Q. Account for the rise of a powerful peasant movement in India in the 1930s with special reference to Bihar.
Ans:
The 1930s bore witness to a new and nation-wide awakening of Indian peasants to their own strength and capacity to organize for the betterment of their living conditions. This awakening was largely a result of the combination of particular economic and political developments:
- The great Depression that began to hit India from 1929-30.
- The Depression which brought agricultural prices crashing down to half or less of their normal levels dealt a severe blow to the already impoverished peasants burdened with high taxes and rents. The Government was obdurate in refusing to scale down its own rates of taxation or in asking zamindars to bring down their rents.
- The prices of manufactured goods, too, didn’t register comparable decreases. All told, the peasants were placed in a situation where they had to continue to pay taxes, rents, and debts at pre-Depression rates while their incomes continued to spiral steadily downward.
- The new phase of mass struggle launched by the Indian National Congress in 1930.
- The Civil Disobedience Movement was launched in this atmosphere of discontent in 1930, and in many parts of the country it soon took on the form of a no-tax and no-rent campaign. Peasants, emboldened by the recent success of the Bardoli Satyagraha (1928), joined the protest in large numbers.
- In Andhra, for example, the political movement was soon enmeshed with the campaign against re-settlement that threatened an increase in land revenue. Anti-zamindari struggles also emerged in Andhra.
- In U.P., no-revenue soon turned into no-rent and the movement continued even during the period of truce following the Gandhi-Irwin Pact.
- Peasants in Gujarat, especially in Surat and Kheda, refused to pay their taxes and went hijrat to neighbouring Baroda territory to escape government repression. Their lands and movable property were confiscated.
- In Bihar and Bengal, powerful movements were launched against the hated chowkidara tax by which villagers were made to pay for the upkeep of their own oppressors.
- The Civil Disobedience Movement contributed to the emerging peasant movement in another very important way; a whole new generation of young militant, political cadres was born from its womb.
- With the decline of the Civil Disobedience Movement, these men and women began to search for an outlet of their political energies and many of them found the answer in organizing the peasants.
- Also, in 1934, with the formation of the Congress Socialist Party (CSP). the process of the consolidation of the Left forces received a significant push forward.
- The Communists, too, got the opportunity, by becoming members of the CSP to work in an open and legal fashion.
- This consolidation of the Left acted as a spur to the formation of an all-India body to coordinate the kisan movement, a process that was already under way through the efforts of N.G. Ranga and other kisan leaders.
- The formation of Congress Ministries in a majority of the provinces in early 1937 marked the beginning of a new phase in the growth of the peasant movement.
- The political atmosphere in the country underwent a marked change: increased civil liberties, a new sense of freedom born of the feeling that ‘our own people are in power’, a heightened sense of expectation that the ministries would bring in pro-people measures — all combined to make the years 1937-39 the high-water mark of the peasant movement.
- The different Ministries also introduced varying kinds of agrarian legislation — for debt relief, restoration of lands lost during the Depression, for security of tenure to tenants and this provided an impetus for the mobilization of the peasantry either in support of proposed legislation or for asking for changes in its content.
The powerful peasant movements were launched in various parts of India.
- In Malabar, in Kerala, for example, a powerful peasant movement developed as the result of the efforts mainly of CSP activists. A powerful campaign around the demand for amending the Malabar Tenancy Act of 1929. But, the amending process could not be completed because the Congress Ministries resigned in the meantime.
- In coastal Andhra, struggles were launched against zamindaris. In 1938, the Provincial Kisan Conference organized, a march on a massive scale. One of their main demands was for debt relief, and this was incorporated in the legislation passed by the Congress Ministry and was widely appreciated in Andhra.
- Bihar was another major area of peasant mobilization in this period.
- Swami Sahajanand, the founder of the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha and a major leader of the All India Kisan Sabha, was joined by many other left-wing leaders like Karyanand Sharma, Rahul Sankritayan, Panchanan Sharma and Yadunandan Sharma in spreading the kisan sabha organization to the village of Bihar.
- The Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha effectively used meetings, conferences, rallies, and mass demonstrations, including a demonstration of one lakh peasants at Patna in 1938, to popularize the kisan Sabha programme.
- The slogan of zamindari abolition, adopted by the Sabha in 1935, was popularized among the peasants through resolutions passed at these gatherings. Other demands included the stopping of illegal levies, the prevention of eviction of tenants and the return of Bakasht lands.
- The Congress Ministry had initiated legislation for the reduction of rent and the restoration of Bakasht lands.
- Bakasht lands were those which the occupancy tenants had lost to zamindars, mostly during the Depression years, by virtue of nonpayment of rent, and which they often continued to cultivate as share-croppers.
- But the formula that was finally incorporated in the legislation on the basis of an agreement with the zamindars did not satisfy the radical leaders of the kisan Sabha.
- The legislation gave a certain proportion of the lands back to the tenants on condition that they pay half the auction price of the land. Besides, certain categories of land had been exempted from the operation of the law.
- Movement on Bakasht land:
- The Bakasht lands issue became a major ground of contention between the Kisan Sabha and the Congress Ministry.
- Struggles were continued and at Reora, in Gaya district, with Yadunandan Sharma at their head, the peasants won a major victory when the District Magistrate gave an award restoring 850 out of the disputed 1,000 bighas to the tenants.
- This gave a major fillip to the movement elsewhere e.g. in Darbhanga, Saran district and Annawari. The movements adopted the methods of Satyagraha, and forcible sowing and harvesting of crops. The zamindars retaliated by using lathials to break up meetings and terrorize the peasants. Clashes with the zamindars’ men became the order of the day.
- The movement on the Bakasht issue reached its peak in late 1938 and 1939, but by August 1939 a combination of concessions, legislation and the arrest of about 600 activists succeeded in quietening the peasants.
- The movement was resumed in certain pockets in 1945 and continued in one form or another till zamindari was abolished.
The movement also spread to others areas like Punjab, Bengal, Assam etc. and the mobilization of peasants was mainly around the demands for security of tenure, abolition of feudal levies, reduction of taxes and debt relief, made major headway.
However, the rising tide of peasant awakening was checked by the outbreak of World War II which brought about the resignation of the Congress Ministries and the launching of severe repression against left-wing and kisan Sabha leaders and workers because of their strong anti-War stance.
The adoption by the CPI of the Peoples’ War line in December 1941 following Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union created dissensions between the Communist and non-Communist members of the kisan Sabha.
