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Peasant Movements in BiharSwami Sahajanand and the Kisan Sabha

Under the zamindari of colonial Bihar, peasants paid rent, begar and illegal levies, and lost their land in bad years. Their protests, from Champaran to the Darbhanga Raj, took organised form in 1929 when Swami Sahajanand Saraswati founded the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha.

Agrarian90%+Lived on farming

of Bihar's colonial population.

Founding1929Kisan Sabha founded

at Sonepur, under Sahajanand.

Strength2,50,000Members by 1938

of the Kisan Sabha.

All India1936AIKS formed

at Lucknow, Sahajanand president.

Mass1 lakhPeasants at Patna

in the 1938 demonstration.

Bakasht850 / 1,000Bighas restored

to tenants at Reora.

Part 1 · Agrarian issues in colonial Bihar

Why Bihar's Peasants Rose

Rent, begar, illegal exactions, eviction, debt and the Great Depression made the peasant's life pathetic under zamindari.

Illustration of peasants in colonial Bihar bringing grain, ghee and goats to a zamindar's courtyard while an agent keeps accounts

A regular feature of colonial India

Peasant movements were regular feature in the colonial India and Bihar was not an exception to it. During the colonial rule, agriculture was the mainstay of more than 90% population of Bihar. Further, due to ruralisation, de-industrialisation the burden on agriculture only increased.

The land revenue system based on permanent settlement was exploitative and oppressive in nature. Overall scenario led to the discontent among the peasant community which was reflected in the peasant movements throughout the colonial period.

The peasant movement assumed organised form after the establishment of the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha under leadership of Sahajanand in 1929.

Exam tip

Mention the agrarian issues only briefly when answering the 2001 question.

The condition of peasants and labourers was very pathetic in colonial Bihar. They had to pay substantial taxes and several kinds of arrears to landlords.
- For example, they gave begar service at the landlord's house, and they were not even entitled to use crops without landlords' approval if the landlord's men put ‘cow-dung’, a symbolic warning, on crops.
The peasants were forced to supply ghee, curd, milk, goats, and rice etc. on various occasions free of cost.
Several zamindars like the Monghyr Raj collected taxes even if the land was under water due to flooding. Peasant assets were confiscated upon their failure to pay rent on time.
- At Simri under Dumraon's zamindari, peasants were ‘made to pay even when they could produce nothing… [and] no remission was granted for their lands getting covered with river sands and becoming unfit for cultivation’.

Part 2 · Peasant movements before the Kisan Sabha

From Tribal Uprisings to the Darbhanga Raj

Agrarian grievances lay behind the tribal revolts, Champaran's indigo satyagraha and the North Bihar movement of 1919-20.

Tribal uprisings

Peasant action was seen in the various movements in Bihar. The Chota Nagpur Uprisings of 1801, Santhal rebellion (1855-56), Munda uprising (1899-1901) etc. were all related to agrarian grievances apart from other grievances.

Champaran Satyagraha

The Indigo cultivators were exploited under the Tin Kathia System.
Raj Kumar Shukla invited Gandhiji to visit Champaran during Lucknow session of Congress. Gandhiji visited Champaran in 1917 and experimented his first satyagraha in India.
Local leaders like Rajendra Prasad, Brij Kishore Prasad, Anugraha Narayan Singh etc. supported Gandhiji. The movement was a success and most of the demands of the peasants were accepted, Tin-Kathia system was abolished.
Yet, this satyagraha was limited to ‘an attempt by the rich peasantry to remove those hurdles in the way of the profitable cultivation of food grains and sugar cane which had been placed by the deposition of the English planters’. However, this could not break the exploitative power of the rulers.
This victory of peasants in completely non-violent way was a unique event. It inspired and motivated peasants of other areas to protest against the oppressive system.

North Bihar Peasant Movement, 1919-1920

It was led by the peasant activist Swami Vidyanand, which attracted extensive support among the people of northern part of Bihar. Babu Sheonandan Singh and Deoki Nandan Sinha were also peasant leaders during this time.

