Tribal and Peasants Movements & others

The ongoing national movement influenced the tribal movements in the early decades of 20th century: The Tana Bhagat movement of Gumla in Ranchi district, and the Zeliangrong movement in the Naga Hills were two such instances.
• Jadonang (1905-193 I), who set up the Haraka religious cult with three basic objectives started the complex Zeliangrong or Haomei movement in 1925.
• The first aimed at reformation of the tribes, particularly the Zemi, Liangrnei and Rangmei, to enable them to face the onslaught of Christianity.
• Secondly, the overthrows of the exploitative colonial laws by attacking British rule.
• And third, establishment of the Naga Raj.

The movement was also aimed against the Kuki tribe, the “outsider”.
• From 1927 onwards, influenced by Gandhi, Jadonang began a civil disobedience movement in the area.
• On 13 June 1931, Jgdonang was arrested and sentenced to death, and finally hanged on 29 August 1931

The hardships caused by administrative reorganization in the Kolhapur state
after 1844 caused deep resentment.
•The godkaris (the hereditary military class which garrisoned Maratha forts)
were disbanded.
•Faced with the specter of unemployment the Gadkaries rose in revolt and occupied
the forts of Samangarh and Bhudargarh

The life of the Paharias – as hunters, shifting cultivators, food gatherers, charcoal producers, silkworm rearers – was thus intimately connected to the forest.
• They lived in hutments within tamarind groves, and rested in the shade of mango trees. They considered the entire region as their land, the basis of their identity as well as survival; and they resisted the intrusion of outsiders.
• Their chiefs maintained the unity of the group, settled disputes, and led the tribe in battles with other tribes and plainspeople.
• With their base in the hills, the Paharias regularly raided the plains where settled agriculturists lived. These raids were necessary for survival, particularly in years of scarcity; they were a way of asserting power over settled communities; and they were a means of negotiating political relations with outsiders.
• The zamindars on the plains had to often purchase peace by paying a regular tribute to the hill chiefs.
• Traders similarly gave a small amount to the hill folk for permission to use the passes controlled by them.
• Once the toll was paid, the Paharia chiefs protected the traders, ensuring that their goods were not plundered by anyone.

The Santhals had begun to come into Bengal around the 1780s. Zamindars hired them to reclaim land and expand cultivation, and British officials invited them to settle in the Jangal Mahals.
• Having failed to subdue the Paharias and transform them into settled agriculturists, the British turned to the Santhals. The Paharias refused to cut forests, resisted touching the plough, and continued to be turbulent.
• The Santhals, by contrast, appeared to be ideal settlers, clearing forests and ploughing the land with vigour. The Santhals were given land and persuaded to settle in the foothills of Rajmahal.
• By 1832 a large area of land was demarcated as Damin-i-Koh. This was declared to be the land of the Santhals. They were to live within it, practise plough agriculture, and become settled peasants.
• The land grant to the Santhals stipulated that at least one-tenth of the area was to be cleared and cultivated within the first ten years. The territory was surveyed and mapped.
• Enclosed with boundary pillars, it was separated from both the world of the settled agriculturists of the plains and the Paharias of the hills.

The disastrous famine of 1770 and the harsh economic order of the British compelled a group of sanyasis in Eastern India to fight the British yoke.
• Originally peasants, even some evicted from land, these sanyasis were joined by a large number of dispossessed small zamindars, disbanded soldiers and rural poor.
• They raided Company factories and the treasuries, and fought the Company’s forces. It was only after a prolonged action that Warren Hastings could subdue the sanyasis.
• Equal participation of Hindus and Muslims characterised the uprisings, sometimes referred to as the Fakir Rebellion.
• Majnum Shah (or Majnu Shah), Chirag Ali, Musa Shah, Bhawani Pathak and Debi Chaudhurani were important leaders.
• Debi Chaudhurani’s participation recognizes the women’s role in early resistances against the British.
• Anandamath, a semi-historical novel by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, is based on the Sanyasi Revolt.

Buchanan on Santhals wrote: They are very clever in clearing new lands, but live meanly. Their huts have no fence, and the walls are made of small sticks placed upright, close together and plastered within with clay. They are small and slovenly, and too flat-roofed, with very little arch.

Rampa Revolts led by Alluri Sitarama Raju of the Koyas (1916, 1922-1924; Rampa region in Andhra Pradesh); against British interference; capture and execution of Raju in 1924.

According to ICAR, the Indore research station was set up where the Institute
for Plant Industry (IPI) used to exist.
IPI was established in the 1920s by the Maharaja of Indore, ostensibly to study cotton.
•But it also seems to have been a way to offer a research position to Albert Howard, a
British agricultural scientist who first came to India in 1905 to work as imperial
economic botanist at Pusa.
•He started studying their traditional methods- of animals raised alongside
crops, with their wastes, and other plant wastes forming the only fertilisers.
•Howard was an expert in fungi and he theorised that traditional methods nurtured
fungi and microbes in the soil, leading to better soil health than what was created by
artificial means.
•Howard’s theories would lay the principles for the organic farming movement, but
they proved too radical for his colleagues at the time.
•But Howard realised that the princely states offered more liberties than the directly
British ruled provinces. Indore gave him a chance to continue his research without
leaving India.
•Howard developed and popularised what he called the Indore process, a
method of combining animal and plant wastes to ensure rapid decomposition
into a form that could be used in farming — a scientific system for composting.

The institution of paper money was first introduced into India in 1839,
when the presidency banks (Calcutta, Bombay & Madras) were authorized to issue notes
payable to bearer of demand within their circle.
•The idea of transferring the issue and management of paper currency under
government control was first conceived by James Wilson.
•Thus, the Bill for the establishment of a Government Paper Currency in India was
first introduced on 3rd March 1860 by James Wilson.
•By Act XIX of 1861, paper currency, under government management was lawfully
set up in India
•Wilson’s scheme provided for the issue of currency notes of the denominations
of five, ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred, five hundred and one thousand rupees.

The Tebhaga movement was led by the share croppers of the Bengal region against the oppressive jotedars in 1946-47.

 The uprising was due to the share cropping system that prevailed in the Bengal. During the early nineteen century a new class of rich peasants known as jotedars emerged in the Bengal region.

 The jotedars collected huge tracts of land in rural areas. They also controlled the local markets, money lending activities, exercised control over the poor cultivators.

 The sharecroppers were encouraged by the Floud Commission which had already recommended their demand to the government.

 The movement was led by the All India Kisan Sabha, the peasant wing of CPI.

 Initially only few peasants were participated but in January 1947, the Bengal Bargadars Temporary Regulation Bill incorporated the demand of the Sharecroppers. This encouraged the movement and led to the increased participation of the peasants from rural areas.

 At the request of the jotedars, the police suppressed the sharecroppers. By March 1947, the movement slowly disappeared due to government promises. But the government failed to pass the bill immediately and it was only in 1950, the bill was passed.