Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934-47 (Sage Series in Modern Indian History)

Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

Other Volumes in the Same Series: Volume 1: Independence and Partition: The Erosion of Colonial Power in India by Sucheta Mahajan Volume 2: A Narrative of Communal Politics: Uttar Pradesh, 1937–39 by Salil Misra Volume 3: Imperialism, Nationalism and the Making of the Indian Capitalist Class, 1920–47 by Aditya Mukherjee Volume 4: From Movement to Government: The Congress in the United Provinces, 1937–42 by Visalakshi Menon Volume 5: Peasants in India’s Non-Violent Revolution: Practice and Theory by Mridula Mukherjee Volume 6: Communalism in Bengal: From Famine to Noakhali, 1943–47 by Rakesh Batabyal

Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

SHRI KRISHAN

Sage Series in Modern Indian History-VII

SERIES EDITORS Bipan Chandra Mridula Mukherjee Aditya Mukherjee

SAGE Publications New Delhi z Thousand Oaks

z

London

Copyright © Shri Krishan, 2005

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First published in 2005 by Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd B-42, Panchsheel Enclave New Delhi 110 017 www.indiasage.com Sage Publications Inc 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320

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Published by Tejeshwar Singh for Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd, Typeset in 10/12 Palatino at Excellent Laser Typesetters, Delhi and printed at Chaman Enterprises, New Delhi. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Krishan, Shri. Political mobilization and identity in western India, 1934–47/Shri Krishan. p. cm.—(Sage series in modern Indian history; 7) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Political culture—India—Bombay—History—20th century. 2. Political participation—India—Bombay—History—20th century. 3. Social change— India—History—20th century. 4. India—Politics and government—1765– 1947. I. Title. II. Series. JQ416.K75 ISBN:

306.2'0954'7909043—dc22

0–7619–3341–7 (Hb) 0–7619–3342–5 (Pb)

2005

2005001116

81–7829–478–8 (India–Hb) 81–7829–479–6 (India–Pb)

Sage Production Team: Abantika Banerjee, Sunaina Dalaya, Rajib Chatterjee and Santosh Rawat

Contents Series Editors’ Preface List of Tables List of Abbreviations Acknowledgments Introduction ONE:

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside

9 13 15 16 18 47

Land Tenure Systems in the Presidency; The Commercialization of Agriculture and Marketing Conditions; The Impact of the Great Depression; Usurious Capital and its Impact; The Problem of Land Alienation in the Bombay Presidency; The Problem of High Incidence of Rent; The Condition of Agricultural Labourers; Grievances of Forest and Canal Zones; Caste–Class Dynamics and Untouchability.

TWO:

Peasants, Parties and Politics: 1934–47

90

The Spread of Organizational Links from the Urban Centres to the Rural Hinterland: 1934–36; Peasant Conferences: 1935–36; Faizpur and the Consolidation of the Rural Base; Tenant Struggles in the Konkan Region; Tenant Agitation in South Gujarat; The Hali Agitation in Surat; Congress and the Problem of Legality; Mobilization on the Eve of Independence.

THREE: Survival, Contested Power and the Polyphonic Tribal Resistance in Western India: 1934–47 Tribal Resistance to the Expanding Colonial Space; Notions of Law and Crime in Criminogenic Theories;

142

8 Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47 Adaptation/Contestation for Survival; The Sholapur Criminal Tribes Settlement Agitation; Social Reform, Idiom of Ethical Values and Elements of Dissent; Mass Mobilization and Contention for Hegemony; Challenging Economic Subjection through Collective Political Action; The Warli Peasant Struggle; Conclusion

FOUR:

Strategies of Dalit Mobilization: Caste Structure and the Politics of Mobilization

183

Political Antecedents of Dalit Mobilization; The Gandhian Strategy; The Choices in Ambedkar’s Politics

FIVE:

Crowd Vigour and Social Identity: The Quit India Movement in Western India

210

The Theory and Historiography of Crowd Behaviour; Crowd Phenomena and the Nature of the Mass Upsurge in the Bombay Province: 9 August– 10 September 1942; The Decline of Crowd Activity and the Emergence of the Karnataka Pattern; The Social Composition of the Quit India Movement; The Legend of Prati Sarkar in Satara; Conclusion

Conclusion Glossary Bibliography Index About the Author

247 257 261 275 281

Series Editors’ Preface The Sage Series in Modern Indian History is intended to bring together the growing volume of historical studies that share a very broad common historiographic focus. In the 50 years since independence from colonial rule, research and writing on modern Indian history has given rise to intense debates resulting in the emergence of different schools of thought. Prominent among them are the Cambridge School and the Subaltern School. Some of us at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, along with many colleagues in other parts of the country, have tried to promote teaching and research along somewhat different lines. We have endeavoured to steer clear of colonial stereotypes, nationalist romanticization, sectarian radicalism and rigid and dogmatic approach. We have also discouraged the “flavour of the month” approach, which tries to ape whatever is currently fashionable. Of course, a good historian is fully aware of contemporary trends in historical writing and of historical work being done elsewhere, and draws heavily on the comparative approach, i.e., the historical study of other societies, states and nations, and on other disciplines, especially economics, political science, sociology and social anthropology. A historian tries to understand the past and make it relevant to the present and the future. History thus also caters to the changing needs of society and social development. A historian is a creature of his or her times, yet a good historian tries to use every tool available to the historian’s craft to avoid a conscious bias to get as near the truth as possible. The approach we have tried to evolve looks sympathetically, though critically, at the Indian national liberation struggle and other popular movements such as those of labour, peasants, lower

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Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

castes, tribal peoples and women. It also looks at colonialism as a structure and a system, and analyses changes in economy, society and culture in the colonial context as also in the context of independent India. It focuses on communalism and casteism as major features of modern Indian development. The volumes in the series will tend to reflect this approach as also its changing and developing features. At the broadest plane our approach is committed to the Enlightenment values of rationalism, humanism, democracy and secularism. The series will consist of well-researched volumes with a wider scope which deal with a significant historiographical aspect even while devoting meticulous attention to detail. They will have a firm empirical grounding based on an exhaustive and rigorous examination of primary sources (including those available in archives in different parts of India and often abroad); collections of private and institutional papers; newspapers and journals (including those in Indian languages); oral testimony; pamphlet literature; and contemporary literary works. The books in this series, while sharing a broad historiographic approach, will invariably have considerable differences in analytical frameworks. The many problems that hinder academic pursuit in developing societies, e.g., relatively poor library facilities, forcing scholars to run from library to library and city to city and yet not being able to find many of the necessary books; inadequate institutional support within universities; a paucity of research-funding organizations; a relatively underdeveloped publishing industry, and so on—have plagued historical research and writing as well. All this had made it difficult to initiate and sustain efforts at publishing a series along the lines of the Cambridge History series or the history series of some of the best US and European universities. But the need is there because, in the absence of such an effort, a vast amount of work on Indian history being done in Delhi and other university centres in India as also in British, US, Russian, Japanese, Australian and European universities which shares a common historiographic approach remains scattered and has no “voice”. Also, many fine works published by small Indian publishers never reach the libraries and bookshops in India or abroad.

Series Editors’ Preface 11

We are acutely aware that one swallow does not make a summer. This series will only mark the beginning of a new attempt at presenting the efforts of scholars to evolve autonomous (but not indigenist) intellectual approaches in modern Indian history.

Bipan Chandra Mridula Mukherjee Aditya Mukherjee

List of Tables 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6

1.7 1.8 1.9

1.10 1.11

1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18

Land under Various Forms of Tenures in the Bombay Presidency Foreign and Coastal Trade at Bombay Port Exports by Rail from Barsi Taluqa, Sholapur Trade at Chalisgaon Station (East Khandesh) by Railways Sales at Weekly Markets in Satara Taluqa Percentage of Area under Food Grain and Non-Food Grain Crops in the Various Districts of the Bombay Presidency, 1891–1931 Major Irrigation Works: Bombay Presidency Index of Wholesale Prices Area Held by Agriculturists and Non-Agriculturists in the Bombay Presidency: 1917–43 Average Size of Holdings in Various Regions of the Presidency Proportion of Dwarf Holdings (below 5 acres) to the Total Number of Holdings in the Various Districts of the Bombay Presidency Indebtedness in the Bombay Presidency Object and Amount of Debt—Broach District Object and Amount of Debt—Dharwar District Agricultural Indebtedness in Sirsi Taluqa Land Transfers in the Bombay Presidency Proper (excluding Sind) Area Held by Non-Agriculturists and Agriculturists in the Various Districts Land Transfers in Surat District, 1903–04

49 58 58 59 60

62 63 64

66 67

68 71 72 72 73 75 76 77

14

1.19 1.20 1.21

Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

Land Transfers in Kaira and Surat Districts Land under Tenancy in Kaira District Average Rents as a Multiple of Assessment in Kalol And Halol Taluqas of Panch Mahals: 1912–22

78 78

80

List of Abbreviations AICC AIKS BC BLAD BLRAR BPBECR BPCC CSP CWC DCC DM GPCC Home/Sp. INA KPCC MPCC MSA NAI NMML RFU SRBG (NS)

All-India Congress Committee All-India Kisan Sabha Bombay Chronicle Bombay Legislative Assembly Debates Bombay Land Revenue Administration Report Bombay Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee Report Bombay Provincial Congress Committee Congress Socialist Party Congress Working Committee District Congress Committee District Magistrate Gujarat Provincial Congress Committee Home Department/Special Branch Indian National Army Karnataka Provincial Congress Committee Maharashtra Provincial Congress Committee Mahatrashtra State Archives National Archives of India Nehru Memorial and Museum Library Red Flag Union Selections from the Record of Bombay Government (New Series)

Acknowledgments I owe a great deal, for the completion of this work, to my teachers who taught me at the various stages of my educational advance. It would not have been possible for me to acquire literacy if Indian Independence had not expanded the educational facilities manifold. For my poor, illiterate parents, education became a metaphor of social mobility and emancipation. For me, it provided a new focus of aspirations and identity in my childhood and adolescence. It was, however, only gradually that I recognized the structural inequalities rooted in the dual mode of schooling and came to acquire the perception of dominant culture which endows some students with “natural” superiority or “giftedness”. My parents were aware of it intuitively because of their life experience yet they allowed me that “psycho-social moratorium” or the privilege to postpone my “adult” responsibilities without which I would have not reached where I am today. Naturally, my educational advance itself was a product of many contingencies, many ups and downs, of chances gained and opportunities lost. Many of these plots, stories and allegories lie embedded in my identity and are likely to resurface in the act of my writing. With these preliminary remarks, I acknowledge my sincere gratitude to my teacher, Professor Bipan Chandra for guiding me through the pitfalls of my first piece of research. He has been a constant source of motivation. It is his motivation that has impelled me to engage in academic intervention despite the fact that “fortune” has relegated me to a marginal position in the academic world. I am also deeply indebted to the staff of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Library, the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, the Bombay University Library, the National Archives of India and

