Spectrum Summary: Peasant Movements 1857-1947
Peasants Under Colonialism
The impoverishment of the Indian peasantry resulted from colonial economic policies, handicraft decline, a new land revenue system, and the impact of the colonial administrative and judicial systems.
Peasants faced a myriad of challenges, including high rents, illegal levies, and unpaid labor in zamindari areas. In Ryotwari areas, the burden intensified with heavy government-imposed land revenue.
Fearing the loss of livelihood, peasants sought financial assistance from local moneylenders. However, these moneylenders exploited their vulnerabilities, imposing exorbitant interest rates and often leading to the mortgage of land and cattle.
The consequence was a significant shift in the status of peasants from actual cultivators to tenants-at-will, sharecroppers, or landless laborers.
Peasants identified the colonial state as their primary adversary, realizing that it was the root cause of their exploitation and hardships.
In response to intolerable conditions, some peasants resorted to desperate measures, engaging in criminal activities such as robbery, dacoity, and what is known as social banditry.
A Survey of Early Peasant Movements
Indigo Revolt (1859-60)
In Bengal, European indigo planters exploited local peasants by compelling them to cultivate indigo instead of more lucrative crops like rice.
Peasants were coerced into taking advance sums and entering deceptive contracts, which were later used against them.
The planters employed various intimidation tactics, including kidnappings, illegal confinements, flogging, attacks on women and children, seizure of cattle, and the destruction of homes and crops.
In 1859, led by figures like Digambar Biswas and Bishnu Biswas in Nadia district, peasants collectively resisted growing indigo under duress.
They faced physical pressure from planters, their armed retainers (lathiyals), and support from the police and the courts.
Peasants organized a counterforce to resist the planters' attacks.
In response to the planters' control efforts, ryots employed tactics such as rent strikes, refusing to pay enhanced rents, and physically resisting eviction attempts.
Over time, the peasants acquired knowledge of legal mechanisms and initiated legal actions, supported by fund collections, to protect their rights.
Pabna Agrarian Leagues
During the 1870s and 1880s, extensive regions of Eastern Bengal experienced agrarian unrest due to oppressive practices by zamindars.
Zamindars imposed rents beyond legal limits and obstructed tenants from acquiring occupancy rights under Act X of 1859.
To achieve their goals, zamindars employed forcible evictions, seizure of cattle and crops, and prolonged, costly litigation in which poor peasants found themselves at a disadvantage.
Responding to the oppressive regime, peasants in Yusufshahi Pargana, Patna district, formed an agrarian league to resist zamindars' demands.
The league organized a rent strike, with ryots refusing to pay enhanced rents and challenging zamindars in courts.
Ryots raised funds to fight court cases, and the struggle spread throughout Patna and other districts of East Bengal.
The primary form of resistance was legal, with minimal violence reported.
Despite lingering discontent until 1885, most cases were resolved, partly through official persuasion and zamindars' fears.
Many peasants acquired occupancy rights and resisted enhanced rents. The government pledged to legislate to protect tenants from zamindari oppression.
In 1885, the Bengal Tenancy Act was enacted.
Young Indian intellectuals, including Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, R.C. Dutt, and the Indian Association under Surendranath Banerjea, supported the peasants' cause.
Deccan Riots
In the Deccan region of western India, the ryots suffered heavy taxation under the Ryotwari system, creating a vicious network where moneylenders served as exploiters and primary beneficiaries.
The moneylenders, mostly outsiders such as Marwaris or Gujaratis, exacerbated conditions worsened by a crash in cotton prices post the American Civil War in 1864, the government's decision to raise land revenue by 50% in 1867, and successive bad harvests.
In 1874, escalating tensions between moneylenders and peasants led to a social boycott movement organized by ryots against "outsider" moneylenders.
During the social boycott, ryots refused to buy from moneylenders' shops, neglected cultivation in their fields, and garnered support from barbers, washermen, and shoemakers who refused to serve the moneylenders.
The social boycott swiftly spread to villages in Poona, Ahmednagar, Sholapur, and Satara. Eventually, it transformed into agrarian riots marked by systematic attacks on moneylenders' houses and shops.
During these riots, debt bonds and deeds were seized and publicly burnt by the peasants.
The government successfully repressed the movement, prompting the passage of the Deccan Agriculturists Relief Act in 1879 as a conciliatory measure.
The modern nationalist intelligentsia of Maharashtra supported the peasants' cause during this time as well.
- Peasants emerged as the main force in agrarian movements, fighting directly for their own demands.
- Demands were centered almost wholly on economic issues.
