Humaira Fatima
Throughout 2005, the indigenous people of the State of Jharkhand and elsewhere in the Indian Sub-continent has been celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Hul- the movement for social justice led by the two Santal brothers, Sido Murmu and Kanhu Murmu. Although the Hul was eventually and brutally suppressed in 1856, it brought about a dramatic shift in colonial policy as well as a new political consciousness amongst Adivasis, or indigenous and tribal people, in the region that continues to grow till today. This is evident both in the claims for political and cultural autonomy in Jharkhand, which was inaugurated as a State in 2000, and in the increased assertion of tribal rights at national and international levels.
Before we review the dramatic events of this significant resistance of the Santals let us first question ourselves: What do we really know about Santals? Santals are the largest adivasi (indigenous) community in the Indian subcontinent with a population of more than 10 million, and they reside mostly in the Indian states of Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Assam and Bihar, and sparsely in Bangladesh and Nepal. The Santals are one of the oldest tribal populations in Bangladesh and are largely concentrated in the districts of Rajshahi, Dinajpur and Rangpur. According to a rough estimate (1984) there were approximately 1,50,000 santals in Bangladesh alone.
The Santals in Bangladesh were originally inhabitants of Chotonagpur, Santal Pargana of India. During the British period they migrated to different areas including Bangladesh in search of employment as agricultural laborers. Primarily the Santals were hunters and gatherers who lived in hill forests of mid-eastern India. Over the years due to rapid increase in population, deforestation and scarcity of wild animals they had to move out to different areas, mainly plain lands for their livelihood.
Santals are fiercely independent and possess their own language called Santali. However, they can speak Bengali as well. Santals are a partilineal ethnic group where descent is recognized through male lines. Patronyms are inherited through male lines and the father is generally regarded as the head of the house. However, females also significantly contribute towards the financial solvency of their families. Traditionally the Santal tribe is divided into 11 clans. They are Hadsa, Murmu, Kisku, Hambrom, Mardi, Sauren, Tudu, Baski, Besara, Chaure and Pauria. Interestingly these clans are totem based with each clan having its own totem which is generally animals, birds and plants.
The clans regulate marriages, inheritance, succession and affiliation. One becomes a clan member by birth or by marriage (applicable for females only). Furthermore, the clans are hierarchically organized on the basis of occupation (Kiskus were kings, Murmus were priests, Sauren were warriors, Baskies were traders). Thus, this kind of occupation related clan patronyms are somewhat like the Hindu caste system. Apart from this the Santals, like many tribal groups, believe in various impersonal spirits and forces which control human life. They believe in a number of deities and worship the supernatural powers. This primitive form of their religion is called Sonaton Dharma. Ironically, these very people who have fought so bravely for their origins, cultural heritage and rights are the ones whose distinct religious and cultural ethnic heritage are undergoing rapid changes, particularly through the process of Christianization. But perhaps social and economic oppressions are more to be blamed for this.
In spite of these transitions the adivasi souls rose in revolt nearly 150 years ago. The brave freedom struggles by Adivasi, specially Santals, against the British tyranny and cruelty of Desi (native) landlords have often gone unnoticed and sometimes, by nefarious design excluded from History text books. However, mere omission from the History books in educational curriculum can not conceal the stories of bravery of Adivasi Heroes and the stiff resistance they had offered in the struggles. Baba Tilka Majhi was the first Santal leader who took up arms against the British in the 1789's. The British surrounded the Tilapore forest from which he operated but he and his men held the enemy at bay for several weeks. When he was finally caught in 1784, he was tied to the tail of a horse and dragged all the way to the collector's residence at Bhagalpur. There, his lacerated body was hung from a Banyan tree. But this was only the beginning. The actual freedom struggle of the Santals began with the great Santal Hul.
Hul is a Santali term. It means a movement for liberation and normally the instigation of this massive movement is attributed to two Murmu brothers, Sido and Kanhu. Santal Hul was one of the fiercest battles in the history of Indian freedom struggles causing the greatest number of loss of lives in any battles during that time. The number of causalities of Santal Hul was 20,000 according to Hunter who wrote it in his Annals of Rural Bengal. The Santal Hul of 1855-57 was master minded by four brothers Sido, Kanhu, Chand and Bhairav; and is regarded as a heroic episode in India's prolonged struggle for freedom. It was, in all probability, the fiercest liberation movement in India next to the Great Sepoy Mutiny in 1857.
With the capture of political power of India by the East India Company, the natural habitats of the Adivasi (indigenous) people including the Santals began to shatter by the intruders like moneylenders, traders and revenue farmers, who descended upon them in large numbers under the patronage of the Company. Unbelievable though it may sound but the rate of interest on loan to the poor and illiterate Santals varied from 50% to 500%.
