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Indian Freedom Struggle (1707–1947 A.D.)

Notes 8.1 Peasant Movements in the First half of 20th Century

Following the annexation of Avadh in 1856, the second half of the nineteenth century had seen the
strengthening of the hold of the taluqdars or big landlords over the agrarian society of the province.
This had led to a situation in which exorbitant rents, illegal levies, renewal fees or nazrana, and
arbitrary ejectments or bedakhli had made life miserable for the majority of the cultivators. The
high price of food and other necessities that accompanied and followed World War I made the
oppression all the more difficult to bear, and the tenants of Avadh were ripe for a message of
resistance.
It was the more active members of the Home Rule League in U.P. who initiated the process of the
organization of the peasants of the province on modern lines into kisan sabhas. The U.P. Kisan Sabha
was set up in February 1918 through the efforts of Gauri Shankar Misra and Indra Narain Dwivedi,
and with the support of Madan Mohan Malaviya. The U.P. Kisan Sabha demonstrated considerable
activity, and by June 1919 had established at least 450 branches in 173 tehsils of the province.
Kisan Sabha in Avadh
A consequence of this activity was that a large number of kisan delegates from U.P. attended the
Delhi and Amritsar sessions of the Indian National Congress in December 1918 and 1919.
Towards the end of 1919, the first signs of grass-roots peasant activity were evident in the reports
of a nai-dhobi band (a form of social boycott) on an estate in Pratapgarh district. By the summer of
1920, in the villages of taluqdari Avadh, kisan meetings called by village panchayats became frequent.
The names of Jhinguri Singh and Durgapal Singh were associated with this development. But
soon another leader, who became famous by the name of Baba Ramchandra, emerged as the
rallying point.
Baba Ramchandra, a Brahmin from Maharashtra, was a wanderer who had left home at the age of
thirteen, done a stint as an indentured labourer in Fiji and finally turned up in Fyzabad in U.P. in
1909. Till 1920, he had wandered around as a sadhu, carrying a copy of Tulsidas’ Ramayan on his
back, from which he would often recite verses to rural audiences. In the middle of 1920, however,
he emerged as a leader of the peasants of Avadh, and soon demonstrated considerable leadership
and organizational capacities.
In June 1920, Baba Ramchandra led a few hundred tenants from the Jaunpur and Pratapgarh
districts to Allahabad. There he met Gauri Shankar Misra and Jawaharlal Nehru and asked them
to visit the villages to see for themselves the living conditions of the tenants. The result was that,
between June and August, Jawaharlal Nehru made several visits to the rural areas and developed
close contacts with the Kisan Sabha movement.
Meanwhile, the kisans found sympathy in Mehta, the Deputy Commissioner of Pratapgarh, who
promised to investigate complaints forwarded to him. The Kisan Sabha at village Roor in Pratapgarh
district became the centre of activity and about one lakh tenants were reported to have registered
their complaints with this Sabha on the payment of one anna each. Gauri Shankar Misra was also
very active in Pratapgarh during this period, and was in the process of working out an agreement
with Mehta over some of the crucial tenant complaints such as bedakhli and nazrana.
But, in August 1920, Mehta went on leave and the taluqdars used the opportunity to strike at the
growing kisan movement. They succeeded in getting Ramchandra and thirty-two kisans arrested
on a trumped-up charge of theft on 28 August 1920. Incensed at this, 4,000 to 5,000 kisans collected
at Pratapgarh to see their leaders in jail and were dispersed after a great deal of persuasion.
Ten days later, a rumour that Gandhiji was coming to secure the release of Baba Ramchandra
brought ten to twenty thousand kisans to Pratapgarh, and this time they returned to their homes
only after Baba Ramchandra gave them darshan from atop a tree in a sugar-cane field. By now their
numbers had swelled to sixty thousand. Mehta was called back from leave to deal with the
situation and he quickly withdrew the case of theft and attempted to bring pressure on the landlords
to change their ways. This easy victory, however, gave a new confidence to the movement and it
burgeoned forth.

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