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Manu Sharma, Lovely Professional University Unit 8: Peasant Movements

Unit 8: Peasant Movements Notes

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
8.1 Peasant Movements in the First half of the 20th Century
8.2 Peasant Movements in the 1930’s and 1940’s
8.3 The Trade Union Movement
8.4 Summary
8.5 Key-Words
8.6 Review Questions
8.7 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit, students will be able to:
• Explain the peasant movements in the first half of the 20th century.
• Understand peasant movements in the 1930’s and 1940’s.
• Discuss Trade Union.

Introduction
Peasant discontent against established authority was a familiar feature of the nineteenth century.
But in the twentieth century, the movements that emerged out of this discontent were marked by
a new feature: they were deeply influenced by and in their turn had a marked impact on the
ongoing struggle for national freedom. To illustrate the complex nature of this relationship, we
will recount the story of three important peasant struggles that emerged in the second and third
decade of the country: The Kisan Sabha and Eka movements in Avadh in U.P., the Mappila rebellion,
in Malabar and the Bardoli Satyagraha in Gujarat.
The foundation of modern industries in India was laid between 1850 and 1870. Lord Dalhousie’s
Railway Minute of 1853 started the process of the introduction of machinery into the locomotion
of India. The thousands of hands employed in construction of railways were harbingers of modern
Indian working class. The development of ancillary industries directly or indirectly connected
with railways became inevitable. The coal industry developed fast the employed a large working
force. The first cotton mill was set up in Bombay in 1854 and the first jute mill started working at
Calcutta the same year. The tea industry also greatly developed. The number of working hands
employed in textile mills increased from 74,000 in 1886 to 195,000 in 1905, the working force in jute
industry multiplied from 27,494 hands in 1879-80 to 154,962 in 1906, while the coal mines employed
75,749 in 1904.
The Indian working class suffered from all forms of exploitation—low wages, long working hours,
unhygienic conditions in factories, employment of child labour and absence of all amenities—
from which the labour force has suffered in the early stages of industrilisation and capitalism in
England and the West plus the evils of a rapacious colonial rule.
The colonial situation, however, gave a distinctive touch to Indian working class movement. The
Indian working class had to face two basic antagonistic forces—an imperialist political rule and
economic exploitation at the hands of both foreign and native capitalist classes. Under these
compulsive circumstances the Indian working class movement became intertwined with the political
struggle for national emancipation.

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