Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T17:17:12.008Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Kisan Sabhas and Agrarian Revolt in the United Provinces 1920 to 1921

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

W. F. Crawley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The non-cooperation movement dominated Indian politics in 1920 and 1921, and any account of the Kisan Sabhas or Cultivators Associations during those years is likely to lay less stress on their importance than on that of the wider political campaign. Linked by the name of Gandhi, the peasant movement was caught up in the whole campaign of the nationalist leaders against the government. Yet the background to the upsurge of agrarian radicalism in the United Provinces and Bihar shows that it was strongest in districts with particular tenurial and agrarian problems. Moreover, in these localities the radical leadership was independent of outside agencies, its links with wider political movements were tenuous and ambivalent, and it was little subject to external influence and control.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , March 1971 , pp. 95 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Government of India [GoI] Home Political [Poll], February 1920, 75 Deposit pp. 3–5. National Archives of India [NAT] New Delhi.Google Scholar

2 United Provinces [UP] Kisan Sabha, Printed Statement of Aims 21 February 1919, File 2/1919 p. 71, All India Congress Committee [AICC] Papers. Nehru Memorial Museum [NMM], New Delhi.Google Scholar

3 Gol Revenue & Agriculture, November 1916, 26–27A, File 207/1916Google Scholar; ibid., February 1917, 3A, File 57/1917. NAI. Malaviya's proposal to revive a resolution previously moved by Chintamani in the UP Legislative Council was disallowed in November 1916. Ibid.

4 GoI Home Poll, January 1918, 1 Deposit p. 14. NAI.Google Scholar

5 Abhyudhaya, 19 January 1918, p.2.Google Scholar

6 Ibid.

7 Probably Pandit Indra Narayan Dwivedi, secretary of the UP Kisan Sabha, Allahabad. He was the author of a petition, dated 22 February 1918, to the Private Secretary to the Viceroy on the subject of Legislative Council reform. Later editor of Daily Anand (Lucknow). See Government of the United Provinces [GoUP] General Administration Department [GAD], File 553/1918. UP Secretariat Lucknow.Google Scholar

8 Nehru, Motilal to Nehru, Jawaharlal, 13 December 1918, Motilal Nehru Papers. NMM. Motilal's attitude towards the Kisan Sabhas was ambivalent; he may not have wholly approved of their radicalism but he may have been attracted by the possibilities of embarrassing Malaviya, and he was formally prepared to treat the Kisan delegates as equals: ‘They will resent any differential treatment in the matter of accommodation etc., and the reception committee must make the same arrangements for them as for the other delegates. Their wants of course will be few and simple (to which they themselves will attend) but no pointed differences must be made.’Google ScholarIbid. Motilal also was ready to make capital out of the Kisan Sabhas' propaganda in the villages. GoI Home Poll, January 1920, Deposit, p. 12. NAI.

9 GoI Home Poll, January 1920, 44 Deposit, 78 Deposit. NAI.Google Scholar

10 GoI Home Poll, March 1919, 13 Deposit; January 1920, 79 Deposit. NAI.Google Scholar

11 GoI Home Poll, February 1921, 35 Deposit. NAI.Google Scholar

12 GoI Home Poll, February 1920, 75 Deposit, pp. 4–5. NAI. Swami Bidyanand backed by the Patna Searchlight had attacked the political power of individual landlords, especially the Maharaja of Darbhanga. The link between the Bihar Kisan Sabha and those established in the UP appears to have been tenuous, and the Bihar Sabha was not so radical. Swami Bidyanand issued an invitation to Gandhi in February 1920 to redress the tenants's grievances.Google Scholar

13 In fact some election petitions were filed protesting that voters had been misled into voting for the Sabha's candidates by the improper use of Gandhi's name. One official reported ‘The currency which Mr. Gandhi's name has acquired in the remotest villages is astonishing. No one seems to know quite who or what he is but it is an accepted fact that what he says is so and what he orders must be done. He is a Mahatma or sadhu, a Pandit, a Brahman who lives at Allahabad, even a Deota. One man said he was a merchant who sells cloth at three annas a yard … Gandhi had had bedakhli [arbitrary ejectment of tenants] stopped at Partabgarh. Even the local hero Malviji [sic] has been displaced.’ CID Report on the Kisan Sabhas in the United Provinces, GoI Home Poll, February 1912, 13 Deposit, p. 16. NAI.Google Scholar

