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Birsa Munda, a late nineteenth century Adivasi freedom fighter of Chhotanagpur, represents the Adivasi shade in the variegated freedom struggle of India. Highly adored today by the Indian nation, his stature as a national hero has grown phenomenally in the last few decades. He is unusually honoured by two memorials in the Parliament of India, and his birthday, 15 November, is observed by the Government of India as ‘Janajati Gaurav Diwas’. The President and the Prime Minister of India spare time to visit his birth-place to pay him homage.
The Indian freedom struggle was one of the longest in the colonial world, where Adivasis fought relentlessly from the beginning to the end, making them one of most noticeable protesting groups. As they resorted to armed struggle frequently, violence is seen as the Adivasi trademark. Violence was actually an act of desperation since authorities least cared to communicate with the Adivasis on their grievances. Adivasis, like others, employed other methods as well. The Mundas and the Uraons of Chhotanagpur and the Gonds of central India adopted Gandhian way of protest since the Non-Cooperation movement. Even Birsaites, violent earlier, became Gandhian. Much earlier, since 1858, the Mundas and the Uraons experimented with the constitutional method of agitation, i.e. by petitions, depositions and judicial cases, for four decades under the Sardari Larai movement.
Frustrated with constitutionalism ultimately, the Munda and the Uraon agitators reverted to violence under Birsa Munda-led revolt, called Ulgulan (1895-1900). Though violence-based, the Ulgulan had also a messianic face. Incidentally, the Ulgulan coincided with the mainstream nationalist struggle, led by Western educated elite under the Indian National Congress banner, standardizing petitioning to the British authorities as an agitation method. But the Adivasis had lost faith in it. A decade later, in 1910, the Ulgulan resonated in the Bhumkal of Bastar, another Adivasi heartland.
While fighting by multifarious means, the Adivasis had their own vision for a disum or rule where the society would be just, free from dominance or exploitation. The protest moves were, therefore, premeditated and actions devised accordingly. In comparison to preceding protests in Chhotanagpur, Birsa Munda’s Ulgulan was a bigger outburst, indicating Adivasis’ accumulated anger. Birsa’s adroit leadership characterized it a concerted action. Besides moving tirelessly to convince the masses on the Adivasi cause and holding nocturnal meetings at strategic places, he organized three levels of loyal disciples.
Legacy in Essence
The Ulgulan lasted only five years. Adivasis’ fight by primeval means like bow and arrow did not stand the mighty British arms. Yet, it shook the colonial hold and sent a strong message to the authorities that the century-old Adivasi problem needed urgent redressal. A ‘thorough’ survey of land tenure holdings and related matters was ordered and, as ‘final’ settlement, a slew of colonial measures ensued, culminating in the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act, 1908, considered the Magna Carta of Adivasis’ traditional agrarian rights. In vogue even today, the Act signified a model measure for protecting the Adivasis elsewhere.
Birsa’s intervention gave a new twist to the Adivasis’ destiny. Though an illusion, the Adivasis believed that land issue was now settled. The settlement actually deprived them of most of their fertile land. The situation pushed the Adivasi mind to explore life beyond agriculture. Administrative expansion in Chhotanagpur and Bihari-Bengali wrangle over education-based employment sensitized the Adivasis for this option. Pressure was put on the government and the Christian missionaries to revamp education, hitherto restricted to middle schooling, which led to regeneration of the Adivasi society in the following years.
Birsa Munda was a true grassroots leader, acceptable to Adivasi masses of indigenous faith, Hindu and Christian following. Beginning from the Munda belt of the present Khunti district and with Birsa’s religious agenda of healing and preaching, the Adivasis’ land issue, the mainstay of Adivasi cultural life, became the central cause and the Ulgulan spread far and wide among other Adivasi groups. Besides influenced by Christian teachings, popular Vaishnavite Hinduism and Adivasi belief swayed Birsa’s personality, which reflected in his leadership style and action.
Birsa framed his foes clearly. While Whiteman authorities and the missionaries, who informed them about Birsa’s activities, were the arch-enemies, the zamindars and their associates, called Dikus, were considered frontline agents of colonialism. Neo-Christian Adivasis, initially attacked as enemy missionaries’ minions, and ordinary non-Adivasis masses living in Adivasi villages were assured no harm.
Unfair History
Such significant role and legacy of Birsa Munda is poorly treated in history. For half a century since his demise in 1900, Birsa Munda was in the nation’s limbo. Only local Adivasis cherished his memory and admired his leadership and heroics for protecting them from British injustice. He appeared before the nation only in 1939-40, somewhat dramatically, afforded by the launching of Adivasi Mahasabha, an Adivasi movement for administrative autonomy of Chhotanagpur and Santhal Parganas, and the annual session of the Indian National Congress at Ramgarh (near Ranchi). The Adivasi Mahasabha invoked Birsa Munda as a cult figure to strengthen the Adivasi movement, whereas the Congress wanted to use him for expanding its base among the Adivasis.