Target
Darbhanga Raj
The movement was primarily focused against the Darbhanga Raj, Bihar's largest zamindari and one of the largest landed estates in British India.
Passes on: begins in Madhubani
begins in Madhubani
Grievances
Agents and forests
It started in Madhubani district as a movement against Darbhanga Raj under the leadership of Swami Vidyanand. The movement was primarily against the atrocities of agents during tax collection process. But it was also for the re-assertion of their right to collect fruits and woods from the forest.
Passes on: Congress stays neutral
Congress stays neutral
Escalation
Armed rebellion
During the movement, the peasants tried to get the support of the Congress but due to the involvement of Darbhanga Maharaj, the Congress preferred to remain neutral. Thus, frustrated and desperate farmers resorted to armed rebellion. This movement spread to other districts like Purnea, Saharsa, Bhagalpur and Munger districts.
Passes on: Raj responds
Raj responds
Outcome
Defused
Maharaja played diplomacy and got formed a Provincial assembly in 1922 and recognised it as the chief mouthpiece of the peasants. But, this organisation didn't get the popular support from the peasants. Later, some demands of the peasants were accepted. Darbhanga Raj could defuse the movement through a combination of concession, propaganda and coercion.

Part 3 · The Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha, 1929-1935

Swami Sahajanand Builds the Kisan Sabha

From unstable local sabhas to the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha of 1929, its pause during civil disobedience and its revival in 1933.

Illustration of a large open-air peasant meeting in rural Bihar in the 1930s, an ascetic speaker in saffron addressing farmers seated on the ground

A nation-wide awakening

The 1930s witnessed a new and nation-wide awakening of Indian peasants to organize for the betterment of their living conditions. Sahajanand Saraswati, an ascetic, played a pivotal role in peasant movement in Bihar and India during this time.

Archival photograph of Swami Sahajanand Saraswati — Swami Sahajanand Saraswati, founder of the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha and first president of the All India Kisan Sabha.Archival photograph · public domain

Before 1929: local Kisan Sabhas

Although there existed some local Kisan Sabhas in the 1920s, they were not stable organisations and mainly functioned for securing the voters' support during the elections.
- E.g. in 1922, Kisan Sabha was organized by Mohammad Zubair and Sri Krishna Singh in Munger to discuss the grievances of peasants.
He saw oppressive systems where landlords were exploiting peasants and agricultural labourers. Following this, he began organising peasants to fight for their rights, which led to the formation of West Patna Kisan Sabha on March 4, 1928.

The Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha, 1929

The organised form of peasant movements only began with the establishment of the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha in 1929 at Sonepur, under the leadership of Sahajanand.

The immediate impetus to form the Kisan Sabha came from the government decision to introduce amendment in the Tenancy Act of 1885 which could have strengthened the Zamindar's power vis-a-vis tenants.
In 1929, a few left-leaning Congress leaders such as Ram Dayalu Singh, Krishna Singh, Baldev Singh, Pandit Yamuna Karjee, Guru Sahay Lal and Kailash Bihari Lal met at Muzaffarpur to discuss agrarian problems. They opposed a proposed amendment in the Tenancy Act of 1885.
The idea of a peasant organisation that could raise peasants' issues and represent them in the government's council came to their minds. Soon after, the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha was founded, and Sahajanand was made its first president.
The Kisan Sabha movement started in Bihar under the leadership of Saraswati who had formed in 1929 the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha (BPKS) in order to mobilise peasant grievances against the zamindari attacks on their occupancy rights, and thus sparking the farmers' movements in India.
Even Sardar Patel visited Bihar to inspire the peasants for the movement.

From class harmony to zamindari abolition

1929
Class harmony
Initially, the BPKS, by Sahajanand's own admission, was meant to promote class harmony, so that the escalating landlord-tenant friction did not jeopardise the nationalist broad front. It was decided that the BPKS would not oppose Congress on the political matters.
Passes on: civil disobedience
civil disobedience
1930
On hold
The Kisan Sabha had to put a hold on its activities when the civil disobedience movement began in 1930. During CDM, the peasants actively participated in violating Salt Law and denying the payment of Chowkidari Tax.
Passes on: 1931
1931
1931
Jehanabad conference
A peasant conference was organised at Jehanabad where zamindars were criticised for their oppressive measures. A committee was formed to investigate into the grievances of the farmers.
Passes on: revival
revival
1933-35
Revived and radicalised
When it was revived again in 1933, it increasingly came under the influence of the socialists, so that by 1935 it adopted abolition of zamindari as one of its programmes.

Active years, 1933-1939

During 1933-1939, the Kisan Sabha was very active in Bihar. It organised many satyagraha struggles, demonstrations and meetings.

