The Hills Rise
While the Ghadar cases were being tried in Lahore, a different war began in the hills. The Forest Acts had made the old life illegal, and the Great War brought recruiters for labour corps. This chapter follows the Bhils shot on Mangarh hill in 1913, the Kuki chiefs of Manipur, Alluri Sitarama Raju in the Gudem hills, and Jadonang of the Zeliangrong, who each fought the Raj where its maps went blank.
Lessons in this chapter
- The Forest Became Government Property — How the Forest Acts, the podu ban, the Political Agent and the 1917 labour draft set the board for four risings
- Mangarh, 17 November 1913 — The Bhagat movement, the Samp Sabha, and the firing on Mangarh hill
- Mombi Burns — Chengjapao Doungel, the burning of Mombi, and two winters of war in the Manipur hills
- Chintapalli, 22 August 1922 — The man who signed the police register, and the twenty one months that followed
- The Prophet of Kambiron — The healer who reformed a faith, told the hills to stop paying tax, and was hanged on a charge his trial could not prove