The episode stirred historian’s curiosity on Birsa Munda. Within general neglect of Adivasis’ role in the freedom struggle, Birsa Munda is privileged. A volume by the Government of Bihar, K.K. Datta (ed) History of Freedom Movement in Bihar (1957), contained a chapter on Birsa Munda. The first by a historian, Datta’s chapter stoked detailed investigation in the life and work of Birsa Munda. The Bihar Tribal Research Institute conducted a study, resulting in the publication of Life and Times of Birsa Bhagwan by S.P. Sinha (1964). Another poetic title Dust-storm and the Hanging Mist: A Study of Birsa Munda and his Movement in Chhotanagpur by Suresh Singh (1966) followed, emerging from author’s doctoral study at the University of London.
These publications fixed the place of Birsa in the annals of freedom struggle of India. However, our knowledge and understanding of the persona of Birsa remains incomplete. The volume by Datta gives Birsa Munda an appendix treatment, sparing him only a tiny space. Datta, and Sinha likewise, attempt to dovetail Birsa’s role to the mainstream nationalist struggle, neglected so far and now impelled by the presence of assertive Adivasi voice, led by Jaipal Singh, in the national politics. The works essentially show Adivasi revolt in the mainstream nationalism’s shoe. Like in nationalist political consciousness, a forerunning socio-religious movement is fallaciously explained paving way for the Adivasi political move. The fact is that whatever socio-religious fermentation occurred in the Adivasi society was locally fashioned and intertwined with the protest sequences.
Supported by a medley of local primary data, Suresh Singh’s The Dust-Storm and the Hanging Mist presents intimate details on Birsa’s life and the Ulgulan. It describes the uprising’s local origin and own direction, but abjures to put the subject on the anvil of historical critique. No attempt is made to relate it to the broader concept of nationalist struggle. This key question becomes pertinent since a stream of later scholarship either denies Birsa Munda the status of an anti-colonial freedom fighter, rating him instead only as a fighter for mundane agrarian rights of the Adivasis; or, while recognizing his nationalist face, estimates him as a leader of secondary importance.
Baseless Highlights
The literary-type diction of Suresh Singh’s story elicited literati’s interest on Birsa Munda. Distinguished writer Mahasweta Devi was inspired to publish a Sahitya Akademi award-winning novel on Birsa, Aranyer Adhikar (in Bengali, Jangal Ke Dawedar in Hindi) (1977). Even film makers came forward to produce Birsa Munda documentaries. By the turn of twentieth century, Birsa was a prominent freedom fighter figure of the country.
Meanwhile, even as he is a freedom fighter ideal, historiographical gap on Birsa Munda lingers. Later writings either iconize Birsa Munda or reiterate subordinate status of his role. In the first case, noted theorist historians, Michael Adas and Ranajit Guha, cite Birsa Munda case liberally to explain millenarianism and subaltern school respectively. This tweaks Birsa as an international historical figure. In the other case, historians first depict Adivasi protests as constituents of nationalist struggle and even commend the Adivasi agitators as pioneering and indefatigable. But soon they turn to question the Adivasi protest method and leadership quality and argue that Adivasi protests were in need of Congress model of coordination and stewardship. Adivasi protests, including Birsa’s Ulgulan, are, in other words, shown playing second fiddle to the mainstream freedom struggle. The stance stems from the prejudiced racist view of Adivasi people being backward sub-humans.
Sandwiched between the two and hyped politically, today Birsa Munda is improperly appreciated. Various interest groups scramble to use the name as a political windmill. Historical facts are distorted blatantly for partisan ends, sullying Birsa’s salient persona as a secular mass leader. The earliest commentators described Birsa as a religious ‘fanatic’, and when first noticed by the mainstream nationalism at the time independence, he was portrayed as anti-Christian staunch Hindu. Somehow the tendency continues today.
In reality, Birsa was not partisan. When the question of protecting the Adivasi land and society came, Birsa’s first followers were the Sardari Larai cadres, mostly neo-Christian Adivasis. Under Vaishnavite sway, Birsa was non-vegetarian and wore janeyu. But in 1898, he did not hesitate to sacrilege the Ram Temple of Chutia (Ranchi), the official shrine of the Maharaja of Chhotanagpur, at midnight. He did this for seizing a copper plate there, supposedly the Maharaja’s authority of zamindari in Chhotanagpur. Today, Birsa is recognized as a national hero, but, simultaneously, assigned a communal tag. The whole honour he receives day in, day out by the nation is, this way, hollowed.
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*Formerly with Jawaharlal Nehru University
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