By locating the Tana Bhagats in the shifting terrains of forests and fields in Chota Nagpur, and by examining the hierarchies within the Oraon community, this paper suggests an alternate reading of adivasi protest in colonial India. It also revisits the relationship between the Congress and the adivasis. Finally, by counterpoising the colonial archive with Tana pamphlets and petitions, it analyses different narratives of Tana pasts in order to make sense of how histories and memories of adivasi protest are reworked in postcolonial times.
AbhinandanPatra(Felicitation Letter), Petition from the Chotanagpur Adivasi Tana Bhagats, Lohardagga, Date: 11November1953.
2.
Akhil Bharatiya Rashtriya Swatantrata Senani, Tana Bhagat Sangh Kendriya Committee, Lohardaga, Jharkhand (All India National Freedom Fighters), Petition from All India National Freedom Fighters Organization of the Tana Bhagats, Central Committee, Lohardagga (Jharkhand).
3.
AgrawalA. and SivaramakrishnanK., eds. Social Nature: Resources, Representations, and Rule in India, New Delhi, 2001.
4.
AminS.‘Gandhi as Mahatma: Gorakhpur District, Eastern UP, 1921–2’, in GuhaR., ed., Subaltern Studies, Vol. III, Delhi, 1984, pp. 1–61.
An Inquiry into the Causes of the Land Question in Chutia Nagpore and an Attempt to Devise Means for Its Solution by the ‘Vorstand’ of the German Evangelical (Gossner’s) Mission in Chutia Nagpur, Most Respectfully Submitted to Her Majesty’s Government, Benaras, 1889, Unpublished.
7.
ArcherW. G.Private Papers, India Office Records (IOR), British Library, London.
8.
BallV.Jungle Life in India or the Journeys and Journals of an Indian Geologist, London, 1880.
9.
BanerjeeP.Politics of Time, Delhi, 2006.
10.
Bihar and Orissa Government, Political Department, Special Section, Bihar State Archives, Patna (BSA).
11.
Bihar and Orissa Government, Political Department, Police Branch, BSA.
12.
Brashtachar Key Birodhmei Satya Ahimsa Havan Puja Dharna(Against Corruption Truth, Nonviolence, Havan, Worship, Strike), Petition from Guru Sukhdeo Oraon Tana Bhagat, Tana Bhagat Samiti, Worshippers of Truth and Non-violence.
13.
Bressers, Fr.‘Conversion of the Lohars, Tongo’, Our Field, Vol. 12 (2), 1936, pp. 66–67.
14.
ChakrabartyD.‘Minority Histories, Subaltern Pasts’, in his Provincializing Europe, Princeton, 2000, pp. 97–116.
15.
ChakrabartyD.‘History and the Politics of Recognition’, in JenkinsK., MorganS., and MunslowA., eds, Manifestos for History, London and New York, 2007, pp. 21–34.
16.
ChandhokeS. K.‘The Tana Bhagats of Chota Nagpur’, Vanyajati, July1972, pp. 128–144.
17.
ChatterjeeP.‘Communities and the Nation’, in his The Nation and its Fragments, New Delhi, 1993, pp. 220–39.
18.
ChatterjeeP.‘After Subaltern Studies’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLVII (35), 2012, pp. 44–49.
19.
ChaudhuryB. B.‘The Story of a Tribal Revolt in the Bengal Presidency: The Religion and Politics of the Oraons, 1900–1926’, in ChakrabartiA., ed., Aspects of Socio-economic Changes and Political Awakening in Bengal, Calcutta, 1989, pp. 30–57.
20.
ChaudhuriB. B.‘Radical Adivasi Movements in Colonial Eastern India, 1856–1922’, Indian History Congress, 72nd Session, 10–13December2011, pp. 1–78.
21.
ClarysseL.The Mission of West Bengal or the Archdocese of Calcutta (a translation of Josson, H. La Mission Du Bengale Occidentale Ou Archdiocese of Calcutta, Bruges, 1921), Ranchi, 1993.
22.
CohenP. A.History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience and Myth, New York, 1997.
23.
DasguptaS.‘Reordering of Tribal Worlds: Tana Bhagats, Missionaries and the Raj’, PhD thesis, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 1999.
24.
DasguptaS.‘Reordering a World: The Tana Bhagat Movement in Chhotanagpur, 1914–1999’, Studies in History, Vol. 15 (1), 1999, pp. 1–41.
25.
