Sanyasi Rebellion

Name given by the British to a long-term
struggle in the Bengal region in the latter
half of the eighteenth century. This was
the period in which the British East
India Company was consolidating its
economic, political, and military control
over the region, causing wide-ranging
dislocations in traditional Bengali society. Among the entrenched powers with
which the British clashed were organized bands of soldier-ascetics, both
Hindus and Muslims. These soldierascetics were significant local forces,
with both military and economic power
gained through mercenary services,
trading, and money-lending, and they
competed with the British East India
Company for political authority and
land revenue.
Conflict between the British and the
ascetics peaked shortly after the Bengal
famine of 1770–1771. The rebellion was
caused partly by competition for greatly
598
Santoshi Ma Vrat
reduced agricultural revenue and by
British-sponsored changes in land ownership patterns, in which officials in the
East India Company replaced many of
the “unprofitable” traditional landowners
with their own Company employees.
Many of the traditional landowners
owed money to ascetic moneylenders
(Sanyasis), and had pledged their land
revenue as security. The Sanyasis were
upset when the landowners were
replaced and the debts not honored. For
their part, the Company’s officials were
reluctant to allow the ascetics, who traveled in heavily armed bands, to pass
through the company’s territories while
on religious pilgrimage, as the ascetics
had traditionally done. Ultimately
the ascetic attacks were disorganized
and local, and the disparate Sanyasi
bands were unable to withstand
British resources and organization. A
fictionalized account of the Sanyasi
Rebellion appeared in the novel
Anandamath, by Bankim Chandra
Chatterjee (1838–1894), who used the
Sanyasi Rebellion as a coded call for
resistance to contemporary British rule.