RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, March 10: Jharkhand Governor CP Radhakrishnan released a book titled ‘History of Santal Parganas’ on Tuesday. The author of the book is Sunil Kumar Singh, a retired IAS officer who earlier authored many books concerned with the land and revenue issues of Jharkhand.
The publisher of the book is Rajendra Kumar Arya of Crown Books.
The book contains 494 pages excluding four appendices, a bibliography and an index. There are fifteen illustrations and five maps besides several tables. Every chapter is ended with authentic references. Its price is Rs 900.
The book covers the history of Santal Parganas from the earliest times to India’s independence excluding narration of the autonomy movement in this part of Jharkhand.
Two chapters of the book are devoted to the Santal revolts of 1855 and 1857. The Damin-i-Koh area identified, created, and administered by the British has been mentioned in a separate chapter.
The seventh chapter covers the freedom struggle from 1919 to 1942 including the non-cooperation movement and civil disobedience stages of the struggle.
The eighth chapter is exclusively on the ‘quit India movement’ which caused intense protests from the people of Santal Parganas. The Santal economy including its agriculture, industry and agrarian changes made by the British has been covered in the new book.
One chapter separately delineates land revenue administration prevailing in the area of study. It also describes the tribal society of Santal Parganas which included both the Paharias and the Santals.
The penultimate chapter explains the entry of the Christian missions in the region and their impact. The foreword has been written by the ex-chairman of the Jharkhand Public Service Commission, Amitabh Chaudhary, who unfortunately died before the book was released.
The book has got significance as Santal Parganas has remained out of the minds of researchers and historians. Available works for this area either touch a particular period or cover only part of the total area.
A complete history is not available in English or Hindi. The Gazetteers written by British writers only give us a brief history of the region and the authored by Indian writers like Raychaudhuri are mere imitations of the foreign accounts.
The area has a very rich prehistoric past as indicated by the discovery of various stone tools of Paleolithic culture. The area was under the control of different hands from the pre-Magadhan era. Archaeological evidence like coins and inscriptions have not been discovered for our area of study.