- Movements were directed against the immediate enemies of the peasant foreign planters and indigenous zamindars and moneylenders.
- 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 system of subordination or exploitation of the peasants.
- Territorial reach was limited.
- There was no continuity of struggle or long-term organization.
- Peasants developed a strong awareness of their legal rights and asserted them in and outside the courts.
➢ Weaknesses
- A lack of an adequate understanding of colonialism.
- 19th-century peasants did not possess a new ideology and a new social, economic, and political program.
- These struggles, however militant, occurred within the framework of the old societal order lacking a positive conception of an alternative society
Later Movements
➢ The Kisan Sabha Movement
- Was set up in 1918 by Gauri Shankar Mishra and Indra Narayan Dwivedi. districts of Rai Bareilly, Faizabad, and Sultanpur.
- The movement declined soon, partly due to government repression and partly because of the passing of the Awadh Rent (Amendment) Act.
➢ Eka Movement
- High rents-50 percent higher than the recorded rates; oppression of thikadars in charge of revenue collection; and practice of share-rents.
- Meetings of the Eka or the Unity Movement involved a symbolic religious ritual in which the assembled peasants vowed that they would
pay only the recorded rent but would pay it on time; not leave when evicted; refuse to do forced labor; Give no help to criminals; abide by panchayat decisions.
➢ Mappila Revolt
- Mappilas were the Muslim tenants inhabiting the Malabar region. The communication of the rebellion completed the isolation of the Mappilas from the Khilafat-Non- Cooperation Movement.
- By December 1921, all resistance had come to a stop.
➢ Bardoli Satyagraha
- Bardoli taluka in Surat district had witnessed intense politicization after the coming of Gandhi on the national political scene.
- The movement sparked off in January 1926 when the authorities decided to increase the land revenue by 30 percent.
- Women of Bardoli gave Vallabhbhai Patel the title of "Sardar" In February 1926, Vallabhbhai Patel was called to lead 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.
➢ Under Congress Ministries
- The period 1937-39 was the high watermark of the peasant movements and activity under the Congress provincial rule.
➢ Peasant Activity in Provinces
- Kerala: One significant campaign by the peasants was in 1938 for the amendment of the Malabar Tenancy Act, 1929.
- Andhra: This region had already witnessed a decline in the prestige of zamindars after their defeat by Congressmen in elections. Anti-zamindar movements were going on in some.
- Bihar: Provincial Kisan Sabha developed a rift with the Congress over the 'bakashl land' issue because of an unfavorable government resolution which was not acceptable to the sabha. The movement died out by August 1939.
- Punjab: A new direction to the movement was given by the Punjab Kisan Committee in 1937. The main targets of the movement were the landlords of western Punjab who dominated the unionist ministry.
- Peasant activity was also organized in Bengal (Burdwan and 24 Parganas), Assam (Surma Valley), Orissa, Central Provinces, and NWFP.
- During the War: Because of a pro-War line adopted by the communists, the AIKS was split on communist and non-communist lines
Post-War Phase
➢ Tebhaga Movement
- The storm center of the movement was north Bengal, principally among Rajbanshis - a low caste of tribal origin. Muslims also participated in large numbers.
➢ Telangana Movement
- This was the biggest peasant guerrilla war of modern Indian history affecting 3000 villages and 3 million population. The Telangana movement had many positive achievements to its credit.
- In the villages controlled by guerrillas, this and forced labor disappeared.
- Agricultural wages were raised.
- Illegally seized lands were restored.
- Steps were taken to fix ceilings and redistribute lands.
- Measures were taken to improve irrigation and fight cholera.
- An improvement in the condition of women was witnessed.
- The autocratic-feudal regime of India's biggest princely state was shaken up, clearing the way for the formation of Andhra Pradesh on linguistic lines.
➢ Balance-Sheet of Peasant Movements
- These movements created an atmosphere for post-independence agrarian reforms, for instance, the abolition of zamindari.
- They eroded the power of the landed class, thus adding to the transformation of the agrarian structure.
- These movements were based on the ideology of nationalism.
- The nature of these movements was similar in diverse areas.
FAQs on Spectrum Summary: Peasant Movements 1857-1947
| 1. What were the main peasant movements between 1857 and 1947 that appeared in UPSC exams? |  |
| 2. How did peasant movements change from violent uprisings to non-violent resistance during 1857-1947? | |
| 3. What was the Champaran Satyagraha and why is it important for UPSC history preparation? | |
| 4. Which peasant movements directly influenced India's nationalist struggle and independence movement? | |
| 5. How did zamindari systems and land revenue policies trigger peasant revolts during the colonial period? | |