14 The neighbouring district of Jaunpur was in the Benares division of the UP and had a permanent settlement of revenue. Although the peasants had had their troubles in Jaunpur (and the Kisan Sabhas in the district complained of oppression by the zamindars), yet it was still commonly held that a permanent settlement of the revenue was the only way to tackle ejectment and illegal dues exacted by landlords. For allegations of zamindari oppression in Jaunpur see Anand, 13 December 1920; Abhyudhaya 11 and 18 December 1920. UP Native Press Report [UPNPR] 1920, pp. 496, 503, NAI.Google Scholar

15 Final Report on Agrarian Discontent in Rae Bareli in January 1921 … GoUP GAD, File 50/1912. UP Secretariat Lucknow.Google Scholar

16 It was thought that the crowd might have mistaken Baba Janki Das for another of the curious messianic figures who played an important part in the disturbances at the time—Baba Ram Chandra. One press report claimed that the meeting had been a trap set by the taluqdars. It was alleged that the taluqdars had invited the kisans to a meeting in the first place to discuss their grievances, and that the kisans were merely asking a taluqdar to expel a prostitute from his house and restore the Rani to her rightful place when they were arrested. Daily Pratap, 10 and 16 January 1921, UPNPR 1921, pp. 44–5. NAT.Google Scholar

17 See GoI Home Poll, February 1921, 77 Deposit, p. 11. NAI.Google ScholarDaily Pratap, 16 January 1921, and Bhavishya, 23 January 1921, emphasized the taluqdars' fear of the effect of the Ajodhya Kisan conference in arousing the spirit of revolt among the tenantry. UPNPR 1921, pp. 44–5, 57. NAI.Google ScholarSee also Leader, 23/24 December 1920, and India Office Records, L/P&J/6/1708, File 275/1921. India Office Library, London.Google Scholar

18 See Independent, 11 January 1921, UPNPR 1921, p. 32. NAI.Google Scholar

19 The Governor noted when the trouble had subsided: ‘It might be thought that the growing wave of unrest would have definitely brought to the side of the Government the zamindars, men of property and substantial tenants. Doubtless it has to some extent, but they are in a minority and overawed. They pay their subscription to the funds collected by the preachers. The banias are equally afraid and when told to do so refuse supplies to police and Government servants.’ Note by SirButler, Harcourt, 2 February 1921. GoUP GAD, File 50–3/1921. UP Secretariat Lucknow.Google Scholar

20 Sardar Birpal Singh had the additional personal disadvantage of being regarded, with other Sikh taluqdars, as an interloper in the district. On the estate of Sardar Amar Singh, the leading opponent of the taluqdar was said to be a Rajput with occupancy rights whose family had been dispossessed after the mutiny. Commissioner Lucknow to Chief Secretary Government, 14 January 1921. GoUP GAD, File 50/1921. UP Secretariat Lucknow.

21 Report by Farnon, J. A. St. J., 14 February 1921, pp. 1–3.Google ScholarIbid.

22 See GoI Home Poll, November 1916, 52 Deposit. NAI. A Suraj Prashad was an active anti-cow-slaughter lecturer at this time, but there is no evidence that this is the same person. Independent, in June 1920, reporting his work for the Partabgarh Kisan Sabhas, refers to him as ‘Pt. [Pandit] Ram Chandra Sharma’, but other references to him do not indicate that he claimed Brahmin status. Independent, 17 June 1920, UPNPR 1920, pp. 174–5. NAI.Google Scholar

23 One of the Khilafat leaders, Maulana Abdul Ban, sent a telegram to Mahomed Ali in Bombay: ‘Ram Chander [sic] … has come here. If he reaches Rae Bareli Kisan's determination will be strengthened if stopped no further disturbance apprehended. Advise me either to stop him or keep myself aloof. Kisan Sabha is beyond my activities but hope my leaders respond to my request.’ In reply, Mahomed Ali's brother, Shaukat Ali, cabled: ‘Ram Chunder [sic] must succeed in pacifying kisans according to our non-violence creed, coolness required.’ Intercepted telegrams, Bari, Abdul to Ali, Mahomed, 13 January 1921, Ali, Shaukat to Bari, Abdul, 14 January 1921. GoUP GAD, File 50–3/1921, p. 13. UP Secretariat Lucknow.Google Scholar

