UNDERSTANDING PEASANT SOCIETY IN INDIAN CONTEXT :

Indian peasantry as elsewhere is not a homogenous category. There are different types of peasants
and the criteria taken for the heterogeneity of peasantry are also varied.
Using Indian vernacular terms, Daniel Thorner (1956) analyzed the argarian classes in India. He has
exhaustively studied the nature of Indian agriculture and used the following three criteria to
differentiate the agrarian classes :– (i) Income obtained from the soil (ii) Nature of rights over land
(iii) Extent of field work performed. On the basis of these criteria, he identified the existence of three
principal categories of agrarian classes in India, they are Malik, Kisans and Mazdoors. Thorner says,
the Malik derived income primarily from property rights on soil. They can be absentee landowners
and rich landowners. Similarly Kisans are working peasants with property rights on the land but their
actual right are inferior to those of Maliks. There categories are small land owners and substantial
tenants. Finally, the Mazdoors are earning their livelihood primarily from working on others plot. It
includes–poor peasant, sharecroppers and landless labourers.
Thus Thorner’s three major categories defined are based on the relation of production or means of
production and in a sense represent a strictly Marxian model of agrarian classes.
Usha Patnaik (1976) suggested the criterion termed as labour ‘exploitation ((‘E’ criterion) and also the
magnitude of land and has classified the Indian peasantry into five principal categories–
Categories Magnitude of Land
Poor 1.60 acres or less
Middle Between 1.61 and 9.80 acres
Lower Middle Between 1.61 and 4.60 acres
Upper Middle Between 4.60 and 9.80 acres
Rich Capitalist and Landlords 9.81 acres and above

REFERENCE Shanin, Ted (1971); Peasants and Peasant Societies; Penguin books, Harmondsworth.

Desai, A. R. (1961); Rural Sociology in India, Popular Prakashan, Bombay.

Wolf; E. R (1966) Peasants, Prentice Hall, Engleword.

Redfield, R. (1956); Peasant Society and Culture Univesity of Chicago.

ASSAM AGRICULTURE
The British agrarian policy on Assam was associated with the economic gain. The traditional practice
of agriculture was not literally given any importance instead intensive interest on cultivation was
focused on cash crops cultivation. The main objective of the British land settlement policy was to
recognize all traditional rights to land and formulate the long term hereditary and transferable rights
in land3. After the political reorganisation in Assam, power was ceded to the British, subsequently,
various policies came into force. The trial and error experiment has been witnessed in the sphere of
land and implementation of policy. The various policies has been formulated between the years
1854 to 1893 such as Wastelands Settlement Rules, 1854, the Prohibition of Opium Cultivation in
1860, Farming of Settlement Rules, 1870, the recasting of the settlement Rules in 1883, the
promulgation of the Land and Revenue Regulations in 1886.
In order to make waste lands available for special cultivation on attractive terms, a set of rules were
formulated. These were known as the Wasteland Rules of 6 March 1838. In this spectrum, waste
lands were given to the applicants on a lease of forty five years.

The wastelands settlement rules provided full access to the British in Assam to occupy or reclaim the
vast tracts of land on grounds of investment in land associated with cash crop cultivation. The
grazing land and some forest lands were converted into tea gardens. It was also a period where the
new venture of the British began their start up either in private or in public. Assam being a land of
fertile ground offered easy access to embark upon the new experiment of their investment in land.
This policy also gave access to the immigrants to occupy more land in swarm and char areas of land
for extensive cultivation. The land hungry peasants of East Bengal never hesitated to come and
occupy the land. At that time the population of Assam was less which finally provided the living
space for the outsiders to come and settle. Since the fundamental objective of colonial government
was associated with the commercial agenda and more generation of economy, cultivation of cash
crop seems to be appropriate on the part of British to invest their capital on tea cultivation and
other cash crop cultivations. Under 1854 rules land became transferable and such land could be sold
in the case of unearned profit.

The colonial administration settled a long term revenue assessment over a period of tenth years in
rupit land where wet rice cultivation or transplantation of rice is feasible. The faringati lands were
settled with annual assessment of land. The land and revenue regulation policy of 1886 has
furnished an extensive legal basis for the colonial administration that mandated to avail the
defaulters land which will be put on auction6. In case of mortgaged land, money lenders can lawfully
appropriate the land by the court decree which earlier belonged to the peasants.

