' houses, seized and burnt their account books (bahi khatas) and debt bonds, and looted grain shops. The revolt spread through Poona and Ahmednagar districts, and more than thirty villages were affected.

The riots were directed at the moneylenders, many of them Marwari and Gujarati outsiders, rather than at British officials, because the moneylender was seen as the immediate cause of the peasant's distress.

The government appointed a commission of enquiry, the Deccan Riots Commission, whose report was presented to the British Parliament in 1878. Its report blamed the moneylenders for taking unfair advantage of the ryots and played down the role of the government's revenue demand.

The government then passed the Deccan Agriculturists' Relief Act in 1879. It allowed courts to examine the whole history of a loan and to cut unfair interest, ended imprisonment of agriculturists for debt, and stopped their land being sold for a debt unless it had been pledged as security.

The riots thus led directly to legal protection for the Deccan peasant.

Definition: The sahukar was the village moneylender and grain dealer who advanced loans to peasants, often at high interest, and took land as security when the loan was not repaid.

Why did the Munda Uprising of 1899-1900 break out, and what followed?

The Munda, a tribal people of Chotanagpur (then part of the Bengal Presidency, now in Jharkhand), were settled cultivators who also depended on the forest. Under the khuntkatti system, land was held jointly by the descendants of the families that had first cleared it, and their village headmen, the mundas, settled disputes and led the community.

From the middle of the nineteenth century outsiders began to enter the region. Zamindars, moneylenders and traders, known to the Mundas as dikus, took over tribal land, demanded rent and forced the Mundas into debt.

The British legal system recognised the dikus' claims and did not recognise the Mundas' customary rights over land and forest. Forest laws also restricted the Mundas' access to the forests on which they depended, and the dikus forced them into beth begari, unpaid labour. For about forty years from the late 1850s, Munda leaders called sardars petitioned officials and fought cases in the courts to win back their rights, with little success.

Birsa Munda, born in 1875, began preaching in 1895 that the land belonged to the tribal people and that the dikus should be driven out. He was arrested that year, convicted of rioting and jailed for two years. After his release in 1897 he toured the villages and gathered followers.

He called for a return to the old tribal way of life and for a Munda Raj free of missionaries, moneylenders, landlords and British officials. On 24 December 1899 his followers attacked churches, police stations and the property of dikus in the Ranchi and Singhbhum districts.

The government suppressed the rising with troops. The rebels were defeated at Dombari hill in January 1900, and Birsa was captured early in 1900. He died in Ranchi jail in June 1900. The uprising nevertheless forced the government to act.

The Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908 recognised khuntkatti rights, banned beth begari and restricted the transfer of tribal land to non-tribals. The Munda Uprising thus became one of the best-known tribal movements of colonial India.

Note: The Munda Uprising is sometimes called the Ulgulan, meaning "the great tumult". It was a protest against the dikus and the colonial state that protected them, and a movement to restore tribal land and custom, so it combined economic grievance with a demand for a way of life.

How did different groups take part in these movements?

The ryots and cultivators

The ryots were the largest group in the indigo and Deccan movements. In Bengal they refused to sow indigo and withheld rent from the planters, led by men from their own villages such as Digambar and Bishnu Biswas. In the Deccan they attacked the sahukars and burnt the bonds that bound them.

Their grievance was immediate and material: the loss of land, the burden of debt and the pressure of an unfair crop contract.

The moneylenders and planters

The planters and the sahukars were the targets of the movements. The indigo planters controlled the advance, the price and the weighing of the crop. The sahukars controlled credit and took land when loans were not repaid.

Both groups were seen by the peasants as the immediate cause of their distress, and both used the colonial courts to enforce their claims.

Writers, journalists and missionaries

In Bengal the educated middle class backed the ryots. The Hindoo Patriot reported their grievances, and Dinabandhu Mitra's play Nil Darpan, written in 1860, dramatised their suffering.

