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Unit 8: Peasant Movements

was largely a result of the combination of particular economic and political developments: the Notes
great Depression that began to hit India from 1929-30 and the new phase of mass struggle launched
by the Indian National Congress in 1930.
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 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. 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. Gandhiji himself issued a manifesto to the U.P. kisans asking them to pay only fifty per
cent of the legal rent and get receipts for payment of the full amount. 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. In Punjab, a no-revenue campaign was
accompanied by the emergence of kisan sabhas that demanded a reduction in land revenue and
water-rates and the scaling down of debts. Forest satyagrahas by which peasants, including tribals,
defied the forest laws that prohibited them from use of the forests, were popular in Maharashtra,
Bihar and the Central Provinces. Anti-zamindari struggles emerged in Andhra, and the first target
was the Venkatagiri zamindari in Nellore district.
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. This new generation of political workers, which first received its baptism of fire in the Civil
Disobedience Movement, was increasingly brought under the influence of the Left ideology that
was being propagated by Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Bose, the Communists and other Marxist and
Left individuals and groups. 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.
First Conference of Kisan Sabha
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 culmination was the establishment of the All-India Kisan Congress in
Lucknow in April 1936 which later changed its name to the All-India Kisan Sabha. Swami Sahajanand,
the militant founder of the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha (1929), was elected the President, and N.G.
Ranga, the pioneer of the kisan movement in Andhra and a renowned scholar of the agrarian
problem, the General Secretary. The first session was greeted in person by Jawaharlal Nehru.
Other participants included Ram Manohar Lohia, Sohan Singh Josh, Indulal Yagnik, Jayaprakash
Narayan, Mohanlal Gautam, Kamal Sarkar, Sudhin Pramanik and Ahmed Din. The Conference
resolved to bring out a Kisan Manifesto and a periodic bulletin edited by Indulal Yagnik.
A Kisan Manifesto was finalized at the All-India Kisan Committee session in Bombay and formally
presented to the Congress Working Committee to be incorporated into its forthcoming manifesto
for the 1937 elections. The Kisan Manifesto considerably influenced the agrarian programme adopted

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