Marathas, British Rule, 1857 & the Freedom Movement of Chhattisgarh — CGPSC GS Paper I, Part 3

Weightage: The second half of the Chhattisgarh history part of GS Paper I. The syllabus names Maratha rule, British rule, the princely states and zamindaris, the 1857 revolt, the freedom movement, labour, peasant and tribal movements, and the formation of the state, so nearly every heading below is examinable.

1. Maratha rule (1741 to 1818)

The Bhonsles of Nagpur took over the Ratanpur kingdom in the middle of the eighteenth century. Raids began around 1740-41 under Raghuji I's general Bhaskar Pant. In 1758 Raghuji's successor Janoji appointed Bimbaji Bhonsle governor, after the last Haihaiyavansi king, Mohan Singh, died while preparing to resist.

Bimbaji ruled from Ratanpur until 1787 as a subahdar with wide autonomy, with his own army and court while nominally subordinate to Nagpur. After his death, the subedar system ran the region until 1818, with officials sent from Nagpur. Yadavrao Diwakar is remembered as the last of them.

The subedar era is remembered for heavy revenue demands and for local revolt. It also explains why tribal uprisings began in Bastar in the 1770s.

2. The British period

The British ruled first through supervision and then through annexation.

• 1818-1830: after the Third Anglo-Maratha War, a British superintendent administered Chhattisgarh. Captain Edmonds was the first.
• 1830: administration returned to the Bhonsle rulers.
• 1853-54: on the death of the heirless Raghuji III, Nagpur lapsed to the British under the Doctrine of Lapse. Chhattisgarh became a division with Raipur as its headquarters.
• 1861: the Central Provinces were formed, and Chhattisgarh remained a division within them.

The fourteen feudatory states, run by their own rulers under British paramountcy, sat alongside the directly ruled districts. Under the zamindari system, large landholders such as the zamindar of Sonakhan collected revenue in a part of the region.

3. Tribal revolts

Bastar produced the largest and most repeated tribal resistance in the state. The standard list should be learnt in date order.

The Bhumkal ("earthquake") of 1910 is the most important. The rising was led on the ground by Gunda Dhur, a Dhurwa of Netanar village, and organised behind the scenes by the king's cousin Lal Kalendra Singh. The grievances were forest reservation, a monopoly on liquor brewing, forced labour and drought.

Symbolic messages such as chillies, arrows and mango leaves were circulated to spread the call. The British used troops from neighbouring regions and a scorched-earth policy, and the rebellion had been suppressed by March 1910.

4. 1857 in Chhattisgarh

Veer Narayan Singh (about 1795-1857), zamindar of Sonakhan, is regarded as the first martyr of the state. In the famine of 1856 he took grain hoarded by a trader at Kasdol and distributed it to the poor. He was arrested, escaped from Raipur jail with help from local soldiers, and raised a force of about five hundred at Sonakhan.

He was captured and hanged on 10 December 1857 at Raipur, at the place now known as Jaistambh Chowk.

Hanuman Singh, a soldier of the local Third Regiment, rose on 18 January 1858. He killed Sergeant-Major Sidwell and, with his comrades, seized the artillery and fought for about six hours. He escaped, but his companions were captured and executed on 22 January 1858.

The unrest in neighbouring Sambalpur under Surendra Sai spread into the Sonakhan region, linking Chhattisgarh's 1857 to eastern India.

5. The nationalist movement

The early nationalist movement in the region was led by lawyers and reformers from Raipur.

• Pandit Sundarlal Sharma (1881-1940) is called the father of the Chhattisgarh freedom movement. He organised the Kandel canal (Nahar) satyagraha of 1920 in Dhamtari, a protest against illegal taxes and water charges, and he was arrested in 1921-22.
• Mahatma Gandhi first visited on 20 December 1920, touring Raipur, Dhamtari and Kurud for the Tilak Swaraj Fund. A second tour in 1933 concerned the Harijan campaign.
• Thakur Pyarelal Singh (1891-1954) led the Rajnandgaon mill workers' strikes and is called the father of the cooperative movement. He led a flag satyagraha in 1923 and was jailed in 1930 and 1932.
• Babu Chhotelal Shrivastava stood with Sharma at Kandel, and a Jungle Satyagraha took place in the Sihawa area in 1922 under Shyamlal Som.
• Ravishankar Shukla of Raipur became a senior Congress leader and later Madhya Pradesh's first chief minister.