The missionary Rev. James Long published an English translation of the play in 1861 and was tried for libel, fined and jailed for a month. Such support carried the ryots' case to officials and to opinion in Britain.

The tribal community and its leaders

In Chotanagpur the Munda community acted as a whole, led by Birsa Munda and by the village headmen. The movement combined a protest against the dikus with a demand to restore tribal custom and the tribal way of life.

This gave the Munda Uprising a cohesion that the other two movements did not have.

The colonial government

The government's role was to keep order and then to enquire. In each case it appointed a commission or passed a law after the movement had shown the strength of the grievance.

The Indigo Commission of 1860, the Deccan Riots Commission, whose report came in 1878, and the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908 all followed protest; none preceded it.

What was the impact of these movements on colonial policies?

Each movement produced a change in colonial policy, though the change was usually limited and came after the protest.

The Indigo Uprising led to the Indigo Commission of 1860 and to the government's declaration that ryots could not be forced to grow indigo, so indigo planting in Bengal soon collapsed.

The Deccan riots led to the Deccan Riots Commission, whose report came in 1878, and to the Deccan Agriculturists' Relief Act of 1879, which let courts review loans and cut unfair interest and protected the ryot's land and person against debt decrees.

The Munda Uprising led to the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908, which recognised khuntkatti rights and restricted the transfer of tribal land.

The wider impact was on the government's understanding of rural society. Officials came to see that the peasantry could act collectively and that a grievance left unaddressed could become a rising.

Enquiry commissions became a common response to rural protest, and the reports they produced shaped later legislation on land, credit and tribal rights.

The movements also showed the limits of colonial reform. The Relief Act of 1879 did not end rural indebtedness, and the Tenancy Act of 1908 did not restore all the land the Mundas had lost.

The government protected the peasant enough to keep order, but it did not change the revenue system that had created the grievance in the first place.

Timeline of the protest movements

The three movements did not occur in isolation. Each followed a long build-up of colonial land and revenue measures, and each was followed by an official enquiry and, in two cases, by a law. The table below sets the main events in order, from the Permanent Settlement of 1793 to the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908.

Read down the table and a pattern appears. In every case the grievance came first, the protest came second, and the government's response came last. The Indigo Commission was appointed in 1860, a year after the ryots of Bengal refused to sow indigo. The Deccan Riots Commission's report came in 1878, three years after the cultivators of Poona and Ahmednagar attacked the sahukars, and the Relief Act followed in 1879. The Chotanagpur Tenancy Act came in 1908, eight years after Birsa Munda died in prison.

The gaps matter for an answer. They show that the colonial government did not act out of goodwill in advance of trouble; it acted when a movement had already shown how serious the grievance was. They also show how slowly the machinery of enquiry and legislation moved, so that a peasant who protested in 1875 waited four years for a law.

Three entries in the table belong to the background rather than to the movements themselves. The Permanent Settlement of 1793 created the revenue system that shaped rural Bengal, the Fifth Report of 1813 shows how the British Parliament scrutinised Company rule, and the annexation of 1818 brought the Deccan under the ryotwari system. They help explain the pressures that produced the protests, and they are useful dates to remember when a question asks for the circumstances behind a movement.

How did the three movements differ from one another?

The three movements arose from different economic systems and aimed at different targets. The Indigo Uprising grew out of a commercial crop controlled by European planters; the Deccan riots grew out of a cash revenue demand and village moneylending; the Munda Uprising grew out of the loss of tribal land and forest rights to outsiders. Their targets, methods and results therefore differed, as the table shows.

The Indigo Uprising relied mainly on refusal: the ryots would not sow the crop and withheld rent, though they also fought the planters' retainers.

The Deccan riots and the Munda Uprising both involved attacks on property, but the Deccan riots were aimed at the creditors who held the ryots' bonds, while the Munda Uprising was aimed both at outsiders who had entered a tribal region and at the colonial state that protected them.

The Indigo Uprising produced an enquiry that restrained the planters; the Deccan riots produced a law that protected the peasant; the Munda Uprising produced a law that protected tribal land.

