Test: Class 12 History NCERT Based- 2 - UPSC MCQ

By the 1850s, the Santhals felt that the time had come to rebel against zamindars, moneylenders and the colonial state, in order to create an ideal world for themselves where they would rule.

It was after the Santhal Revolt (1855-56) that the Santhal Pargana was created, carving out 5,500 square miles from the districts of Bhagalpur and Birbhum. The colonial state hoped that by creating a new territory for the Santhals and imposing some special laws within it, the Santhals could be reconciled.

Francis Buchanan was a physician who came to India and served in the Bengal Medical Service (from 1794 to 1815). For a few years he was surgeon to the Governor-General of India, Lord Wellesley.

During his stay in Calcutta (present-day Kolkata), he organised a zoo that became the Calcutta Alipore Zoo; he was also in charge of the Botanical Gardens for a short period. On the request of the Government of Bengal, he undertook detailed surveys of the areas under the jurisdiction of the British East India Company.

In 1815 he fell ill and returned to England. Upon his mother’s death, he inherited her property and assumed her family name Hamilton. So he is often called Buchanan-Hamilton.

The movement began at Supa, a large village in Poona (present-day Pune) district. It was a market centre where many shopkeepers and moneylenders lived. On 12 May1875, ryots from surrounding rural areas gathered and attacked the shopkeepers, demanding their bahi khatas (account books) and debt bonds.

They burnt the khatas, looted grain shops, and in some cases set fire to the houses of sahukars.

As British rule expanded from Bengal to other parts of India, new systems of revenue were imposed. The Permanent Settlement was rarely extended to any region beyond Bengal. Reason was that after 1810, agricultural prices rose, increasing the value of harvest produce, and enlarging the income of the Bengal zamindars.

Since the revenue demand was fixed under the Permanent Settlement, the colonial state could not claim any share of this enhanced income. Keen on expanding its financial resources, the colonial government had to think of ways to maximise its land revenue. So in territories annexed in the nineteenth century, temporary revenue settlements were made.

When the revolt spread in the Deccan, the Government of Bombay was initially unwilling to see it as anything serious.

But the Government of India, worried by the memory of 1857, pressured the Government of Bombay to set up a commission of enquiry to investigate into the causes of the riots.

The commission produced a report that was presented to the British Parliament in 1878. This report, referred to as the Deccan Riots Report, provides historians with a range of sources for the study of the riot.

The Government succeeded in repressing the Deccan movement. As a conciliatory measure, the Deccan Agriculturists Relief Act was passed in 1879, This time also, the modern nationalist intelligentsia of Maharashtra supported the peasants' cause. Changed Nature of Peasant Movements after 1857. Peasants emerged as the main force in agrarian movements, fighting directly for their own demands.