Acknowledgments 17

the Maharashtra State Archives for the active help rendered by them. I must also thank the secretary, Home Department, Maharashtra State Government for giving me permission to scrutinize intelligence records in the Inspector General’s (IG) Office, Mumbai. The staff of the Record Room at the IG Office, Mumbai, who cooperated with me during the scrutiny of these records, deserve my thanks. I must also express my thanks to Father Simon D’Souza, the warden of St. Xavier’s Hostel and the director, Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), Regional Centre, Mumbai for arranging my accommodation during my stay at Mumbai. I am also especially grateful to my friend Ruseed Wadia for his kind services during this period. To my brother, Brahma Nand, and my parents, I owe a debt which I will never be able to return. I also want to express my gratitude to my friends Debarpita, S.P. Thangavelu, Raman Sinha and S.K. Chahal for their timely help during tense moments. My wife, Anita, and my daughters, Vanya and Muskan, have suffered various degrees of neglect during the revision of this work. They deserve much more than I am able to provide them. Finally, I must express my thanks to Om Prakash for taking care of the typing work at the various stages of this work. Shri Krishan

Introduction Reflections on Language, Culture and History Tolstoy once commented that “history is like a deaf man replying to questions which nobody puts to him”.1 It is, however, a paradox that, of late, history has been vigorously interrogated by other disciplines such as ethno-methodology, psychoanalysis and linguistics. Saussure’s General Course in Linguistics (1916) has proved to be a potent potion for much of contemporary social theory. The literary-cum-linguistic-cum-relativistic turn, which tries to wipe out the distinction between history writing and story writing and stresses equal validity of all “socially-constructed” worlds and visions, relies mainly on Saussure’s doctrines. Saussure’s linguistic model reduces language, everything textual, everything semiotic, all sign systems to a set of indissoluble, necessarily yoked binary units. In linguistic sign, this binary opposition consists of the signifier and the signified. The signifier is a verbal sound or a mark on the page and the signified is the meaning or the accompanying mental concept of something the signifier refers to, out there in the world. The split between the word and the world is central to contemporary social theory described as post-structuralist, deconstructionist or post-modernist. But it is also based on the assumption of a hierarchy in which the word is more important than the world.2 At another level, language is a necessary combination of langue, the system or store of language possibilities, and of parole, the 1

Quoted in Isiah Berlin, Russian Thinkers, London, 1978, p. 242. Valentine Cunningham, In the Reading Gaol: Post Modernity, Texts and History, Oxford, 1994, pp. 17–18. 2

Introduction 19

actual speech acts. Again, in another of Saussure’s formulated binaries, linguistic entities always exist in a dual time zone, at once synchronic and diachronic. In literary critical circles, stress was laid on the signifiers, langue and synchrony while the reference (the signified, the world, the actual language users, real speech acts and the historicity of language) was demoted. Therefore, in contemporary social theory, a signifier does not denote a particular signified object. Every signifier can represent multiple meanings.3 Another important idea of Saussure’s was the arbitrariness of the sign. Saussure’s idea that phonemic entities are arbitrary has been extended, glibly and strangely, to deny that signs are related to the world at all. It is asserted that languages, and so texts, exist quite cut off from the things and the world they seem to refer to.4 It is proclaimed that the world of proliferating information destroys sense and meaning. The implosion of the meaning in the media results in the implosion of the social in the masses. To quote Baudrillard, “. . . s ilent and withdrawn, the masses are no longer a subject (certainly not of history); they can no longer, therefore, be spoken, articulated, represented . . . . ”5 But, does it mean that it is only the modern information-based society, which favours the medium over the message, the idol over the ideal and the simulacrum over the truth? In fact, the process of simulation, the process of replacement of the real with the imaginary, artificial or abstraction from the immediacy of concrete experience is inherent in the very basis of symbolism. Language itself is a system of arbitrary symbols. At one level, any kind of symbolism distances us from the concrete experience yet, at another level, it also helps us in imposing an order and investing a differentiation in the undifferentiated chaos of the world. The understanding of contemporary social theory is based on the premise of the demise of the referent and the subject. The world of language is now perceived as consisting of an infinite number of signifiers which do not necessarily point to a group of signified. It is argued that signifiers can trigger off an infinite number of meanings for different people and the meanings experienced by 3

Ibid., pp. 18–19. Ibid., pp. 19–20. 5 Jean Baudrillard, “The Implosion of Meaning in the Media and the Implosion of the Social in the Masses”, in Kathleen Woodward, ed., The Myths of Information, London, 1980, p. 145. 4

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each person are going to be unique. In the name of “multi-coloured and meretricious” truth, the criteria of all rational criticism are undermined. Such a theory “confers cart blanche on any arbitrary intellectual self-indulgence”.6 This was made possible by substituting Saussure’s binary opposition between the signifier–signified by a sort of free play of signifiers in deconstruction. Derrida postulated the retreat of the signified in his decentring of structures. A signified is to be explained by nomination, by using other signifiers and the signified retreats infinitely, interminably.7 This became the basis of critique of logocentrism, a belief in which the signifiers are used as a transparency yielding an unobstructed view of a privileged and autonomous signified such as truth, reality, being. Infinity and continuum are the symbols for process, for creation. But infinite signification, without any ultimate referents, introduces vagueness in sign. Such vagueness in sign introduces, in the words of John M. Ellis, “Diminution, not augmentation of meaning.”8 Such a social theory, with its regime of floating signifiers, promotes a depthless synchronic history, partly as a result of its destruction of the historical meta-narratives. The notion of reason and truth has been turned into a kind of potentially fictional experience. Hayden White views all history writing as a kind of fiction production. Events narrated within a history, whether immediate or remote, have their existence only in the narrative; they are not identical with the real events of the past. To quote White: “The very distinction between real and imaginary events that is basic to modern discussions of both history and fiction presupposes a notion of reality in which ‘the true’ is identified with ‘the real’ only insofar as it can be shown to possess ‘the character of narrativity’.”9 According to White, certain sign systems are privileged as necessary and natural ways of recognizing a “meaning” in things while the others are suppressed, ignored or hidden in the very process of representing a world to the consciousness. As a result, 6

Ernest Gellner, Anthropology and Politics: Revolutions in the Sacred Grove, Oxford, 1995, p. 242. 7 Roland Barthes, The Semiotic Challenge, Oxford, 1988, p. 210. 8 John M. Ellis, Against Deconstruction, Princeton, 1989, p. 118. 9 Hayden White, The Contents of Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation, Baltimore, 1987, p. 6.

Introduction 21

the text abounds in “meta-linguistic” gestures by which it substitutes another sign system for the putatively extra-linguistic referent about which it pretends to be a straightforward, objective and value-free description.10 However, the techniques of the narrative genre—in history texts, for examples, such devices as footnotes, bibliography, vividness of expression, logical development, coherence with the reader’s other knowledge and so on—establish an index of reality. The higher the index, the more will the events narrated be regarded as representing the past reality. Textual constructivists like Derrida and Berkhofer argue that the only meaning for history is not in the past as such but its representation in and as text. However, the structure of real events in the past comes into relief and is recognized insofar as multiple, independent pieces of evidence stand apart from a particular text that uses them. That is why some histories are “better”—not in the sense of being more literate or discursive, but rather as having more adequately recaptured the past.11 Contemporary social theory merely locks “texts” up in the prison-house of language. Language is treated as self-referring and so are the texts. History, the world of things and people “gets deferred and remains no longer central to life”.12 The development of language is linked to foresight, planning abilities and other such hallmarks of intelligence. William H. Calvin has recently postulated that the brain’s planning of ballistic movements (such as hammering, clubbing and throwing) may have once promoted language, music and intelligence because ballistic movements require a surprising amount of planning. For sudden limb movements lasting less than one-fifth of a second, feedback corrections are largely ineffective because the reaction time is too long. The brain has to determine every detail of the movement in advance. Humans certainly have a passion for stringing things together: words into sentences, notes into melodies, steps into dances, narratives into games with rules of procedure. It might be possible that stringing things together is a core faculty of the brain, one commonly useful to language, story telling, planning, games 10

Ibid., p. 192. Robert J. Richard, “The Structure of Narrative Explanation”, in M.H. Nitecki and D.V. Nitecki, eds, History and Evolution, Albany, 1992, pp. 24–25. 12 Cunningham, In the Reading Goal, p. 24. 11

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Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

and ethics.13 We may add that this includes the synoptic, comprehensive integration of all experience (the Gestalt perception), which is essential for the perception of temporal and spatial continuum by our species. But what does linguistic competence signify? Language acquisition and its use enhance the creative potential of human beings. The articulated speech sounds are organized into distinctive units called phonemes. A group of phonemes are bundled together to constitute syllables. In turn these phonemes and syllables are used as the spoken manifestation of words and of words concatenated in sentences.14 Our ancestors remodelled the apes’ symbolic repertoire and enhanced it by inventing syntax. Wild chimpanzees use about three dozen different vocalizations to convey about the same number of meanings. They may repeat a sound to intensify its meaning, but they do not string together these sounds to add a new word to their vocabulary. Our species also uses the same number of vocalizations or phonemes but we combine them together to make meaningful words. Furthermore, we use strings of strings, such as word phrases that make up a sentence.15 Associated with this capability, we have the capacity to talk about things out of context and to be deliberately or unconsciously ambiguous while conveying messages. At another level of structuring, the basic units of language, the minimum grammatical units, are called morphemes. Morphemes are established and delimited in a language by comparing word forms with one another and noting the recurrent pieces that compose them. Every word is wholly analysable into one or more morphemes. Morphemes may be free or bound. A free morpheme is one that may constitute a word (or free form) by itself; a bound morpheme is one that must appear with at least one other morpheme in a word. Second, morphemes may be divided into roots and affixes. The root is that part of a word which is left when all the affixes have been removed. Root morphemes are potentially unlimited in a language, as addition to vocabulary are in main made by the acquisition of new roots either taken from foreign languages or created for the specific purpose.16 13 William H. Calvin, “The Emergence of Intelligence”, Scientific American, 271, 4, October 1994, pp. 101–7. 14 R.H. Robins, General Linguistics, New Delhi, 1989, p. 18. 15 Calvin, “Emergence of Intelligence”, p. 102. 16 Robins, General Linguistics, pp. 192–97.

Introduction 23

The whole theory of priority of the signifier, according to Jackson, is based on the mistake of supposing that the phoneme is a sign. In Jakobson’s model, the phoneme differs from all other linguistic units precisely in that it has no signification other than its difference from other phonemes. The phoneme is a recognizable unit of sound that makes a perceptual difference between one word and another, but it is not associated with an idea or the signified. It is the word that fits the original definition of a “sign” (as a pair of signifier–signified); the phoneme does not. By itself the phoneme is not even a signifier, for it does not signify anything.17 Therefore, whereas discursive referentiality was regarded as an illusion by the more radical post-structuralists such as Derrida, Kristeva and the later Barthes, for Jakobson, referentiality was simply one of the basic functions of verbal communication. Jakobson’s notions of language undercut Saussure’s privileged model on which the whole later development of the radical semiotic tradition is based. The basic linguistic foundation of sound differences is the distinction of meaning. Jakobson defines a sound difference, which, in a given language, can be used to distinguish meanings as a phonological opposition.18 In Saussure’s model this phonological opposition resides at the level of the phoneme, which are analysed in terms of sequences, in linear terms, not along the axis of simultaneity. In Jakobson’s model, phonemes are formed by their constituents, the distinctive features to which the principle of opposition (phonological)/dichotomy is applicable and which can be analysed in terms of bundles. Such distinctive features of phonemes are simultaneously pronounced. They are also the smallest linguistic elements charged with semiotic value, and therefore, are a manifestation of culture.19 To quote Jakobson: Among the multitude of acoustico-motor possibilities, there is a restricted number upon which language chooses to set a value. Nature presents an infinite number of contingent varieties; the intervention of culture extracts pair of opposite terms. The gross sound matter knows no oppositions. It is human 17 18 19

Leonard Jackson, The Poverty of Structuralism, London, 1991, pp. 73–74. Roman Jakobson, Selected Writings, Paris, 1971, p. 231. Ibid., pp. 420–22.

