HUL JOHAR!

There’s a silent chapter in Indian history—or perhaps a whole library. Some of the fiercest resistance to British colonial power came from the tribal communities. Wave upon wave of armed uprisings, strung over some 150 years—from the Chuar rebellion in Bengal (1771-1809), and not ending with the postWW-I Kuki uprising. If the bows and arrows of the Kurichiyas aided Malabar’s Pazhassi Raja in his long guerrilla war against the East India Company (1793-1806), the Bhils of Rajputana rose up in 1818, and a series of Ho and Munda unrests led up to the Kol

rebellion of 1831. The great Santhal Hul of 1855 was the big one, overshadowed only by 1857. The names of its protagonists, Sidu and Kanhu Murmu, or that of a stray Tantia Bhil (left)—bandit to the British, but ‘Robin Hood’ to compatriots—and an iconic Birsa Munda remain the few we can write on a monument that’s yet to be made. ■