Which of the following statements about the Sanyasi and Faqir disturbances/rebellions are correct? 1. Governor-General Warren Hastings faced the persistent Sanyasi and Faqir disturbances in Bengal and Bihar. 2. There were a number of Shaivite Naga Sanyasis who formed into armed bands. 3. Majnu Shah, who led bands into Bengal from 1771, was their prominent leader. Select the correct answer using the code given below:
- (a)1 and 2 only
- (b)1, 2 and 3
- (c)2 and 3 only
- (d)1 and 3 only
Correct — B, 1, 2 and 3. All three statements stand. The disturbances ran from about 1763 to 1800 across Bengal and Bihar, so they span exactly the years Warren Hastings governed — Governor of Bengal from 1772 and Governor-General from 1774 — and suppressing them was one of the standing problems of his administration. The sanyasi side of the movement was made up of Dasnami Naga ascetics, an order in the Shaivite tradition whose akharas were organised on military lines and who moved in armed bands, which is what statement 2 describes. The faqir side was led by Majnu Shah, a Madari faqir who led bands into Bengal from 1771 and remained their most prominent leader until the late 1780s. The two groups, Hindu ascetics and Muslim faqirs, acted in loose concert against the same grievance: the Company's revenue administration after it took the diwani, which cut off the alms and the pilgrimage circuits both had lived on, at the very moment the great Bengal famine of 1770 had emptied the countryside.
- (a)1 and 2 only — Drops Majnu Shah, who is the best-attested individual in the whole episode and the leader the Company's own correspondence names again and again.
- (c)2 and 3 only — Drops Warren Hastings, though the disturbances were at their height during his years in charge of Bengal, from 1772 onwards.
- (d)1 and 3 only — Drops the sanyasi half of the movement. The Dasnami Naga ascetics belong to the Shaivite tradition and were organised in armed bands — that is precisely why the Company treated wandering ascetics as a military problem.
The Sannyasi and Fakir rebellion of about 1763 to 1800 was the first sustained armed resistance the East India Company met in Bengal after Buxar. Wandering Hindu ascetics and Muslim faqirs had long circulated through the province collecting alms, trading and lending, protected by custom. Company revenue policy after the grant of the diwani in 1765, together with the famine of 1770, destroyed both the alms economy and the peasant base that sustained it, and restrictions on pilgrimage turned religious mendicants into raiders of granaries, factories and treasuries. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee set his novel Anandamath (1882) against this rebellion, and Vande Mataram comes from that book.
The item asks candidates to accept all three statements, which is psychologically harder than rejecting one, so it is worth seeing why each is uncontroversial rather than looking for a flaw. Statement 1 is a period match — the rising and Hastings's tenure overlap almost exactly. Statement 2 is an order match — Dasnami and Naga both point to the Shaivite akharas, and armed organisation is the defining feature of the naga akhara. Statement 3 is a name-and-date match, and Majnu Shah's leadership from 1771 is one of the few firm dates the episode offers. It is worth being honest that the sources here are largely colonial: the Company classed these bands as dacoits, and much of what is recorded about them comes from officials trying to justify military action, so the line between rebellion and banditry is one historians still argue over. What is not in doubt is that the movement was joined by dispossessed peasants and disbanded soldiers as well as ascetics.
- The Sannyasi and Fakir disturbances ran from about 1763 to 1800 in Bengal and Bihar.
- Warren Hastings was Governor of Bengal from 1772 and Governor-General from 1774, and the disturbances persisted through his administration.
- The sanyasi participants were largely Dasnami Naga ascetics, an order of the Shaivite tradition organised in armed bands.
- Majnu Shah, a Madari faqir, led bands into Bengal from 1771 and was the movement's most prominent leader.
- The trigger was the Company's revenue administration after the diwani of 1765, compounded by the Bengal famine of 1770 and by restrictions on pilgrimage.
- Rejecting statement 2 because ascetics sound peaceful; the naga akharas were organised as fighting orders.
- Dating the rebellion to Cornwallis or Clive; the years overlap Warren Hastings's period almost exactly.
- Treating the sanyasis and faqirs as a single religious community; the movement joined Hindu ascetics and Muslim faqirs against a shared grievance.
Asked as a statements item testing the leader's name and date, the sect the sanyasis belonged to, and which Governor-General faced the rising.
Which one of the following revolts was made famous by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in his novel Anand Math?
- (a) Bhil uprising
- (b) Rangpur and Dinapur uprising
- (c) Bishnupur and Birbhum rebellion
- (d) Sanyasi rebellion
Answer(d) Sanyasi rebellion
The same rising, approached through its literary afterlife. Anandamath is why an eighteenth-century revolt in Bengal and Bihar became a nationalist memory, and Vande Mataram comes from that novel.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Sannyasi rebellion of Bengal forms the background of which literary work?
- (a)Nil Darpan
- (b)Anandamath
- (c)Gora
- (d)Rajmohan's Wife
Answer(b) Anandamath — Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's novel of 1882, from which Vande Mataram is taken.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following was the principal grievance behind the Sannyasi and Fakir disturbances in Bengal?
- (a)Forced cultivation of indigo on peasant holdings
- (b)Company revenue policy after the diwani, and restrictions on pilgrimage and alms
- (c)The introduction of the Permanent Settlement in 1793
- (d)The annexation of Awadh under the doctrine of lapse
Answer(b) Company revenue policy after the diwani, and restrictions on pilgrimage and alms — worsened by the famine of 1770, which destroyed the peasant base of the alms economy.