What do the sources tell us about these movements?

Our knowledge of these movements comes mainly from records made by the colonial government and by the people who opposed the peasants.

The Indigo Commission of 1860 collected evidence from planters and ryots and reported that the planters' methods were oppressive.

The Deccan Riots Commission, whose report was presented to Parliament in 1878, examined the bonds and accounts of the moneylenders and reported on the unfair terms of the loans.

Both reports are official documents, written by officials who were not themselves peasants, and they must be read with that in mind. The Deccan report, for instance, blamed the moneylenders and played down the revenue demand, a sign of the government's reluctance to admit that its own policy caused unrest.

For the Indigo Uprising there is also a non-official source: Dinabandhu Mitra's play Nil Darpan of 1860, written in Bengali and translated into English in 1861. It shows how the educated middle class saw the planters, though as a play it dramatises rather than records.

For the Munda Uprising the main records are government reports on the rising and on the land question in Chotanagpur.

These records describe the attacks of December 1899 and the arrest of Birsa Munda, but they say little about what the Mundas themselves believed. Munda songs and oral traditions about Birsa, and the anthropologist Sarat Chandra Roy's study The Mundas and their Country (1912), help fill that gap.

The Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908 is itself a source, because it shows what the government thought it had to concede.

Historians also use the records of the villages and the evidence of the peasants themselves where it survives.

The Fifth Report of 1813, with its 1002 pages and over 800 pages of appendices, shows how official enquiries reproduced petitions and statistical tables.

Such records tell us about the fears of officials and their view of the peasants as much as about the peasants themselves.

The movements of 1859, 1875 and 1899-1900 are therefore known mainly through the eyes of those who suppressed them, and the peasant's own voice is heard only indirectly.

Going beyond the syllabus

The three movements belong to a wider pattern of rural protest in colonial India. The Santhal rebellion of 1855-56 in the Rajmahal hills, the Pabna agrarian league of 1873, which was followed by the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885, Gandhi's Champaran satyagraha of 1917 against the indigo planters of Bihar, and the All India Kisan Sabha founded in 1936 all grew from similar grievances over land, rent and credit.

Reading them together shows how colonial revenue and commercial policies repeatedly pushed cultivators and tribal communities into protest, and how the government answered each protest with an enquiry and a limited law.

The pattern is worth noticing because it repeats. A revenue demand is fixed in cash; a bad season or a fall in prices makes it impossible to pay; the cultivator borrows; the lender takes the land; the cultivator resists; a commission enquires; a small law follows. The Indigo Uprising, the Deccan riots and the Munda Uprising each fit some part of this sequence, though the indigo case turns on a commercial crop rather than on revenue alone.

Comparing the three also shows what changed over forty years. In 1859 the peasants of Bengal acted through village leaders and relied mainly on refusal. By 1899 the Mundas followed a single prophet and leader, Birsa Munda, in a movement that combined a land grievance with a demand to restore a way of life. The colonial response changed too: from an enquiry and an executive order in 1860, to laws that regulated rural debt in 1879 and restricted the transfer of tribal land in 1908.

What did not change was the underlying system. None of these measures altered the revenue demand itself, and none returned all the land that had been lost. That is why rural protest continued into the twentieth century, and why the movements of 1859, 1875 and 1899-1900 are best read as the first clear signs of a pressure that would keep returning.

