The peasant movements of the 1920s and 1930s: Part I

• 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 peasants suffered from high rents, illegal levies, arbitrary evictions and unpaid labour in Zamindari areas. In Ryotwari areas, the Government itself levied heavy land revenue.
• The overburdened farmer, fearing loss of his only source of livelihood, often approached the local moneylender who made full use of the former’s difficulties by extracting high rates of interests on the money lent.
• Often, the farmer had to mortgage his hand and cattle. Sometimes, the money­lender seized the mortgaged belongings. Gradually, over large areas, the actual cultivators were reduced to the status of tenants-at-will, share croppers and landless labourers.
• The peasants often resisted the exploitation, and soon they realised that their real enemy was the colonial state. Sometimes, the desperate peasants took to crime to come out of intolerable conditions. These crimes included robbery, dacoity and what has been called social banditry.
• Peasant discontent against established authority was a familiar feature of the nineteenth century. But in the twentieth century, the movements that emerged out of this discontent were marked by a new feature: they were deeply influenced by and in their turn had a marked impact on the ongoing struggle for national freedom.

(1) Peasant Movement in 1920’s:

• The peasant movements of the 20th century were deeply influenced by and had a marked impact on the national freedom struggle.
• The three important peasant struggles that emerged in the second and third decade of the country:
  • The Kisan Sabha and Eka movements in Avadh in U.P.,
  • The Mappila rebellion in Malabar and
  • The Bardoli Satyagraha in Gujarat.

The Kisan Sabha Movement in Avadh (U.P.):

• Causes:
  • Following the annexation of Avadh in 1856 and after the 1857 revolt, the Awadh Talukdars had got back their lands.
    • The second half of the nineteenth century had seen the strengthening of the hold of the taluqdars or big landlords over the agrarian society of the province.
    • The majority of the cultivators were subjected to high rents, summary evictions (bedakhali), illegal levies, renewal fees or nazrana.
  • The high price of food and other necessities that accompanied and followed World War I made the oppression all the more difficult to bear.
• Founding UP Kishan sabhas:
  • Mainly due to the efforts of the Home Rule activists, kisan sabhas were organised in UP.
  • The UP Kisan Sabha was set up in February 1918 by Gauri Shankar Mishra and Indra Narayan Dwivedi. Madan Mohan Malaviya supported their efforts.
  • By June 1919, the UP Kisan Sabha had 450 branches. Other prominent leaders included Jhinguri Singh, Durgapal Singh and Baba Ramchandra.
• Nai-dhobi band:
  • Towards the end of 1919, the first sign of grass root peasant activity were evident in the reports of nai-dhobi band (a form of social boycott) on an estate in Pratapgarh district.
  • Led by Baba Ramchandra – a sanyasi who had earlier been to Fiji as an indentured labourer, peasants started Nai dhobi bandhs in various places.
  • These bandhs were organized by Panchayats to deprive landlords of the services of even barbers and washermen.
• In June 1920, Baba Ramchandra urged Nehru to visit these villages. During these visits, Nehru developed close contacts with the villagers.
• The kisans found sympathy in Mehta, the Deputy Commissioner of Pratapgarh, who promised to investigate complaints forwarded to him.
  • The Kisan Sabha at village Roor in Pratapgarh district became the centre of activity and about one lakh tenants were reported to have registered their complaints with this Sabha on the payment of one anna each.
  • Gauri Shankar was also very active in Pratapgarh during this period, and was in the process of working out an agreement with Mehta over some of the crucial tenant complaints such as bedakhli and nazrana.
  • Mehta withdrew the case of theft and attempted to bring pressure on the landlords to change their ways.
  • This easy victory, however, gave a new confidence to the movement and it burgeoned forth.
• Awadh Kisan Sabha:
  • In October 1920, the Awadh Kisan Sabha came into existence in Pratapgarh because of differences in nationalist ranks.
  • Congress at Calcutta had chosen path of non-cooperation and many nationalists of UP had committed themselves to it. But there were others like Malviya who preferred constitutional agitation.
    • These differences were reflected in UP Kisan Sabha as well and soon Non-cooperators formed Awadh Kishan Sabha.
    • This new body succeeded in integrating under its banner all the grass roots kishan sabhas that has emerged in Awadh through the efforts of Misra, Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba Ramchandra and others.
  • The Awadh Kisan Sabha asked the kisans to
    • refuse to till bedakhali land,
    • not to offer hali and begar (forms of unpaid labour),
    • boycott those who did not accept these conditions and
    • solve their disputes through Panchayats.
  • The first big show of strength of the Sabba was the rally held at Ayodhya,  on 20 and 21 December which was attended by roughly 100,000 peasants.
• A marked feature of the Kisan Sabha movement was that kisans belonging to the high as well as the low castes were to be found in its ranks.
• From the earlier forms of mass meetings and mobilisation, the patterns of activity changed rapidly in January 1921 to the looting of bazaars, houses, granaries and clashes with the police.
  • The centres of activity were primarily the districts of Rai Bareilly, Faizabad and Sultanpur.
• In Awadh in the early months of 1921 when peasant activity was at its peak, it was difficult to distinguish between a Non-cooperation meeting and a peasant rally.
• Government response and end of Movement:
  • The movement was over by the end of January itself.
  • In March, the Seditious Meetings Act was brought in to cover the affected districts and all political activity came to a standstill.
  • Nationalists continued to defend the cases of the tenants in the courts, but could do little else.
  • The Government, meanwhile, pushed through the Oudh Rent (Amendment) Act, and though it brought little relief to the tenants, it helped to rouse hopes and in its own way assisted in the decline of the movement.
• The movement declined soon, partly due to government repression and partly because of the passing of the Awadh Rent (Amendment) Act.

