Place · Santal homeland hills · India
Rajmahal Hills
The basaltic Rajmahal hills on the Ganga's southern bank in Sahibganj and Godda districts are the ancestral land of the Pahariya and Santal Adivasis, and were the forward subahdar seat of Mughal Bengal under Raja Man Singh of Amber, who shifted his capital here in 1592 from Tanda to face the Afghan rebellions downstream. Akbar's general used Rajmahal's Jama Masjid, Sangi Dalan and Baradari between 1592 and 1608; the capital returned to Dhaka under Shah Jahan. In the Rajmahal and Damin-i-koh country below the hills, the Santal Hul of 1855-56 under Sidhu, Kanhu, Chand and Bhairav Murmu broke out — the great tribal insurrection against moneylenders and the Company that preceded the 1857 uprising by two years.
- Function
- Military & resistance
- Patron dynasty
- Mughal / Santal
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 24.933, 87.833
Connections (2)
- CampaignSidhu Murmu
The Rajmahal Hills and the Damin-i-koh country below them were the heartland of the Santal Hul rebellion of 30 June 1855 to January 1856, led by the brothers Sidhu, Kanhu, Chand and Bhairav Murmu against the sahukars (moneylenders), the zamindars and the East India Company. Sidhu Murmu called the rising at Bhognadih in Sahibganj district on 30 June 1855, mobilised about ten thousand Santal villagers from the hills, and marched on Barhait and Pakur before being overrun by Major-General Lloyd's troops near Panchkathia; he was hanged publicly in Barhait that August.
- CampaignKanhu Murmu
Kanhu Murmu, the younger of the two Murmu brothers who led the Santal Hul of 1855-56, commanded the eastern column of the rebellion from the Rajmahal Hills and the Damin-i-koh country, pushing from Sahibganj down the Ganga toward Berhampore before the Company brought in artillery and the 7th Native Infantry. Captured in February 1856 and hanged at Bhognadih, Kanhu's death ended the active phase of the Hul; the Santal Parganas Non-Regulation district and the Santal Parganas Tenancy Act of 1876 were the direct administrative legacy of the rising.
Sources
Standard reference.
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