Governor C P Radhakrishnan released the book “History of Santal Parganas” written by Dr Sunil Kumar Singh at Raj Bahwan on Friday. Dr Singh, an IAS officer, also presented his two earlier books “Inside Jharkhand” and “Jharkhand Ek Sampurna Adhyayan” on this occasion.
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 the British writers only give us a brief history of the region and those authored by Indian writers like Raychaudhuri are mere imitations of the foreign accounts.
The work 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. 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.
Two chapters of the book are devoted to the Santal revolts of 1855 and that of 1857. 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 Quit India Movement which caused intense protests of the people of Santal Parganas.
The Santhal 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 Jharkhand Public Service Commission; Late Amitabh Chaudhary who unfortunately passed away before the book was released.
The author Dr Sunil Kumar Singh is a Retired I.A.S. officer, who has authored many books for Jharkhand and Land revenue matters. The publisher is Rajendra Kumar Arya of Crown Books.
The book contains 494 pages excluding four Appendixes, Bibliography and Index. There are fifteen illustrations and five maps besides several tables. Every chapter is ended with authentic references. It is priced at Rs 900.
