Nationalism and the Peasant Movements

Nationalism and the Peasant Movements

History Optional Notes {PDF}

Complete Notes Package (Paper I & II) | 4500+ Pages | Instant Download

Discounted Price | Buy Now @ ₹1,180 →

The Agrarian Crisis under Colonial Rule

• Colonial economic policies transformed the agrarian structure of India and impoverished its peasantry through:
  • the ruin of handicrafts, which forced displaced artisans back onto the land and led to its overcrowding;
  • the introduction of a new land revenue system; and
  • a colonial administrative and judicial system that reinforced landlord authority over the cultivator.
• In Zamindari areas, peasants suffered from high rents, illegal levies, arbitrary evictions, and unpaid labour. In Ryotwari areas, the government itself levied heavy land revenue directly on the cultivator.
• Indebtedness deepened this crisis:
  • The overburdened farmer, fearing the loss of his only means of livelihood, often turned to the local moneylender, who exploited his distress by charging exorbitant rates of interest.
  • Farmers were frequently forced to mortgage their land and cattle, and moneylenders sometimes seized these mortgaged assets outright.
  • Over large areas, actual cultivators were gradually reduced to the status of tenants-at-will, share-croppers, and landless labourers.
• Peasants resisted this exploitation and increasingly recognised the colonial state itself as their real adversary. In extreme cases of desperation, some turned to crime — robbery, dacoity, and what has been termed social banditry — as an outlet for intolerable conditions.

From Localised Discontent to a National Peasant Movement

• Peasant discontent against established authority was a familiar feature of the nineteenth century, but such unrest remained largely localised and disconnected from any wider political current.
• In the twentieth century, peasant movements acquired a distinctly new character: they were deeply shaped by, and in turn significantly influenced, the ongoing struggle for national freedom — marking a shift from isolated agrarian revolts to movements closely intertwined with Indian nationalism.

(1) Peasant Movements of the 1920s

• The Kisan Sabha Movement and the Eka Movement (United Provinces)
• The Mappila Revolt (Malabar, Kerala)
• The Bardoli Satyagraha (Gujarat)

The Kisan Sabha Movement in Awadh

Background of Awadh

• Following the annexation of Awadh (1856) and the suppression of the Revolt of 1857, the Awadh Talukdars regained their estates and, through the second half of the nineteenth century, consolidated their hold over the province’s agrarian society.
• Cultivators faced high rents, summary evictions (bedakhali), illegal levies, and renewal fees (nazrana). The steep rise in the price of food and other necessities during and after the First World War intensified this oppression, leaving Awadh’s tenants primed for a message of resistance.

Formation and Growth of the Kisan Sabha

• Largely through the efforts of Home Rule activists, kisan sabhas were organised across the United Provinces (UP).
  • The UP Kisan Sabha was established in February 1918 by Gauri Shankar Mishra and Indra Narayan Dwivedi, with the support of Madan Mohan Malaviya.
• Towards the end of 1919, grassroots peasant activity first surfaced through the nai-dhobi bandh — a form of social boycott in which panchayats organised the withdrawal of barber and washerman services from oppressive landlords — on an estate in Pratapgarh district.
  • This form of protest was led by Baba Ramchandra, a sanyasi who had earlier worked as an indentured labourer in Fiji.
• By June 1919, the UP Kisan Sabha had grown to 450 branches, with leaders such as Jhinguri Singh, Durgapal Singh, and Baba Ramchandra playing prominent roles.
  • In June 1920, Baba Ramchandra urged Jawaharlal Nehru to visit these villages; through these visits, Nehru developed close ties with the peasantry.
• The kisans also found an unlikely ally in Mehta, the Deputy Commissioner of Pratapgarh, who promised to investigate their grievances.
  • The Kisan Sabha at village Roor in Pratapgarh became a centre of activity, with nearly one lakh tenants reportedly registering complaints for a fee of one anna each.
  • Gauri Shankar negotiated with Mehta over key tenant grievances such as bedakhali and nazrana; Mehta withdrew a theft case and pressured landlords to reform — an early success that gave the movement fresh confidence.

