The history of agrarian unrest in North India goes back to 17th century. Though there is no chronological order of these movements before invasion of East India Company, available the constant raise and fall of empires, and continuous efforts by the kings to tax the people transformed the agrarian relations in India. Under East India Company regime, these efforts were increased at a unimaginable speed. Coupled with other structural reasons such as transforming India into a raw material supplier for newly emerging industrial revolution in Europe and also making it as end market for the finished products from England, the rural landscape changed drastically. The self employment oriented traditional caste based occupations collapsed. The cultivators were uprooted under the new land relations regime imposed by the East India Company. The cumulative effect of both these developments led in formation of large contingent of landless poor in modern India who were left with no other dependable source of income except being an attached labour or wage labor. The atrocities under new State led by EIC fuelled resentment among the rural poor turning rural India into fountainhead of several long drawn militant struggles that shaped and laid foundations for mass nature of Indian freedom struggle. Let us recount some of those important movements that gripped the sduring 18th and 19th centuries. History of peasant revolt in North India can be classified in to four categories. Unorganised attempts upto 1920s, Organised peasant revolts from 1920-50s, third phase spanning from 1950s – 1990s and Post 1991 mobilisations being the last phase.
Early Tribal Struggle of all the tribes in India the British East India company’s government has faced the biggest tribal insurrections in India in the great Santhal people in 1855 and struggles of Mundas under the leadership of Birson Munda. Santhal are one of the six largest tribes in India. In 1951 the Santhal population in our country.
In our country tribal majority in some Moth Eastern states like Meghalaya and Nagaland.
In Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Odisha etc have more than 20 percent tribal population. If we go through the experience of uprising of Indian masses against the British Raj. The tribal uprising are the first bold step against the British invaders.
Malpharis rising in 1772 Hos of Singban in 1831, the khond uprising in 1846 etc are the only protests against the British Raj.(Santhal Rebellion of the 1855 is the first massive protest by an Indian tribe against British Raj.
The British invasion led to a situation in which the uninterrupted system was attacked and it was totally against the land and forest rights of the tribal masses. The kol insurrection in 1833 was caused against the encroachment on tribal land.
Similarly the new method of collecting land revenue was at variance with that of the traditional method of Mughal rulers and above the cultivators into the greedy hands of moneylenders whose rates of usury ranged between 50% to 100%. Indebtedness resulted in suits for taking possession of the peasants lands.
Santhal the first important revolt against the British Raj are Santhal movement in which more than 30 thousand Santhals participated in the Santhal area of Bengal and Bihar.
The districts of Cudappa, Kurnool, Ananthpur and Bellary were to the British by the Nizam in the beginning of the 19th century. Earlier the peasants were forced to give excessive tax to the Nizam. However, the tax collection was irregular. As soon as the British administration got control they increased the tax collection year after year which led to the revolts against the britishers on the outside.
Maratha kisan uprising was another important kisan uprising against moneylenders in Ahamed Nagar and pune district of Maharashtra which led to pass an enactment during the British rule.
Oudh movement was spontaneous movement against the zamindars who are collecting exorbitant taxes and who collected additional tax for supporting British was fund.
More than 3 lakhs farmers participated in the agitation. Oudh rent act of 1921 was passed and thereby permanently of tenure upon tenants was conferred.
Mappilla Rebellion
The Muslim farmers in the South Malabar struggled against the caste Hindu land lords who are exploiting the tenents.
Hundreds of Muslim farmers revolted against the British Raj and formed their own Raj in Eranad and Valluvanad taluks for 6 months in 1921.Britishers brutally suppressed the movement. Hundreds of Muslims were killed by British army. Thousand of them consigned to Andamans.
Alluri Sitharama Raju’s fight against zamindari
Alluri Sitharamaraju was a Kshatriya Sadhu who mobilized the tribals of Narsipatnam taluk of Andhra Pradesh. The main issue was to protect tribal rights. A militant appraisal was organized by the Koya tribals of Eastern Ghats which was suppressed by the British unliterary
PEASANTRY IN ACTION FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION
Lenin’s prediction proved to be true. The peasantry in India was drawn into action in a big way. With the starting of the non-cooperation movement the peasantry in various parts of the country became very active. Though not strictly a part of the non-cooperation movement, at the same time, their activities cannot be separated from the movement for national liberation. Peasant struggles became linked up with the struggle for independence since it was the imperialist system of exploitation, which was the main protector of the feudal exploitation in the countryside. In northern India the Gurudwara Reforms Movement, which started with the Nankana Massacre, brought the vast Sikh peasant masses into action against British rule, thus making it a part of the liberation movement. In UP had begun the Eka Movement of tenants who were fighting against the extortions and oppression of the landlords. In the south there was the Moplah Rebellion in Malabar (Kerala) an uprising tenants against the oppression of jenmies (landlord).
