Early resistance movements

The British called India 'the jewel in the crown of the British Empire', and claimed she would stay forever part of an empire "on which the sun never sets".

Yet resistance began almost at once.

One of the earliest organised movements, the 'Sannyasi-Fakir Rebellion', began in Bengal after the terrible famine of 1770. Sannyasis (Hindu holy men) and fakirs (Muslim holy men), who had always travelled freely for pilgrimage and charity, found their movements restricted by the Company's new land and tax rules.

For three decades they attacked British treasuries and tax collectors. The British called them 'bandits' and finally defeated them with greater force, but the rebellion later inspired Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's novel Anandamath (1882), which contained 'Vande Mātaram', now India's national song.

Tribal communities faced different pressures as the British moved into forests and hills:

• less access to forests and forest produce;
• tribal land taken or turned into private property;
• cash taxes and debt traps;
• traditional councils replaced by British law;
• missionaries encouraged to convert them.

A colonial law even labelled hundreds of tribal communities 'criminal tribes', causing unfair harassment for decades.

The Kol Uprising of 1831–1832 in Chota Nagpur began when British land policies favoured outsiders over the original tribal people. The Kol tribes, including Mundas and Oraons, briefly controlled a large area.

The Santhal Rebellion of 1855–1856, led by the brothers Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu, rose against moneylenders and landlords taking ancestral lands with British support. The Santhals declared their own government and vowed to 'fight to the last drop of blood'. The British burned whole villages and killed thousands, but the rebellion inspired other tribal communities.

The Indigo Revolt (1859–1862) shows the peasants' side. European planters forced peasants in northern Bengal to give up food crops for indigo (a plant that gives blue dye), then in great demand in Europe. Everyone from planters to traders made money except the peasants, who were paid so little that they fell into debt slavery; refusing meant prison, torture and destruction of property. Supported by educated Bengalis and the Bengali press, they forced the authorities to limit some of the worst abuses.