The Awadh Kisan Sabha and Escalation

• In October 1920, differences within nationalist ranks over strategy — the Indian National Congress at Calcutta had adopted Non-Cooperation, while leaders like Malaviya preferred constitutional agitation — led Non-cooperators to form the Awadh Kisan Sabha in Pratapgarh, absorbing the grassroots kisan sabhas that had emerged across Awadh.
  • The Awadh Kisan Sabha called on peasants to refuse to till bedakhali land, withhold hali and begar (forms of unpaid labour), socially boycott non-compliant villagers, and resolve disputes through panchayats.
• From January 1921, the movement’s character shifted from mass meetings to the looting of bazaars, houses, and granaries, along with clashes with the police, concentrated chiefly in Rai Bareilly, Faizabad, and Sultanpur.
  • At the height of this activity in early 1921, it was difficult to distinguish a Non-Cooperation meeting from a peasant rally — reflecting how closely the peasant and nationalist movements had merged in Awadh.
• The movement declined due to a combination of government repression and the passing of the Awadh Rent (Amendment) Act.

The Eka (Unity) Movement

• Towards the end of 1921, peasant discontent resurfaced in the northern UP districts of Hardoi, Bahraich, and Sitapur, driven by:
  • rents 50 per cent higher than the recorded rates;
  • oppression by thikedars (revenue-collecting contractors); and
  • the practice of share-rents.
• At Eka Movement meetings, peasants performed a symbolic religious ritual, vowing to:
  • pay only the recorded rent, and pay it on time;
  • not vacate land upon eviction;
  • refuse forced labour;
  • withhold help from criminals; and
  • abide by panchayat decisions.
• Grassroots leadership came from Madari Pasi and other low-caste leaders, along with several small zamindars.
• By March 1922, severe government repression brought the movement to an end.

The Mappila Revolt (Malabar, 1921)

• In August 1921, peasant unrest erupted among Mappila (Muslim) tenants in the Malabar district of present-day Kerala, driven by grievances over insecure tenure, renewal fees, high rents, and other oppressive landlord exactions.
  • Although Mappila resistance to landlord oppression had precedents in the nineteenth century, the 1921 uprising was of an altogether different scale.
• The resistance drew its initial impetus from the Malabar District Congress Conference at Manjeri (April 1920), which — for the first time — backed the tenants’ cause and demanded legislation to regulate landlord-tenant relations; this was soon followed by the formation of tenants’ associations at Kozhikode and elsewhere in the district.
• The movement developed alongside the Khilafat Movement, with which it became inseparably merged in leadership and support base. Its social base lay primarily among Mappila tenants, and prominent Khilafat-Non-Cooperation leaders — Gandhi, Shaukat Ali, and Maulana Azad — addressed Mappila meetings.
  • After the arrest of national leaders, leadership passed into the hands of local Mappila leaders.
• The arrest of the priest-leader Ali Musaliar in August 1921 triggered large-scale riots.
  • Initial targets were symbols of British authority — courts, police stations, and treasuries — along with unpopular landlords (jenmies, mostly Hindu).
  • Once martial law was declared and repression intensified, the rebellion took on communal overtones, as many Hindus were perceived to be assisting the authorities — a shift that completed the Mappilas’ isolation from the wider Khilafat-Non-Cooperation Movement.
• By December 1921, all resistance had ceased. The militant Mappilas were left so demoralised that their political participation remained negligible until independence; the peasant movement that later developed in Kerala instead emerged under Left leadership.

Note: Peasant Movements and the National Leadership — the Question of Violence

The peasant movements in UP and Malabar were closely linked to national-level politics. In UP, the impetus came from the Home Rule Leagues and later from the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat movements; in Awadh, at the height of activity in early 1921, it was hard to distinguish a Non-Cooperation meeting from a peasant rally. A similar fusion occurred in Malabar, where Khilafat and tenant meetings merged into one.