Labour and peasant movements are a named syllabus item. The Rajnandgaon mill strikes of 1919-20, 1924 and 1937 under Thakur Pyarelal Singh are the standard example. The 1920 strike is described as a long strike that reduced working hours.

6. Merger and the making of the state

Integration. The fourteen feudatory states were integrated into the Central Provinces and Berar in 1947-48, and the region became part of Madhya Pradesh.

Demand for a state. The demand for a separate Chhattisgarh was first raised in 1924 by the Raipur Congress unit. It was pressed again in the mid-1950s, when the States Reorganisation Commission rejected it. In the 1990s the Chhattisgarh Rajya Nirman Manch, led by Chandulal Chandrakar, organised strikes and rallies backed by major parties.

Formation. The Madhya Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000 received the President's assent in August 2000, and Chhattisgarh came into being on 1 November 2000 as the 26th state, with Raipur as its capital. Naya Raipur was planned as the new capital city.

Worked example 6.1 (a 15-mark answer, ~175 words). "Assess the role of tribal movements in the freedom struggle of Chhattisgarh."

Model answer. Tribal resistance in Chhattisgarh began well before the national movement. Bastar produced a chain of revolts: the Halba rebellion (1774-79), Paralkot (1825), Tarapur (1842-54), Meria (1842-63), Koi (1859), Muria (1876) and Bhumkal (1910).

Their causes were taxation, forced labour, forest reservation and interference with customs, which show that resistance was rooted in loss of livelihood and autonomy.

In 1857, Veer Narayan Singh linked a famine grievance to open revolt and was hanged in Raipur on 10 December 1857. Bhumkal, led by Gunda Dhur, was the largest rising, and its forest grievances remained unresolved.

These movements were not part of the Congress campaign, but they created a tradition of resistance and gave the region its first martyrs.

Common traps CGPSC sets here

• Calling Bhumkal a nationalist campaign. It was a tribal uprising in Bastar against forest and revenue policy.
• Mixing the two 1857 dates. Veer Narayan Singh was hanged on 10 December 1857, and Hanuman Singh's rising was on 18 January 1858.
• Dating Chhattisgarh's separation to the 1990s. The demand goes back to 1924, and the state was formed in 2000.
• Placing Kandel in Raipur. It is in Dhamtari tehsil.
• Crediting Gandhi's first visit to 1933. His first visit was in December 1920.

Memory aids

• "Halba 74, Bhopalpatnam 95, Paralkot 25, Tarapur 42, Koi 59, Muria 76, Bhumkal 1910": the revolt sequence.
• "SLS at Kandel, TPS at Rajnandgaon": Sundarlal Sharma at Kandel, Thakur Pyarelal Singh at the mills.
• "24 demand, 2000 state": the two ends of the statehood story.

Summary

The Bhonsles replaced the Kalachuris in 1741-58 and ruled through subahdars and subedars until 1818. Then came British superintendents, annexation in 1853-54 and the Central Provinces in 1861.

Tribal revolts ran from the Halba rebellion to Bhumkal. In 1857, Veer Narayan Singh and Hanuman Singh led the local resistance. Nationalist leaders such as Sundarlal Sharma and Thakur Pyarelal Singh built Kandel and the mill strikes, and the demand for a state, raised in 1924, was met on 1 November 2000.

Exam protocol

• Give tribal revolts in date order with leader and cause.
• Date the two 1857 events exactly, and avoid mixing them.
• Show the statehood story as a line from 1924 to 2000.