Eka Movement:

• Towards the end of 1921, peasant discontent resurfaced in in Avadh but this time the centres were some northern districts of the United Provinces—Hardoi, Bahraich, Sitapur.
• The initial thrust here was provided by Congress and Khilafat leaders and the movement grew under the name of the Eka or unity movement.
• The issues involved:
  • High rents—50 per cent higher than the recorded rates;
  • Oppression of thikedars in charge of revenue collection; and
  • Practice of share-rents.
• The meetings of the Eka 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 labour;
  • Give no help to criminals;
  • Abide by Panchayat decisions.
• The grassroot leadership of the Eka Movement came from Madari Pasi and other low-caste leaders, and many small Zamindars.
  • Unlike the earlier Kisan Sabha movement that was based almost solely on tenants, the Eka Movement included in its ranks many small zamindars who found themselves disenchanted with the Government because of its heavy land revenue demand.
• They were not particularly inclined to accept the discipline of non-violence that the Congress and Khilafat leaders urged. As a result, the movement’s contact with the nationalists diminished and it went its own way.
• By March 1922, severe repression by authorities brought the movement to an end.

Mappila Revolt:

• (Given in separate chapter)

Note:-

• The peasant movements in U.P. and Malabar were closely linked with the politics at the national level.
  • In UP., the impetus had come from the Home Rule Leagues and, later, from the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat movement.
    • In Avadh, in the early months of 1921 when peasant activity was at its peak, it was difficult to distinguish between a Non cooperation meeting and a peasant rally.
  • A similar situation arose in Malabar, where Khilafat and tenants’ meetings merged into one.
• But in both places, the recourse to violence by the peasants created a distance between them and the national movement and led to appeals by the nationalist leaders to the peasants that they should not indulge in violence.
  • Often, the national leaders, especially Gandhiji, also asked the peasants to desist from taking extreme action like stopping the payment of rent to landlords.
  • The advice of the national leadership was prompted by the desire to protect the peasants from the consequences of violent revolt, consequences which did not remain hidden for long as both in U.P. and Malabar the Government launched heavy repression in order to crush the movements.
• Their advice that peasants should not push things too far with the landlords by refusing to pay rent could stem from other considerations.
  • The peasants themselves were not demanding abolition of rent or landlordism, they only wanted an end to ejectments, illegal levies, and exorbitant rents — demands which the national leadership supported.
  • The recourse to extreme measures like refusal to pay rent was likely to push even the small landlords further into the lap of the government and destroy any chances of their maintaining a neutrality towards the on-going conflict between the government and the national movement.

