The Shift in the Character of Peasant Uprisings in the Post-1857 Period
In post-1857 India, we witness first of all a continuation of some earlier forms of protest against the oppressive aspects of colonial rule, with tribal and peasant movements foremost among them. But these movements also acquired new features in this period, marking a distinct shift from their pre-1857 character.
Greater Awareness of Colonial Policies, Laws, and Institutions
- This period saw a growing awareness of colonial policies, laws, and institutions among the peasantry, both tribal and non-tribal.
- Some peasants even embraced these institutions — the law courts, for instance — as an extended and legitimate space for venting grievances or seeking redress for existing injustices.
- Peasants asserted their legal rights both in and outside the courts.
- Where an attempt was made to deprive them of their legal rights through extra-legal means, or by manipulating the law and law courts, peasants countered with extra-legal means of their own.
- Often, they believed that the legally constituted authority (the sarkar) approved of their actions, or at least supported their claims and cause.
Involvement of the Educated Middle-Class Intelligentsia
- The other major new feature was the growing involvement of the educated middle-class intelligentsia as spokespersons for the aggrieved peasantry — adding new dimensions to peasant protest and linking it to a wider agitation against undesirable aspects of colonial rule.
- The nature of this outside intervention has been the subject of intense historiographical debate.
Ravinder Kumar’s View
- Ravinder Kumar held that middle-class leaders performed an important and effective function as a “channel of communication, between rural society and the administration,” at a time when traditional channels and methods had become ineffective.
Ranajit Guha’s View
- Ranajit Guha, by contrast, described the nineteenth-century middle-class attitude to the peasantry as “a curious concoction of an inherited, Indian style paternalism and an acquired, western-style humanism.”
- He argued that their conduct at every stage betrayed an innate collaborative mindset, revealing “the futility of liberalism as a deterrent to tyranny.”
- Whatever the actual nature or impact of this middle-class mediation, it remained a consistent new feature of nearly all peasant movements in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Other Shifts in the Nature of Peasant Movements after 1857
Peasants as the Primary Force in Agrarian Movements
- With princes, chiefs, and landlords either crushed or co-opted by the colonial state, peasants themselves emerged as the main force in agrarian movements.
- They now fought directly for their own demands, centred almost wholly on economic issues, against their immediate adversaries — foreign planters and indigenous zamindars and moneylenders.
Limited and Specific Objectives
- Peasant struggles in this period were directed toward specific, limited objectives and the redressal of particular grievances, rather than any broader transformation.
- They did not make colonialism itself their target, nor did they aim at ending the wider system of their subordination and exploitation.
- In short, they did not seek to “turn the world upside down.”
Restricted Territorial Reach and Lack of Continuity
- The territorial reach of these movements was limited — they remained confined to particular localities, with little mutual communication or linkage between them.
- They also lacked continuity of struggle or long-term organisation: once a movement’s specific objectives were achieved, its organisational structure and the peasant solidarity built around it typically dissolved.
- The Indigo Strike, the Pabna agrarian leagues, and the social-boycott movement of the Deccan ryots are all examples of movements that left behind no direct successors.
- As a consequence, these movements at no stage threatened, or even seriously undermined, British supremacy.
Notions of Legitimacy Underlying Peasant Action
- These movements represented an instinctive and spontaneous response of the peasantry to its social condition — the peasant typically rebelled only when he felt it was no longer possible to carry on under existing conditions.
- Peasant action was also guided by strong notions of legitimacy — of what was justifiable and what was not:
- He did not fight for land ownership or against landlordism as such, but against eviction and the undue enhancement of rent.
- He did not object to paying interest on money borrowed, but struck back against fraud and chicanery by the moneylender, and against attempts to deprive him of his land in violation of tradition.
- He did not deny the state’s right to collect land tax, but objected when the level of taxation exceeded all traditional bounds.
- He did not object to a foreign planter becoming his zamindar, but resisted when the planter took away his freedom to decide what crops to grow, or refused to pay a fair price for his produce.
Courage, Solidarity, and Concessions Wrung from the Colonial State
- In these movements, Indian peasants displayed great courage and a spirit of sacrifice, considerable organisational ability, and a solidarity that cut across religious and caste lines.
- They were also able to wring considerable concessions from the colonial state, which — not being directly challenged — was willing to compromise and mitigate the harshness of the agrarian system, though only within the broad limits of the existing colonial economic and political structure.
- In this respect, the colonial regime’s treatment of post-1857 peasant rebels was qualitatively different from its treatment of participants in the civil rebellions, the Revolt of 1857, and the tribal uprisings, all of which had directly challenged colonial political power.
Weaknesses of Post-1857 Peasant Movements
- These movements suffered from a lack of adequate understanding of colonialism and of the social framework within which they themselves operated.
- They did not possess a new ideology, or a new social, economic, and political programme, based on an analysis of the newly constituted colonial society.
- Their struggles, however militant, occurred within the framework of the old societal order, and they lacked a positive conception of an alternative society.
- This limitation was not, however, a blemish on the character of the peasantry as such — the peasantry could scarcely have been expected to grasp, on its own, the new and complex phenomenon of colonialism. That task required the efforts of a modern intelligentsia, which was itself only just coming into existence.
- Most of these weaknesses were overcome in the twentieth century, when peasant discontent merged with the wider anti-imperialist movement and peasant political activity became an integral part of India’s broader struggle against colonial rule.
