Important Civil Uprisings (II): South, West and North India

At a Glance

• What it is Uprisings in South, West and North India against the Company, 1781-1872
• Biggest Poligars’ Revolt of South India, 1795-1805
• Religious movements Wahabi and Kuka movements
• Common thread Taxes, loss of status, Company interference
• Exam link UPSC Prelims, Modern History: People’s Resistance Before 1857

Where Does It Fit?

This is the fourth topic of the category on people’s resistance before 1857. The previous topic told the eastern and central uprisings. This topic tells those of the south, west and north, and ends with the Wahabi and Kuka movements. The next topic covers peasant movements with religious overtones. Previous topic: Important Civil Uprisings (I): Eastern and Central India.

What Happened in Gorakhpur, Basti and Bahraich (1781)?

To meet the war expenses against the Marathas and Mysore, Warren Hastings made a plan to earn money by making English officers izaradars (revenue farmers) in Awadh. Major Alexander Hannay was made an izaradar in 1778 and secured the izara of Gorakhpur and Bahraich for 22 lakh rupees for one year. It was a secret experiment to see how much surplus money was available.

Hannay’s oppression and excessive demands made a once flourishing region panic-stricken. The zamindars and cultivators rose against the unbearable exactions in 1781, and within weeks all of Hannay’s subordinates were killed or besieged by zamindari guerrilla forces. The rebellion was suppressed, but Hannay was dismissed and his izara was forcibly removed.

What Happened in Vizianagaram, Bednur and Awadh (1794-1800)?

Vizianagaram (1794): In 1758 the English and Ananda Gajapatiraju of Vizianagaram made a treaty to oust the French from the Northern Circars, but the English went back on the terms. The Company later demanded a tribute of three lakh rupees from the raja and asked him to disband his troops. He rose in revolt with his subjects. The English captured him in 1793 and ordered exile with a pension, which he refused. He died in battle at Padmanabham in 1794. Vizianagaram came under Company rule, and the estate was later offered to his son.

Dhundia in Bednur (1799-1800): After the conquest of Mysore in 1799, Dhundia Wagh, a Maratha leader converted to Islam by Tipu and jailed by him, was released when Seringapatam fell. He organised a force of anti-British elements and carved out a small territory. Defeated by the English in August 1799, he took refuge in the Maratha region and was killed in September 1800 fighting Wellesley’s forces. Though he failed, he became a venerated leader of the masses. The background is in Fourth Anglo-Mysore War and the Fall of Tipu Sultan.

Awadh (1799): Wazir Ali Khan, the fourth Nawab of Awadh, ascended the throne in September 1797 with British help. His relations with the British soon soured, and he was replaced by his uncle Saadat Ali Khan II and granted a pension in Benares. In January 1799 he killed the British resident George Frederick Cherry, who had invited him to lunch, and his guards killed two other Europeans and attacked the Magistrate of Benares. This became known as the Massacre of Benares. His army of several thousand men was defeated by General Erskine. He was sheltered by a ruler and extradited on the condition that he would neither be hanged nor fettered, and after surrender in December 1799 was confined in Fort William, Calcutta.

Who Was Pazhassi Raja?

Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja, popularly known as Kerala Simham (Lion of Kerala), was the de facto head of Kottayam in Malabar. Apart from resisting Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan, he fought the British between 1793 and 1805.

The Third Anglo-Mysore War extended English paramountcy over Kottayam in violation of an earlier agreement of 1790 which had recognised Kottayam’s independence, as seen in Third Anglo-Mysore War and the Treaty of Seringapatam. The English appointed Vira Varma, Pazhassi Raja’s uncle, as Raja of Kottayam. To meet the revenue target fixed by the Company, the new raja levied exorbitant taxes on the peasants. This led to mass resistance under Pazhassi Raja in 1793. He used guerrilla warfare, and a peace treaty was made in 1797. A dispute over Wayanad in 1800 started insurgent warfare again. He organised a large force of Nairs, supplemented by Mappilas and Pathans, the latter demobilised soldiers of Tipu. In November 1805 he died in a gun-fight at Mavila Todu near the present Kerala-Karnataka border.

What Was the Poligars’ Revolt (1795-1805)?

The poligars of South India gave a stiff resistance to the British between 1795 and 1805. The main centres were Tinnevelly, Ramanathapuram, Sivaganga, Sivagiri, Madurai and North Arcot. The problem began in 1781, when the Nawab of Arcot gave the management of Tinnevelly and the Carnatic provinces to the Company. This angered the poligars, who had long considered themselves independent sovereigns in their territories. The first revolt was basically over taxation but had a political dimension, because the English treated the poligars as enemies.

The poligar rebellion spread over a vast area of South India. The proclamations of the rebels, says A. Shunmugaiah, indicate that they believed in a mass movement against alien rule, seeking independence.

What Happened in Bhiwani, Travancore, Kutch and Waghera?

Bhiwani (1809): The Jats of Haryana rebelled, fortified Bhiwani and resisted strongly; a brigade of all arms with a powerful battering ram was needed to suppress them.

Velu Thampi’s revolt (1808-09): After Travancore accepted a subsidiary alliance under Wellesley in 1805, the Company’s harsh conditions caused deep resentment. The ruler fell into arrears on the subsidy and the Resident meddled in internal affairs, as described in Subsidiary Alliance. The Prime Minister (Dalawa) Velu Thampi, assisted by Nair troops, rose against the Company. At Kundara he called openly for taking up arms to oust the British, which became known as the Kundara Proclamation. A large military operation had to be undertaken. The Maharaja had not wholly supported the rebellion and defected to the Company, and Velu Thampi killed himself to avoid capture.