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thought, conscious or unconscious, which draws from this sound matter the binary oppositions for their phonemic use.20 Once human culture selects some phonemic entities among a multitude of acoustico-motor possibilities, it superimposes its own rules, readjusts, dissects and classifies the gross sound matter. Human beings have the capacity to sustain relationships in absentia. This distinct human sociability, which Lars Rodseth and his associates calls “the release from proximity”, is made possible by our capacity for symbolic communication—a capacity which is responsible for all our learned, adaptable behaviour including technical inventiveness.21 The discovery of the creative potential of the human voice made it easier to develop writing systems. Writing made the abstract, sequential and classificatory examination of phenomenon undemanding. Thinking is more formulaic, patterned and in mnemonic terms in orality-based cultures. Moreover, the human tendency to reduce all experiences to visual analogues, which is incipient in oral cultures, increases markedly in chirographic (writing) and typographic (print) cultures.22 At the social level, writing helped in promoting new technologies and extended possibilities of management, commerce and production. Writing is also related to the emergence of literate specialists who did not participate in the primary production. Finally, writing boosted the development of the bureaucratic state.23 However, despite the invention and proliferation of the written word, the cultures which existed before the invention of print mainly remained dependent on the oral modes of communication. Literacy itself remained limited. The opposition between individuality and community symbolized by the term “print” and “voice” emerged with the technology of print. In the technology of print, we read and individualize its users, while oral modes of 20

Ibid., p. 423. Lars Rodseth, W. Wrangham, Elisa M. Harrigan and Barbara B. Smuts, “The Human Community as a Primate Society”, Current Anthropology, 32, 3, 1991, pp. 221–54. 22 Jack Goody analyses changes in mental and social-structures incidental to the use of writing. See Jack Goody, The Domestication of the Savage Mind, Cambridge, 1977, and also Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, London, 1982. 23 Jack Goody, The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society, Cambridge, 1986. 21

Introduction 25

communications communalize, acculturate and integrate individuals into a tradition. But with writing, and more so with print, the performer was detached from the audience, from the community. Print distanced the author or the performer from the social milieu, thus, creating a “self-determining subject” and his “domain of freedom”. The modern bourgeois notion of the individual, therefore, required not only the desanctification of nature; it also required the desanctification of social relationships.24 Languages have often been employed by the dominant groups to mystify and manipulate the powerless. It is frequently embroiled with other forms of power. For instance, Latin in Europe and Sanskrit in India were long used to maintain the power of the clergy and other professional men. Peter Burke lays down four rules for social historians while analysing the role of language in society: These are: (a) Different social groups use different varieties of language. (b) The same people employ different varieties of language in different settings. (c) Language reflects the society or culture in which it is spoken. (d) Language shapes the society in which it is spoken.25 Most of the debates in human sciences centres around the mode of transmission of culture in society. Raymond Williams defines culture as “a realized signifying system”,26 thus widening the scope of culture to mean all human actions and relationships. So by culture we mean the symbolic, learned, ideational aspects of human society. The symbolic vocabulary elaborates out into other forms like customs, conventions, habits and even material artifact. E.P. Thompson also strives to dissolve the wall between the material and the discursive. For him, material needs are simultaneously cultural values.27 The pre-modern hermeneutic of “natural artifice” implied that social and cultural arrangements were dictated by 24

Eric Leed, “Voice and Print: Master Symbols in the History of Communication”, in Kathleen Woodward, ed., The Myths of Information, London, pp. 41–61. 25 Peter Burke and R. Porter, eds, The Social History of Language, Cambridge, 1987. 26 Raymond Williams, Culture, Glasgow, 1981, p. 207. 27 E.P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays, New York, 1978, pp. 110, 163–64, 171.

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nature. Decartes and other thinkers of Enlightenment replaced it with “human artifice”.28 Now, man-made constructs assumed extraordinary importance and we started to live in our own fabricated buildings instead of God-given houses for humanity. The rupture between culture and nature was a product of technological and other associated social changes in the eighteenth century. Machines were then perceived as devouring the “nature of man”. This perception is typified in Marx’s notion of alienation and in the Romantic idealist tradition of Carlyle, Arnold and Coleridge as the “loss of folk purity of past era”. It finds an echo in the Frankfurt School, in Benjamin’s Age of Mechanical Reproduction and in Baudrillard’s evocation of post-modernism with its horror of simulacra.29 Psychoanalysis, in its diverse forms, is also an attempt to restore the “natural” as it regards culture as the repressed instinctual life (either in the form of individual Oedipal feelings or in the form of Jung’s archetypes of collective unconsciousness). Earlier evolutionists such as Morgan, Taylor and Frazer generated certain fundamental propositions concerning the nature of man as a social being. They portrayed a unified vision of human history, which follows a common route, a grand human tradition. This was later challenged by the cultural relativism and functionalism of Boas, Malinowski and Radcliffe Brown. The new paradigm was an espousal of the particularity and stressed the situation-specific meaning of all aspects of culture and social actions.30 The belief in the universality of human cognitive action reemerged in a disguised form in Levi Strauss whose structuralism was an attempt to analyse incessant variability of cultural forms as a surface manifestation of a series of deeply internalized master patterns at the deep structural level of cognition.31 Geertz vilifies 28

Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, for instance, defined man as “the possessor of treasure of signs which he has the faculty of multiplying into infinity, he is also able to assure the retention of his acquired ideas, to communicate them to other men, and to transmit them to his successors as a constantly expanding heritage”. (Quoted from Marvin Harris, The Rise of Anthropological Theory, New York, 1968, p. 14.) 29 Chris Jenks, Culture, London, 1993, p. 7. 30 This functionalism was essentially an individualization of cultural response as cultural needs were related to individual needs for nutrition, reproduction and security. 31 Jenks, Culture, pp. 31–38; Charlotte Seymour-Smith, Macmillan Dictionary of Anthropology, London, 1986.

Introduction 27

such attempts by anthropologists “to take refuge in bloodless universals”.32 Others, in order to describe and analyse cultural transmission and change, invented the notions of diffusion and acculturation. Neo-functionalism, which emerged in the form of ecological anthropology and cultural materialism, explained customary practices in terms of their practical payoff. It was postulated that cultural behaviour promoted survival and procreative success under particular local conditions.33 Adam Kuper outlines the main points of divergence between the biological and the cultural school regarding transmission of human culture. While the biological school advocates universal human nature, genetically transmitted, largely shared with other primates and with proven evolutionary advantages, the cultural school underscore human adaptability and differences in customs and institutions between communities, the autonomous trajectory of cultural development and the cumulative value of the human cultural heritage.34 In his view, cultural development displays “quick inventiveness, rapid diffusion, great migrations, local cultural differentiation and marvelous artistic creativity”.35 Durham also believes that culture, by allowing human beings to modify their environment, can also influence the direction of natural selection.36 This assumes significance with the arrival of technology, which is capable of tinkering with our genetic endowment itself. Initiated by Samuel Morse’s invention of the telegraph (1844), Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone (1876), the development of the technology of camera and film, Marconi’s discovery of the transmission of sound using light waves rather than wires (1895), the integration of sound and sight in cinema in 1927, the spread of television after the Second World War, the introduction 32

C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, London, 1975, p. 43. Typical representatives of this are Marwin Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches: The Riddles of Culture, New York, 1978 and Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture, New York, 1979. As such this approach fails to understand the non-utilitarian imperatives of cultural practices. It also fails to resolve the frequently apparent contradiction between the species survival mechanisms and planned and purposeful human activities. 34 Adam Kuper, The Chosen Primate: Human Nature and Cultural Diversity, Cambridge, 1994, pp. 4–5. 35 Ibid., p. 91. 36 William H. Durham, Co-evolution: Genes, Culture and Human Diversity, Stanford, 1991, pp. 154–225. 33

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of satellite communication in the 1970s and the widespread use of computing machines for storing and retrieving information at amazingly high speed all paved the way for the stage of mass communication. But what are the implications of the proliferation of mechanisms for the dissemination of symbols? The advocates of globalization wish us to believe that we are reaching a stage of a single world economy, culture and political system after a long history of dispersal and differentiation. Transnational migration, global marketing, electronic media and tourism effect implosion of peripheries into centres. The parameters of “global” and “local” become indistinct, as they have become permeable constructs due to an increase in the volume and intensity of flows of information, symbols, capital and commodities in transnational spaces.37 Postmodernity is also defined as “the condition of the intimation of boundlessness, i.e., without the ossified and reified modern forms”.38 It perceives the world as a plurality of heterogeneous spaces and temporalities. It also questions the notion of a secular heaven to be realized through science and technology. It is a kind of transcendence of fixed identities. In the post-modern culture, the boundaries between science/rhetoric, fact/fiction and knowledge/prejudice blur and collapse. The shift from meta-narratives to local narratives and from general theories to pragmatic strategies suggests that in place of assuming a universal mind or a rational knowing subject, we imagine multiple minds, subjects and knowledges. The decentring of subject proceeds with a parallel decentring of the social world.39 In a sense, then, postmodernism relegates history to the dustbin of an obsolete episteme. It is about autonomy and human creativity that we talk about in history. The discourse on post-history is also not new. The posthistory diagnosis sees “the social formation as marked to its core 37

Kearney identifies three main elements of this globalization. These are: (a) Time–space compression in the capitalist political economy. (b) “De-territorialization” or detachment of production, consumption, politics and identities from “local” places. (c) “Peripheralization’ at the core through migration, media, etc.

See M. Kearney, “The Local and the Global: The Anthropology of Globalization and Transnationalism”, Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 1995, pp. 547–65. 38 Keith Tester, The Life and Times of Post-modernity, London, 1993, p. 28. 39 Steven Seidman, ed., The Postmodern Turn: New Perspectives on Social Theory, Cambridge, 1994, pp. 1–14.

