Chota Nagpur Plateau · Central Highlands & Forest Belt

History

The plateau's history has to be written differently from the plains', because for most of it authority here was not dynastic. The unit that governed was the village, held under khuntkatti tenure by the descendants of the family that first cleared the forest, and above it the Munda-Manki headmanship among the Ho and the parha council of villages among the Munda and Oraon. Rajas existed - the Nagvanshis of Khukhra, the Cheros of Palamu, the Rajas of Porahat and Panchakot - but they collected tribute from a country they did not administer village by village, and outside empires reached the plateau only as intermittent tribute demands. The medieval period therefore begins not with a conquest but with the first documented chieftaincy, in about the fifteenth century. The modern period begins sharply in 1765-71, when the Company acquired the revenue right and, for the first time, an outside power tried to run the plateau by installing landlords and contractors over the village. Everything that follows - Kol, Hul, Ulgulan, Tana Bhagat, and the tenancy laws they produced - is a response to that single change.

Periodisation is regional, not national — the medieval period does not begin in the same century here as it does elsewhere in India.

Ancientprehistory - c. 1200 CE

What the plateau has instead of an ancient political record is an ancient settlement record. Megalithic burial grounds - Chokahatu in Ranchi district is among the largest in India - mark a stone-raising practice that Munda families have continued into living memory rather than abandoned. Iron was smelted here on a scale that left slag across whole districts, and Munda oral tradition attributes the older workings to the Asur, a Munda-speaking community that still bears the name. The three language families of the plateau - Austroasiatic Munda, Dravidian Kurukh, Indo-Aryan Sadri - arrived in that rough order and did not displace one another. The plains empires named the forest country and taxed its margins but did not garrison it, and no imperial inscription places a capital on the plateau. Rock shelters at Isco in Hazaribagh carry engraved designs that later wall painting resembles; their antiquity is proposed rather than securely dated.

When	What happened
prehistory	Megalithic burial grounds, of which Chokahatu in Ranchi district is among the largest in the subcontinent; the practice of raising a stone for the dead continues among Munda families.
early historic	Iron smelting across the plateau leaves extensive slag deposits; Munda tradition names the Asur as the earlier iron-working population, and a community of that name still lives in the Netarhat uplands.
continuous	Khuntkatti tenure - the village held collectively by the lineages descended from its first clearers - together with Munda-Manki headmanship and the parha council of villages, forms the plateau's actual constitution and later becomes the basis of its tenancy law.
1st century CE	Nagvanshi tradition dates the founding of the Khukhra chieftaincy under Phani Mukut Rai to this century. This is tradition; the documented history of the chieftaincy begins around the fifteenth century.
continuous	The sarna - a stand of the original sal forest left uncleared at the edge of each village, in which the village deities are seated and no tree is felled - is maintained as the plateau's principal religious institution.

Medievalc. 15th century - 1765

From about the fifteenth century the plateau's chieftaincies are documented rather than merely remembered. The Nagvanshis of Khukhra moved their seat from Sutiambe and Chutia to Navratangarh at Doisa and, around 1719, to Palkot; the Cheros held Palamu from its two forts in the west; the Ho of the Kolhan and the Munda of the south-east recognised no raja at all. Mughal interest was in tribute and in the diamonds washed from the Sankh, not in administration: Shahbaz Khan's campaign of 1585 and Ibrahim Khan's of 1615, which ended with Durjan Shah's defeat and imprisonment, were revenue expeditions rather than occupations, and the plateau's internal arrangements survived them unchanged. This is the period's central fact - it is why the tenure system the Company met in 1765 was intact and older than any state in the region.

When	What happened
c. 15th century	The documented history of the Nagvanshi chieftaincy of Khukhra begins; the seat later moves to Navratangarh at Doisa.
1585	Shahbaz Khan's campaign extracts recognition of Mughal overlordship from the Nagvanshi raja Madhukar Rai.
1615	Mughal forces under Ibrahim Khan defeat Durjan Shah; the Khukhra chieftaincy is annexed to the empire and the raja held prisoner for some years before being restored.
c. 1658-1674	Medini Ray rules Palamu for the Chero line, the plateau's strongest western power, from the forts on the Auranga.
1660s	Mughal campaigns under Daud Khan take the Palamu forts; Chero authority in the west is reduced but not ended.
1663-1690	Raghunath Shah rules the Nagvanshi country and builds temples at Ranchi and Chutia, including the hill temple that gives Ranchi its Jagannath rath.
c. 1719	The Nagvanshi seat moves from Navratangarh to Palkot for defensibility; the estate later moves again to Ratu in 1870.

