The Wandering Fakirs of Bengal

Abstract

The historiography of the Fakir rebellion has drawn much attention since Ghosh in 1930 depicted the Fakirs as raiders from outside Bengal. In independent India, two groups of ideology-driven historians, Marxists and Secularists, expounded the uprising as an early peasant rebellion and a shining example of Hindu–Muslim campaign against the Raj. This article explodes both scholarly myths, since its archival research reconfirms that the Fakirs were increasingly aggressive plunderers in religious garb, tormenting the Bengal countryside. Mainly based on colonial records, later parts of this article illustrate how and why the British felt increasingly compelled to curtail Fakir movements and activities.