Introduction 29

by an objective, power-structured process of standardization, which no longer promises any qualitative movement but is moving towards petrification”.40 The end of boundaries and meanings, in the final analysis, ends up homogenizing the subject. But is not the reception of “post-industrial conditions” differentiated along the lines of gender, class and race? Is not post-modernity, that is, a lack of linear temporal perspective and the notion of the de-realization of the emancipatory potential, sustainable only when there is an abundance of resources and at the expense of the perpetual entrapment in the conditions of scarcity of other groups of competitors (who are modern or pre-modern). The contemporary cultural experience is like insanity or perhaps like a nightmare, the sister of insanity. Shall we give our ears to Walter Benjamin’s advice—“Do not start from the good old things but the bad new ones.”41

Recapitulating Historiography A historian has to choose from the chaotic mass of facts from the past. Adorno and Maslow’s reaction against the primacy of the method of ordering and classification is justified due to the excessive rigidity of science-oriented methods and due to the undue reliance on quantification.42 But selection of data from the past, whether quantitative or qualitative, requires some degree of classification and ordering. It also involves a bias in the selection of facts and their interpretation, hence, a methodology. Our passion for the reconstruction of the past can be satisfied, at different times and to different purposes, in infinitely different ways. All the worlds, thus created, might contain some elements of truth or reality, as reality is always relative. But we have to choose a model of reconstruction from among a variety of alternative models. As Goodman puts it, “while the readiness to recognize alternative models of worlds may be liberating, and suggestive of new avenues of explorations, a willingness to welcome all worlds builds 40

Lutz Niethammer, Post Histoire: Has History Come to an End?, London, 1992, p. 148. 41 Walter Benjamin, Understanding Brecht, London, 1973, p. 121. 42 Theodor W. Adorno, Against Epistemology, Oxford, 1982, pp. 43–44; Abraham H. Maslow, The Psychology of Science, London, 1966, pp. 9–30, strongly reproach the growing tendency towards “scientificization” and “methodolatory”.

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none”.43 According to Gottschalk, history writing is partly a subjective process of re-creation. Historical knowledge is limited by the incompleteness and subjective nature of the records themselves as well as by the personal bias of the historian. Therefore, the historian’s task is to achieve verisimilitude with regard to a perished past, that is, to get as close an approximation of the truth as possible.44 The concept of evolution, a bridge between the natural and the social sciences, has proved to be a cogent image in depicting a kind of historical progression from simpler to more complex societal forms. Spenser’s social Darwinism unified inorganic, organic and superorganic evolution. The early hierarchical classificatory scales of human society were not simpler descriptive morphologies. A judgemental process based on moral and ethnocentric bias was implicated in them. In Marxism, the development of productive forces plays a role similar to that of natural selection in Darwinism. This accounts for “Marxian Lamarckianism” as productive forces are acquired assets.45 However, Marx’s evolutionary view is markedly different from the crude, reductionistic efforts of nineteenthcentury “Social-Darwinists” and twentieth-century socio-biologists. Although many Marxists have discarded the hypostasization of treating the evolutionary sequence as a model of societal development, the methodologies of general history and evolutionary biology are treated as homologous.46 However, homology is only a formal resemblance between any two models. It does not necessarily mean that the explanation of one will also be applicable to the other. “The actual pathway of life’s history”, in the words of Gould, includes “too much chaos and contingency—a long chain of unpredictable antecedent states”,47 that timeless laws of nature do not apply to it. If history ever follows a law or set pattern, it is 43

Nelson Goodman, Ways of World Making, Sussex, 1978, p. 21. Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method, New York, 1969, pp. 42–48. 45 Kuper, The Chosen Primate, p. 96. 46 D.P. Chattopadhya, for example, remarks that “human life, together with its culture, is itself an orderly disclosure, or evolutionary product of nature”. See D.P. Chattopadhya, “On the Nature of Interconnection between Science, Technology, Philosophy and Culture”, in D.P. Chattopadhya and Ravinder Kumar, eds, Science, Philosophy and Culture, Vol. I, New Delhi, 1995, p. 18. 47 Stephen J. Gould, “The Evolution of Life on the Earth”, Scientific American, 271, 4, October, 1994, p. 86. 44

Introduction 31

akin to what Lorenz calls “the zigzag path of phylogensis”.48 Such a notion of history is based on the assumption that “nothing extant has ever existed before, nothing that happens has happened before”.49 Both in the evolutionary growth of species and in historical development, the interaction of biological and cultural programmes result in a polymorphic social organism. As there are continuities and gradual adaptations in the process of evolution of species, so there are continuities and gradual social transformations in history. In such a vision of history, the gradual changes cannot be reduced to “a process through which a leap is prepared and evoked”.50 Marxist social history focused on the study of pre-industrial and industrial lower classes—peasants, artisans, rural labourers, workers and their popular forms of actions. In the process, it restored them as meaningful historical actors and changed their image as a disembodied abstraction, “mob” or “swinish multitude”. In the process of putting faces on the crowd, it also discovered the ignored sources like criminal, police, judiciary and demographic records and made use of oral history.51 This also led to cultural-ideological concerns so as to trace the origins and course of ideas that grips the masses. Rude argued that transitional “popular ideology” had its own typical features and it was neither reducible to “class-consciousness” nor to residues of socially outmoded forms of expressions. He conceived of popular ideology as a sort of amalgam, a rich and complex formation drawing both on direct lived experience and expressive traditions of the subordinated groups and more sophisticated, structural ideas drawn from the dominant class ideology.52 In this way, Marxist social history created a new subjectivity which did not deal with disembodied and desocialized data, but was related to social structures, mechanisms of social change and broad socio-economic “conjonctres”, that is, trends and cycles. Therefore, Marxist social history made 48

Konrad Lorenz, The Waning of Humaneness, London, 1989, p. 27. Ibid., p. 19. 50 Georgi Plekhanov, Selected Philosophical Writings, Vol. III, Moscow, 1976, p. 602. 51 E.J. Hobsbawm, “History From Below—Some Reflections”, and F. Krantz, “George Rude and History from Below”, in Frederick Krantz, ed., History from Below: Studies in Popular Protest and Popular Ideology, Oxford 1988, pp. 1–13 and pp. 14–24 respectively. 52 George Rude, Ideology and Popular Protest, London, 1980. 49

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a heroic attempt to rescue certain social groups from the obscurity to which they had been consigned by “the enormous condescension of posterity”.53 This was done without taking recourse to usual Marxist mechanical determination. Thompson, for example, did not see any innate irrationality in the actions of pre-industrial crowds and did not link hunger and high food prices mechanically to the crowd actions. Instead, he discovered the crowd’s belief in the moral necessity of the economic system to operate to general advantage.54 Recently, drawing on the linguistic turn, Patrick Joyce and James Vernon tell new stories of transformation of collective identities and social change and reject “the modernist grand narrative of class”. They claim to focus attention on the decentred subject and the discursive techniques by which the narrative forms of language construct political subjectivities as stable and coherent.55 Vernon asserts that class is a political construct that “could only ever be comprehended through language”,56 as “there are no specific class languages—as all political language is multi-vocal so as a seemingly class language could be given a political edge, just as apparently populist languages could be read and used from a specific class perspective”.57 However, class is revealed in language not by “a particular vocabulary or formation of meanings but by contrary motion . . . the ways in which working people seek to create an oppositional vocabulary within the languages of their oppressors”.58 It is the people, through their collective and human actions, who create consciousness and identity. The search for “pure” class languages can only lead to the discovery of disembodied voices. 53

E.P. Thompson, Making of the English Working Class, New York, 1968, p. 12. E.P. Thompson, “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century”, Past and Present, 50, 1971, pp. 76–136. 55 Typical representatives of this trend are the following works: 54

Patrick Joyce, Visions of the People: Industrial England and Questions of Class, 1840–1914, Cambridge, 1991; Patrick Joyce, Democratic Subjects: The Self and the Social in Nineteenth-Century England, Cambridge, 1994; James Vernon, Politics and the People: A Study in English Political Culture c. 1815–1867, Cambridge, 1993. 56 Vernon, “Who is Afraid of the Linguistic Turn? The Politics of Social History and its Discontents”, Social History, 19, 1994, p. 89. 57 Vernon, Politics and the People, p. 311. 58 Marc W. Steinberg, “Culturally Speaking: Finding a Common between PostStructuralism and the Thompsonian Perspective”, Social History, 21, 2, May 1996, p. 206.

Introduction 33

Historians of the Annales tradition, Lucien Febvre, Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel, Robert Mandrou, Jacques Le Goff and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, rejected a narrow event-oriented narrative history. In place of the event-oriented, episodic and chronologicallyorganized history of politics of nation states, social and cultural history assumed a new centrality in their works. The Annales School exhibited interest in the whole life of people, in their material and moral culture, the total development of their sciences, arts, beliefs, industries, trade, social divisions and groupings. They also examined sources more critically and broadened the scope of what constituted a historical source. Prior to 1945, the Annales journal, The Annales d’Histoire, Économique et Sociale, stressed qualitative structural history. However, renamed in 1946 as Annales, Économies, Societiés, Civilizations, it was more biased towards a quantitative economic history and demography. However, they were against any rigid compartmentalization and generally adopted an interdisciplinary approach, which wanted to establish a close relationship between political order, social structure, mentality, feelings and ideas.59 The Annales approach in the 1960s and 1970s resembled the naïve positivist stance. They focused on topics that lent themselves to quantification such as the study of historical demography. They were generally suspicious of any intrusive ideology. Moreover, neglect of political history resulted in the relegation of power to the dust of ephemeral events. The notion of mentalities60 was used by the historians of the Annales School and some Marxists to describe what is held to be distinctive about the thought process or set of beliefs of groups or of whole societies at particular periods of time, and again in describing the changes or transformations in such processes. Peter Burke ascribes three general features to the mentalities approach: (a) The focus is on the ideas and beliefs of collectivities rather than individuals. 59 This has been summarized from George G. Iggers, New Directions in European Historiography, London, 1985, pp. 44–58. 60 Marc Bloch, The Royal Touch: Sacred Monarchy and Faith Healing, Montreal, 1972; Albert Soboul, The Sans Cullotes, New York, 1972; Georges Lefebvre, The Great Fear of 1789: Rural Panic in Revolutionary France, New York, 1973, refer to a “collective mentality”.

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(b) The inclusion, as important data, of unconscious as well as conscious assumptions. (c) The focus is on the structure of belief and their interrelationship, as opposed to individual beliefs taken in isolation.61 G.E.R. Lloyd describes several problems likely to be encountered in using this concept of a shared mentality of a group or society. At the conceptual level, inference to belief from statements of beliefs itself is problematic. There is a problem in inferring the underlying thought processes from the beliefs. The notion of mentalities also plays down individual variations. This is important because only individuals think, not collectivities. It is doubtful, whether the world view, preoccupation and patterns of behaviour of a particular historical period or a culture are sufficiently determinate and distinctive to tell us of an underlying mentality. Moreover, if supposed stability, pervasiveness of beliefs and attitudes justify the notion of a mentality; changes in these structures over time becomes problematic. Does one mentality supersedes another? How does shift in mentalities occur? Or should one posit a weaker, looser notion of mentality to facilitate permeability over time?62 Douglas Hayes and Gyan Prakash63 credit James Scott for shifting attention away from confrontationalist protest, organized struggle and extraordinary movements of collective protests to “everyday forms of resistance” or “resistance without protest”. For these forms, the subordinated does not need any dramatic or conscious ideology as it manifests in such acts as avoidance, escape, ignoring the injunctions of the dominant, foot-dragging, slander, arson, sabotage, dissimulation, pilfering and so forth.64 James Scott also rejects the Gramscian notion of “hegemony” but retains the assumption of the autonomous, self-determining subject, now in the arena of everyday social life. First, there is no 61

Peter Burke, “Strength and Weaknesses of History of Mentalities”, History of European Ideas, 7, 1986, pp. 439–51. 62 G.E.R. Lloyd, Demystifying Mentalities, Cambridge, 1990. 63 Douglas Hayes and Gyan Prakash, eds, Contesting Power: Resistance and Everyday Social Relations in South Asia, Delhi, 1991, pp. 1–11. 64 See James C. Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in South East Asia, New Haven, 1976 and his Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Form of Resistance, New Haven, 1985.