In 1933, the Kisan Sabha appointed an enquiry committee which publicised the pathetic condition of the peasants.
The increasing radicalisation of the Kisan Sabha forced the Congress to adopt the populist posture.
The Kisan Sabha identified the nature of land tenures, oppressive rent, credit system, and exploitation of landlords and the British officials as the leading cause of peasants' destitution.
- Therefore, it demanded the abolition of the zamindari system, waiving of debts and a standardised credit system.
He was joined by many other left-wing leaders like Karyanand Sharma, Rahul Sankrityayan, Panchanan Sharma and Yadunandan Sharma in spreading the Kisan Sabha organization to the villages of Bihar.

Part 4 · Campaigns, character and organisation

Rent, Debt and a Mass Organisation

The Kisan Sabha's rent-reduction and debt campaigns, its reformist character, and how it grew through meetings and village units.

The rent issue

After establishment, the Kisan Sabha took up the rent issue. In the Gaya session in 1934, the Kisan Sabha appealed to the government to use Section 112 of the Bengal Tenancy Act for fixing the rent in accordance to the changed circumstances as the tenants found the existing rent quite unbearable.

Sahajanand advocated full remission of rents at least for one year to save the kisans from utter ruin. However, the general emphasis of the Kisan Sabha was on reduction of rent by 50% and the cancellation of arrears.
Widespread agitation followed in favour of the rent reduction call of the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha. The campaigns were strongest in Shahabad, Patna, Gaya, Darbhanga and Munger district.
The raiyats of Munger submitted the petition to the government asking for the reduction of rent.
A number of Kisan Sabha meetings were held in Tikari estate in Gaya. There was a demonstration with the slogan ‘Reduce the rent by half’.
The Kisan Sabha propaganda thus led to rents being withheld at many places by the tenants. But on the other hand, the tenants who had fallen into arrears and were unable to pay rents had to face eviction.
This formed the background of the famous Bakasht struggle launched during 1936-39.

Rural indebtedness

The Kisan Sabha had also taken up the issue of rural indebtedness almost simultaneously with the rent-reduction campaign.

In one of his speeches in 1934 Sahajanand demanded a moratorium on debt for a period of one year. In 1935, the Kisan Sabha took a definite stand on this issue.
The Bihar Provincial Kisan Council passed a resolution considering it necessary that the government should appoint a committee to investigate thoroughly the appalling indebtedness of the rural population with a view to devise ways and means of liquidating agricultural indebtedness.
It also demanded that the highest rate of interest should be fixed by law at 6 per cent per annum. However, in succeeding years, the Kisan Sabha did not press the issue further except for its inclusion in its manifesto of 1936.

Critical view: a reformist movement

The Kisan Sabha had till now concentrated on these agitational themes. It had not yet developed any coherent ideology or even a long-term programme. Its members were linked together due to common grievances and not because of any commitment to ‘revolution’ or structural change.

It can be pointed out here that the character of the movement, at least till the middle of 1936, was purely reformist and its leaders wanted to work well within the given constitutional framework.

Further, it was dominated by the ‘rich’ and the ‘middle’ peasants — a limitation which continued even later and a fact which was accepted by Sahajanand.

Organisation and mass mobilisation

The Kisan Sabha established its units at village, thana and district level to maintain the proper functioning of the Sabha. The primary instruments of mass-mobilization adopted by the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha were meetings, speeches, demonstrations and propaganda.

Sahajanand used to tour extensively in the rural areas and thus, along with his speeches, popularised the Kisan Sabha.
Between 1933 and 1935, about 500 meetings and conferences were organised by the Kisan Sabhas to discuss the various strategies of their movement, and Sahajanand was present at least in 350 meetings out of these. These meetings were enthusiastically attended by the peasants everywhere.
The Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha effectively used meetings, conferences, rallies, and mass demonstrations, including a demonstration of one lakh peasants at Patna in 1938, to popularize the Kisan Sabha programme.
- Swamiji organized several peasant meetings at Gaya, Muzaffarpur, Hajipur etc. It enthused a new consciousness among peasants.
The activities of the Kisan Sabha put pressure on the government to withdraw the Amendment in the Tenancy Bill.

Membership of the Kisan Sabha

Year	Members
1933	33,000
1935	80,000
1936	70,000
1938	2,50,000

The Kisan Sabha records show 33,000 members in 1933, 70,000 in 1936 and 2,50,000 in 1938. Its membership in 1935 is also given as 80,000, increasing to 2,50,000 by 1938.