Bardoli Satyagraha: 

• Background:
  • Bardoli taluq had been selected in 1922 as the place from where Gandhiji would launch the civil disobedience campaign, but events in Chauri Chaura had changed all that and the campaign never took off.
  • However, a marked change had taken place in the area because of the various preparations for the civil disobedience movement and the end result was that Bardoli had undergone a process of intense politicization and awareness of the political scene.
  • The local leaders had worked hard to spread the message of the Non-Cooperation Movement.
  • After the withdrawal of the Non-Cooperation Movement, the Bardoli Congressmen had settled down to intense constructive work.
    • They worked hard for the upliftment of the low-caste untouchable and tribal inhabitants — who were known by the name of Kaliparaj (dark people) to distinguish them from the high caste or Upaliparaj (fair people) and who formed sixty per cent of the population of the taluq.
    • They had set up a network of six ashrams that were spread over out over the taluq.
    • As a result of this, the Congress had built up a considerable’ base among the Kaliparaj, and could count on their support in the future.
• The movement sparked off in January 1926 when the authorities decided to increase the land revenue by 30 per cent.
• The Congress leaders were quick to protest and a Bardoli Inquiry Committee was set up to go into the issue.
  • The committee found the revenue hike to be unjustified.
  • This was followed by a campaign in the Press, the lead being taken by Young India and Navjivan edited by Gandhiji.
  • The ‘Ashram’ group advised peasants to withheld the entire amount. They also contacted Vallabhbhai Patel and were persuading him to take on the leadership of the movement. The local leaders also met Gandhiji and secured his approval.
• The constitutionalist leaders of the area, including the members of the Legislative Council, also took up the issue.
  • In July 1927, the Government reduced the enhancement to 21.97 per cent.
  • But the concessions were too meagre and came too late to satisfy anybody.
• Vallabhbhai Patel was called to lead the movement.
  • The women of Bardoli gave him the title of “Sardar”.
  • He reached Bardoli and immediately had a series of meetings with the representatives of the peasants.
  • Under Patel, the Bardoli peasants resolved to refuse payments of the revised assessment until the Government appointed an independent tribunal or accepted the current amount as full payment.
  • The resolution was followed by the recitation of sacred texts from the Gita and the Koran and songs from Kabir, who symbolized Hindu-Muslim unity. The Satyagraha had begun.
• Vallabhbhai Patel was ideally suited for leading the campaign.
  • A veteran of the Kheda Satyagraha, the Nagpur Flag Satyagraha, and the Borsad Punitive Tax Satyagraha, he had emerged as a leader of Gujarat.
• To organise the movement, Patel set up 13 chhavanis or workers’ camps in the taluqa each under the charge of an experienced leader.
  • Bardoli Satyagraha Patrika was brought out to mobilise public opinion.
    • This Patrika contained reports about the movement, speeches of the leaders, pictures of the jabti or confiscation proceedings and other news.
  • An intelligence wing was set up to make sure all the tenants followed the movement’s resolutions.
  • The main mobilization was done through extensive propaganda via meetings, speeches, pamphlets, and door to door persuasion.
  • Those who opposed the movement faced a social boycott.
  • Special emphasis was placed on the mobilisation of women and many women activists including Maniben Patel, the Sardar’ s daughter, Sharda Mehta and others were recruited for the purpose.
  • Students were  another special target and they were asked to persuade their families to remain firm.
• The work that the Congress leaders had done among the Kaliparaj people also paid dividends during this movement and the Government was totally unsuccessful in its attempts to use them against the upper caste peasants.
• Sardar Patel and his colleagues also made constant efforts to see that they carried the constitutionalist and moderate leadership, as well as public opinion, with them on all important issues. The result of this was that very soon the Government found even its supporters and sympathizers deserting its side.
  • Many members of the Bombay Legislative Council like K.M. Munshi and Lalji Naranji, the representatives of the Indian Merchants Chamber resigned their seats.
• Public opinion in the country was getting more and more restive and anti-Government.
  • Peasants in many parts of Bombay Presidency were threatening to agitate for revision of the revenue assessments in their areas.
  • Workers in Bombay textile mills were on strike and there was a threat that Patel and the Bombay Communists would combine in bringing about a railway strike.
  • The Bombay Youth League and other organizations had mobilized the people of Bombay for huge public meetings and demonstrations.
  • Punjab was offering to send jathas on foot to Bardoli.
  • Gandhiji had shifted to Bardoli on 2 August, 1928, in order to take over the reins of the movement if Patel was arrested.
• The Government was looking for a graceful withdrawal now:
  • It set the condition that first the enhanced rent be paid by all the occupants.
  • Then, a committee went into the whole affair and found the revenue hike to be unjustified and recommended a rise of 6.03 per cent only.