Introduction 35

novelty in Scott’s analysis. Robert Redfield had stressed the role of “self and community insulation devices” in peasant cultures.65 Skinner also pointed out avoidance techniques such as withdrawal by peasants from participating in unstable societal institutions and the tactics of “keeping market at an arm’s length”.66 Moreover, the role of overt, collective and organized forms of popular mobilizations in creating a sense of identity among participants in normoriented mobilizations cannot be ignored. Third, the Gramscian notion of hegemony is not to be read as “a simple, interiorization of dominant ideology” but as “a dynamic process of establishment of unstable equilibrium which is shaped in significant ways by the actions and reactions of the subaltern classes”.67 Finally, Scott’s analysis draws heavily from Foucault and Gidden’s notions of power, which themselves are problematic. Foucault refers to the creation of carceral organizations, prisons, asylums and workhouses where “deviants” are removed from society and disciplined through the training of body and surveillance. In this, he perceives a major transformation in the modes of exercising power in comparison with public display, torture and the destruction of the body, which characterized earlier forms of punishment. 68 Giddens also emphasizes a shift from the manifest use of violence to the pervasive use of administrative power—the general extension of surveillance into everyday life, a practice that emerges with industrialism where the workplace itself becomes a site of surveillance.69 Scott’s “loci of resistance” are enmeshed in this notion of “diffused power”. What institutionalized forms of power support and sustain this diffused, fragmented power? Will the contestation between the dominant and the dominated through everyday, mundane, individualized acts ever be able to subvert and reverse the power relationship? Or will such individualized acts empowers or further atomizes the subordinated groups? Such questions remain unanswered. Such acts are simply privileged and glorified in place of the organized, overt acts of mobilization. It is only the latter types of protests and mobilizations that creates loci of 65

Robert Redfield, Peasant Society and Culture, Chicago, 1960, p. 29. G. William Skinner, “Chinese Peasants and Closed Community: An Open and Shut Case”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 13, 1971, pp. 270–81. 67 John Gledhill, Power and its Disguises: Anthropological Perspectives on Politics, London, 2000. 68 Michael Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison, Harmondsworth, 1979. 69 Anthony Giddens, The Nation State and Violence, Cambridge, 1985. 66

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identification or shared identity among the powerless group, thereby empowering them. Scott defines the disguised, unobtrusive forms of resistance at the material, status and ideological realms of political struggle as “infra-politics”.70 The traditional “sub-culture” theory of delinquency, the political offspring of functionalist-anomie theory and the end of ideology era, celebrated and glorified symbolic and magical forms of resistance. Individual forms of attacks, subversions, overturning, defiance, violation and contempt for the dominant values were overemphasized in such protests. Sources of collective self-identification based on class and emancipatory goal were abandoned. In the absence of potentially counter-hegemonic solutions, signs borrowed from a real or imaginary past or present and reworked into a new ensemble, which expressed its opposition obliquely or ironically, transferred their meanings. These were stylistic resistances and style itself is a bricolage of inconsistencies.71 Scott’s “infra-politics” is a continuation of these trends in a new context. K. Thompson defines ideology in Althuserian terms as a tool of constructing subjects or subjectivities. Hence it is related to structures of domination and social-reproduction. However, Althuser’s notion of “interpellation of subjects” does not carry mechanical implications. People do not recognize themselves automatically in terms of categories by which they are hailed. They negotiate their own identities. The “imagined community” of the nationhood is one such site of ideological contestation and powerstruggle.72 John Shotter establishes a kind of homology between the imaginary social constructs of identity and nationalism and the imaginary numbers of mathematics. The main properties of imaginary numbers are: (a) Their incompleteness, unimaginableness and extraordinariness in the sense that they are on the way to being something other than what they are. 70 James C. Scott, Domination and the Art of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, New Haven, 1990, p. 183. 71 See Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of Mods and Rockers, Oxford, 1980; S. Hall and T. Jefferson, eds, Resistance through Ritual: Youth Subcultures in Post-war Britain, London, 1976; D. Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style, London, 1979; Paul Willis, Learning to Labour, London, 1978; for a variety of such symbolic and stylistic resistances. 72 Kenneth Thompson, Beliefs and Ideology, London, 1986, pp. 16–61.

Introduction 37

(b) They are non-locatable in space and time but have real attributes in the sense of functioning in people’s action in enabling them to achieve results. (c) They subsist only in people’s practices and are negotiatable, contestable in the human domain. However, imaginary mathematical numbers differ from social imaginary construct in that the former lacks a contested nature.73 The diffused notion of power may be helpful in the analysis of such contestation where imaginary constructs are involved. The “imagined community” is a fluid, “negotiated order”, containing fragmentary, inchoate and incomplete images and iconography of subordinate classes and a coherent, internally-consistent ideology of the dominant. If the nation is seen as an imagined community, then the state, the real agency of social control, is a solid condensation of power that requires subjects and subjection. Therefore, the Weberian model of rational administration and the Foucaultian notion of power, both emphasize not shared values or “imagined communities” as the major mechanism of social-control, but surveillance, classification of subjects, measurement, etc., through various agencies of the modern state. Gellner relates the notion of “social-construction of reality” to the failure of the social sciences to offer powerful generalizations so that all such socially-constructed worlds appear to be equal. Ethno-methodology emphasizes the social role of the discourse; psychoanalysis privileges motives of the human agents; Wittgenstein’s philosophy stresses the social nature of all linguistic concepts, and phenomenology validates the “lived experience”. In all these trends, truth-claims depend on the discretion of the practitioners, on their interpretations and not on any objective criteria.74 Paul Routledge broadly categorizes two paradigms in studying social movements: (a) The resource mobilization approach which focuses on opposing interests, goal, purposes, organization, leadership, resources and opportunities available to social movements; 73

John Shotter, Cultural Politics of Every Day Life: Social Constructionism, Rhetoric and Knowing of Third Kind, Buckingham, 1993, pp. 199–200. 74 Gellner, Anthropology and Politics, pp. 247–51.

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and even less visible latent forms of organization and communication. (b) The identity-oriented paradigm that analyses how collective actors strive to create identities and solidarities they defend. This approach also emphasizes the role of power and dominance and cultural orientation in shaping a movement.75 Ramchandra Guha, in a similar overview of social movements, identifies the structural-organizational and the political-cultural paradigms. The former is concerned with the analysis of largescale historical processes, the role of political parties and the specific goals of a movement. The latter emphasizes systems of political legitimacy, that is, the interplay between ideologies of domination and subordination and the expressive dimensions of social protests, especially its cultural and religious idioms, and the nature of local class relations.76 Routledge tries to add another dimension to the study of resistance—the dimension of location, territoriality and spatial practices, that is, the use of space and conflict over it. He delineates three constituent elements in the concept of place. Locale refers to the setting in which everyday social interactions and relations are constituted. Location is defined as a geographical area encompassing the locale as defined by social, economic, political processes occurring at a wider scale, that is, the impact of macro-order on the locale. Sense of place refers to the local structure of feeling or subjective orientation that can be engendered by living in a place.77 Routledge’s terrains of resistance are thus, “an interwoven web of historical, political, cultural, economic, ecological, social and psychological conditions and relationships— a site of contestation among differing beliefs, values and goals that are place-specific”.78 Studies of popular movements generally tend to focus attention on the mutinous episodes and periods of violent stir. The historians of the “subaltern” school especially challenged the notions of “popular passivity and easy acquiescence to elite manipulation” 75

Paul Routledge, Terrains of Resistance: Non-violent Social Movements and Contestation of Place in India, Connecticut, 1993, pp. 22–23. 76 Ramchandra Guha, The Unquiet Woods, Delhi, 1989. 77 Routledge, Terrains of Resistance, pp. 27–28. 78 Ibid., p. 36.

Introduction 39

and highlighted the ability of the “subaltern” groups to formulate an insurgent and autonomous self-consciousness.79 The traditional, sporadic, catastrophic and violent modes of activities of “subalterns” have been much idealized and it has been assumed that the appeal of the violent, destructive and rebellious moods, “the semiotic of insurgency” is almost universal.80 Due to their privileging of the dramatic and confrontational, they tend to ignore the normal times when masses were under the spell of hegemonic ideologies. In their quest to study “the cultural autonomous subjects”, they tend to ignore structural factors and view consciousness as independent of structural contradictions. The “subaltern” historiography, thus, misses the dialectical link between the leader and the led through the mediation of ideology and organization. The “subaltern” subjectivity does not exist in any inter-stellar or inter-cultural void. It resides at the intersection of the dominant and the subordinate domains. The “subaltern” historiography assumes a kind of unique collective subjectivity of the oppressed and dominated classes, which acts in opposition to the “élite”, or nationalist ideology of “class-collaboration” or “class-conciliation”.81 The binary fission of the entire lived and perceived social experience into élite and subaltern categories is not very convincing. It posits the subaltern identity as something rigid, timeless and an undifferentiated conglomerate as though it is not “simultaneously conditioned by, and conditions, the structures of domination”.82 Later on, however, “subaltern” historiography moved towards the exploration of continuum of intermediate attitudes between subordination and revolt. In the words of Ajay Sakaria, “Insurgency is just one form of resistance, it is not an always present option: both the idea of insurgency and the community of insurgents have to be constructed, and as times change, constructed 79

See Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography”, in R. Guha, ed., Subaltern Studies IV, New Delhi, 1985, pp. 330–65; Rosalind O’Hanlon, “Rediscovering the Subject: Subaltern Studies and History of Resistance in Colonial South Asia”, Modern Asian Studies, 22, 1, 1988. 80 Ranajit Guha, Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India, New Delhi, 1983, pp. 135–66. 81 Ranajit Guha describes the nationalist bourgeoisie as “pliant, accommodative” (p. 5) and Gandhi as “the most important of all the ideologies of class collaboration within the nationalist movement” (p. 36). See Ranajit Guha, Dominance without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India, Delhi, 1998. 82 Hayes and Prakash, Contesting Power, p. 9.