In both cases, however, the peasants’ recourse to violence created distance from the national movement, prompting nationalist leaders — especially Gandhi — to appeal to peasants to avoid extreme actions such as withholding rent.

This advice stemmed from two considerations: first, a wish to shield peasants from the harsh government repression that inevitably followed violent revolt; and second, the recognition that peasants themselves were not demanding the abolition of rent or landlordism, but only an end to ejectments, illegal levies, and exorbitant rents — demands the national leadership fully supported. Pushing small landlords too far risked driving them into the government’s camp, destroying any chance of their remaining neutral in the wider conflict between the colonial state and the national movement.

Bardoli Satyagraha (1928)

• The Bardoli taluqa in Surat district had witnessed intense politicisation following Gandhi’s rise on the national stage. The movement began in January 1926, when authorities announced a 30 per cent increase in land revenue.
• Congress leaders protested swiftly, and a Bardoli Inquiry Committee found the revenue hike unjustified. In February 1926, Vallabhbhai Patel was called in to lead the movement — the women of Bardoli later honoured him with the title “Sardar.”
  • Under Patel, Bardoli’s peasants resolved to withhold payment of the revised assessment until the government either appointed an independent tribunal or accepted the existing amount as full payment.
• To organise the struggle, Patel established 13 chhavanis (workers’ camps) across the taluqa and launched the Bardoli Satyagraha Patrika to mobilise public opinion; an intelligence wing ensured tenant compliance with the movement’s resolutions.
  • Opponents of the movement faced social boycott, and special emphasis was placed on mobilising women.
  • K.M. Munshi and Lalji Naranji resigned from the Bombay Legislative Council in solidarity.
• By August 1928, tensions had peaked, with the added prospect of a railway strike in Bombay; Gandhi arrived in Bardoli to stand by in case of emergency, prompting the government to seek a graceful exit.
  • The government’s face-saving condition was that the enhanced rent first be paid in full by all occupants. A subsequent inquiry committee found the original hike unjustified and recommended a far more modest increase of 6.03 per cent.

(2) Peasant Movements of the 1930s

The Civil Disobedience Movement and Rural Mobilisation

• The peasant awakening of the 1930s was shaped by two forces: the Great Depression affecting industrialised economies, and the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), which took on distinct agrarian forms across regions:
  • a no-revenue campaign (later converted to no-rent) in UP;
  • a movement against the Chowkidari Tax — under which villagers were forced to fund the upkeep of their own oppressors — in Bihar and Bengal;
  • a no-tax campaign in Surat and Kheda;
  • a no-revenue campaign in Punjab;
  • a Forest Satyagraha, defying restrictive forest laws, in Maharashtra, Bihar, and the Central Provinces; and
  • an anti-zamindari struggle in Andhra.
• Following the decline of the active phase of CDM in 1932, many new entrants to political life sought fresh outlets for their energies and turned to organising peasants.
• The CDM years also drew leftist leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose into closer engagement with agrarian issues, and the Congress Socialist Party (CSP), formed in 1934, gave the consolidation of Left forces a significant push — Communists, too, gained a legal, open avenue for political work by joining the CSP.
  • This consolidation spurred the formation of an all-India body to coordinate the kisan movement, a process already underway through the efforts of N.G. Ranga and other kisan leaders, culminating in the All-India Kisan Congress at Lucknow (April 1936), later renamed the All India Kisan Conference; its first session was addressed in person by Nehru.
• The formation of Congress Ministries in 1937 ushered in a new phase of peasant mobilisation, marked by greater civil liberties and a wave of agrarian relief legislation.

