Gunda Dhur and the Bastar Rebellion, 1910

There are more than 40 tribes in today's Chhattisgarh and more are the sub-groups of individual tribes, the largest being the Gonds. For centuries there have been a large social discontent among the non-tribal masses of the country and uncountable social atrocities have been laid by various imperial forces - either the British or Islamic royalists or the non-tribal population. And when it comes to anti-imperial revolts and revolutions, we tend to ignore the times when tribals picked up guns and raised their flags against injustice and cruelty. Our history books credits urban revolutionaries and those centred around political parties, but for centuries grassroots mutinies was what had kept the British forces on their toes. One such rebellion was the Bastar Rebellion of 1910. 

The year, 1910 was crucial for 20th century Indian history as it was just 5 years to an event orchestrated by the British that had brought the whole country together - the partition of Bengal. This was the first time the British had audaciously divided Indians on religious line at an administrative level, fortifying their 'divide and rule' policy that had triggered millions of Indians to rise up against the British. But this wasn't the reason for Bastar. The Indian Forest Act of 1878 was an inhumane British rule that restricted movement, trading and consumption of forest produces that was the main triggering point for the tribals to revolt. 

As the British took over the Nagpur State and carved out a major central Indian province of Central Provinces, they started taking over every bit of the forest lands in the region. The Abujmarh forests which are known as Dandakaranya in the epic Ramayana, came under the supervision of the British who monopolised it under various corporations manipulating trade of timber produces in return giving nothing to the tribal population. The taxes were high, and the labourers hired worked for free and were imposed with restrictions that were cruel and inhumane in nature. Adding to this was the range of famines Bastar had hit with, crumbling their livelihood to bare bones. The British exploited forest areas unabashedly and something had to done to voice out the pain and sufferings of these tribal groups. In the year when Bengal was partitioned, in 1905, more than 66% of the forest land was held by the provincial government centred at Nagpur, which made survival for the tribes even more difficult. 

The rebellion was carried out by two important names - the Diwan of Bastar, Lal KarendraSingh who got a popular support by the villagers and elected Gunda Dhur, a Duruva leader, to take charge of the rebellion. For months, the preparations took place where items such as spices, tree branches, chillies, earth were communicated among huts as a form of secret messages. A message that an earthquake or Bhumkal is about to happen and it's mandatory for everyone to participate in it. On the 6th of February 1910, the government buildings were attacked, schools were plundered, secret meetings were organised, weapons were organised and various areas of Bastar were conquered such as Geedam and Barsur. A widespread angst against the British and the hired zamindars were clearly being seen on grassroots level with so support of any political party which didn't came as a surprise to the British as several similar tribal rebellions have had happened in the past. And so, the British responded and it did respond in the most imperialist way. The British troops stationed at Chanda were called as backup and a lineup of troops were made to flagellate villagers those who participated in the mutiny and helped Gunda Dhur. The Diwan was arrested, deported and there wasn't any significant changes brought in the forest laws although it did get attention of the existing Indian National Congress party that time. But the rebellion did shape Bastar into a territory where the British would step into with caution. 

AI fictional image of Gunda Dhur 

The 1910 Bastar Rebellion and name of Gunda Dhur and Lal Karendra Singh are immortal in the heart of Chhattisgarhi population but this wasn't the first and the last rebellion against the British in Bastar. The region witnessed the first rebellion back in the 18th century ignited by the Halba tribe - a mutiny against the joint allied forces of British and the Marathas. The tribal rebellion was a major epicentre in the Chota Nagpur region initiated by various tribes such as the Bhils, Chero, Kharwar, Santhals, Khond, Bhumij etc. and the entire belt from Koriya-Chota Nagpur to Bastar became and hotbed for tribal revolution for centuries. Not just Chhattisgarh, but far-off states such as Tripura and the hill tracts of Chittagong, Naga and Lushai Hills in Bengal and Assam provinces saw several turbulences from the local tribes against the oppressed British forces. In fact, if we see the chronology of tribal rebellion, it occurred every single year throughout the 19th century, but with the overtaking of the Indian National Congress as the assumed sole mouthpiece of the independence movement. The tribal contribution gets sidelined even from history books post-independence but all across today's Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, one can see people commemorating the sacrifices and heroic actions of their leaders. 

Names such as Gunda Dhur, the great Birsa Munda, Telanga Kharia, Rani Shiromani, Ganga Narayan Singh, Fateh Singh, the Pahariya Sardars etc. must be celebrated as equal to other revolutionaries and it's our moral duty to at least read up about them as much as we can.