A broad front of the peasantry

Other demands included the stopping of illegal levies, reduction in canal fee, land revenue, checking corruption among the revenue staff, the prevention of eviction of tenants and the return of Bakasht lands.
This kisan movement sought to construct a broad front of the peasantry. Although the rich occupancy tenants provided it with the leadership and its main support base, it attracted a fair amount of participation from the middle and poorer peasants as well.

Part 5 · The All India Kisan Sabha and the manifestos of 1936

From Bihar to All India: The AIKS and the Kisan Manifesto

In 1936 the peasant movement went national under Sahajanand, and its manifestos shaped the Congress's agrarian programme.

The All India Kisan Sabha, 1936

Since the Congress did not represent peasants' interest, as evident by its refusal to take an anti-landlord and anti-capitalist stand, the peasant leaders proposed the establishment of a separate organisation for peasants at the all India level.
Around the same time the Kisan Sabha movement also gained momentum in Andhra (under the leadership of the CSP activist N.G. Ranga), UP, Orissa etc.
With rise of left forces, gradually the peasant movement intensified and spread across the rest of India. All these radical developments on the peasant front culminated in the formation of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) at the Lucknow session of the Indian National Congress in April 1936 with Saraswati elected as its first President.
Its first conference was organised under the chairmanship of Sahajanand at Lucknow, the same place where the All India Congress Committee (AICC) held its session. This conference discussed the issues of zamindari abolition and ownership of land to cultivators.

The Kisan Manifesto (AIKS), 1936

In 1936 itself, a Kisan Manifesto was finalized at the All-India Kisan Committee session and formally presented to the Congress Working Committee to be incorporated into its forthcoming manifesto for the 1937 elections.

The Kisan Manifesto, which was adopted in August, contained radical demands, such as the abolition of zamindari, graduated income tax on agricultural income, granting of occupancy rights to all tenants and scaling down of interest rates and debts.
The Kisan Manifesto considerably influenced the agrarian programme adopted by the Congress at its Faizpur session.

The Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha manifesto, 1936: basic demands

The Kisan Sabha framed its constitution and issued its manifesto in 1936. It included all peasants whose primary source of income was cultivation, including petty landlords and agricultural labourers. The manifesto outlined the basic and immediate demands of the peasantry. The basic demands included:

the zamindari system should be abolished,
the agrarian debt be wiped off,
a system of land-tenure be established which makes the peasants owners of their holdings, and taxes only those who have income above a minimum, necessary to keep them and their families at a reasonable standard of living,
gainful employment be provided for the landless.

Local issues of immediate relevance

Apart from these basic demands the Kisan Sabha took up local issues of immediate relevance. These included, among others, fixing of tenure, right of free transfer of holdings and unrestricted use of land and their products, provision by legislation for free common pastures, abolition of all systems of rent in kind, cancellation of all arrears of rent, and reduction of rent and canal rates by 50 per cent, limiting the maximum rate of interest to 6 per cent, abolition of chaukidari tax, minimum wages for agricultural workers and the right to vote for every adult.

Part 6 · The Kisan Sabha, the Congress and the election of 1937

Partners and Rivals: The Kisan Sabha and the Congress

The Sabha built the Congress's rural base and won it the 1937 election, but quarrelled over tickets, land reform and recognition.

Illustration of peasants in 1937 Bihar walking along a village path to a polling booth under a banyan tree

What the Congress expected

Once the peasantry became the ‘backbone of the national movement’, the Congress expected the Kisan Sabha to serve and support the Congress for whom national unity and independence from British imperialism were the foremost goals.

What the socialists wanted

On the other hand, the socialist leaders of the Kisan Sabha wanted to transform the Congress into a socialist organisation putting its right-wing leaders aside.

Pressure and conflict

The Kisan Sabha later created an atmosphere that put pressure on the Congress ministry to abolish zamindari system and take land reform initiatives to eradicate rural poverty, and to diminish social and economic disparities.
However, there broke out a conflict between the Congress and the Kisan Sabha when Sahajanand was not included in the Congress Agrarian Enquiry Committee, constituted on Jawaharlal Nehru's recommendation, to enquire into the agrarian crises in Bihar.

