Early Peasant Movements: Indigo Revolt, Pabna Leagues and Deccan Riots

At a Glance

• Indigo Revolt 1859-60, Nadia, Bengal; Digambar and Bishnu Biswas
• Pabna Leagues 1870s-80s; Bengal Tenancy Act 1885
• Deccan Riots 1874-75; Deccan Agriculturists Relief Act 1879
• Nature Economic, local, short-lived, within the old social order
• Exam link UPSC Prelims, Modern History: Press, Education, Peasants and Workers

Where Does It Fit?

This is the seventh topic of the category on the press, education, peasants and workers. The previous topic covered education from 1913 to 1947. This topic covers the early peasant movements after 1857. The next topic covers the later peasant movements. Previous topic: Education 1913-1947: Saddler Commission, Hartog Committee, Wardha Scheme and Sargent Plan.

Why Were the Peasants Impoverished?

The impoverishment of the Indian peasantry was a direct result of the transformation of the agrarian structure through colonial economic policies, the ruin of handicrafts that overcrowded the land, the new land revenue system, and the colonial administrative and judicial system. In zamindari areas peasants suffered high rents, illegal levies, arbitrary evictions and unpaid labour; in Ryotwari areas the government itself levied heavy revenue. The overburdened farmer, afraid of losing his only livelihood, often approached the local moneylender, who exploited his difficulty by charging high interest, and often the farmer mortgaged his land and cattle, which the moneylender might seize. Over large areas the actual cultivators were reduced to tenants-at-will, sharecroppers and landless labourers. Peasants resisted, and soon realised that their real enemy was the colonial state. Sometimes desperate peasants turned to crime, including robbery, dacoity and what has been called social banditry. The conditions are in Ruralisation and the Impoverishment of the Peasantry.

What Was the Indigo Revolt, 1859-60?

In Bengal the indigo planters, nearly all Europeans, exploited the peasants by forcing them to grow indigo on their lands instead of more profitable crops like rice. The planters made peasants take advance sums and enter fraudulent contracts that were then used against them, and frightened them by kidnappings, illegal confinement, flogging, attacks on women and children, seizure of cattle, and burning and demolition of houses and destruction of crops.

The peasants’ anger 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 retainers, the lathiyals, who were backed by police and courts. They also organised a counter-force against the planters’ attacks. The planters tried evictions and enhanced rents; the ryots replied with a rent strike, refusing to pay the higher rents and physically resisting eviction. Gradually they learned to use the legal machinery and went to court with funds collected for it. The Bengali intelligentsia played a significant part, through newspaper campaigns, mass meetings, memoranda on the peasants’ grievances and support in legal battles.

The government appointed an indigo commission, and on its recommendations issued a notification in November 1860 that the ryots could not be compelled to grow indigo and that disputes would be settled by legal means. But the planters were already shutting their factories and indigo cultivation was virtually wiped out from Bengal by the end of 1860. The later Champaran struggle over indigo is in Champaran Satyagraha, 1917.

What Were the Pabna Agrarian Leagues?

In the 1870s and 1880s large parts of eastern Bengal saw agrarian unrest caused by oppressive zamindar practices. The zamindars enhanced rents beyond legal limits and prevented tenants from getting occupancy rights under Act X of 1859, using forcible eviction, seizure of cattle and crops, and long, costly litigation in which the poor peasant was at a disadvantage. The peasants of Yusufshahi Pargana in the Pabna area formed an agrarian league to resist the zamindars’ demands. The league organised a rent strike, with ryots refusing to pay the enhanced rents and challenging the zamindars in court, and raised funds to fight cases. The struggle spread across Pabna and into other districts of east Bengal, mainly through legal resistance with very little violence.

Discontent lingered until 1885, but most cases were settled, partly through official persuasion and partly through the zamindars’ fears. Many peasants got occupancy rights and were able to resist enhanced rents, and the government promised legislation to protect tenants from the worst zamindari oppression; the Bengal Tenancy Act was passed in 1885. Young Indian intellectuals supported the peasants, including Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, R.C. Dutt and the Indian Association under Surendranath Banerjea.

What Were the Deccan Riots?

The ryots of the Deccan in western India suffered heavy taxation under the Ryotwari system and found themselves in a vicious network with the moneylender, mostly an outsider, Marwari or Gujarati, as the exploiter and main beneficiary. Conditions worsened with the crash in cotton prices after the end of the American Civil War in 1864, the government’s decision in 1867 to raise land revenue by 50 per cent, and a series of bad harvests.

In 1874 growing tension between moneylenders and peasants led to a social boycott organised by the ryots against the outsider moneylenders: they would not buy from their shops, no peasant would cultivate their fields, and barbers, washermen and shoemakers refused service. The boycott spread to the villages of Poona, Ahmednagar, Sholapur and Satara, and then turned into agrarian riots, with systematic attacks on the moneylenders’ houses and shops, and debt bonds and deeds seized and publicly burnt. The government repressed the movement, and as a conciliatory step passed the Deccan Agriculturists Relief Act in 1879. The modern nationalist intelligentsia of Maharashtra supported the peasants. The cotton slump is in Commercialisation of Indian Agriculture.

What Was the Nature of Peasant Movements After 1857?

Their weaknesses were that they lacked an adequate understanding of colonialism, that the nineteenth-century peasants had no new ideology or programme, and that their struggles, however militant, stayed within the old social order, lacking a positive idea of an alternative society. As an analytical point, these movements were effective in winning specific concessions, such as the end of forced indigo and the tenancy and debt relief laws, but they could not change the structure of the agrarian system, which is why later movements, covered in Later Peasant Movements: Kisan Sabha, Eka, Mappila Revolt and Bardoli Satyagraha, tried to connect peasant grievances to the national movement.

Why Is This Topic Important?

• Three early movements Leaders, dates and laws are stock Prelims facts
• Features and weaknesses A standard Mains framework
• Role of the intelligentsia Shows the link between peasants and the educated

What Came Next?

The next topic covers later peasant movements: the Kisan Sabha, Eka, the Mappila Revolt and the Bardoli Satyagraha. Next topic: Later Peasant Movements: Kisan Sabha, Eka, Mappila Revolt and Bardoli Satyagraha.

Key People and Terms

• Indigo Revolt The Bengal peasants’ revolt against forced indigo cultivation
• Lathiyals Retainers of the planters
• Agrarian league An association of tenants resisting zamindars
• Rent strike Refusal to pay enhanced rent
• Social boycott Refusing services and trade to moneylenders
• Occupancy rights Tenants’ secure rights in land under the 1859 Act

Exam Corner

Mains Angle

Questions ask about the nature of the early peasant movements. These points add depth.

• Causes Planters, zamindars and moneylenders
• Methods Rent strikes, legal action, boycott
• Limits Local, economic and short-lived