Hul! Hul! The Suppression of the Santal Rebellion in Bengal, 1855

This work explores historical events, shedding light on significant battles and their lasting impact on the region's socio-political fabric.

When, in the farcical battle of Plassey (1757), the East India Company, in the famous bragging words of Sir John Steely, “in a fit of absence of mind literally sleep-walked into the acquisition of India, Britain’s foremost Imperial jewel,” they hardly realised that before long they would be forced into a rude awakening. Any wishful thinking that their unearned gain will prove to be a walk in the park, if not on a bed of roses, was soon shattered by a continuous chain of resistance, rebellion and revolt. Today most people will only remember the greatest and most powerful all-embracing war of independence of 1857, which literally ended the company’s rule of India and led to the direct control of the British crown. But this was by no means the only rebellion the illegal occupiers had to face. The list of such struggles for freedom was numerous.

Within only six years of the British company’s takeover, the first rebellion broke out by a coalition of Muslim and Hindu saints known as Fakir/Sanyasi rebellion in 1763. This long war of independence was led by Majnu Shah, Rahmani Shah, Hajari Singh, Cherag Ali, Vabani Pathak, Debi Chowdhurani and many others who fought in different parts of the country in a series of eight campaigns until the year 1800. There were other rebellions during this period such as the Medenipur rebellion from 1766 to 1783, the famous firebrand Shamsher Ghazi’s rebellion in Feni and Tripura in 1767–68, the Shandip rebellion from 1769 to 1776, the Chakma rebellion in Chittagong from 1776 to 1787 and, more importantly, the famous Neel Bidroh or Indigo rebellion from 1788 to 1803. The author states “historians of peasant labour and resistance in Bengal identify over a hundred insurgencies in India between the establishment of the company’s rule and the end of the nineteenth century.”

The illegal British occupiers were simply taken aback by the force and power of these poorly armed locals against their large and far more wellequipped battalions. In many of these battles, British forces were completely routed, including many commanding officers killed or taken prisoners and the foreign intruders had to flee making urgent requests for reinforcement to fight another day.

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