Genesis of People’s Resistance

In pre-colonial India, people’s protests against the rulers and their officials were not uncommon—high land revenue demand by the State, corrupt practices and hard attitude of the officials being some of the instigating factors. However, the establishment of colonial rule and its policies had a much more annihilative effect on the Indians as a whole. There was no one to hear their grievances or pay attention to their problems. The Company was merely interested in extracting revenue.

The colonial law and judiciary safeguarded the interest of the government and its collaborators—the landlords, the merchants and money-lenders. Thus the people left with no options, chose to take up arms and defend themselves. The

conditions of the tribal people were not different from those of the people living in the mainland but the encroachment by outsiders into their independent tribal polity made them more aggrieved and violent.

Causative Factors for People’s Uprisings The major factors responsible for the people’s resentment and uprisings against the Company rule are as follows.

● Colonial land revenue settlements, heavy burden of new taxes, eviction of peasants from their lands, and encroachments on tribal lands.

● Exploitation in rural society coupled with the growth of intermediary revenue collectors, tenants and money- lenders.

● Expansion of revenue administration over tribal lands leading to the loss of tribal people’s hold over agricultural and forest land.

● Promotion of British manufactured goods, heavy duties on Indian industries, especially export duties, leading to devastation of Indian handloom and handicraft industries.

● Destruction of indigenous industry leading to migration of workers from industry to agriculture, increasing the pressure on land/agriculture.