Glossary

• Indigo: a plant grown for the blue dye obtained from its leaves, much in demand in Europe and a major cash crop of colonial Bengal.
• Ryot: the peasant cultivator who paid rent or revenue, spelt from the term raiyat in British records.
• Planter: a European who advanced money to peasants to grow indigo and bought the crop at a price he fixed.
• Sahukar: the village moneylender and grain dealer who lent to peasants, often at high interest, and took land as security.
• Ryotwari settlement: a revenue system in which the demand was assessed directly on each ryot and paid in cash.
• Diku: the Munda term for outsiders such as zamindars, moneylenders and traders who took over tribal land.
• Munda: a tribal people of the Chotanagpur region, and also the title of their village headmen.
• Birsa Munda: the leader of the Munda Uprising of 1899-1900, who called for the restoration of tribal land and custom.
• Ulgulan: the Munda name for their uprising, meaning "the great tumult".
• Commission of enquiry: a body appointed by the government to investigate a grievance and report, often followed by legislation.
• Permanent Settlement: the 1793 settlement that fixed the revenue of Bengal zamindars in perpetuity.
• Jotedar: a rich ryot of Bengal who was also a trader and moneylender and controlled poorer cultivators.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: The Indigo Uprising was a revolt against British rule. Correct: It was a protest against the indigo planters and the terms of indigo cultivation, not against colonial government as such.
• Misconception: The Deccan riots were aimed at British officials. Correct: They were aimed at the village sahukars, who were seen as the immediate cause of the peasants' debt and loss of land.
• Misconception: The Munda Uprising was only a land dispute. Correct: It was a protest against the dikus and the colonial state and a movement to restore tribal custom and the tribal way of life.
• Misconception: The government acted before the protests. Correct: In each case the commission or law followed the protest, as with the Indigo Commission of 1860 and the Relief Act of 1879.
• Misconception: The Relief Act of 1879 ended rural indebtedness. Correct: It let courts review loans and cut unfair interest and protected the ryot from imprisonment for debt, but indebtedness continued.
• Misconception: The Chotanagpur Tenancy Act restored all tribal land. Correct: It restricted transfer of tribal land to non-tribals but did not restore all the land already lost.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. State any two circumstances that led to the Indigo Uprising of 1859. [2 marks]

1. European planters advanced money to peasants to grow indigo and then bought the crop at a price they fixed themselves, so the ryot rarely knew what he would receive.
2. The land used for indigo could not be used for food grains, and a ryot who had taken an advance could not easily leave the crop, so the burden fell on the cultivator.

Q2. State any two circumstances that led to the Deccan riots of 1875. [2 marks]

1. The ryotwari settlement fixed a cash revenue demand on each ryot that was not reduced when the harvest failed, so the ryot had to borrow from the sahukar.
2. The moneylender charged high interest and took over the land when the loan was not repaid, and after the cotton boom ended in 1865 moneylenders refused fresh credit and demanded repayment.

Q3. Explain any three circumstances that led to the Munda Uprising of 1899-1900. [3 marks]

1. Zamindars, moneylenders and traders, called dikus, entered Chotanagpur and took over tribal land, demanding rent and forcing the Mundas into debt.
2. The British legal system recognised the dikus' claims and did not recognise the Mundas' customary rights over land and forest.
3. Forest laws restricted the Mundas' access to the forests on which they depended, and Birsa Munda preached that the land belonged to the tribal people and the dikus should be driven out.

Q4. Distinguish between the Indigo Uprising of 1859 and the Deccan riots of 1875. [4 marks]

1. The Indigo Uprising took place in Bengal, beginning in Nadia and spreading to Jessore and Pabna, while the Deccan riots took place in Poona and Ahmednagar districts of the Bombay Deccan.
2. The Indigo Uprising was against European planters and the terms of indigo cultivation, while the Deccan riots were against village sahukars and the burden of debt.
3. The Indigo Uprising mainly used refusal to sow indigo and a rent strike, while the Deccan riots involved attacks on moneylenders' houses and the burning of bonds.
4. The Indigo Uprising led to the Indigo Commission of 1860, while the Deccan riots led to the Deccan Riots Commission, which reported in 1878, and the Relief Act of 1879.

Q5. Explain the impact of the Deccan riots of 1875 on colonial policy. [4 marks]

1. The government appointed the Deccan Riots Commission, whose report of 1878 blamed the moneylenders for taking unfair advantage of the ryots.
2. The government passed the Deccan Agriculturists' Relief Act in 1879, which let courts examine the whole history of a loan and cut unfair interest.
3. The Act ended imprisonment of agriculturists for debt and stopped their land being sold for a debt unless it had been pledged as security.
4. The riots thus led directly to legal protection for the Deccan peasant, though the Relief Act did not end rural indebtedness.