These intruders were the crucial links in the chain of ruthless exploitation under colonial rule. They were the instruments through which the indigenous groups and tribes were brought within the influence and control of the colonial economy. And as a result discontent had been simmering in the Santal Paraganas (present Jharkhand) from the early decades of the nineteenth century owing to most naked exploitation of the indigenous Santals by both the British authorities and their collaborators, native immigrants.
Sido Murmu and Kanhu Murmu, from the village Bhognadihi in Sahibganj district, like hundreds of their tribesmen had long been brooding over the injustices perpetrated by the oppressors. The situation finally reached a point of no return and, not surprisingly, a small episode that took place in July 1855 triggered one of the fiercest uprisings that the British administration ever faced in India. The emergence of leaders like Sido and Kanhu, who were youthful, dynamic and charismatic, provided a rallying point for the Santals to revolt against the oppressors .On 30th June 1855, a large number of Santals assembled in a field in Bhagnadihi village of Santal Paragana, They declared themselves as free and took oath under the leadership of Sido Murmu and Kanhu Murmu to fight to the last against the British rulers as well as their agents.
Militant mood of the Santals frightened the authority. A Police agent confronted them on the 7th July and tried to place the Murmu brothers under arrest. The angry crowd reacted violently and killed the Police agent and his companions. The event sparked off a series of confrontations with the Company's Army and subsequently reached the scale of a full-fledged war.
At the outset, Santal rebels, led by Sido and Kanhu, made tremendous gains and captured control over a large tract of the country extending from Rajmahal hills in Bhagalpur district to Sainthia in Birbhum district. For the time being, British rule in this vast area became completely paralyzed.
Many moneylenders and native agents of the Company were killed while local British administrators took shelter in the Pakur Fort to save their lives. However, the rebels could not hold on to their gains due to the superior fire power of the East India Company which was soon aimed heavily at them.
Thus, the courage, chivalry and sacrifice of the Santals were countered by the rulers with veritable butchery. Out of 50,000 Santal rebels, 15,000 -20,000 were killed by the British Indian Army. The Company was finally able to suppress the rebellion in 1856, though some outbreaks continued till 1857.
The Santals showed great bravery and incredible courage in the struggle against the military. As long as their national drums continued beating, the whole party would stand and allow themselves to be shot down. There was no sign of yielding. Once forty Santals refused to surrender and took shelter inside a mud house. The troops surrounded the mud house and fired at them but the Santals replied with their arrows. Then the soldiers made a big hole through the muddy wall and the Captain ordered the Santals to surrender but they again shot a volley of arrows through the hole. The Captain again asked them to surrender but they continued shooting arrows. Some of the soldiers were wounded. At last when the discharge of arrows from the door slackened, the Captain went inside the room accompanied by his soldiers. He found only one old man, grievously wounded, standing erect among the dead bodies. The captain asked him to surrender, but instead the man rushed on him and killed him with his battle axe.
It is believed that Sido was captured by the British forces through treachery and Kanhu through an encounter at Uparbanda. He was subsequently killed in captivity. The Santal Hul, however, did not come to an end in vain. It had a long-lasting impact. Santal Parganas Tenancy Act was the outcome of this struggle, which dished out some sort of protection to the indigenous people from the ruthless colonial exploitation. A Santal territory (Jharkhand) was born. The regular police was abolished and the duty of keeping peace and order and arresting criminals was vested in the hands of parganait and village headman.
However, this turn of events did not mean the end of oppression for the Santals or the other indigenous people in the Indian Sub-continent. Though the oppressors have changed the oppressions haven’t. Ignorance, usurpation, illiteracy, ever growing population, economic backwardness, deforestation and aggression of non-tribal people have continually blighted the lives of these ‘adivasis’ or original inhabitants of the land. They have been constantly victimized and rendered landless as they are turned away from the land that has been theirs for centuries and by right belongs to them.
In Bangladesh, there are about 45 such communities who have been living in this country for centuries. Unfortunately, the rights of the ethnic groups are yet to be established fully even in some key areas, and only a few of them have received attention. For example, they do not yet enjoy documented right to land possession. The government has set up a land commission in terms of the CHT accord, but it is yet to effect a breakthrough as far as settling the land-related problems in the region goes. The situation of the indigenous peoples of Bangladesh is certainly very alarming. In many areas they are subjected to extreme discriminatory situations in offices, markets and public places. Health and education standards of indigenous areas are clearly among the lowest in the country. Indigenous languages are not allowed to be taught in schools, leading to weakening of these languages and very high primary school dropouts.
But the major grievance of these people lies elsewhere. Lands of the different peoples, including the Rakhaing, Garo, Santal, Tanchangya, Oraon, Rajbangshi, and Khasi continue to be taken over by non-indigenous people. Such land alienation is forbidden by the East Bengal State Acquisition and Tenancy Act of 1950, and the ILO Convention No. 107 (ratified by Bangladesh), but it nevertheless continues. The lands of Garo and Khasis have been arbitrarily included within so-called "Eco-Parks" and "National Parks" for the benefit of city-dwellers and foreign tourists.