Modern1765 - 1947

The Company took the revenue right in 1765 and by 1771 the Nagvanshi raja was its vassal, and the change that followed was not a change of ruler but a change of what a village was. Revenue farming installed outside contractors, thikadars and moneylenders above the khuntkatti village; forced labour, transfer of cleared land and debt bondage followed; and the plateau answered with the longest continuous sequence of agrarian risings anywhere in India. The Chuar disturbances in the eastern marches ran from the 1760s to Ganga Narayan's rising of 1832-33; the Kol uprising of 1831-32 produced the South-West Frontier Agency and Wilkinson's Rules, which for the first time recognised village custom in law; the Hul of 1855 produced the Santhal Parganas and its tenancy act; the Sardari agitation ran through the courts for four decades; and Birsa Munda's Ulgulan of 1899-1900 produced the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908, which wrote khuntkatti into statute. Only after 1914, with the Tana Bhagats, did any of this connect to the national movement. Running underneath the whole century is labour migration - recruitment for the Assam and Dooars tea gardens from the 1860s - which is why Sadri is spoken in the tea belt today.

When	What happened
1765-1771	The Company acquires the Diwani and by 1771 the Nagvanshi raja is its vassal; revenue farming installs contractors over the khuntkatti village.
1831-32	The Kol uprising spreads through Ranchi, Tamar, Bundu, Sonpur and Porahat against dispossession of Mankis and the transfer of village land to outside farmers; Buddhu Bhagat is among its leaders.
1833-1837	The South-West Frontier Agency is created in response, and Thomas Wilkinson's Rules of 1837 give legal standing to village custom and headmanship in place of ordinary regulation courts.
1855-56	The Santhal Hul in the Damin-i-Koh, beginning 30 June 1855, leads to the creation of Santhal Parganas by Act 37 of 1855 and, in 1876, to the Santhal Parganas Tenancy Act.
31 July 1857	The Ramgarh Battalion at Doranda, outside Ranchi, mutinies; landholders including Thakur Vishwanath Shahdeo and Pandey Ganpat Rai join, and the rising is suppressed with executions at Ranchi in 1858.
1899-1900	Birsa Munda's Ulgulan across Khunti, Tamar and Singhbhum; police fire on his followers at Sail Rakab hill near Dombari on 9 January 1900 and he is arrested at Jamkopai forest on 3 February. The Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908 follows, writing khuntkatti tenure into statute and restricting the transfer of tribal land - the most durable result of a century of risings.
1914-1920	The Tana Bhagat movement begins among the Oraon under Jatra Bhagat, refusing rent and forced labour on religious grounds; in December 1920 it joins the non-cooperation movement.

Rulers and commanders

The Munda-Manki and parha headmanship Village and cluster office Administrator continuous

Authority on the plateau was distributed, not dynastic. The munda headed the village and the manki a cluster of villages among the Ho; the parha council did the same among the Munda and Oraon; land was held by the lineages descended from the village's first clearers under khuntkatti tenure. These offices, not any throne, decided land, dispute and ritual, and every rising of the nineteenth century was fought to defend them. They are the reason the plateau has its own tenancy law.

Seat: The khuntkatti village

Phani Mukut Rai Founder 1st century CE by tradition

Named in Nagvanshi tradition as the founder of the Khukhra chieftaincy, in an origin account involving a serpent deity. This is tradition, not record: the documented history of the line begins about the fifteenth century.

Dynasty: Nagvanshi. Seat: Sutiambe

Durjan Shah Raja Ruler early 17th century

Refused Mughal tribute and was defeated in 1615 by forces under Ibrahim Khan, after which the chieftaincy was annexed and he was held prisoner for some years before being restored. Navratangarh, the five-storey palace complex at Doisa, dates from the Nagvanshi seat of this period.

Dynasty: Nagvanshi. Seat: Navratangarh (Doisa)

Raghunath Shah Raja Ruler 1663-1690

Built the temples at Chutia and the Jagannath hill temple outside Ranchi, whose annual rath procession is still the largest in the region. His reign is the point at which Vaishnava temple building becomes part of the Nagvanshi court's public presence.

Dynasty: Nagvanshi. Seat: Doisa

Medini Ray Raja Ruler c. 1658-1674

The strongest of the Chero rulers of Palamu, who held the western plateau from the two forts above the Auranga and extended his authority towards the Sone. Palamu tradition remembers his reign as the benchmark for good governance in the west of the region.

Dynasty: Chero. Seat: Palamu

Thomas Wilkinson Agent to the Governor-General Administrator 1830s

Suppressed the Kol uprising and then framed the settlement that followed it. Wilkinson's Rules of 1837 removed the plateau from the ordinary regulation courts and gave legal standing to village headmen and customary tenure - the first admission in colonial law that this country could not be governed like the plains, and the ancestor of both the Santhal Parganas and Chotanagpur tenancy acts.

Seat: South-West Frontier Agency

Thakur Vishwanath Shahdeo Thakur of Barkagarh Rebel 1817-1858

Landholder of Barkagarh who took the leadership of the 1857 rising in the Ranchi country after the Ramgarh Battalion mutinied at Doranda, raising a force with neighbouring zamindars. Defeated at Sherghati in September 1857.

Seat: Satranji, near Ranchi

Pandey Ganpat Rai Diwan of Barkagarh Commander died 1858

Administrator of the Barkagarh estate who joined the 1857 rising alongside Vishwanath Shahdeo and helped organise its forces in the Ranchi country.

Seat: Ranchi

The history of Chota Nagpur Plateau from ancient through medieval to modern times, and the rulers, commanders and administrators who shaped it. (8)