Peasant Movements: Part II, Pre-colonial India

As I had mentioned in the previous post that I have divided the peasant movements in India into four historical periods: the pre-colonial period (before 1757 or the Battle of Plassey), the colonial period (starting from 1757 till the time of Independence), the post-Independence period (starting from 1947 to 1990s) and finally, the post-Liberalisation period (from 1990s till present). We often ignore the first period of peasant movements and usually focus on the movements which have started during the fight for Independence against the colonial rule. The nature and factors resulting in the development of these movements has varied in different time periods. The nature and factors which led to the peasant movements in the pre-colonial period is very much different from the factors and nature of the peasant movements which took place in the colonial and post-Independence period.

The time period for the peasant movements in pre-colonial India has been taken till 1757 AD because with the Battle of Plassey the British East India Company could already set its foot strong on the Indian soil. By this time, the British East India Company had clear intentions to take hold of the agricultural land of the country and make use of the available cheap labour in the country to flourish their industries in England. To a large extent it was possible for the Company to enter into the Indian terrains because of the widespread inequality which was already existing in the Indian society. However, the caste and class inequality in the country did not intensify the way it did during the colonial rule, yet the presence of inequality and social structural division in the economy was well-known to the colonial rulers. During this period the fight for land mainly took place among the Indians themselves. There was no external force or any external power which could have brought this fight between the different class of cultivators and landowners during this period. As we know from the detailed account of Louis Dumont's Homo Hierarchicus , that the social structure of Indian economy was divided into several caste and sub-caste groups. The lowest caste and sub-caste groups constituted of the Sudras or the unclean caste groups. These include caste groups of nai or napit, bagdis in West Bengal, musahars mainly in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, chamar, chandal, dhobi, khateek, jelia kaibartyas and many others who did not own huge tracts of land. Outside this Hindu caste system fell the Tribal people, like the Oraos, Khasis, Mundas, Meena, Adivasis, Sugalis and others, who were not completely absorbed in the Hindu caste system during the colonial rule according to N.K. Bose in his book The Structure of Hindu Society (1975). The tribal community were always left behind from the rest of the caste groups. Even some of the caste groups which fell in the lowest position maintained social distance from the tribal people.

The tribal people have always been referred to as the 'savage' people who stay in the wild regions and do not mix with the rest of the people. However, these tribal people considered the forest regions as their own land and any encroachment in this land was considered to be harmful for the tribal community. Thus any form of trespassing of the land by people belonging to the rest of the Hindu caste system was considered to be a significant threat for the entire tribal community. This was because the forest regions and waste lands were not only considered to be under the possession of the tribal people, but also the tribal community was dependent on this land for their livelihood. They also considered themselves to be the protector of this land. In this way, any such form of encroachment led to serious struggle or fight for existence between the tribal people and the rest of farming community. In the period before 1757 some lesser known movements have taken place in different pockets of India and undivided Bengal between the tribal people and the rest of farming community. These movements did not attract attention of the social scientists because their impact was not very high and their spread was also limited to some local regions.