The forest area of Modhupur used to cover 62,000 acres. However, with the establishment of 20,000 acres of National Park, the area of the Garos (inhabitants of the region) decreased dramatically and they were even forced to pay entrance fees every time they passed the park's boundaries. In the past, they have already faced numerous forcible evictions, as more forest land was transformed into an Air Force bombing field (1985) and plantations (rubber, commercial plantation with exotic species and pineapple and banana plantation). Apart from this some land has simply gone into illegal possession. Most of these plantations were funded by external resources, such as Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.
In 2003, the government of Bangladesh embarked upon a plan to implement the Modhupur National Park Development Project. The project has its roots in a World Bank funded study under the Forest Resources Management Project and aims to create a special eco-area of 3000 acres. There are eight villages located within this eco-area and are most densely populated by the Garos. The building of a brick wall around this area had already begun. Once built, these walls will restrict Garos' movement and limit their access to land and forest resources, which are already severely limited. The project also foresees building of various infrastructures such as picnic spots and rest houses in order to attract tourists.
Although the implementation of the project has been halted temporarily at present, the government of Bangladesh has not officially cancelled the project. The plan will not only put the Garos' habitat and rich cultural heritage in jeopardy, it will also threaten the right to food of thousands of Garos to whom the forest is the major source of livelihood as it provides food and firewood to them. Not only this there are many individuals among these adivasis against whom more than 70 to 80 legal cases have been submitted and being poverty stricken they have no way of fighting back this expansive battle.
Apparently, it is a case of a development project finding no acceptance among the indigenous people. It is yet another project launched in the name of tourism development and "biodiversity conservation" but which has become part of the systematic and profound assault on indigenous communities and their ancestral lands.
Another particular cause of concern is the creation of such a park in the Moulvibazar district, which will involve clearance of forested land inhabited by Khasi and Garo people, with tree felling, the leveling of hills, road building and construction of buildings. The government once again claims the twin aims of the project to be economic development and "biodiversity conservation".
It is feared that at least 1,000 families will lose their homes and be relocated, and an even larger number will be deprived of their land upon which they depend for their livelihood. Moreover, this eco-park plan seriously threatens the cultural integrity of the indigenous communities by calling for their "social improvement", which includes the creation of a "cultural village", where the "tribals" will be on display for tourist consumption.
A statement released by the Bangladesh Landless Association (BLA), says, "The real objectives of the misnamed 'eco-parks' are to evict minority ethnic groups - which goes hand in hand with environmental destruction - and to transfer public funds into the coffers of the construction industry."
"The latest policy of establishing 'eco-parks' must be condemned," the BLA continues to say. "It flies in the face of the most basic tenets of human rights, ecological protection and sustainable development. The already marginalized inhabitants of the land earmarked for 'development' and 'preservation’ will bear the cost of this pointless exercise. Their lives and livelihood are considered expendable. Putting 'biodiversity preservation' before humans is simply the government's latest 'green' catch-cry; the plan is to destroy most of the natural environment to justify the 'preservation' project. The forests of Bangladesh, which have for centuries been the traditional lands of non-Bengali peoples, are steadily being depleted for profit. This is being done behind the backs of the whole population in an undemocratic manner. The fight to save the forests is also the fight for the rights of the minority inhabitants."
On the other hand, one of the worst developments in the Chittagong Hill Tracts was the transfer program of 1979-1985 whereby the Government of Bangladesh brought one hundred and fifty thousand Bengali Muslim people and re-settled them with the S S military, on lands owned or traditionally used and occupied by indigenous people.
Moreover, the settlers have been given land grants credit and even food program support. In contrast, in 2003, the government stopped supplying rations to those indigenous people who were earlier refugees and who had to take shelter in India. Until today, those indigenous people who were forcefully pushed out of their lands by the settlers have not been able to return to their own homes and lands. The government has formed a Task Force to rehabilitate the displaced people, but the Task Force has not been able to do its work yet.
These indigenous segments of our society demand from us something that is legally theirs— they want the freedom to live their lives according to their age old ways on the lands that have always belonged to them. It is their inheritance as well as their heritage and as such their rights must be respected. We cannot be blinded by our nationalistic feelings and the drive for economic well being at any cost for this time the cost is too great. This time the cost involves not only human lives, democratic and human rights and survival of ethnic groups but also an irrecoverable loss— loss of our own ethnic background and cultural heritage for we are after all descendents of similar ethnic groups who had intermingled with the invaders of this region.
(Author is a freelance journalist and editorial staff of Banglarights)
21 july,2005
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