Kol people

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The Kol people referred to a group of tribal communities of Chotanagpur in eastern parts of India. Historically, the Mundas, Santhal, Ho and Bhumijs were called Kols by the British. [1]

Contents

It also refers to some tribes and castes of south-east Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. [2] [3] They are mostly Indigenous people and dependent on forest produce to make a living, and they have their own land. The caste has several exogamous clans, including the Bhil, Chero, Monasi, Rautia, Raut, Gauthiya Rojaboria, kol-teli‚ Rautel and Thakuria. They speak the Baghelkhandi dialect. [4] Around 1 million lives in Madhya Pradesh while another 5 lakh lives in Uttar Pradesh.[ citation needed ]

Once spelled "Kole", the swaths of land they inhabited in the 19th-century were called "Kolean". [3]

Etymology

Kol was generic term for non-Aryan people in Chotanagpur such as Oraon and Munda. The term Kola mentioned in Rigveda. According to legend, Yayati, the son of Nahus divided his kingdom for his five sons. Then after ten generation, India was divided among four brothers; Pandya, Krala, Kola and Chola. According to Markandeya Purana, the Aryan princess Suratha was defeated by some unclean tribe called Kolabidhansinah means slayer of Pig.[ citation needed ]

History

Colonel Edward Tuite Dalton referred to non-Aryan Kolarian and Dravidian tribals of Chotanagpur as Kol such as Munda, Oraon, Ho, Santal, Bhumij, Juang, etc in his writings in 1867. According to him, the word is epithets of abuse applied by the Brahmin races to the aboriginals who opposed their settlements. In Chotanagpur, the term kol generally applied to Munda and Oraon. Oraon and Munda celebrate the same festivals, but they don't intermarry among themselves. [5] [6]

Later, Colonel Dalton classified Oraon as Dravidian and Munda, along with other Kols such as Ho, Bhumij as Kolarian after observing their customs and traditions which were distinct. [7]

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Kol uprising, also known in British records as the Kol mutiny was a revolt of the tribal Kol people of Chhota Nagpur that took place between 1831 and 1832. It was due to economic exploitation brought on by the systems of land tenure and administration that had been introduced by the East India Company. Tribal people of Chotanagpur including Mundas, Oraons, Hos and Bhumijs were called Kols. They initially plundered and killed Sikh and Muslims thikedars (contractors) who collected taxes by different means. Later they also started to plunder and kill Hindus of nearby villages and burn their houses. The insurgency was suppressed by killing of the leaders, their followers and arrest of many leaders by Thomas Wilkinson.

The Jungle Mahal Uprising, also known as Ganga Narayan Hungama or Bhumij Revolt, was led by Ganga Narayan Singh during 1832–33 by Bhumij tribals in the Dhalbhum and Jungle Mahal areas of the erstwhile Midnapore district, Bengal.

Edward Tuite Dalton CSI was a British soldier and anthropologist. He was posted in Assam, then became commissioner of Chota Nagpur Division. He was posted in Chotanagpur for two decades. Later he became major general of Bengal Lancer. He commanded both European and native people during the sepoy mutiny of 1857. Dalton, along with justice Campbell, Herbert Hope Risley, John-Baptist Hoffmann and P.O.Bidding initiated ethnographic studies in Chotanagpur. His work Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal formed a part of the Census in British India in 1872.

Buli Mahato was a revolutionary leader of the Bhumij Rebellion and Kol Rebellion. He was a zamindar of the Kudmi community of Karadih village in Sonahatu Thana, Jharkhand.

References

  1. Shri Jagdish Chandra Jha (1958). "The KOL RISINGS OF CHOTANAGPUR (1831-1833)-ITS CAUSES". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 21. JSTOR: 440–446. JSTOR   44145239 . Retrieved 26 September 2022.
  2. "Kols in UP: A life without rights". thehindu. 4 December 2021. Retrieved 26 September 2022.
  3. 1 2 Edward Balfour, ed. (1862). The Second Supplement, with Index, to the Cyclopaedia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia. p. 537.
  4. Pullaiah, T.; Krishnamurthy, K. V.; Bahadur, Bir (8 September 2017). Ethnobotany of India, Volume 5: The Indo-Gangetic Region and Central India. ISBN   9781351741316.
  5. Sanjay Nath (2015). "Pages from the Old Records: A Note on 'The "Kols" of Chota-Nagpore' by E.T. Dalton". Journal of Adivasi and Indigenous Studies.
  6. Edward Balfour (1885). The Cyclopaedia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia, Volume 2. Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstal.
  7. Jagdish Chandra Jha (1933). "Kol Insurrection Of Chota-nagpur". Nagendra Mishra,Thacker, Spink & Co., (1933) Private Ltd. p. 23. Retrieved 8 November 2022.