By 1840, the system of revenue payment was exclusively monetized. Due to cash oriented revenue
payment, the peasant communities were by and large put under severe strain. The intensity of the
exploitative nature of the colonial administration was felt in the wake of various policies. The
stability of the peaceful existence of the village was over time turned into disparities and public
outrage. The people of upper Assam hardly experienced any sort of cash transaction. However, the
barter system was a common practise of transaction. Besides, some pockets of lower Assam had
already experienced cash transactions in trade and selling of land. Agriculture being the chief source
of sustainable livelihood, the peasants had left no alternative except to give their land on lease
which finally resulted in indebtedness and loss of land due to high rate of interest. The exploitative
nature of the British revenue officials as well as the rich peasants destroyed the self-sufficient village
economy and happy life of the peasants’ communities. In addition, the abolition of slavery had
triggered severe blow to the rich landholders and aristocratic noble families of Ahom. Tea plantation
began in the 19th century which was intensive labour oriented. Since the self-sufficient local
peasants refused to work in British own tea gardens, the colonial state has chalked out the plan to
augment the rate of revenue payment which resulted in domestic cultivators to give up the earlier
practice of agriculture and turn them as labour for the tea gardens. The zamindari and ryotwari
system failed to bring improvement in agriculture and the advanced tools were not introduced in
agriculture. The indifferent attitude of the British as well as the landlords led to the stagnant rural
economy.

Chand, Dr. Suresh,History of Assam, NE Books and Publishers, Silchar, 2017, pp.151-152.

DECCAN AGRICULTURE
Deindustrialization forced workers out of the land once the company’s control was
transferred to the monarch. Agriculture was harmed by high taxes. May 1875, in
Supa, a village near Poona, a peasant uprising against moneylenders was
documented for the first time in the Deccan.
Riots have been reported in around 30 villages of the cities of Poona and
Ahmednagar. The unrest was mostly directed at Gujarat moneylenders. Under the
British administration, peasants were required to pay revenue directly to the
government. Moneylenders were also allowed to attach defaulters’ mortgaged land
and sell it off under a new rule. 
This resulted in a land transfer from farmers to non-cultivating castes. The
cultivators became locked in a vicious circle of debt and were unable to pay the
remaining loan, forcing them to leave cultivation.
Before the 1860s, the United States supplied 3/4 of Britain’s raw cotton
imports. Manchester Cotton Company was founded in 1859 by British cotton
manufacturers to promote cotton exports. When the American Civil War started in
1861, imports from the United States plummeted. To keep cotton exports going,
British merchants began purchasing and securing cotton from India. As a result, they
began making advances to Indian moneylenders, who transformed the advances
into ryot debts. In the demand boom, ryots took a lot of credit and were often forced
to take credit and sign bonds and deeds. In this economic situation, moneylenders
utilised deception and fraud to gain as much benefit as possible. Cotton demand
plummeted dramatically after the Civil War, and moneylenders began to recoup their
losses.

Money is made by charging ryots hefty interest rates. Most of the time, the
ryots were unable to repay their debts, and their estates were evicted and sold. This
enraged the ryots, who began a violent protest against crafty and deceptive
moneylenders. They took their grievances to the authorities for remedy. The
Limitation Law in 1859 limited the validity of bonds to three years. This could reduce
the amount of money given to moneylenders by peasants. Moneylenders, on the
other hand, began signing fresh bonds for three years and then signing new bonds
when the old ones expired. As a result, it fueled riots and insurrection. 

Credit, trade, inequality, and growth all became intertwined as Indian

agriculture became more integrated into the global economy. Falling agricultural
prices, high taxes, and a sense of political powerlessness caused the growers’
despair. Small peasants were burdened by the commercialization of agriculture
under colonial land revenue policies, which put a premium on access to credit to
finance productive investments in the land. Local moneylenders secured limitless
ownership of their debtors’ property and labour by using capital lent by European
merchants; this allowed them the “authority to entirely wreck and enslave the
debtor.” This power was by them to control peasant labour in the nineteenth century,
rather than their land, which was worthless without people to work it.

These agricultural developments weakened the community customs that had

constituted the bedrock of Indian village life. Because the colonial authority
misinterpreted various forms of shared usage, access to the forests was restricted,
and the colonial government reconfigured the state’s relationship with pastoral
groups, access to common resources was rapidly reduced.

Vasudeo Balwant Phadke, an Indian patriot, led a violent campaign against

colonial rule in 1879, with the goal of establishing an Indian republic by pushing them
out. His uprising, however, was only partially successful. Phadke was imprisoned
and transported to Aden, where he died during a hunger strike in 1883.