Formation of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS)

• The Kisan Sabha movement traces its origins to Bihar, where Sahajanand Saraswati founded the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha (BPKS) in 1929 to mobilise peasants against zamindari encroachments on occupancy rights; the movement gradually intensified and spread nationwide.
• The formation of the CSP in 1934 enabled Communists to work — however temporarily — alongside the Congress. In April 1935, N.G. Ranga and E.M.S. Namboodiripad, then secretary and joint secretary of the South Indian Federation of Peasants and Agricultural Labour, proposed forming an all-India farmers’ body.
• These developments culminated in the founding of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) at the Lucknow session of the Congress on 11 April 1936, with Swami Sahajanand Saraswati as president and N.G. Ranga as general secretary.
  • Its founding members included Ranga, Namboodiripad, Karyanand Sharma, Yamuna Karjee, Yadunandan Sharma, Rahul Sankrityayan, P. Sundarayya, Ram Manohar Lohia, Jayaprakash Narayan, Acharya Narendra Dev, and Bankim Mukerji.
• A Kisan Manifesto was finalised at the All-India Kisan Committee session in Bombay, then formally presented to the Congress Working Committee for incorporation into its manifesto for the 1937 elections. Released in August 1936, the manifesto demanded the abolition of the zamindari system and cancellation of rural debts.
  • The manifesto’s influence was visible at the Faizpur Congress session, where the second session of the All India Kisan Congress (presided over by Ranga) helped shape an agrarian programme demanding a 50 per cent reduction in land revenue and rent, a debt moratorium, abolition of feudal levies, security of tenure, a living wage for agricultural labourers, and recognition of peasant unions.

Peasant Movements under the Congress Ministries (1937–39)

• The period 1937–39 marked the high-water mark of the peasant movement under Congress provincial rule.
  • The political atmosphere shifted markedly: greater civil liberties, a new sense of empowerment from the feeling that “our own people are in power,” and heightened expectations of pro-people reform.
  • Ministries introduced varied agrarian legislation — on debt relief, restoration of Depression-era land losses, and tenant security — which in turn spurred further peasant mobilisation, chiefly through kisan conferences at the thana, taluqa, district, and provincial levels.
• In October 1937, the AIKS adopted the red flag as its banner, and its leadership grew increasingly estranged from the Congress, clashing repeatedly with Congress governments in Bihar and the United Provinces.
• Although Congress secured a sweeping victory in the 1937 elections through a united socialist–right-wing front, right-wing leaders regained dominance after ministry formation and moved to stall zamindari reform.
  • The Bakasht land dispute — over permanent tenancies converted into short-term ones — saw conservative Congress leaders align with landlords, prompting a militant Kisan Sabha movement (1938–39) for the restoration of Bakasht lands after Congress diluted its tenancy legislation under landlord pressure.
  • At its 1938 annual conference, the AIKS denounced the Gandhian principle of class collaboration and proclaimed agrarian revolution as its ultimate goal, prompting alarmed zamindars to press the Congress government to use its coercive powers, and the Bihar Congress to distance itself from the Kisan Sabha.
• Similar disillusionment surfaced elsewhere:
  • In UP, the Kisan Sabha turned against the Congress ministry after it diluted the 1938 tenancy legislation — originally meant to halve rents — with leaders Narendra Dev and Mohanlal Gautam mobilising peasant demonstrations.
  • In Orissa, Kisan leaders were frustrated by pro-landlord amendments to tenancy legislation; even the diluted bill was blocked by the governor until a massive Kisan Day Rally on 1 September 1938 forced action.
• The Haripura Congress session (February 1938) passed a resolution barring Congressmen from Kisan Sabha membership, though its enforcement was left to provincial bodies.
• By May 1942, the newly-legalised Communist Party of India (CPI) had taken control of the AIKS across India, including Bengal, and committed it to the Communist “People’s War” line — keeping it away from the Quit India Movement (August 1942).
  • This cost the AIKS its popular base: many members defied party orders to join the movement, and senior leaders Ranga, Indulal Yagnik, and Saraswati left the organisation as it increasingly struggled to reconcile its pro-war stance with peasant sentiment.

