Spectrum Test: Peasant Movements - UPSC MCQ

The impoverishment of the Indian peasantry was a direct result of the transformation of the agrarian structure due to- 

• colonial economic policies, 
• ruin of the handicrafts leading to overcrowding of land,
• the new land revenue system, 
• colonial administrative and judicial system

• The anger of the peasants exploded in 1859 when Digambar Biswas and Bishnu Biswas of Nadia district decided not to grow indigo under duress and resisted the physical pressure of the planters and their lathiyals (retainers)backed by police and the courts. 

• They also organized a counterforce against the planters' attacks. The planters also tried methods like evictions and enhanced rents. The ryots replied by going on a rent strike by refusing to pay the enhanced rents and by physically resisting the attempts to evict them. 

• Gradually, they learned to use the legal machinery and initiated legal action supported by fund collection.

1. The agrarian league was formed in Yusufshahi Parganah in the Pabna district of Bengal in May 1873.
2. It was formed to resist the demands of the zamindars of enhanced rents. Hence, the 1st statement is completely FALSE.
3. The league organized mass meetings of peasants and large crowds gathered and then they marched towards the villages frightening the zamindars.
4. The league organized a rent-strike- the ryots refused to pay the enhanced rents and challenged the zamindars in the courts.
5. The struggle gradually spread throughout Pabna and then to the other districts of East Bengal.
6. Everywhere agrarian leagues were organized, rents were withheld and zamindars fought in the courts.
7. The main form of struggle was that of legal resistance.
8. There was very little violence - it only occurred when the zamindars tried to compel the ryots to submit to their terms by force.
9. In the course of the movement, the ryots developed a strong awareness of the law and their legal rights and the ability to combine and form associations for peaceful agitation.

• In 1874, the growing tension between the moneylenders and the peasants resulted in a social boycott movement organized by the ryots against the "outsider" moneylenders. The ryots refused to buy from their shops. No peasant would cultivate their fields. The barbers, washermen, shoemakers would not serve them.

• This social boycott spread rapidly to the villages of Poona, Ahmednagar, Solapur and Satara. Soon the social boycott was transformed into agrarian riots with systematic attacks on the moneylenders' houses and shops. 

• The debt bonds and deeds were seized and publicly burnt. The Government succeeded in repressing the movement. As a conciliatory measure, the Deccan Agriculturists Relief Act was passed in 1879. This time also, the modern nationalist intelligentsia of Maharashtra supported the peasants' cause.

Changed Nature of Peasant Movements after 1857 

• Peasants emerged as the main force in agrarian movements, fighting directly for their own demands. 

• The demands were centred almost wholly on economic issues. 

• The movements were directed against the immediate enemies of the peasant-foreign planters and indigenous zamindars and moneylenders. 

• The struggles were directed towards specific and limited objectives and redressal of particular grievances. 

• Colonialism was not the target of these movements. 

• It was not the objective of these movements to end the subordination or exploitation of the peasants. 

• Territorial reach was limited. 

• There was no continuity of struggle or long-term organization 

• The peasants developed a strong awareness of their legal rights and asserted them in and outside the courts

Both statements are correct.

Statement 1 is correct. The Awadh Kisan Sabha was formed in 1920 in the Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh, India, to address the grievances of the peasants who were facing oppression and exploitation by the landlords. The organization was formed due to the differences among the nationalist leaders who were unable to address the issues faced by the peasants.

Statement 2 is also correct. The Awadh Kisan Sabha urged the farmers to refuse to till bedakhali land, which was the land that belonged to the landlords but was left uncultivated for years. The organization also asked the farmers to boycott the panchayats, which were the traditional village councils, and not to offer any kind of free labor such as hari and begar to the landlords. These actions were taken as part of the non-cooperation movement against the landlords who were exploiting the farmers.

• The Mappilas were the Muslim tenants inhabiting the Malabar region where most landlords were Hindus Mappilas had expressed their resentment against the landlords' oppression during the nineteenth century. 

• Their grievances centred around lack of security of tenure, high rents, renewal fees and other oppressive exactions. 

• The Mappila tenants were particularly encouraged by the local Congress body's demand for government legislation regulating tenant-landlord relations. 

• Soon, the Mappila movement merged with the ongoing Khilafat agitation. The leaders of the Khilafat-Non-Cooperation Movement like Gandhi, Shaukat Ali and Maulana Azad, addressed Mappila meetings. After the arrest of national leaders, the leadership passed into the hands of local Mappila leaders.

• Under Patel, the Bardoli peasants resolved to refuse the revised assessment payments until the Government appointed an independent tribunal or accepted the current amount as full payment. 

• To organize the movement, Patel set up 13 chhavanis or workers' camps in the taluka. Bardoli Satyagraha Patrika was brought out to mobilize public opinion. An intelligence wing was set up to make sure all the tenants followed the movement's resolutions. 

• Those who opposed the movement faced a social boycott. Special emphasis was placed on the mobilization of women. K.M. Munshi and Lalji Naranji resigned from the Bombay Legislative Council in support of the movement.

The All India Kisan Congress/Sabha: 

• This sabha was founded in Lucknow in April 1936 with Swami Sahjanand Saraswati as the president and N.G. Ranga as the general secretary.

• A Kisan manifesto was issued, and a periodical under Indulal Yagnik started. The AIKS and the Congress held their sessions in Faizpur in 1936. 

• The AIKS agenda strongly influenced the Congress manifesto (especially the agrarian policy) for the 1937 provincial elections.