Sannyasi Fakir rebellion

 From the contemporary records  it is noticed that the Madari sect of Fakirs and the Dasnami sect of Sannyasis used to move about in the 18th century Bengal on pilgrimage; but, except in the Company's correspondence or in some records of the British chroniclers, nowhere has it been mentioned that they were ‘nomadic bodies’ and lived on contributions by ‘violence’ under the ‘pretence’ of charity. On the other hand, from the earlier records  , it appears that these mendicants, on receipt of grant of land from the Hindu or Muslim provincial administrators, lived permanently in some parts of the country. It is also found that in the 18th century the Fakirs and the Sannyasis hired themselves as soldiers under the Mughal administration in Bengal and, after disbandment, settled as the disgruntled elements in most parts of North Bengal and some portions of East Bengal. Under the rule of the East India Company, they were gradually being merged with the discontented peasants and craftsmen of the province. However, to maintain their religious and militant tradition, they sometimes went on pilgrimage as armed Fakirs and Sannyasis to various auspicious places like Pandua in Malda and Mahasthangarh in Bogra. Here also they faced opposition from the Company as they were subjected to various pilgrimage taxes and other forms of oppression. In 1771, 150 saints were put to death, apparently for no reason.

In this context, an extract from the petition of Majnu Shah, the famous Fakir leader, to Maharani Bhawani of Natore is relevant (written around 1772 ): “We have for a long time ...been entertained in Bengal and we have long continued to worship God at the several shrines and altars without ever once abusing or oppressing any one. Nevertheless last year 150 Fakirs were without cause put to death. ...Now we are all collected and beg together. Displeased at this method they (the English) obstruct us in visiting the shrines ... this is unreasonable. You are the ruler of the country. We are Fakirs who pray always for your welfare. We are full of hopes” (quoted from JM Ghosh's Sannyasi and Fakir Raiders in Bengal).

Prominent among them being Majnu Shah, Bhavani Pathak, Musa Shah, Ganesh Giri, Cherag Ali and Devi Chaudhurani. Bhavani Pathak, an inhabitant of Rangpur, had been on very friendly terms with Majnu Shah and operated between Mymensingh and Bogra districts.43 Pathak, along with his peasant followers, often carried out insurrections from inside the deep forests and used to plunder the boats of English merchants.44 He was also in league with Devi Chaudhurani, the famous female leader, who specialized in riverine confrontations and had a large force under her command.

Due to the colonial policy of one-way export trading of raw materials , artisans who were engaged in the weaving industry in general, and the ‘Muslin’ industry in Dacca in particular suffered serious hardships; between 1758 and 1763 most of these artisans became unemployed. In this background, a group of Fakirs fraternized with the unemployed weavers and attacked the Dacca Factory and captured it in 1763. In the same year the Factory at Rampur Boalia in Rajshahi district was plundered by the Sannyasis. Thus started the Fakir and Sannyasi rebellion which continued, almost without break, till 1800.

Towards the end of 1760s we find the Sannyasis fighting along with the combined force of Maharaja of Burdwan and Assaduzzaman Khan of Birbhum, against the forces of the East India Company. Majnu Shah, who soon became the chief leader of the Fakir and Sannyasi rebellion, came to Birbhum in order to contact Rani Lalbibi, wife of Assaduzzaman Khan, and the pir or religious leader Hamiduddin; the former gave Majnu monetary support and the latter provided him with religious inspiration to fight against the Company in the context of the devastating experience of the famine. Majnu Shah, who hailed from Mirkhanpur or Makhanpur in Bihar, spent the rest of his life mostly organizing the rebellion in northern and eastern parts of Bengal.