The main slogan of the Gurudwara Reforms Movement was the liberation of Gurudwaras from the control of Mahants who had the patronage of the British imperialists. Bringing the Sikh peasantry into the national mainstream, it soon took the form of an anti-imperialist movement. The Eka Movement was also widespread and militant. It raised the demands of fixed rents, receipts for payments, stoppage of beggar for the landlord, free use of water from ponds, and the freedom to graze cattle in the jungles. It was a revolt of the tenants against the unbearable oppression of the landlord.
UNORGANISED ATTEMPTS :
First among them to note is Sanyasi Rebellion during 1763-1800. This was fuelled mainly due to the large scale displaced peasants, demobilization of soldiers. The disposed Zamindars, participated in this rebellion led By Sanyasis. Later it became the key source of Bankimchandra Chatterjee’s famous novel Anndmath. Another important movement in former Awadh region is that of rebellion by Kurdha princely state under the leadership of Raja of Kurdha and Jagabandhu. Immediate cause for this rebellion is the EIC occupation of Orissa (1803); resentment of the paiks (a militia class occupying rent free lands under the zamindars) against British land and land revenue policies. At one point of time during this rebellion Paiks even occupied and controlled Puri in 1807 by defeating the Company army. Similar attempt was made by Rao Baramahal, the ruler of Kutch when EIC attempted for annexation between 1816-19. Finally Rao Baramahal was forced to sign a treaty with EIC. The rebellions by Chittur Singh and Umaji of Poona, 1822-29, Sambalpur outbreaks under the leadership of Surendra Sai in Orissa during 1827-40, Satavandi revolt in Maharashtra, 1839-45, Satara rebellion between 1840-41 led by Dhar Rao Pawar and Narsing Dattatreya Pettkar, Bundela revolt in Bundelkhand led by Madhukar Shah and Jawahir Singh against the land revenue policy of EIC, Gadkari rebellion of Kolhapur between 1844-45, Pagal Panthis movement in East Bengal, predominantly a peasant’s revolt, 1822-33, the famous Indigo revolt led by Digambar Biswas in 1860s, the Pabna revolt against enhanced rent Beyond the legal Limit & prevention of tenants from acquiring the occupancy rights. This Pabna revolt, 1873, finally forced the British government to a constitute a committee and consequently adopt Bengal Tenancy Act 1885. Followed by Pabna revolt, Punjab peasant unrest of 1901 against atrocities by money lenders and land evictions is notable movement. All these scattered revolts across the time and space forced the East India Company and British Government to concede some demands, and forced the freedom movement to recognize the necessity of organized kisan and rural poor movements as part of the freedom movement.
INDIGO REVOLT (1859-60):
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 planters intimidated the peasants through kidnappings, illegal confinements, flogging, attacks on women and children, seizure of cattle, burning and demolition of houses and destruction of crops. 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. They also organised a counter force against the planters’ attacks. The planters also tried methods like evictions and enhanced rents. The ryots replied by going on a rent strike by refusing to pay the enhanced rents and by physically resisting the attempts to evict them. Gradually, they learned to use the legal machinery and initiated legal action supported by fund collection. 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. The Government appointed an indigo commission to inquire into the problem of indigo cultivation. Based on its recommendations, the Government issued a notification in November 1860 that the ryots could not be compelled to grow indigo and that it would ensure that all disputes were settled by legal means. But, the planters were already closing down factories and indigo cultivation was virtually wiped out from Bengal by the end of 1860.
