Bhubaneswar: Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu paid tributes to Birsa Munda on his death anniversary today. Birsa Munda was an Indian tribal freedom fighter, religious leader, and folk hero who belonged to the Munda tribe.
He spearheaded a tribal religious millenarian movement that arose in the Bengal Presidency (now Jharkhand) in the late 19th century, during the British Raj, thereby making him an important figure in the history of the Indian independence movement. The revolt mainly concentrated in the Munda belt of Khunti, Tamar, Sarwada and Bandgaon.
Born in the tribal belt of the Chhotanagpur Plateau, Birsa Munda started fighting for tribal rights when he was just a teenager. Birsa Munda studied in a German Mission School but he dropped out in a few years. On witnessing the tyranny of the British colonial rulers, Birsa Munda started his own sect called ‘Birsait’.
Many among the Munda and Oraon tribes joined his sect and his movement.
As his awareness about the atrocities of the colonial rulers grew, Birsa Munda also participated in anti-missionary and anti-establishment activities between 1886 and 1890 in Chaibasa. He was arrested by the British police on March 3, 1900. Birsa Munda died young, at 25, in Ranchi jail on June 9 the same year. Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar on his birth anniversary on November 15, 2000.
His portrait hangs in the Indian Parliament Museum; he is the only tribal leader to have been so honored.