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anew.”83 Sumit Sarkar visualizes the shifting trajectory of “Subaltern Studies”, which through its repudiations of “Enlightenment modernity”, a growing interest in culturalism and “valorization of fragment”, has recently turned towards questions of identity politics. The anti-statist discursive mode also shifts from subaltern through peasant and peasant community to community in general, which is sometimes defined in religious terms.84 Partha Chatterjee argues: The language of organized politics often characterizes such forms of [communal] mobilization as an alliance of various classes or strata within the peasantry, but ideologically the notion of alliance is hardly ever relevant in collective actions of this kind, it is always the concept of community as a collective whole, a form of authority incapable of being broken down into constituent parts, which shapes and directs peasant politics vis-à-vis the state.85 But, “the community” cannot be treated as a homogenized construction, which assumes equality among members, free of internal cleavages. This could mean endorsement of cultures, which in turn deny equality to others. Kancha Illaiah proposes a “DalitBahujan” world demarcated from the rest of Indian society and its dominant institutions,86 which is supposed to be free of internal cleavages, a world of “patriarchal democracy”, a world of democracy in which wife-beating is tolerated. Here, we find articulation of a relativistic position itself in a non-relativistic way and in a nonrelative idiom. The meta-narrative of development, modernization and capitalism needs to be discarded. We should avoid assimilating many nativist stories and we must affirm the differences in the form of claims of many distinctive voices from which the colonized subalterns spoke. We must, in the words of Ranajit Guha, not “oversimplify the contradiction of power by reducing 83

Ajay Sakaria, Hybrid Histories: Forest, Frontiers, and Wildness in Western India, Delhi, 1999, p. 273. 84 Sumit Sarkar, “Post-Modernism and the Writing of History”, Studies in History, 15, 2, 1999, pp. 293–322. 85 Partha Chatterjee, “For an Indian History of Peasant Struggles”, Social Scientist, 16, 11, 1988, p. 11. 86 Kancha Illaiah, “Productive Labour Consciousness and History: The DalitBahujan Alternatives”, in Shahid Amin and Dipesh Chakraborty, eds., Subaltern Studies IX, New Delhi 1996.

Introduction 41

them to an arbitrary singularity—the so-called principal contradiction, that between the colonizer and the colonized”.87 We must reject notions of truth, demonstratable truth, available to all and sundry, and consign it to the dustbin of history. We must valorize ethnic and other community identities “as incommensurable and internally homogenized distinct species, which we can only contemplate in wonder”, to apply Lyotard’s analogy.88 In the “DalitBahujan” world of Kancha Illaiah, the theme of domination by colonial knowledge is conspicuously absent; it is structured in a “Brahmanical-Hindu” order, originating centuries before colonialism and its discourses.89 What if this “Dalit-Bahujan” world view and identity do not recognize inter-cultural egalitarianism and can be further split into several slices. We have, at least identified separable cultural islands, which defines a community of beliefs and people. What if such identities are error-prone? Errors, especially dramatic errors, are culture-specific. They do tend to be “the badges of community and loyalty”.90

The Present Study The present study, Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47, deals with a period relatively free from big social upheavals, with the exception of the Quit India Movement in 1942. Yet, the study of the politics of masses, their aspirations and demands, the articulation of their problems, both outside the 87

Ranajit Guha, “The Small Voice of History”, in Amin and Chakraborty, eds., Subaltern Studies IX, New Delhi 1996, pp. 1, 6. 88 Kancha Illaiah, “Productive Labour, Consciousness and History: Dalit-Bahujan Alternatives”, in Saheed Amin and Dipesh Chakraborty, eds, Subaltern Studies IX, New Delhi, 1996, is an example of such identity-construction. 89 Colonialism is implicated in the production of the cultural forms we have unwittingly labelled as pre-colonial traditions. In the colonial discourse, caste became increasingly the only relevant social site for the textualization of the Indian identity. This is noticeable in the politicization of invented forms of caste in the census, in the community-based franchises of early electoral reform and in the development and implementation of legal codes which made formal civil and criminal distinctions on the basis of caste. See Nicholas B. Dirks, “The Invention of Caste: Civil Society in Colonial India”, in H.L. Senevirtane, ed., Identity, Consciousness and Past: Forging of Caste and Community in India and Sri Lanka, Delhi, 1997, pp. 120–35. 90 Gellner, Anthropology and Politics, p. 244.

42

Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

formal institutional framework and within the existing legal, constitutional framework, in short, their collective endeavour, can be expressive of and vital to the understanding of political and social change. The function of mobilization in creating a sense of community, relating people together in a distinct and often novel form, by evolving particular structures and by giving people common goals and reference groups and creating conscious priorities on a general scale cannot be undervalued. Even less intense and fierce moments of mobilization are the undertone of collective and structural expressions of commitment and support within society. Mobilization has both an interest-articulating function and an authoritylegitimating function. The former refers to the articulation of specific interests of mobilized supporters as perceived by them. In this there is no a priori competition for power or the capture of institutionalized positions of authority in the polity. The latter refers to functions of allocating legitimacy to one group or several competing groups of leaders within the context of a political system.91 Ranajit Guha rails against the “nationalist elite” interpretation of mobilization as “a popular consent, an overwhelming vote of disenfranchised against the British autocracy, a vote of selfdetermination”.92 He extols and idolizes the most dramatic popular protest which manifested itself in the form of uprisings, dharna or protest by sitting down in the offender’s presence, hartal or general strike, dharmaghat or the withdrawal of labour, jatmara or measures to destroy the offender’s caste and danga or sectarian, ethnic, caste and class violence. According to him, such protest acts, based on the Indian idiom of “dharmik protest”, derived from the defense of dharma or from the morality of struggle against adharma are intertwined with the primordial aspects of community and religion.93 On the other hand, the more peaceful assemblies, marches, lobbies and other large gatherings sponsored by mass organizations such as trade unions, kisan sabhas, strikes and other struggles for the satisfaction of demands for wages, employment, better living conditions and civil liberties, are depreciated as “the mobilization of the subalterns in the institutionalized sectors of nationalist politics by the Congress and other parties”. These are 91 J.P. Nettl, Political Mobilization: A Sociological Analysis of Methods and Concepts, London, 1967, p. 131. 92 Ranajit Guha, Dominance without Hegemony, p. 102. 93 Ibid., pp. 57–59.

Introduction 43

seen as instances of the working of the British idiom of Rightful Dissent within the legal and constitutional limits imposed by the colonial authorities, as means used by the indigenous élite to control mass struggles.94 However, we feel that such exclusion of legal, extra-legal and constitutional collective actions of masses may lead to sacrificing some very important, interesting facets of social life and would be detrimental to the understanding of the nature of social movements in twentieth-century India. Sometimes popular resistance takes different forms that are crucial to understanding their actions. Moreover, a movement develops in course of time and uses various tactics for its survival and growth. The supra-local politics, both legal and extra-legal, becomes a source of identification for the masses. It is important to understand why and how the ideologically-motivated leaders mesmerize masses. It is also a practical and commonsensical native intelligence that masses are not always drawn to a glamourized explosive reaction to solve their mundane structural problems. They often reject eruptive, anomic forms of collective violence to solve their local problems and seek immediate, tangible, useful concessions that will aid them in navigating their social and economic environment in a better way, even if it may appear to us as appalling “classconciliation” or monstrous “symbiosis” with the class-enemies.95 Some of the other dimensions on which the present study focuses upon are the nature of social conditions, leadership, participants, the modalities and methods of mobilization, the relationship between the leadership and the followers, the nature of mass-consciousness and the role played by religious symbolism and popular culture during such mobilizations. These are some of the weighty issues, which concern any study of popular mobilization.96 94

Ibid., pp. 55–56. For Partha Mukherjee, social movements are accumulative, alternative and transformatory. Accumulative changes are changes within the given structure and system. Nationalist mobilization in our view combined the components of all three types advocated by Partha Mukherjee. For this typology of movements, see Partha Mukherjee, “Social Movements and Social Change: To a Conceptual Clarification and Theoretical Framework”, Sociological Bulletin, 26, 1, 1977. 96 These are the issues raised in the review of literature on social movements by Ghanshyam Shah, see his work, Social Movements in India: A Review of the Literature, New Delhi, 1990; and also see M.S. Gore, Non-Brahmin Movement in Maharashtra, New Delhi, 1989, pp. 88–90. 95

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Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

To deal with these issues, we have divided the present study in the following chapters. The first chapter deals with the general socio-economic background in the Presidency, as it was in this socio-economic context that popular mobilization had its roots. The roles played by the landlord-moneylenders and the biggest landlord of all—the colonial state—in providing a structural context, needs probing. Some aspects of the cultural milieu, which informed the popular mobilization and which account for the diversity of forms of protests and mobilization, have also been narrated. The second chapter, “Peasants, Parties and Politics”, delineates various facets of peasant mobilization between 1934 and 1947 and traces peasant responses to the political processes, their relationship with various political associations, the nature of agrarian conflicts as well as the so-called peaceful modes of mobilizations, and the nature of peasants’ identity and “subjectivity” shaped by religious symbolism, popular culture and their lived experience under the joint oppression of the landlordsahukar and the colonial state. The third chapter “Survival, Contested Power and Polyphonic Tribal Resistance” deals with the collective actions of tribal in the form of crimes for survival, religious reform and politically-motivated struggle against economic subservience, dramatized in the background of contestation between the imperial power and the subjected Adivasis. The fourth chapter is based on the Dalit mobilization of both reformative and alternative types especially around the problem of Untouchability. It examines the relative worth of Ambedkarite and Gandhian responses to this problem. The fifth chapter, “Crowd Vigour and Social Identity”, is an attempt to re-examine a few significant questions relating to crowd actions, their nature, and their linkages and communication with the articulation of powerful social identity of nationalism, in the context of the Quit India Movement. Finally, on the basis of concrete evidence available to us, we have tried to make a few generalizations about the interactive, dialectical relationship between mobilizations and identities. The formation of national identities in the ex-colonies (including Indian nationalist self-image) have been shadowed by the perception of colonial subjugation and this memory consists not only of an enemy-image, but also contains a kind of admiration for the former colonial rulers. This basic ambivalence was hinted

Introduction 45

at by Nehru as the Indian middle-class dilemma to choose between modernism and search for the cultural roots in the past.97 Although formed in the image of Western modular forms, nationalist idioms were further constrained by the usage of local culture. Partha Chatterjee attacks the idea that Indian national identity was imagined uniquely through the lens of colonial power and argues that identities were also formed and kept alive in homes and social networks where European ideas had no access. He further ventures to disrupt the unifying aspirations of Indian nationalism and argues that there were different co-existing voices or “fragments”— among women, peasants, élites, caste, outcastes—each with its own separate discourse.98 Here, it would be interesting to investigate whether “the voices of fragments” relate to and how they relate to what Thom calls, “the oscillation between visions of general redemptions and a clinging to specific lineages as the characteristic feature of thought-forms of the age of nations”.99 The search for identity and the desire to create a new, modern, dynamic state capable of surviving in the globalized world are inter-related. If citizens do not identify themselves with the state, its authority may erode, and territories with little effective authority cannot attract investments and generate growth. However, the stories about past are “an important, universal vehicle for self-definitions of a community”.100 They will have special significance for a multicultural entity like India, which has to constantly find ways of overcoming the fragmented character of its state, and mobilize a cohesive national identity. The pre-modern, hierarchical cleavages (enlarged, distorted and further polarized at the intervention of the colonial state) did influence the origin and development of Indian nationalism and continues to have an impact on the fate of Indian democracy. The present study is bound to have some bearing on the theoretical plane as well as the three main strands on nationalism represented by Ernest Gellner, Anthony D. Smith and Benedict Anderson, which focus on the interplay of politics, historical memory and cultural construction. The modernist approach (in 97

Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India, London, 1947, p. 288. See Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments, Princeton, 1993. 99 Martin Thom, Republics, Nations and Tribes, London, 1995, pp. 8–9. 100 Geoffery M. White, Identity through History, Cambridge, 1991, p. 5. 98

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Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

both its diffusionist and functionalist versions) sees nationalism as a modern phenomenon, which emerged with the modern form of state surveillance, industrialism, capitalist marketing and the resultant process of homogenization. The origin of nationalism in excolonies is also traced to the administrative and social policies necessitated by the encapsulation of non-European local cultures by metropolitan capitalism.101 This asymmetrical cognition downplays the role of local, indigenous idioms in the formation of nationalism. On the other hand, Anderson’s emphasis on the “imagined community”102 and the persuasive power of modern media and “print-capitalism” has suited the post-modernist approach well. They reject history and see history only as a story, a narrative, being told and retold continuously. It has done much to dissipate the idea of a national history. The nation exists by virtue of a constant creation and re-creation of symbols and imaginations such as maps, flags, languages, myths, enemies and constitutions. The national history is commonly portrayed as a force representing and mobilizing a whole, but in post-modernist version, it is contested within the nation it imagines. There is a constant fluidity in nationalist symbols and culture, whether we choose to call them polyphonic, subaltern, fragmented, local or gendered. The problem with the post-modernist approaches is their disregard of historical facts and inability to explain the forcefulness of national sentiments. While they “deconstruct” the nation, ethnicity and culture, people build their lives on these intensely felt identities. The ethno-culturist perspective of Anthony D. Smith roots nationalism in pre-modern “ethnies” or polities, the defining feature of which can be religion, language, customs, a “homeland” with symbolic places or a shared history.103 This approach again tends to downplay the process of confrontation and incorporation of ideas which came from Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The present study will, hopefully, illuminate some aspects of this theoretical debate on nationalism and identities.

101

This approach is systematically propounded in Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, Oxford, 1983. 102 For details of Anderson’s approach, see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London, 1991. 103 Anthony D. Smith, Theories of Nationalism, New York, 1983; and also his, Ethnic Origin of Nations, Oxford, 1986.

ONE

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside The Peasant Enquiry Committee of the Maharashtra Provincial Congress Committee (MPCC) (1936), lamented that the common man of the Bombay Presidency was “prone to apathy and fatalism” and was “addicted to the doses of supernaturalism and transcendentalism”.1 The “fatalism and mysticism” in a common man”s life or the subjective life of a common man cannot be appreciated fully without knowing the material background of his existence. Faced with the deprivation of all the basic material needs, the “silent and dumb” peasant found an answer in the form of the Warkari bhakti cult, bhajan-mandalis, walking trips of hundreds of miles to Pandharpur, etc. These various forms of mysticism provided some meaning to his existence as a human being, albeit, an imaginary one. In short, his spiritualism supplied to him substitute psychic or spiritual means of satisfaction.2 Hence there is a necessity to reconstruct the socio-economic fabric, which moulded the psyche of the common man in the province. 1

Maharashtra Provincial Congress Committee (MPCC), Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, 1936, pp. 95–96. 2 This substitute function of religious cults, prayers, magical practices, pilgrimages, etc., had been pointed out in Hugh McLeod, Religion and the People of Western Europe: 1789–1870, Oxford, 1981, p. 55; Lawrence Stone, The Past and the Present Revisited, London, 1987, pp. 178–98.

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Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

Land Tenure Systems in the Presidency The British Government claimed to have merged the mirasi and upri tenures into the ryotwari tenure in order to create a system of peasant proprietorship. Under the mirasi and upri tenures, which existed during the rule of the Marathas, a mirasdar held land on a permanent heritable basis, subject to the payment of a fixed assessment.3 It is not clear whether he had right to transfer his land without the consent of the state. But the mirasdar's land could not be seized for debts even if he failed to pay his assessment; his land could not be forfeited. However, the government could resort to many devices for the recovery of dues, including the temporary sequestration of land, or demanding the sum from the other mirasdars in the same village. The patels, mirasdars, deshmukhs and despandes (hereditary revenue officials) bargained with the mamlatdar to fix the jamabandi or annual assessment of the revenue. The upri was a tenant-at-will of the government. In his case, assessment was liable to enhancement; he himself was liable to eviction.4 But despite the claims of the colonial state to have abolished the traditional mirasi and upri tenures to create peasant proprietorship or ryotwari tenure, the inam, jagir and zamindari estates of the traditional landed classes survived in the Presidency to a considerable extent. Approximately one-fourth of the total cultivable land in the Presidency was under such traditional land tenures (Table 1.1). Under the ryotwari tenure, the land revenue policy was based on the system of settlement with farmers, but the state claimed the ultimate ownership of the land. For all practical purposes, the cultivator remained the owner by virtue of the right of transfer either by sale or gift, alienation and inheritance, subject to regular payment of assessment, which was arbitrarily fixed very high initially and was made subject to periodic revision.5 The government had the right to auction the land in case of failure of payment of the demand.6 The ryotwari tenures were of two types—ordinary 3

G. Keatinge, Rural Economy in the Bombay Deccan, London, 1912, p. 3. Ibid., pp. 3–4. 5 S.C. Mishra has pointed out that in the early period of colonial rule, the land revenue was about 60 per cent of the gross produce. S.C. Mishra, “Land Revenue and the Economy of Broach in the First Half of Nineteenth Century”, in S. Bhattacharya, ed., Essays in Modern India Economic History, Delhi, 1987, pp. 153–58. 6 M.B. Desai, The Rural Economy of Gujarat, London, 1948, pp. 96–97. 4

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside 49 Table 1.1 Land under Various Forms of Tenures in the Bombay Presidency Nature of tenure Ryotwari (a) Peasant/proprietors paying separately (b) Peasant proprietors holding lands at privileged rates Taluqdari Mehwasi Udhad Jamabandi Khoti Izafat On lease Revenue free (imams, jagirs, saranjams) Total

No. of estates or holdings

No. of villages

Area in acres

1,191,729

23,161

28,675,980

213,429

4,434,682

497 67 40 3,317 30 40 2,242

497 62 40 3,317 30 40 2,242

1,363,986 120,375 58,717 2,352,107 36,338 62,386 5,224,601

1,411,386

29,389

42,329,172

Source: Selections from the Records of Bombay Government (new series) (SRBG [NS]), DXIV, Character of Land Tenures and System of Survey and Settlement in the Bombay Presidency, 1914, p. 7.

and restricted. The holder of the restricted ryotwari land tenure could not alienate or sell the land without the previous permission of the collector of the district. It was designed to help the backward and tribal cultivators.7 However, there were many devices to circumvent the law in this regard. The Revenue Code of Bombay (Act V of 1879) included all powers for survey, assessment and other matters concerned with settlement. There were provisions for exceptional forms of estates (that is, khoti, taluqdari, etc.) and their settlement. The practice of settlement was based on fixing of permanent areas, which were known as “survey numbers” and the classification of soil. Based on the form of cultivation, lands was divided into three categories— jirayat (dry land), kyari (wet or rice land) and bagayat (garden land).8 The classification of soils was made for assessment purposes—16 annas were fixed as the full or maximum value, then there were lands of 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4½, 3, 2 and 1 anna grades. This 7

Ibid., p. 97. B.H. Baden-Powell, Short Account of the Land Revenue Administration and Tenure in British India, London, 1907, pp. 206–8. 8

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Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

classification was based on the depth and nature of the soil. These were only relative values; whatever the full rate, 16 annas were paid for class I soil, three-fourths of the full rate would be paid for class III soil, and so on depending on the annewari.9 The first settlement in Bombay was made in Indapur taluqa under the guidance of Wingate and Goldsmith in 1836. The government accepted Wingate’s advice in 1838 that the period of the settlement be for 30 years and limits were fixed for the increase of the rate at the time of revision in 1874.10 The increase in rate could not be more than 33 per cent at the taluqa level as a whole, 66 per cent on the village total and 100 per cent on a single holding, above the last assessment.11 The land revenue demand of the colonial state was heavy and exorbitant during the early years of colonial rule.12 The traditional share of the state was one-sixth of the produce according to toolwari estimates or one-third of the produce according to the grinding scale of buttai, whereas the colonial state increased it to 60–70 per cent of the gross produce. In Chowarsee, Kurrode and Surbhon districts in Gujarat, the government’s share was fixed at 60 per cent. In all other districts, the share of the state was 70 per cent of the gross produce.13 The result of this regressive land revenue policy was depopulation, decline in agricultural stock and area under cultivation and a general failure of the colonial state in almost all districts to extract any more surpluses.14 Although proclaimed as the area of “peasant proprietorship”, the growth of tenancy was assuming serious proportion in the ryotwari areas also. This was the result of land alienation, which was increasing due to a set of conditions and was giving rise to a class of intermediaries. The land revenue demand of the colonial state was excessive and the cultivator had to pay it in cash. This compelled cultivators to grow commercial crops. The small 9

Ibid., pp. 208–9. K.L. Panjabi, Bombay Land Revenue System, Ahmedabad, 1938, pp. 16–33. 11 Baden-Powell, Land Revenue Administration, pp. 209–11. 12 S.C. Mishra, “Land Revenue and the Economy of Broach”, pp. 153–58. 13 Settlement Report of Supa Taluqa in Surat Collectorate, 1869, pp. 18–25. 14 Selection from the Records of Bombay Government (New Series)(hereafter SRBG [NS]), CVII, Revision of Assessment of Indapur Taluqa, Poona, 1867, pp. 21–28; Settlement Report of Supa Taluqa, pp. 18–25; and SRBG (NS), CXXIII, Revision of Assessment in Kurdeh Taluqa, Ahmednagar, 1864, Maharashtra State Archives (hereafter MSA) Bombay, p. 52. 10