PABNA AGRICULTURE
 Landlords in Eastern Bengal forcibly collected rentals and land taxes, which led to
the exploitation of the poor peasants.

Act X of 1859 also made it impossible for peasants to get Occupancy Rights.

Tenants who had owned the land for 12 years and paid their rents were granted
occupancy rights under this Act. The zamindars, on the other hand, did not want it to
happen. Due to nonpayment, peasants were frequently removed from their land.
Landlords were known to engage in violent actions to earn greater wealth. The
peasants were suffering from starvation in the 1870s due to a fall in jute output.

Yusufshahi Pargana in the Pabna district of Patna (East Bengal) saw the creation of
an Agrarian League in May 1873. 

There were rent strikes, finances were obtained, and the campaign extended across
Patna and other East Bengal districts.

Some farmers attempted to establish local authorities with an “army” to combat the
zamindari “lathials”. The rebel army was placed under the command of deputies

When the actions of the Pabna Raiyats’ League, endangered public order, the
government interfered to restore order. Sir George Campbell,( Lieutenant Governor
of Bengal) proclaimed on July 4, 1873, guaranteeing British government support for
farmers over excessive zamindar demands They advised the zamindars to pursue
their claims through legal avenues alone. The rebellion ended amid the police force
and subsequent famine in 1873–74.

Poona Sarvajnik Sabha:

1. Agriculture area:
It came across that Sarvajanik Sabha could not give justice to the problems faced by the
farmers. The main work of the people in the Bombay Presidency was agriculture. The
61% of the land of the Bombay Presidency was useful for agriculture, and its totally
depends upon the Monsoon.

Due to irregular rainfall, less fertile land, and repressive government revenue policy in
the Deccan area, peasants always remained in the precious condition. The Sabha was a
representative body devoted to the redress of the grievance of the inhabitants and took
the initiative to solve the problems of the Deccan peasants. At the beginning of the sabha
attempted to arouse public opinion against the increased revenue assessments
introduced by J. Francis in some Deccan districts from 1871 onwards. After the Deccan
Riots’ suppression, the Sabha carried out that the harsh revenue policy adopted by the
Government was the root cause of the riots. The Sabha collected information about the
peasant’s problems and submitted petitions, and requested the government to adopt
some such measures to bring about a permanent improvement in the peasant’s
condition.

Thereafter various schemes and proposals were put forward by the officials, magistrates,
public bodies, and individuals, which ultimately emerged the Deccan Agriculturists
Relief Bill of 1879.

Royal Commission Inquiry:

Sabha sent a letter in 1881 to Sir David Wedderburn, M. P. Britain. This letter contained
a proposal for consideration of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Deccan
conditions.

Land Revenue Code and reform:

As per the Land Revenue Code rule, a farmer at his own improved land and increased
production had to pay increased land revenue and did not get entire profits of their
labour. To avoid this situation, the Bombay Government declared on March 26, 1884,
that they were going to repeal section 107 of the Land Revenue Code. Mr Winter, Acting
Collector of Poona, asked Sarvajanik Sabha to communicate its view regarding section
107 of the Land Revenue Code’s repeal.
The Conciliatory System

The “conciliatory system” introduced by the Act, which aimed to extend the courts into the villages,
drew severe criticisms from Tilak. The Poona Sarvajanik Sabha welcomed the conciliatory system and
called it “an imaginative variation of pre-British Panchayat system”. Tilak criticised Ranade for
undermining the powers of the existing judicial system by supporting the conciliatory system. He
demanded the immediate abolition of the vonciliatory system and expressed his implicit faith in the
colonial judicial system.

Ranade, as a judge, supervised the working of the conciliatory system during 1880-85 argued that
“the chief objective of the Conciliatory System was to protect the person and property of the
agriculturists from attachment, because the moneylender abused the power, which the law placed
in his hands”. To this Tilak replied bluntly:

we are sorry, we cannot understand the above argument...A Kunbi cannot avoid the necessity of
going to a Sahukar. A Kunbi has very little or no personal property, except implements, husbandry,
bullocks and a few necessities of life. These are all exempt from attachment by the civil procedure
code. Sahukar who advances money has therefore to rely upon the crops for repayment and these
too have been protected by the Act, then leaving the Sahukar no security for his advances.

