History Quiz: Peasant, Tribal and Women Movements in Colonial India | 29 May, 2021

Famine, enhanced land revenue demands and economic distress goaded the Chuar aboriginal tribesmen of the Jungle Mahal of Midnapore district and also of the Bankura district (in Bengal) to take up arms.

They held their lands under a kind of feudal tenure, but were not strongly attached to the soil, being always ready to change from farming to hunting, at the bidding of their jungle chiefs or zamindars.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

The Kols, alongwith other tribes, are inhabitants of Chhotanagpur. This covered Ranchi, Singhbhum, Hazaribagh, Palamau and the western parts of Manbhum.

• The trouble in 1831 started with large-scale transfers of land from Kol headmen to outsiders like Hindu, Sikh and Muslim farmers and money-lenders who were oppressive and demanded heavy taxes.
• Besides, the British judicial and revenue policies badly affected the traditional social conditions of the Kols.
• The Kols resented this and in 1831, under the leadership of Buddho Bhagat, the Kol rebels killed or burnt about a thousand outsiders.
• Only after large-scale military operations could order is restored.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

The Raja of Parahat organised his Ho tribals to revolt against the occupation of Singhbhum (now in Jharkhand).

The revolt continued till 1827 when the Ho tribals were forced to submit.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

Continued oppression of the Santhals, an agricultural people, who had fled to settle in the plains of the Rajmahal hills (Bihar) led to the Santhal rebellion against the zamindars.

• The money-lenders who had the support of the police among others had joined the zamindars to subject the peasants to oppressive exactions and dispossession of lands.
• The rebellion turned into an anti-British movement.
• Under Sidhu and Kanhu, two brothers, the Santhals proclaimed an end to Company rule, and declared the area between Bhagalpur and Rajmahal as autonomous.

• The rebellion was suppressed by 1856.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

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.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

In Bengal, the indigo planters, nearly all Europeans, exploited the local peasants by forcing them to grow indigo on their lands instead of the more paying crops like rice.

• The planters forced the peasants to take advance sums and enter into fraudulent contracts which were then used against the peasants.

• The anger of the peasants exploded in 1859 when, led by Digambar Biswas and Bishnu Biswas of Nadia district.
• They 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.
• The Bengali intelligentsia played a significant role by supporting the peasants’ cause through newspaper campaigns, organisation of mass meetings, preparing memoranda on peasants’ grievances and supporting them in legal battles.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

During the 1870s and 1880s, large parts of Eastern Bengal witnessed agrarian unrest caused by oppressive practices of the zamindars.

• The zamindars resorted to enhanced rents beyond legal limits and prevented the tenants from acquiring occupancy rights under Act X of 1859.
• To achieve their ends, the zamindars resorted to forcible evictions, seizure of cattle and crops and prolonged, costly litigation in courts where the poor peasant found himself at a disadvantage.
• Having had enough of the oppressive regime, the peasants of Yusufshahi Pargana in Patna district formed an agrarian league or combination to resist the demands of the zamindars.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

The riots of Deccan region of western India suffered heavy taxation under the Ryotwari system.

• Here again the peasants found themselves trapped in a vicious network with the moneylender as the exploiter and the main beneficiary.
• These moneylenders were mostly outsiders—Marwaris or Gujaratis.
• The conditions had worsened due to a crash in cotton prices after the end of the American Civil War in 1864, the Government’s decision to raise the land revenue by 50% in 1867, and a succession of bad harvests.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

All India Kisan Congress/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.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

In the Malabar region, the peasants were mobilised mainly by the Congress Socialist Party activists.

• Many “Karshak Sanghams” (peasants’ organisations) came into existence.
• The most popular method was the marching of jaths or peasants’ groups to the landlords to get their demands accepted.
• One significant campaign by the peasants was in 1938 for the amendment of the Malabar Tenancy Act, 1929.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.