24 Of course the government was criticized for not using popular leaders enough. One newspaper claimed that bloodshed would have been avoided at Rae Bareli if the authorities had not been too proud to enlist the support of Jawaharlal Nehru in controlling the crowd. Avadhbasi, 18 January 1921, UPNPR 1921, p. 59. NAI.Google Scholar

25 Mahmudabad, to Butler, , 6 January 1921; Butler, to Hailey, H.R.C., 9 January 1921. GoUP GAD, File 50/1921, pp. 33, 82. UP Secretariat Lucknow.Google Scholar

26 Even the extremist press was in two minds. Daily Pratap attacked the AngloIndian newspaper, Pioneer, for associating the Kisan Sabhas and the agrarian riots with non-cooperation, while Independent claimed that the Kisan Sabhas were the bulwark of the nationalist movement fighting against a combination of the bureaucracy and the taluqdars. Daily Pratap, 13 January 1921; Independent, 11 January 1921, UPNPR 1921, pp. 31, 21. NAIGoogle Scholar

27 Nath, Kedar and Narain, Deo were both arrested on 4 February 1921.Google Scholar

28 Telegram from Commissioner Fyzabad, , 15 January 1921, GoUP GAD, File 50–3/21, pp. 7–8. UP Secretariat Lucknow.Google Scholar

29 Report of Akhbarpur Kisan Sabha meeting, 27 January 1921. GoUP GAD, File 50/1921. UP Secretariat Lucknow.Google Scholar

30 Butler, to District Commissioners of Sultanpur, Partabgarh, Bareli, Rae and Fyzabad, , telegram, 17 January 1921. GoUP GAD, File 50–3/1921, p. 20a. UP Secretariat Lucknow.Google Scholar

31 Hailey, to Lambert, , 18 January 1921.Google ScholarIbid.

32 Hailey, to Porter, , 20 January 1921.Google ScholarIbid.

33 Farnon, to Deputy Commissioner Rae Bareli, 19 January 1921.Google ScholarIbid.

34 See Porter, to Hailey, , 19 January 1921, and Hailey, to Porter, , 20 January 1921.Google ScholarIbid.

35 Faunthorpe, to Chief Secretary UP Government, 13 January 1921.Google ScholarIbid., p. 124. See also India Office Records, L/P&J/6/1708, File 275/1921–1504/21, p. 12. India Office Library.Google Scholar

36 Report by Farnon, 19 January 1921, p. 4. GoUP GAD, File 50/1921. UP Secretariat Lucknow.Google ScholarSee also Daily Pratap, 16 January 1921 (UPNPR 1921, pp. 44–5) where it was alleged that criminal elements were incited to loot property to discredit the Kisan movement.Google Scholar

37 CID Report 27 January 1921. GoUP GAD, File 50/1921. The quaint English is the work of the CID reporter who saw nothing in the speech either ‘objectionable or violent’.Google Scholar

38 Hailey, to Lambert, (Joint Report of Hailey, Peters, and O'Connor), 1 February 1921, pp. 1–6. GoUP GAD, File 50–3/1921. UP Secretariat Lucknow.Google Scholar

39 Lambert to Home Department, Government of India, 6 February 1921. Ibid.

40 See Reeves, P., ‘The Politics of Order’, Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. XXV, No. 2, 02 1966, p. 263.Google Scholar

41 UP Secret Abstract, Bara Banki no. nil of March 1921. GoUP GAD, File 50/1921. UP Secretariat Lucknow.Google Scholar

42 Faunthorpe, to Porter, , 11 April 1921, GoUP GAD File 50–2/1921, pp. 60–61. UP Secretariat Lucknow.Google Scholar

43 Nehru, J., An Autobiography (New edition, London, 1949), p. 85.Google Scholar