DasguptaS.‘Locating Adivasi Identity in Colonial India: The Oraons and the Tana Bhagats in Chhotanagpur, 1914–1999’, in BatesC. and ShahA., eds, Savage Attack: Tribal Insurgency in India, New Delhi, 2014, pp. 112–39.
26.
DattaK. K.The Santal Insurrection of 1855–57, Calcutta, 1940.
27.
DattaK. K.Freedom Movement in Bihar Vol. I, Patna, 1957.
28.
DattaK. K., ed., Writings and Speeches of Mahatma Gandhi Relating to Bihar, 1917–1947, Patna, 1960.
29.
DehmlowW.‘Ein falscher Prophet in Bahar-Barwe’ (A False Prophet in Bahar-Barwe), Die Biene auf dem Missions-felde, Vol. 81 (11), 1914, pp. 150–51.
30.
Dilles, Fr.‘Katkahi’, Our Field, Vol. 12 (9), 1936, pp. 362–63.
31.
FuchsS.Rebellious Prophets: A Study of Messianic Movements in Indian Religions, New York, 1965.
Gaumata Aur Garib Bhai, Ham Saab Dharti Mey Kaam Kartey Hai(Mother Cow and Poor Brother, We all work on this Earth). Petition from the Tana Bhagats of Chotanagpur, Ranchi, Hazaribagh, Palamau.
34.
Government of Bihar, Freedom Movement Papers, BSA.
35.
GuhaR.‘On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India’, in GuhaR., ed., Subaltern Studies I, New Delhi, 1982, pp. 1–8.
36.
GuhaR.Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India, Delhi, 1983.
37.
HamiltonW.A.A Geographical Statistical and Historical Description of Hindustan and the Adjacent Countries, London, 1820.
38.
HardimanD.The Coming of the Devi, Delhi, 1987.
39.
HardimanD.‘Dalit and Adivasi Assertion’, in SarkarS. and SarkarT., eds, Caste in Modern India: A Reader, Vol. 2, 2014, pp. 402–32.
JhaJ. C.Kol Insurrection in Chotanagpur, Calcutta, 1964.
42.
JohnA.‘Eine Reise nach Chechari’ (A Journey to Chechari), Die Biene auf dem Missions-felde, Vol. 1 (1), 1928, pp. 64–65.
43.
MitchellT.Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-politics, Modernity, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2002.
44.
MohapatraP. P.‘Class Conflict and Agrarian Regimes in Chotanagpur, 1860–1950’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. 28 (1), 1991, pp. 1–42.
45.
Oraon Unrest, Roy’s Private Papers, Ranchi.
46.
Papers Relating to the Chota Nagpur Agrarian Disputes, Vol. 1, Unpublished.
47.
Public and Judicial Department, Bihar’s Governors’ Reports (IOR).
48.
PortelliA.The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories, New York, 1991.
49.
Ranchi District Tana Bhagat Raiyats’ Agricultural Lands Restoration Act, 1947 (Bihar Act II of 1948) (as modified up to 1May1960).
50.
RangarajanM. and SivaramakrishnanK., eds, India’s Environmental History: Colonialism, Modernity and the Nation, Vol. 2, Ranikhet, 2012.
51.
ReidJ.Final Report on the Survey and Settlement Operations in the District of Ranchi 1903–1910, Calcutta, 1912.
52.
RoyS. C.‘Ethnographic Investigation in Official Records’, Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Vol. VII (IV), 1921, pp. 1–34.
SarkarS.‘The Condition and Nature of Subaltern Militancy’, in GuhaR., ed., Subaltern Studies, Vol. III, Delhi, 1984, pp. 271–320.
56.
SenH.‘The Maharaja and the Bhils: The ‘Eki’ Movement in Mewar, 1921–22’, in ErnstW. and PatiB., eds, India’s Princely States: People, Princes and Colonialism, New Delhi, 2010, pp. 157–172.
57.
Selections from Ranchi Settlement Papers.
58.
Selections from Revisional Settlement Papers.
59.
SharmaB. D.Tribal Affairs in India: The Crucial Transition, New Delhi, 2001.
60.
SinghK. S.The Dust-Storm and the Hanging Mist, Calcutta, 1966.
61.
SinghK. S.‘Tribal Peasantry, Millenarianism, Anarchism and Nationalism: A Case Study of the Tana Bhagats in Chotanagpur, 1914–25’, Social Scientist, Vol. 16 (11), 1988, pp. 36–50.
62.
TaylorF. A. B.Final Report on Revisional Survey and Settlement in Ranchi 1927–35, Patna, 1938.