Kutch (1816-32): A treaty with Maharaja Bharmal II of Kutch in 1816 vested power in the throne, but a power struggle with a group of chieftains followed. The British interfered, and in 1819 Bharmal raised Arab and African troops to remove the British. They defeated and deposed him in favour of his infant son and governed through a Resident and a regency council. The council’s innovations and excessive land assessment caused deep resentment. News of British reverses in the Burma War emboldened the chiefs to demand Bharmal’s restoration, and after military operations failed the Company followed a conciliatory policy.

Waghera (1818-20): Resentment against alien rule and the exactions of the Gaekwad of Baroda, supported by the British, led the Waghera chiefs of Okha Mandal to raid British territory in 1818-19. A peace treaty was signed in November 1820.

What Happened at Bareilly, Hathras and Surat?

Bareilly (1816): The immediate cause was the police tax. The issue became religious when Mufti Muhammad Aiwaz, a venerated old man, petitioned the magistrate in March 1816. When police collecting the tax injured a woman, a bloody scuffle followed between the Mufti’s followers and the police. Within two days armed Muslims from Pilibhit, Shahjahanpur and Rampur rose to defend the faith and the Mufti. In April the insurgents murdered the son of Leycester, judge of the provincial court. More than 300 rebels were killed before the rising was suppressed. The upsurge was the product more of discontent than of actual grievance, with the discontent lying in the very nature of alien administration.

Hathras (1817): Dayaram, a talukdar in Aligarh district, had a strong base in the fort of Hathras, considered a second Bharatpur. The Company had settled the estate with him as a farmer, but increasingly high revenues left him unable to pay, and he sheltered government fugitives. The Company attacked in February 1817. Dayaram fought for more than fifteen days and escaped, then submitted and settled with a pension. Bhagwant Singh, Raja of Mursan, dismantled his fort and submitted.

Surat (1844, 1848): In 1844 the Surat population attacked Europeans over the government’s step to raise the salt duty from 50 paise (half a rupee) to one rupee. Faced with a popular movement, the government withdrew the additional levy. In 1848 it withdrew the Bengal Standard Weights and Measures in the face of boycott and passive resistance.

What Were the Kolhapur and Savantvadi Revolts?

The Gadkaris were a hereditary military class garrisoned in the Maratha forts. Their garrisons were disbanded during the reorganisation of Kolhapur state after 1844. Facing unemployment, they rose and occupied the Samangarh and Bhudargarh forts. In Savantvadi, the people had already revolted in 1830, 1836 and 1838, the last because the British deposed their ruler, and the authorities introduced many laws to bring the region under control.

What Were the Wahabi and Kuka Movements?

Wahabi Movement: An Islamic revivalist movement founded by Syed Ahmed of Rai Bareilly, inspired by the teachings of Abdul Wahab (1703-87) of Saudi Arabia and Shah Waliullah of Delhi. Syed Ahmed condemned western influence on Islam and advocated a return to pure Islam as in the Arabia of the Prophet. He was acclaimed as the Imam, and a countrywide organisation with a secret code under spiritual vice-regents (Khalifas) was set up, with a base at Sithana in the north-western tribal belt and a main Indian centre at Patna. Dar-ul-Harb was to be converted into Dar-ul-Islam, and jihad was declared against the Sikh kingdom of Punjab. After the annexation of Punjab in 1849, British rule became the sole target. The British weakened the movement through military operations in the 1860s on Sithana and sedition cases, though encounters continued into the 1880s and 1890s.

Kuka Movement: Founded in 1840 by Bhagat Jawahar Mal (Sian Saheb) in western Punjab; Baba Ram Singh, founder of the Namdhari Sikh sect, was the major later leader. After the British took Punjab, it changed from a religious purification campaign into a political one. It stood for abolition of caste discrimination among Sikhs, discouraging meat, alcohol and drugs, intermarriage, widow remarriage and women stepping out of seclusion. Politically it wanted to remove the British and restore Sikh rule, and advocated hand-woven clothes and boycott of English laws, education and products. The ideas of Swadeshi and non-cooperation were thus propagated by the Kukas well before the national movement. The British took steps to crush it between 1863 and 1872, and in 1872 Ram Singh was deported to Rangoon.

As an analytical point, the Wahabi and Kuka movements are unlike the rest of the list. Their leaders were religious, not dispossessed rulers, and they carried an organised programme, which is why the chapter includes them among the civil uprisings but later writers often treat them separately.

Why Is This Topic Important?

• Leaders and years Kattabomman, Pazhassi Raja, Velu Thampi, Syed Ahmed and Ram Singh are asked repeatedly
• Religious movements The Wahabi and Kuka movements are a regular Prelims pair
• Regional coverage They show resistance across the south, west and north

What Came Next?

The next topic covers peasant movements with religious overtones. Next topic: Peasant Movements With Religious Overtones.

Key People and Terms

• Izaradar A revenue farmer who bid for the right to collect revenue
• Kundara Proclamation Velu Thampi’s call to arms against the British
• Kaval An ancient Tamil village police office with hereditary rights
• Dar-ul-Harb Territory of war, to be converted into Dar-ul-Islam by the Wahabis
• Namdhari The Sikh sect founded by Baba Ram Singh
• Gadkari A hereditary soldier garrisoned in Maratha forts

Exam Corner

Mains Angle

Questions ask for examples of regional resistance. These points add depth.

• Southern resistance Poligars, Pazhassi and Velu Thampi
• Religious motive Bareilly, Wahabis and Kukas combined faith and politics
• Early nationalism The Kukas advocated Swadeshi and non-cooperation