Colonial Hegemony and Indigenous Resistance in Chotanagpur (1858-1947)

This book, using both conventional archival documents and non-traditional source materials like literature, oral testimonies and folklore, have tried to highlight various facets of tribal rebellions in Chota Nagpur such as the changing nature of the issues involved, participation, leadership and organization. While imperialist historians viewed them as barbaric, the nationalist historians placed tribal movements within the ambit of anti-colonial freedom struggle. The Marxist and Subaltern historians like A. R. Desai, Ranajit Guha and Gough treat tribal movements as part of peasant movements and described tribals as aboriginal kisans.

Further, tribal studies so far have tended to lay emphasis on the actual event of the revolt and studies on changing social formations have been comparatively few in number. Tribal societies and uprisings in Chota Nagpur, therefore, hold out real possibilities of interesting future research. The causes of their discontent, manner of their protests, different phases of their struggle, characteristics of their revolts, ideology of their leaders and other important aspects of the problem will be addressed in the work.