Peasant Movements across the Provinces

Kerala (Malabar)

• Peasants in Malabar were mobilised chiefly by Congress Socialist Party (CSP) activists through numerous Karshaka Sanghams (peasant organisations).
• Core demands included the abolition of feudal levies (akrama pirivukal), renewal fees (polichelu­thu), advance rent, and eviction of tenants under the guise of “personal cultivation,” alongside reduced tax, rent, and debt burdens and fair grain measurement.
• The movement’s most distinctive tactic was the jatha — large peasant marches to the homes of big landlords (jenmies) to present demands, chiefly for the abolition of feudal levies such as vasi and nuri, and secure immediate redress.
• A notable 1938 campaign pushed for amendment of the Malabar Tenancy Act (1929); 6 November 1938 was observed as Malabar Tenancy Act Amendment Day, with district-wide meetings passing a uniform resolution.

Andhra

• Zamindar prestige had already declined following Congress electoral victories in 1937, and provincial ryot associations — notably the Andhra Provincial Ryots Association and the Andhra Zamin Ryot Association — had a long history of struggle against government and zamindars.
• N.G. Ranga, a CSP activist, founded the India Peasants’ Institute in his home village in Guntur district (1933) and organised peasant marches through 1933–34; at the Ellore Zamindari Ryots Conference (1933), he raised the demand for the abolition of zamindari.
  • In 1935, Ranga and E.M.S. Namboodiripad extended the movement to other linguistic regions of the Madras Presidency, forming the South Indian Federation of Peasants and Agricultural Labour and initiating discussions for an all-India peasant body.
• After 1936, Congress Socialists organised numerous Summer Schools of Economics and Politics, addressed by leaders including P.C. Joshi, Ajoy Ghosh, and R.D. Bhardwaj.
• In 1938, the Provincial Kisan Conference organised its most ambitious mobilisation: a long march in which over 2,000 kisans covered more than 1,500 miles across nine districts over 130 days, holding hundreds of meetings and collecting over 1,100 petitions, presented to the Madras provincial legislature on 27 March 1938.
  • Their central demand — debt relief — was incorporated into Congress Ministry legislation and widely welcomed; the Ministry also appointed a Zamindari Enquiry Committee, though resulting legislation lapsed when the Congress Ministries resigned.
• Mobilisation was further sustained through the celebration of various kisan days and the popularisation of peasant songs.

Bihar

• Sahajanand Saraswati led the Bihar Kisan Sabha movement, having founded the BPKS in 1929 with associates including Karyanand Sharma, Yadunandan Sharma, Rahul Sankritayan, Panchanan Sharma, and Jamun Karjiti.
• The BPKS used meetings, conferences, and mass demonstrations — including a one-lakh-strong rally at Patna in 1938 — to popularise its programme; though rich occupancy tenants formed its principal base and leadership, it also drew middle and poor peasants.
• Initially oriented towards class harmony to avoid jeopardising the national movement, the BPKS came under Socialist influence from 1933 and by 1935 had adopted zamindari abolition as a core goal, alongside demands to end illegal levies, prevent tenant eviction, and restore bakasht lands.
• The Sabha’s rift with Congress deepened over the bakasht land issue, following an unfavourable Congress Ministry resolution. Concessions, legislation, and the arrest of roughly 600 activists brought the movement to a close by August 1939; it resumed in pockets from 1945 and persisted until zamindari’s eventual abolition.