The rebellion began to spread after the famine of 1770-71. The Controlling Council of Revenue wrote in 1773 that “in the years subsequent to the famine, their (the Fakirs' and the Sannyasis') ranks were swollen by a crowd of starving peasants, who had neither seed nor implements to recommence cultivation...” The Supervisor of Rajshahi had already reported that the number of Fakirs "is presented to be about 1500 besides the stragglers who are continually joining them for plunder"; a party of 300 such men had seized Rs 1000 which was ready for despatch in the kutchery of Jaisindhu Pargana in Rajshahi district.”  Writing to the Court of Directors in October 1774, Warren Hastings, the Governor General, reported a "considerable deficiency between the collections and the settlement" in the district of Rangpur. He went on to say that "a very considerable part of the deficiency may be attributed to the plunder occasioned by the continual incursions of the Sannyasis,... although we adopted it as an invariable maxim to grant no deduction to the farmers on this account in order, if possible, to conquer their blind superstition in giving countenance to these religious plunderers". The measures taken by Hastings to strengthen the cadre of the Company’s sepoys could not be effective immediately. Four battalions of the Company’s forces were actively engaged against the Fakirs and the Sannyasis but "their combined operations have been fruitless. The revenue could not be collected, the inhabitants made communion with the marauders and the whole rural administration was unhinged".

More information can be gleaned about popular participation in the rebellion from a careful analysis of the official records. In general, the officials of the Company, in their reports and despatches, have given the impression that the Fakirs and Sannyasis used to plunder the villages. A different picture appears during the encounter between the rebels and the Company's sepoys led by Capt Thomas in Rangpur in December 1772. On 30 December, Thomas along with his soldiers attacked the party of Sannyasis numbering about 1500 near Shamgunge, west of Rangpur town. The first attack of the sepoys was partly successful and the Sannyasis gave way temporarily. The Captain and his party followed them inside a jungle and expended all their ammunition. At this juncture, the Sannyasis "rushed in upon them from every quarter and surrounded them. ... Capt. Thomas received one wound..., and next he was cut down". The villagers, in general, and the peasants, in particular, not only avoided giving any assistance to the British soldiers and sepoys but "joined the Sannyasis with lathis and showed the Sannyasis those (sepoys of the Company) whom they saw had concealed themselves in long grass and jungle and, if any of the sepoys attempted to go into their villages, they made a noise to bring the Sannyasis and they plundered the sepoys' firelocks". Similarly, in Dinajpur, in May 1788, during an encounter with Musa Shah, the Fakir leader, Lieut Christie and his sepoys "surprised Musa Shah who together with his adherents was encamped near villages... belonging to pargana Jehangueerpore" and pursued him. Musa left the encampment leaving his belongings and "the inhabitants of these villages made away with the baggages which Musa had abondoned". Hatch, the Collector of Dinajpur, felt that but for the assistance given by the villagers, Musa could have been captured; he suspected that "the villagers... became partisans of the Fakirs and restored to them in the hour of safety what they took charge of at the moment of their danger". Another significant fact appears from the official records that the number of armed confrontations increased in villages during the winter season and decreased with the advent of the monsoon, the season of cultivation. It may be tentatively held that participation of the peasants in the organization of Fakirs and Sannyasis gradually increased and that there is a possibility that the number of rebels "rose up to fifty thousand".

Whether the revenue of the Company and possessions of their agents, intercepted and snatched away by the Fakirs and the Sannyasis, were actually distributed among the peasants remains an open question; however, the Company's officers have themselves testified that the rebels followed the method of "easing the richer few" who "had not the heart to spend"  and sometimes "seemed to make a merit in not molesting those who had little or nothing to lose". On the contrary, it is sometimes found that the peasants came forward with their small donations to the cause of the rebellion. Occasionally the ryots decided to stop giving revenue to the new landlords and deposited the amount, however paltry, with the Fakir and Sannyasi leaders.

Among these popular insurrections, certain risings figured prominently in contemporary records: the Chuar revolt (1770-1783 and 1798-1799); the Rangpur rising of 1783; the Chakma revolt in the Chittagong hills (1776-1787); the risings of weavers, particularly in Santipur; the joint revolt of weavers and salt workers in Jessore and Khulna (1784-1796); the Birbhum rising (1786-1793); the Swandip revolt of 1769; the peasant rising in Tripura (1761-1763); the revolt of Majhi (boatmen) communities near Calcutta (1765-1766); and the rising of opium growers against the Company's monopoly control over opium cultivation in 1780. References exist to the fact that both the Fakir and the Sannyasi leaders stood behind the oppressed Rangpur peasants in their rising against Devi Singh in 1783. Similarly, in 1763, the Fakirs and the Sannyasis fought for the cause of weavers by attacking the factories at Dacca and Rampur Boalia.