Q6. Discuss the impact of the Indigo Uprising of 1859 and the Munda Uprising of 1899-1900 on colonial policies. [5 marks]

1. The Indigo Uprising led the government to appoint the Indigo Commission in 1860, which reported that the planters' methods were oppressive and that the ryots had genuine grievances.
2. The government then declared that ryots could not be compelled to grow indigo, and indigo planting in Bengal soon collapsed, so organised peasant refusal forced the government to restrain the planters.
3. The Munda Uprising was suppressed with troops, and Birsa Munda was captured and died in Ranchi jail in June 1900.
4. The uprising nevertheless forced the government to act, and the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908 recognised khuntkatti rights, banned beth begari and restricted the transfer of tribal land to non-tribals.
5. In both cases the change came after the protest, was limited in scope, and did not remove the revenue and land systems that had created the grievance.

Q7. "The three movements arose from different economic systems and aimed at different targets." Evaluate this statement with reference to the Indigo Uprising, the Deccan riots and the Munda Uprising. [6 marks]

1. The Indigo Uprising grew out of a commercial crop controlled by European planters, who fixed the advance, the price and the weighing of the crop, and the ryots refused to sow indigo and withheld rent.
2. The Deccan riots grew out of a cash revenue demand under the ryotwari settlement and village moneylending, and the cultivators attacked the sahukars and burnt their bonds.
3. The Munda Uprising grew out of the loss of tribal land and forest rights to outsiders called dikus, and under Birsa Munda the Mundas attacked churches, police stations and the dikus' property.
4. The targets therefore differed: planters in Bengal, sahukars in the Deccan, and the dikus and the colonial state in Chotanagpur.
5. The results also differed: the Indigo Commission of 1860, the Deccan Agriculturists' Relief Act of 1879 and the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908.
6. The statement is therefore largely valid, though all three movements shared a common cause in colonial land and revenue policy and a common result in a government enquiry followed by limited legislation.

Key takeaways

• The Indigo Uprising of 1859 in Bengal was a peasant protest against European planters and the unfair terms of indigo cultivation.
• The Deccan riots of 1875 were a protest by cultivators against village moneylenders and the burden of debt under the ryotwari settlement.
• The Munda Uprising of 1899-1900 under Birsa Munda protested against the loss of tribal land and forest rights to dikus and sought a Munda Raj.
• Each movement produced a government enquiry and a limited law: the Indigo Commission of 1860, the Relief Act of 1879 and the Tenancy Act of 1908.
• The movements differed in region, grievance, target and method, but all grew from colonial land and revenue policy.
• Our knowledge of these movements comes mainly from official records, so the peasant's own voice is heard only indirectly.

Test yourself

In which year did the Indigo Uprising take place?

1859, beginning in Nadia district of Bengal and spreading to Jessore, Pabna and other districts.

Who were the sahukars?

Village moneylenders and grain dealers who lent to peasants, often at high interest, and took land as security when the loan was not repaid.

Who led the Munda Uprising?

Birsa Munda, who preached that the land belonged to the tribal people and that the dikus should be driven out.

What was the Ulgulan?

The Munda name for their uprising of 1899-1900, meaning "the great tumult".

Which Act followed the Deccan riots?

The Deccan Agriculturists' Relief Act of 1879, which let courts review loans and protected ryots from imprisonment for debt.

Which Act followed the Munda Uprising?

The Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908, which restricted the transfer of tribal land to non-tribals.

What did the Indigo Commission of 1860 report?

That the planters' methods were oppressive and that the ryots had genuine grievances.

Why did the Deccan riots target moneylenders rather than officials?

Because the moneylender was seen as the immediate cause of the peasant's debt and loss of land.