PABNA AGRARIAN LEAGUES
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. The league organised a rent strike—the ryots refused to pay the enhanced rents, challenging the Zamindars in the courts. Funds were raised by ryots to fight the court cases. The struggles spread throughout Patna and to other districts of East Bengal. The main form of struggle was that of legal resistance; there was very little violence. Though the peasant discontent continued to linger on till 1885, most of the cases had been solved, partially through official persuasion and partially because of Zamindars’ fears. Many peasants were able to acquire occupancy rights and resist enhanced rents. The Government also promised to undertake legislation to protect the tenants from the worst aspects of Zamindari oppression. In 1885, the Bengal Tenancy Act was passed. Again, a number of young Indian intellectuals supported the peasants’ cause. These included Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, R.C. Dutt and the Indian Association under Surendranath Banerjea.
Eka Movement:
Towards the end of 1921, peasant discontent resurfaced in some northern districts of the United Provinces—Hardoi, Bahraich, Sitapur.
The issues involved were:
(i) High rents—50 per cent higher than the recorded rates;
(ii) Oppression of thikadars in charge of revenue collection; and
(iii) Practice of share-rents.
The 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;
iii. 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.
By March 1922, severe repression by authorities brought the movement to an end.
Bardoli Satyagraha:
The Bardoli taluqa 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 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. In February 1926, Vallabhbhai Patel was called to lead the movement.
The women of Bardoli gave him the title of “Sardar”. 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.
To organise the movement, Patel set up 13 chhavanis or workers’ camps in the taluqa. Bardoli Satyagraha Patrika was brought out to mobilise public opinion. An intelligence wing was set up to make sure all the tenants followed the movement’s resolutions.
Those who opposed the movement faced a social boycott. Special emphasis was placed on the mobilisation of women. K.M. Munshi and Lalji Naranji resigned from the Bombay Legislative Council in support of the movement.
By August 1928, massive tension had built up in the area. There were prospects of a railway strike in Bombay. Gandhi reached Bardoli to stand by in case of any emergency. The Government was looking for a graceful withdrawal now.
It set the condition that first the enhanced rent be paid by all the occupants (not actually done). 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.
During the 1930s, the peasant awakening was influenced by the Great Depression in the industrialised countries and the Civil Disobedience Movement which took the form of no-rent, no-revenue movement in many areas.
Also, after the decline of the active phase movement (1932) many new entrants to active politics started looking for suitable outlets for release of their energies and took to organisation of peasants.
It is clear from this that kisan sabhas had already come into existence in many parts of the country. Subsequently the Labour Swaraj Party was formed in Bengal, on November 1, 1925. It was called the Labour Swaraj Party of the Indian National Congress. Its programme for the peasantry stated:
Land taxes to be reduced to a fixed maximum and fixity of the interest rate of the Imperial Bank on arrears of rents; fixity of tenure, no ejection cessation of illegal and extra taxation, right of transference, right of felling trees, sinking wells, excavating tanks and erecting pucca structure; fixed term of fishery rights in jolkars; fixity of maximum rate of interest to be levied by moneylenders; agricultural cooperative banks to be established to provide credit to the peasants and to free them from the clutches of moneylenders and speculating traders; agricultural machinery to be sold or lent to the cultivators on easy terms through the cooperative banks.
In a programme formulated for the All India Congress Committee it proposed:
“70 per cent of the population which is engaged in agriculture is to be organised into peasant societies, by district, taluk, and village, on the lines of the village panchayat, based on universal suffrage aiming to secure control of the economic life of the rural areas. Through the agricultural cooperative banks to be established by the State for the provision of cheap credit to the peasants, whereby they will be enabled to free themselves from the grip of Saukars, and to purchase modern machinery and other equipment; limitation by law of the rate of interest at seven per cent per annum; limitation of rent to 10 per cent of the total produce to be paid direct to the Sate, and brining into cultivation by State aid cultivable land by present unused.
But the bourgeoisie leadership of the Congress was not prepared to take up the peasant demands. When a proposal was mooted before the Subjects committee of the Congress that it should side with peasants and workers when a conflict arose between them and the zamindars and capitalists. Pandit Motilal Nehru, the then President of the Congress, contended in reply, that the Congress was not the Socialist or Communist Party. The reason for making this statement was that the Congress was by no means ready to stand up for those who produce all things by their labour.
J M Sengupta, leader of the Bengal Swarajists, made this even clearer. He said that the party includes many zamindars and that without their help so many men of their party would certainly never be able to enter the Councils. So they could by no means help the peasants, going against those zamindars. They tried to cover this defence of the interest of the landlords under the pretext that no class struggle existed in the countryside, and the congress represented the whole country.
