Table of contents | |
Peasants Under Colonialism | |
A Survey of Early Peasant Movements | |
Deccan Riots | |
Later Movements | |
Post-War Phase |
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.
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.
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.
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.
➢ Weaknesses
➢ The Kisan Sabha Movement
➢ Eka Movement
➢ Mappila Revolt
➢ Bardoli Satyagraha
➢ The All India Kisan Congress/Sabha
➢ Under Congress Ministries
➢ Peasant Activity in Provinces
➢ Tebhaga Movement
➢ Telangana Movement
➢ Balance-Sheet of Peasant Movements
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