The Assembly Election of 1937: a dramatic event in the history of the Kisan Sabha

The Kisan Sabha urged Congress to choose only those candidates who ‘stood for the peasantry’ and ‘unreservedly support its demands’.
The Sabha suggested some names of candidates during ticket distribution for different seats. However, these suggestions were largely ignored by the Congress.
In view of most of the seats given to the enemies of peasants, Sahajanand resigned from the Congress Working Committee. However, BPCC President Rajendra Prasad persuaded him to remain in Congress.
It was difficult for Sahajanand to influence peasants to vote for the Congress as most of its candidates were landlords; nonetheless, he succeeded in doing so. The Kisan Sabha leaders toured across the state to attract peasants and labourers and convinced them to vote for the Congress.
Thus, it is argued that the Kisan Sabha was largely responsible for building a rural base for the Congress in Bihar and contributed significantly to the Congress's overwhelming victory in the 1937 elections.
However, later on, the Congress leaders did not acknowledge the role of Sahajanand and the peasants in the assembly election.

Part 7 · Sahajanand, the Bakasht movement and his legacy

The Bakasht Struggle and Sahajanand's Legacy

In 1937-39 Sahajanand led tenants to reclaim lands lost in the Depression; later he turned left, and he died two years before zamindari ended.

Illustration of Bihar peasants ploughing and sowing a disputed field together at dawn in 1938, a crowd standing guard at the field's edge

Movement for restoration of Bakasht land

Saraswati organised the Bakasht Movement in Bihar in 1937–1938.
The Congress Ministry had initiated legislation for the reduction of rent and the restoration of Bakasht lands.
Bakasht lands were those which the occupancy tenants had lost to zamindars, mostly during the Depression years, by virtue of nonpayment of rent, and which they often continued to cultivate as share-croppers.
The formula that was finally incorporated in the legislation did not satisfy the radical leaders of the Kisan Sabha; its terms are set out on the next page of this series (Peasant Movements II). The Bakasht lands issue became a major ground of contention between the Kisan Sabha and the Congress Ministry.

The militant movement of 1938-39

The peasants staged in 1938-39 a militant movement under the leadership of the Kisan Sabha for the restoration of the bakasht lands.

The movement that spread over large parts of Bihar, was strongest in the Reora and Majhiawan regions of the Gaya district, in Chapra in Shahabad, in Barahiya Tal in Monghyr and among the Santai bataidars in the Kosi Diara region.
- At Reora, in Gaya district, with Yadunandan Sharma at their head, the peasants won a major victory when the District Magistrate gave an award restoring 850 out of the disputed 1,000 bighas to the tenants.
- This gave a major fillip to the movement elsewhere e.g. in Darbhanga, Saran district and Annawari. The movements adopted the methods of Satyagraha, and forcible sowing and harvesting of crops.
- The zamindars retaliated by using lathials to break up meetings and terrorize the peasants. Clashes with the zamindars' men became the order of the day.
Participation cut across caste and class barriers, bringing in both dalit and poorer landless agricultural workers, along with the richer Bhumihar and Rajput peasantry.

Reformist in thrust

In its basic ideological thrust, the movement was “reformist”, as it did not threaten the zamindari system, but only sought to restore some pre-existing rights, and did not take recourse to any radical action, such as a no-rent campaign or withholding of debt repayment.

Radical on the ground

But at the popular level there was enough evidence that the peasants in rural Bihar were successfully challenging the authority of the landlords.

How it ended

The movement on the Bakasht issue reached its peak in late 1938 and 1939, but by August 1939 a combination of concessions, legislation and the arrest of about 600 activists succeeded in subsiding the movement. The movement was resumed in certain pockets in 1945 and continued in one form or another till zamindari was abolished.

Sahajanand's later years

With no concrete outcome coming out of movements, highly frustrated Sahajanand gradually turned to communism. Sometimes he even advocated revolutionary ideas. He was jailed twice for his revolutionary activities.
However, later conflict arose between Sahajanand and the Communists. His resignation from the AIKS in 1945, the plan for a new peasant body and the All India United Kisan Sabha of 1948 are covered in Peasant Movements III.
To promote the interests of farmers he also wrote some books like Kisan kaise ladte hain?, Kisanon ke Dave, Zamindaron ka khatma kaise ho?, Kisan kya karen? etc.

Conclusion

Thus, Swami Sahajanand Saraswati added a new dimension to Kisan Sabha movement and tried to make it mass based so that the authorities' attention could be attracted to the problems of the agrarian community. He along with British government opposed Zamindars as well as Zamindari System. Though he died in 1950, it was his great effort that zamindari system finally got abolished in 1952.

“Though he died in 1950, it was his great effort that zamindari system finally got abolished in 1952.”

— BPSC Mains answer · Swami Sahajanand Saraswati

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