Punjab

• Early mobilisation here was led by the Punjab Naujawan Bharat Sabha, the Kirti Kisan Party, the Congress, and the Akalis, later consolidated under the Punjab Kisan Committee (1937).
• The movement followed a familiar pattern — village-level enrolment drives, meetings, and conferences at the tehsil, district, and provincial levels — focused chiefly on tax reduction and a debt moratorium, targeting the landlords of western Punjab who dominated the Unionist ministry.
  • Immediate flashpoints included land revenue resettlement in Amritsar and Lahore and rising water rates in the canal colonies of Multan and Montgomery, where peasants struck successfully against feudal levies imposed by private contractors.
• Activity was concentrated in Jullundur, Amritsar, Hoshiarpur, Lyallpur, and Shekhupura; the Muslim tenants-at-will of west Punjab and Hindu peasants of south-eastern Punjab (present-day Haryana) remained largely untouched.
• The princely states of Punjab also saw significant unrest, most notably in Patiala, where muzaras (tenants) refused to pay batai (share-rent) to their biswedars (landlords) over land illegally seized through deceit and intimidation.
  • The struggle was led by Bhagwan Singh Longowalia and Jagir Singh Joga, and later by Teja Singh Swatantar, continuing until 1953, when legislation finally enabled tenants to become landowners.

Other Regions

• Bengal: Under Bankim Mukherjee, peasants of Burdwan agitated against enhanced canal tax on the Damodar Canal and won major concessions; kisans of 24-Parganas marched to Calcutta in 1938 to press their demands.
• Assam: In the Surma Valley, a six-month no-rent struggle against zamindari oppression continued, with Karuna Sindhu leading a campaign for tenancy law amendment.
• Orissa: The Utkal Provincial Kisan Sabha, organised by Malati Chowdhary and others in 1935, secured acceptance of its kisan manifesto in the Provincial Congress’s election manifesto, leading to significant agrarian reform under the subsequent ministry; its first conference had already adopted a resolution for zamindari abolition.
• NWFP: Kisans of the Ghalla Dhir state protested evictions and feudal exactions by their Nawab.
• Gujarat: The central demand — abolition of the Hali system of bonded labour — met with notable success.
• Central Provinces: The Central Province Kisan Sabha marched to Nagpur demanding abolition of the malguzari system, tax concessions, and a debt moratorium.

Peasant Movements during the Second World War

• The outbreak of World War II checked the rising tide of peasant activity: the Congress Ministries resigned, and severe repression followed against left-wing and Kisan Sabha leaders for their anti-war stance.
• Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union deepened divisions between Communist and non-Communist Kisan Sabha members, coming to a head with the Quit India Movement, in which CSP members played a leading role.
  • The CPI’s pro-war “People’s War” line kept its cadres officially away from Quit India, though many local workers defied this and joined regardless; the resulting rift produced a split in 1943, with senior leaders Ranga, Sahajanand Saraswati, and Indulal Yagnik all leaving the organisation.
• Despite this, the Kisan Sabha continued important relief work through the war years — notably during the Bengal Famine of 1943 — and maintained its organisational activity, even as its unpopular pro-war stance alienated large sections of the peasantry.

(3) Peasant Movements in the Post-War Phase

Renewed Struggles and the Demand for Zamindari Abolition

• Many struggles suspended in 1939 were revived after the war, with the demand for zamindari abolition pursued with renewed urgency.
• The peasants of Punnapra-Vayalar in Travancore fought pitched battles with the state administration during this period.

The Tebhaga Movement (1946–47)

• Initiated by the Kisan Sabha (the peasant front of the Communist Party of India) in Bengal, the Tebhaga movement sought to reduce the share of harvest given by share-cropping tenants to landowners from one-half to one-third — hence “Tebhaga” (sharing by thirds).
• In September 1946, the Bengal Provincial Kisan Sabha called for mass implementation of the Floud Commission’s tebhaga recommendation for bargardars (share-croppers), who worked land rented from jotedars.
  • Communist cadres, including many urban student volunteers, organised the bargardars around the slogan “nij khamare dhan tolo” — sharecroppers taking the paddy to their own threshing floor rather than the jotedar’s, to enforce tebhaga in practice.
• The movement’s storm centre was north Bengal, concentrated among the Rajbanshis (a low caste of tribal origin), with large-scale Muslim participation as well.
• The Muslim League ministry under Suhrawardy responded with the Bargadari Bill, capping the landlord’s share at one-third, though the law was never fully implemented.
• The movement dissipated due to a combination of factors: the Bargadari Bill’s partial concessions, intensified repression, the Hindu Mahasabha’s agitation for a separate Bengal, and renewed Calcutta riots, which ended prospects of urban sympathetic support.
  • The Muslim League ministry failed to carry the bill through the Assembly; it was only in 1950 that the Congress Ministry passed a Bargadari Bill substantially incorporating the movement’s original demands.

