Who were ‘Paharias’?

The correct answer is Option (2) → They were dwellers settled in and around Rajmahal Hills practicing shifting agriculture.

Option (1) They were people settled on the plains. — Incorrect. The Paharias were hill folk. The plains below the hills were cultivated by settled peasants, and the Paharias raided them; as the Santhal settlers took over the lower hills, the Paharias receded deeper into the Rajmahal hills.

Option (2) They were dwellers settled in and around Rajmahal Hills practicing shifting agriculture. — Correct. In the late-eighteenth-century revenue records, the hill folk who lived around the Rajmahal hills were known as Paharias. They lived on forest produce and practised shifting cultivation: they cleared patches of forest, grew pulses and millets for a few years, then left the land fallow and moved to a new area.

Option (3) They were the share croppers in Bengal. — Incorrect. In Bengal, the land of the rich jotedars was cultivated through sharecroppers called adhiyars or bargadars, who brought their own ploughs and gave half the produce to the jotedar. The Paharias were hill people, not sharecroppers.

Option (4) They were the peasants who were involved in the Deccan revolts in 1875. — Incorrect. The revolt of 1875 was the work of the ryots of the Bombay Deccan, who attacked the sahukars and burnt their account books. The Paharias lived in the Rajmahal hills of eastern India.