It is not accidental that certain juridical measures of reforms in tenancy rights were introduced in India not at the initiative of the bourgeoisie, but by imperialism often in the face of nationalist bourgeois opposition.
FORMATION OF ALL INDIA KISAN SABHA
The Communist Party was banned in 1934 but continued to exercise its influence on the working class and on the Left in the Congress. The ideas of Socialism wee becoming very popular, and left dements in the Congress, becoming disillusioned with Gandhi formed the Congress Socialist Party, in order to give the Congress a Left orientation. Coming to realise that the vast masses of the peasantry could be brought into the struggle for independence only by taking up the anti-feudal struggle and their immediate demands they were also realising the necessity of organisation the peasantry as a class. They had already come to the conclusion that the struggle for real political freedom could not be separated from the struggle of the peasantry for an end to landlordism and for radical restructuring of rural society. The Communists were already trying to develop class organisations and had popularised the ideas of independent class organisations of the working class peasants and other sections of the toiling people. Thus it was the Left Congressmen, Congress Socialists and Communists who took the initiative in organising the All India Kisan Sabha.
The First Session was held in 1936, Lucknow to coincide with the holding of the Session of the Indian National congress. The idea was to project the kisan movement as a part of the national movement though maintaining its separate identity as a class organisation.
The formation of the AIKS was preceded by a meeting in Meerut in January 1936, where the necessary preparations were made. A clear decision was taken to launch the organisation with a broad-based programme and membership to link it closely with the national movement for independence and to view the fight against imperialism as an integral part of the fight against the feudal social order since the former patronised and provided state support to the latter.
Today with the benefit of hindsight one is struck by the simplicity and directness with which the very first session set out its tasks in the main resolution. To quote:
“The objective of the Kisan movement is to secure compete freedom from economic exploitation and the achievement of full economic and political power for the peasants and workers and all the other exploited classes.
“The main task of the kisan movement shall-be the organisation of peasants to fight for their immediate political and economic demands in order to prepare them for their emancipation from every from of exploitation.
“The kisan movement stands for the achievements of ultimate economic and political power for the producing masses through its active participation in the national struggle for winning complete independence.”
It their indicted the zamindari system, “supported by the British government in India”, as “iniquitous unjust, burdensome, and oppressive to the kisans”, and declared that “all such system of landlordism shall be abolished and all the rights over such lands be vested in the cultivators.”
This was the essence of what the kisan movement stood for at the time of the launching of the AIKS. The other issues covered by resolutions included questions of rent, irrigation rates and prices of inputs, prices of marketed agricultural products, indebtedness, forced labour and illegal exactions from the tenants by the landlords and the distribution of landlords land to the landless poor peasants as also the vesting of waste land and grazing land in the village level panchayats. The AIKS also demanded minimum wages for the regulating their unionisation.
Any one reading those resolutions will immediately notice that many of the issues raised by the conference of the AIKS in its first session have remained unresolved till today.
ATTEMPTS OF ORGANISING AGRICULTURAL WORKERS IN NORTH INDIA
PUNJAB STATE KHET MAZDOOR SABHA
As we are assembled in Punjab, the land of inspiring freedom movement personalities such as Legendary Bhagat Singh, Lala Lajpati Roy, Sohan Singh Bhakna, it our duty to recount the rich experiences of our movement in Punjab and its contributions for the all India movement of agricultural workers movement.
In Punjab 24.7 of the total population was Harijan and most of them were casual workers and attached workers in both Malwa and Mahajah regions of the state.
The first Conference of the union was held at Khan Khanan village Jallandhar district on 11-12 December 1954.
The main issue was the struggle for evacuee lands.
There was a move by the government to sell the evacuee lands to the rich landlords from West Punjab for a meager price of Rs. 5 per acre.
We mobilized struggles against it and sixteen jathas covering 371 village was organized by the union in 1961. As a result of wide spread movements 60,000 acres of land was distributed among scheduled caste occupants of the evacuee land.
1967 akali government distributed this land to the occupants only after fixing a price of Rs. 450 per standard acre.
The government of India’s two agricultural labour enquiry reports which published in 1950-51 and 1956-57 revealed the sad plight of these workers. The date showed that most of them are jobless and homeless and the working days are coming down.
