Sarat Chandra Roy, known as the father of Indian anthropology in his 1912 seminal work, The Mundas and Their Country, stated that the Mundas were the earliest settlers in the Chota Nagpur region, and Oraons followed them during 5th century A.D. Thereafter, different communities settled subsequently. Their kinship-based joint land ownership system, known as khuntkatti, though mostly remained unperturbed throughout the medieval period, before the British introduced them to a new world of rents and taxes. The replacement of tributes—they voluntarily used to offer to the Manki Raja or Pahari Raja—with the coercive and punitive taxation system led to the British colonisers being identifies as the first ‘outsiders’. Following the imposition of Permanent Settlement Act in 1793, the fight against zamindars and British taxation system shaped the politics of the region, with a string of revolts challenging their authority. For instance, Chuar, Dhalbhum, Tilka Manjhi, Pahadia, Tamar, Nayek Hangama and Kol insurrections were scripted against this backdrop. In the early days, both British and local non-tribal landlords became the dikus.