Adivasis and Dikus in Colonial Eastern India: Chotanagpur and Santal Parganas in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

<strong>CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF DISCRIMINATION AND EXCLUSION (CSDE) SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES</strong> a Lecture on <strong>Adivasis and Dikus in Colonial Eastern India: Chotanagpur and Santal Parganas in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries</strong> by <strong>Dr. Sanjukta Das Gupta</strong> Sapienza University of Rome, Italy <strong>February 17, 2015 </strong> This paper seeks to trace the changing relations between adivasis and the dikus and its impact upon the adivasi economy, with particular reference to two regions in eastern India: the Kolhan Government Estate and the SantalParganas, once part of the Bengal Presidency. It explores the contradictions in the policies towards dikusadopted by the colonial government in course of the nineteenth century. Outsider intrusion and its baneful effect upon adivasi communities had usually been identified by colonial authorities as the main factor behind tribal rebellions and unrest in eastern India. In fact, the culpability of dikuswas invariably emphasised in order to project colonial authorities as the legitimate protectors of tribals against the machinations of oppressive outsiders. The term diku itself gained widespread currency among adivasi communities of Chotanagpur under colonial rule,with increasing contact with larger groups of alien outsiders who gradually dislodged them from their lands. Colonial rule,moreover, resulted in the transformation of the older functional caste groups, who had earlier provided essential services for the village communities, into dikus, i.e., as exploitative non-adivasis. Some scholars have also distinguished between dikus and sadants, arguing that while dikus were foreigners, the sadants or sads were long-time settlers and old proprietors.It thus appears that both the identification of dikus, as also the measures adopted to control their instrusion, varied in different parts of Chotanagpur and SantalParganas. The paper analyses, in particular, the role of dikus in the acquisition of adivasi land and as arkatis or intermediaries in the recruitment of adivasi labour for tea plantations.