Tilak insisted that “the Sahukar could not be regarded as the sole cause of peasant’s indebtedness
and it was the rigid revenue system, which was at fault”.44 Tilak argued that “the moneylender as an
important member of the village community had rendered yeoman’s services to the society and
above all to the Kunbi in times of distress. He is the god of the agriculturists”.45 Tilak’s defence of
the interest of the moneylender was not just economic but social and political too. The reformers
argued that the peasants were not only impoverished but also socially disadvantaged.

William Wedderburn, compared the emancipation of the Deccan peasants to the model
emancipation of the European serfs from feudal bondage which had not only economic but political
potential as well. Tilak described the abolition of imprisonment for debt as “misplaced and
misdirected charity (that) threatened to disturb the whole fabric of social organisation” and warned
the reformers of “the impending social upheaval that would result if the Act was not repealed”

 The Agricultural Bank

The DARA brought the courts closer to the villages and restricted the flow of capital from the
moneylender to the peasants.61 There was an immediate necessity of providing alternative credit to
the peasants. Ranade and Wedderburn proposed the establishment of agricultural banks to provide
loans at a lower rate of interest to the peasants.
 Ranade argued: even under most favourable circumstances the peasant hardly finds decent
maintenance. Add to this, [is] his extreme indebtedness and accidents of droughts and he at these
times becomes involved in a vortex of overwhelming difficulties and the establishment of agricultural
banks would provide much needed respite to the peasants.

According to this scheme, the agricultural banks would borrow money from various sources
and lend it to the peasants at an interest rate of 12%. This scheme, if implemented, would have
freed the peasants from the clutches of moneylenders who were charging 24% to 36% per annum;
added to this was the additional charge for renewal of bonds every year. Tilak once again attacked
Ranade “for being partial to peasants and introducing hardships to the Sahukars”. He asked the
government to accept “the proposals of the Poona moneylenders who had a sincere desire to
improve the condition of the poor peasants and wanted to secure proper repayment of their capital
with reasonable interest within reasonable time”. If this was not acceptable then “the best option
before the government is to discard the proposal of the agricultural banks and repeal the DARA and
restoring the old system in its entirety”. Tilak repeatedly questioned “the right of the alien
government to interfere in the internal relations of various classes”.

AGRICULTURAL BLEMMING

The monsoon rains failed in 1896 and the merchant-moneylenders bought and hoarded the stocks
of grains in Poona and other small towns in order to capitalise on the anticipated shortage. Grain
riots broke out within three months.74 The colonial government as in the earlier famines was ill-
prepared to tackle the situation. Tilak demanded that the relief work ought to be done in
consultations with the leaders of the concerned places and wrote passionately about the scarcity
of food and water. He called upon the grain merchants “to take normal profit” and established a
shop to sell foodgrains at “cheapest rates”. Tilak also criticised the government for not suspending
tax collection and the continued extravagance of the government. The government was reluctant
to grant the suspensions and remissions of the land revenue, which had been specified in the
Famine Relief Code that was drawn up after the famine of 1870s.

By this time, the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha had been captured by the nationalists. Tilak set out to do
what the sabha did during the 1876 famine. He now needed new supporters as the Natu brothers
and Barve faced criminal charges for their involvement in the Hindu-Muslim riots during 1894-96.
He appointed seven young men all from either landed or moneylending backgrounds – N C Kelkar,
Achut Sitaram Sathe, Shivram Mahadev Paranjape, Shankar Ganesh Lawate, V K Rajwade,
Mahadkar, and Narayan Shivram Barve – to travel throughout Deccan to begin a no tax
campaign. They visited small towns and villages and preached to the villagers not to pay taxes.

The campaign did not have the effect desired by Tilak. The 1896-97 famine was uneven and
affected the eastern and the southern parts while the nationalist activity was concentrated in the
western part of the presidency. Rains failed in Nasik, Ahmadnagar, Sholapur and Bijapur and there
was little response in these districts. Whereas in Thane and Kolaba which were the least affected
by the famine, there was a determined “pay no rent” campaign. Tilak supported the demand for
suspension and remission claimed by the non-agriculturists by stating that they had done so for
the sake of the peasants. The Bombay government rejected Tilak’s demand and retaliated by
ordering the confiscation of property of the richest defaulters, which resulted in immediate
payment of land revenue even by the poor peasants, who otherwise would have been exempted
according to the Famine Relief Code of 1879. Tilak’s no-tax campaign was also unsuccessful
because in his own constituency, the inamdars, fearing a reduction in their own rent, did not
support the campaign.