The Telangana Movement (1946–51)

• Widely regarded as the biggest peasant guerrilla war in modern Indian history, the Telangana movement arose in the princely state of Hyderabad under the Asaf Jahi Nizams, where a small Urdu-speaking Muslim elite ruled over a predominantly Hindu-Telugu, Marathi, and Kannada-speaking population, amid a total absence of political and civil liberties and severe exploitation by deshmukhs, jagirdars, and doras (landlords) through forced labour (vethi) and illegal exactions.
• During the war, communist-led guerrillas had built a strong base in Telangana villages through the Andhra Mahasabha, leading local struggles against wartime exactions, rationing abuses, excessive rent, and vethi.
• The uprising formally began in July 1946, when a deshmukh’s henchman murdered a village militant in Jangaon taluq, Nalgonda; it soon spread to Warangal and Khammam.
  • Peasants organised into village sanghams, resisting with lathis, stone slings, and chilli powder against brutal repression. The movement peaked between August 1947 and September 1948, during which peasants routed the Razakars — the Nizam’s paramilitary force — before winding down once Indian security forces took over Hyderabad.
• Positive achievements of the Telangana movement included:
  • the disappearance of vethi and forced labour in guerrilla-controlled villages;
  • a rise in agricultural wages;
  • restoration of illegally seized lands;
  • initial steps towards land ceilings and redistribution;
  • improvements in irrigation and public health, including cholera control;
  • improvement in the condition of women; and
  • the shaking of Hyderabad’s autocratic-feudal order, which cleared the path for the eventual formation of Andhra Pradesh on linguistic lines — fulfilling another long-standing aim of the national movement in the region.

Assessment of the Peasant Movements

• These struggles were not aimed at overthrowing the existing agrarian structure outright, but at alleviating its most oppressive features; nevertheless, they steadily eroded the power of the landed classes and laid the groundwork for its eventual transformation.
• Even where they fell short of immediate success, peasant movements created the political climate that made post-Independence agrarian reforms possible — zamindari abolition, for instance, was not the direct outcome of any single struggle, but the sustained popularisation of the demand by the Kisan Sabha undeniably contributed to its eventual achievement.
• The forms of struggle and mobilisation across diverse regions were strikingly similar in nature and demands, and violent clashes remained the exception rather than the rule.
• The relationship between the peasant movement and the wider national movement remained vital and mutually reinforcing throughout: the kisan movement drew on the ideology of nationalism, and its cadres carried forward both the message of peasant class organisation and the cause of national freedom — many activists held simultaneous membership in the Congress and the Kisan Sabha, even as tensions occasionally surfaced between them.
  • In regions like Bihar, serious differences did emerge between Congressmen and the Kisan Sabha, but these tended to surface only when both left-wing activists and conservative Congressmen took extreme, uncompromising positions.
  • Before 1942, such differences were generally contained, and the two movements occupied largely common ground. The experience of the 1942 split taught the kisan movement that diverging too far from the national movement risked both its mass base and internal unity — underscoring how inseparably the peasant movement’s growth was bound to the freedom struggle.
• Common peasant demands across regions included reduced taxes, abolition of illegal cesses and feudal levies (begar/vethi), an end to zamindari oppression, debt reduction, restoration of illegally seized lands, and security of tenure for tenants — though, barring a few exceptions like Andhra and Gujarat, the specific demands of agricultural labourers rarely became a central part of the movement.