Before reducing all palayakkarars of southTamilnadu into submission the East India
Company had acquired the revenue districtsof Salem, Dindigul at the conclusion of the warwith Tipu in 1792. Coimbatore was annexedat the end of the Anglo-Mysore War in 1799.In the same year the Raja of Thanjavur whosestatus had been reduced to that of a vassal in1798 gave up his sovereign rights over thatregion to the English. After the suppressionof resistance of Kattabomman (1799) andMarudhu Brothers (1801), the British chargedthe Nawab of Arcot with disloyalty and forced atreaty on him. According to this Treaty of 1801,the Nawab was to cede the districts of NorthArcot, South Arcot, Tiruchirappalli, Maduraiand Tirunelveli to the Company and transfer all the administrative powers to it. But the resistance did not die down. Thedispossessed little kings and feudal chieftainscontinued to deliberate on the future courseof action against the Company Government.The outcome was the Vellore Revolt of 1806.The objective conditions for a last ditch fightexisted on the eve of the revolt. The sepoys inthe British Indian army nursed a strong sense of
resentment over low salary and poor prospectsof promotion. The English army officers’ scantrespect for the social and religious sentimentsof the Indian sepoys also angered them. Thestate of peasantry from which class the sepoyshad been recruited also bothered them much.With new experiments in land tenures causing
unsettled conditions and famine breaking outin 1805 many of the sepoys’ families were in direeconomic straits. The most opportune situationcome with the sons and the family members ofTipu being interned in Vellore Fort. The triggerfor the revolt came in the form of a new militaryregulation notified by the Commander-in-
Chief Sir John Cradock.
Major Cootes, who was outside theFort, informed Colonel Gillespie, the cavalry
commandant in Arcot. Gillespie reached thefort along with a squadron of cavalry underthe command of Captain Young at 9.00 am.In the meantime, the rebels proclaimed FatehHyder, Tipu’s eldest son, as their new rulerand hoisted the tiger flag of Mysore sultans inthe Fort. But the uprising was swiftly crushedby Col. Gillespie, who threw to winds all warethics. In the course of suppression, according
to an eyewitness account, eight hundredsoldiers were found dead in the fort alone. Sixhundred soldiers were kept in confinement inTiruchirappalli and Vellore awaiting Inquiry.The Vellore Revolt failed because there wasno immediate help from outside. Recent studiesshow that the organising part of the revolt
was done perfectly by Subedars Sheik Adamand Sheik Hamid and Jamedar Sheik Hussainof the 2 nd battalion of 23 rd regiment and twoSubedars and the Jamedar Sheik Kasim of the1st battalion of the 1st regiment. Vellore Revolthad all the forebodings of the Great Rebellion of1857. The only difference was that there was nocivil rebellion following the mutiny. The 1806revolt was not confined to Vellore Fort. It had its echoes in Bellary, Walajabad, Hyderabad,Bengaluru, Nandydurg, and Sankaridurg.
Santhals, scattered in various parts ofeastern India, when forced to move out of theirhomeland during the process of creation ofzamins under Permanent Settlement, clearedthe forest area around the Rajmahal Hills.They were oppressed by the local police andthe European officers engaged in the railwayconstruction. Pushed out of their familiar habitat, the Santhals were forced to rely on the moneylenders for their subsistence.Soon they were trapped in a vicious circle
of debt and extortion. Besides this, Santhalsalso felt neglected under the corrupt Britishadministration and their inability to render justice to their legitimate grievances.One of the prominent tribal rebellionsof this period occurred in Ranchi, known asUlugulan rebellion (Great Tumult).The Mundapeople were familiar with the co-operative orcollective farming known as Khuntkatti (jointholding) land system. It was totally erodedby the introduction of private ownershipof land and the intrusion of merchants andmoneylenders. The Munda people were also
forcefully recruited as indentured labourers towork on plantations. In the 1890s tribal chiefsoffered resistance against the alienation oftribal people from their land and imposition ofbethbegari or forced labour.
The movement received an impetus whenBirsa Munda declared himself as the messengerof God. Birsa claimed that he had a prophecy andpromised supernatural solutions to the problemof Munda people and the establishment of
Birsaite Raj. The Munda leaders utilised the cultof Birsa Munda to recruit more people to theircause. A series of night meetings were held and
a revolt was planned. On the Christmas day of 1889, they resorted to violence. Buildings were burnt down and arrows were shot at Christian missionaries and Munda Christian converts. Soon police stations and government officials
were attacked. Similar attacks were carried out over the next few months. Finally the resistance was crushed and Birsa Munda was arrested in February 1900 who later died in jail. BirsaMunda became a folk hero who is to this daycelebrated in many folk songs. The Mundarebellion prompted the British to formulate
a policy on Tribal land. The ChotanagpurTenancy Act (1908) restricted the entry of non-tribal people into the tribal land.The mutiny was equally supported by
an aggrieved rural society of north India.Sepoys working in the British army were infact peasants in uniform. They were equallyaffected by the restructuring of the revenueadministration. The sepoy revolt and thesubsequent civil rebellion in various parts ofIndia had a deep-rooted connection with ruralmass. The first civil rebellion broke out in partsof the North-Western provinces and Oudh.These were the two regions from which thesepoys were predominately recruited. A large
number of Zamindars and Taluqdars werealso attracted to the rebellions as they hadlost their various privileges under the Britishgovernment. The talukdar–peasant collectivewas a common effort to recover what theyhad lost. Similarly, artisans and handicraftspersons were equally affected by the dethroningof rulers of many Indian states, who were amajor source of patronage. The dumping ofBritish manufactures had ruined the Indianhandicrafts and thrown thousands of weaversout of employment. Collective anger against theBritish took the form of a people’s revolt.
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