In Bihar, the movement persisted for more than two decades with land under our occupation and continuous resistance is being built on. The state governments under the influential leadership of land lords tried to stifle the movement and resorted to all sorts of pressures – judicial, extra judicial, democratic and undemocratic methods were employed to corner the influence of our movement.
GIVING AN ALL INDIA SHAPE TO AGRICULTURAL WORKERS MOVEMENT
Midnapore-AIKS-AIAWU Conference 30 years – 7 lakh -52 lakhs
Capitalist for agriculture –liberated agricultural worker from tied to land emerged as an independent existent. Identity, dynamics. Presented a changed scenario – on Indian agrarian situation – relations.
Rural livelihood opportunities tied closely to the land and non land –economy
Formation of AIAWU helped two ways.
Correct demands, expansion of rural proletarianism. Ramayya, Dasarath Deb, L.B. Gangadhar Rao-Palghat 2nd Conference – HKS,MB-AIAWU
Diversified demands from land to other demands-
Economic demands-minority in today given situation as the situation for a positive intervention from the governments is not there as well as the rural India is facing the continued distress.
This class, where the cream of our leadership attends gives us an opportunity to evaluating – how far we came and what are the immediate tasks before us. The spreading rural distress also bringing out the new issues. As the command over the land by rich and feudal land lords is still continuing even after six decades of independence, the social features of such feudalism are coming to forefront. One such an issue is untouchability. Though the constitution banned the treating an individual as untouchable, the practice is still prevalent in majority of the states. And 99% of the people subjected to this inhuman practice are agricultural only as they happened to form part of the SC,ST and BC population. With the expansion of educational opportunities also, the intimidating attitude of upper castes and classes taking a serious turn which is resulting in resorting to direct fatal attacks by disregarding the law. We have to take up such issues and at least our leadership shall be present at those all occasions personally and try to reach out the families and also work for a movement. Despite our efforts for more than four decades, our existence is limited to mere 13 states leaving out the agricultural workers in all other states to the mercy of caste and communal forces as well as non governmental organizations This is limiting not only the scope of our expansion but also the role of rural poor in class struggle.
PRESENT STATE OF AFFAIRS OF ORGANISATION
The bourgeoisie agrarian reforms implemented by successive governments in India since independence brought several structural changes in Indian agrarian economy. The major consequence of these structural change, as shown in enormous increase of agricultural workers across the country. As the census data confirms, the number of agricultural workers surpassed the number of farmers in 2011.
Table 1 : Population and Agricultural Workers (in Millions)
| Year | Total Population | Average growth rate % | Rural Population | Agricultural Workers | ||
| Cultivators | Agl Labor | Total | ||||
| 1951 | 361.1 | 1.25 | 298.6(82.7) | 69.9(71.9) | 27.3(28.1) | 97.2 |
| 1961 | 439.2 | 1.96 | 360.3(82.0) | 99.6(76.0) | 31.5(24.0) | 131.1 |
| 1971 | 548.2 | 2.22 | 439.0(80.1) | 78.2(62.2) | 47.5(37.8) | 125.7 |
| 1981 | 683.3 | 2.20 | 523.9(76.7) | 92.5(62.5) | 55.5(37.5) | 148.0 |
| 1991 | 846.4 | 2.14 | 628.9(74.3) | 110.7(59.7) | 74.6(40.3) | 185.3 |
| 2001 | 1028.7 | 1.95 | 742.6(72.2) | 127.3(54.4) | 106.8(45.6) | 234.1 |
| 2011 | 1210.2 | 1.58 | 833.1(68.83%) | 95.8(41.59) | 135.3(59.41) | 230.3 |
NEW ORIENTATION :
It is in this light to look at the foundations of our organizational structure and methods adopted by Hindi states. Here we are trying to provide some basic understanding of our organisatioal methods. We should adopt a mass approach to build organization such as AIAWU. This mass approach reflects at different levels. One at the level of membership enrolment and at the other level, representing the masses in true sense by taking up their day to day issues and giving confidence that AIAWU stands by masses when need comes. When we could do these two, we reaches to a third occasion where our mass approach and mass line reflects in our direct action. At direct action level, mass approach means ability to mobilize large number of people affected by particular problem and demonstrating our strength with that mass mobilization as a weapon to coerce the governments to achieve what ever possible in the given context. To implement this mass approach, we need to have a mass based organizational structure encompassing all sections of rural poor and agricultural workers.