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside 51

cultivator was forced to borrow money from the bigger khatedars (landowners) and sahukars to meet the triple needs, that is, the demand of the colonial state, the need to purchase inputs for growing commercial crops and the family’s consumption needs which emerged due to inter-regional specialization of cropping. The British transformed land into private property, which could be mortgaged or sold by the cultivator. It made it easier for the cultivator to borrow money by using his land as security. As agriculture was becoming an unprofitable business due to fragmentation of land and demographic pressure on land, the smaller cultivators were not in a position to pay the interest and the principal once they borrowed money. This led to a large-scale transfer of lands through mortgages and sales.15 It is commonly believed that ryotwari was the tenure of small peasant proprietors. But according to the census of 1921, in Gujarat itself there were 30,297 landlords, 253,307 peasant owners and 111,786 families of tenant-cultivators. There were 316,218 families subsisting on farm labour.16 The lands owned by non-agriculturists went on increasing. In the Gujarat region, in 1916–17, 774,384 acres and in 1921–22, 933,542 acres and in 1926–27, 899,484 acres were held by the non-agriculturists. Most of these lands were let to tenants-at-will.17 A study made by Dinkar D. Desai in North Kanara district estimated that 60 per cent of the total cultivated land was owned by less than 3 per cent of the holders and 80 per cent of the cultivators were tenants paying two-thirds to three-fourths of the gross produce as rent to the absentee landlords. Such was the story of a ryotwari district.18 The Land Revenue Administration Report of Bombay (1936–37) gives the following figures (in percentage) for land under tenancy cultivation in ryotwari areas (excluding land under various taluqdari, khoti systems, etc.)—Kanara (63.91), Kolaba (58.09), Thana (48.8), Belgaum (43.56), Ahmedabad (40.6), Dharwar (38.98), Bijapur (29.9), Broach and Panch Mahals (28.01), Kaira (37.27), Ratnagiri (34.94), Sholapur (33.11), Surat (29.9), Poona (21.66), Nasik (26.12), Satara (24.19), Ahmednagar (22.07), East Khandesh (20.76) and West 15

Z.A. Ahmed, The Agrarian Problem in India, Allahabad, 1936, pp. 27–30. Cited in J.M. Mehta, A Study of Rural Economy of Gujarat, Baroda, 1930, p. 38. 17 Ibid., pp. 38–40. 18 Dinkar D. Desai, Landlord and Peasant in an Indian District: A Study of Tenancy Problem in North Kanara, Bombay, 1941, p. 8. 16

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Khandesh (16.42). The average for the Presidency proper was 31.06 per cent under tenancy cultivation.19 In taluqdari tenures, the taluqdar had full proprietary rights subject to the payment of jama or land revenue to the colonial state. In some cases, it was fixed in perpetuity and known as udhad-jamabandi. In other cases, it was changeable. The size and income of the taluqdar’s estates varied. Co-sharers held the bulk of the smaller estates whose increasing number threatened estates with rapid disruption. Except in some cases, where rapid subdivision of shares had forced taluqdars to take to cultivation, they lived on the rent of the land and regarded manual labour as degrading.20 In some cases, however, the fragmentation of income among peta-bhagdars or co-sharers had reached such a stage that in two villages, there were complaints of taluqdars stealing the crops of their tenants and in another village, a taluqdar had became a bus-driver. Some of these taluqdars were compelled to take up the cultivation of gharkhedni (self-cultivated) lands but it was difficult for a class not traditionally involved in direct cultivation to make a success of its new occupation.21 But in such cases of pauperization, taluqdars usually tried to save the situation for themselves by passing their burden on to the tenants, which resulted in rack-renting and various other forms of harassments by taluqdars.22 There were some big taluqdaris which were like small kingdoms. For instance, Mehlol taluqdari in Panch Mahals consisted of 27 villages.23 In taluqdari areas, most of the land was let to the tenants-at-will. Taluqdars retained some land for “self-cultivation”. This was their “gharkhedni” land. The tenants of the taluqdars not only faced the problem of high rents and frequent enhancement of rents but also the problem of insecurity of tenure.24 Under narvadari and bhagdari tenures, the lands consisted of main divisions known as muksh bhag containing sub-shares (peta-bhags). The head of each estate or main division was called 19

Land Revenue Administration Report, Bombay, 1936–47, MSA, Bombay, pp. 100–122 (hereafter to be referred as BLRAR). 20 SRBG (NS), DXXIV, MSA, Bombay, pp. 8–10. 21 The Third Revision Survey Settlement of Viramgam Taluqa, p. 12. 22 M.B. Desai, The Rural Economy of Gujarat, pp. 99–100. 23 Ibid., p. 97. 24 J.M. Mehta, A Study of Rural Economy of Gujarat, pp. 38–40.

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside 53

a mukshbhagdar, and was responsible for the payment of the government assessment on the whole share. All sub-sharers, patidars, had equal rights and were the descendents of old proprietary cultivators. The patidars had joint responsibility for the payment of the government revenue. Most of such lands were cultivated by tenants-at-will. The rent could be enhanced arbitrarily and the tenants could be evicted at the discretion of the narvadars. There were some customary tenants who paid a customary rent to the narvadars and who could not be evicted at will.25 The narvadari and bhagdari owed their origin to the Maratha rulers who, for the purpose of collecting land revenue, auctioned the districts to the speculators who in turn transferred the villages of a district to others to carry out their work. These persons were usually not connected with the villages concerned, although sometimes an influential cultivator or village patel was also included.26 These tenurial systems were mainly confined to Kaira where Anand, Borsad and Nadiad were the main narvadari taluqas, and Broach had a total number of 224 bhagdari villages in its taluqas put together.27 The amounts payable by narvadars and bhagdars to the government were arrived at differently and this was the main difference between narvadari and bhagdari tenures. The share of the government in the income from lands of the bhagdari villages was based on a field-to-field assessment of all lands. The amount of revenue to be paid by each sub-sharer, however, was not a portion of the total of the assessment of the fields comprising his share, but that fraction of the total assessment of all the lands of the main share of which the sub-share was a part, distributed according to the original register of Phalwani. The fields in a narva village, on the other hand, were not assessed individually and the assessment of the entire village was in a lump sum which was distributed among the various shares as laid down in the Phalwani register irrespective of the area held by the cultivator.28 In parts of Kaira and Ahmedbad districts, certain villages known as mehwasi were held by the descendents of mehwasi kolis or Rajput chiefs, who were once the great free-booters and terror of the 25 26 27 28

SRBG (NS), DXXIV, MSA, Bombay, pp. 10–11. M.B. Desai, The Rural Economy of Gujarat, p. 95. Ibid., p. 101. Ibid., p. 13.

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Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

country. Mehwasi tenure was similar to the taluqdari tenure and the sub-shares were known as bhayats in the mehwasi villages.29 Apart from these main tenures, wholly or partially alienated lands (inams) were extensive and were of various denominations, the principal being chakariat for service, pasaita for charity, haria for defence and wazifa (religious). These were of two types—nakra (rent-free) and salamia (liable to quit rent).30 There were again, two major types of inams (alienated lands)—one, in which the inamdar fixed rents and the judi or salami, which the inamdar paid to the government, was fixed in perpetuity. In the other case, the government fixed everything, did the survey and assessment and the inamdar only collected the revenue or rent fixed by the government from the tenants.31 In the Central Division of the Presidency alone, out of a total number of 8,000 villages, 1,000 villages were alienated villages of the various types described earlier.32 Izafat tenure was a variety of service tenure of the hereditary officers like deshmukhs and despandes.33 The system of khoti tenure was prevalent in the two districts of Konkan, namely, Ratnagiri and Kolaba and in Salsette taluqa of Thana District. The khoti system was a prominent form of landlordism that sanctioned exactions by parasitical rent-grabbing middlemen. Tenants were virtually serfs of the khots.34 In some cases, rents were fixed but, in the majority of khoti lands, the actual quantity of grain to be paid any year was fixed after the abhavani or the annual assessment of the crops by inspection of standing crops. The estimate of crops was made by the khot, tenant and a third party who was generally a partisan of the khot either through obligation or fear. The result was often over-estimation of crops leading to appropriation of even the subsistence allowance of the tenant’s family.35 The khots also had other devices for the expropriation of the tenant’s produce. They used two sets of measures; in measuring the grain to be received from the cultivator, they used larger 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

SRBG (NS), DXXIV, MSA, Bombay, pp. 11–12. Ibid., p. 13. M.B. Desai, The Rural Economy of Gujarat, p. 106. G. Keatinge, Rural Economy in the Bombay Deccan, p. 30. SRBG (NS), DXXIV, MSA, Bombay, pp. 13–14. MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, p. 59. A.V. Patwardhan and Anant Vinayak, Serfdom in Konkan, n.d., Poona, p. 9.

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside 55

ones. In general, khots received about 3 maunds for 2½ maunds. Tenants bore all the expenses of cultivation including those of seeds and manure. The khot could increase the amount of rent due from tenants even if the latter increased the produce by their efforts or by investing in improving the land. They could be evicted easily as yearly kabuliyats or agreements were taken from them. At eviction, no compensation was given to tenant for improvements made by him on the land. All the trees on the banks of rivers were owned by the khot and the cultivator had to pay annually 4–8 annas for every jackfruit tree standing on the land used by him. Even trees planted by the cultivator could be cut down at anytime by the khot and a share of the produce was always demanded for mango and jackfruit trees planted by the ryot.36 Vethi or forced labour, although prohibited by the Khoti Act, was quite common in all the khoti villages. Tenants were forced to carry the “doli” for the khot; all the members of the tenant’s family had to do all sorts of work at the time of a wedding ceremony in the khot’s house. The ryots had to provide labour, plough and bullocks for the land kept by the khot for “self-cultivation”. For such forced begar, the cultivator only received a small amount of barley grain for a whole day’s labour in the khot’s fields. Apart from the huts in which the tenants lived, the khots owned the pasturelands, the well and everything else.37 Kunbis or cultivators suffered many social humiliations as well at the hands of the khot. The cultivator could wear only a small loincloth and under no circumstances could he wear a full “dhoti” in the village. Some of them, who had migrated to towns like Bombay and could purchase dhotis, phetas, shirts, coats and uparnas, were still not allowed to return to their villages wearing them. They had to change them for their old “lungis” as soon as they set foot in their village. The ryots were not allowed to build houses with stone foundations and tiled roofs, which remained the prerogative of the khots. Tenants could only build thatched huts for themselves.38 The manner of ordering vethi was also unique. Six paisas were thrown at the door of each kunbi on the previous evening of the day when their labour was required. When this notice was served, the tenant’s 36 37 38

Ibid., p. 9. Ibid., p. 10. Ibid., pp. 10–11.

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Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

family was under obligation to do work for the khot the following day. Or in some other cases, the village mahar was asked by the khot to deliver one seer of nachani (a coarse grain) to each kunbi’s hut and the kunbis were bound to work for the khot the following day. Beside a certain number of days, which the cultivator had to devote for the khot’s family, they also had to do all domestic chores for the khot’s family.39 There were, however, a small numbers of “dharekari” (privileged occupancy tenants) who were free from the obligation to do any such work or to pay any cess to the khot and who could not be evicted.40 All sorts of social tensions were inherent in such a social situation.41 Although the government tried to regulate the status of tenants by the Khoti Leases Act (1865), most of the abuses associated with the khoti system continued to exist, including the oppressive exactions of the khots.42 The system was based on many semi-feudal practices. Even the huts in which the tenants lived belonged to the khots. The khots vehemently opposed any resistance on the part of the tenants or encroachment by any legal or voluntary agency on their proprietary rights; and they were organized in an association for the protection of their hereditary rights. In case of resistance against illegal exactions and forced labour by tenants, criminal cases and suits, attachment of fields, produce, cattle and impounding of the grazing cattle were the common steps taken by the khots.43 The Act of 1865 had given power to the survey settlement officers to grant the khot a lease for the full period for which a settlement may be guaranteed in place of the annual agreement and to fix the demand of the khoti on tenants at the time of the general survey. But the Khoti Association under the leadership of Rao Sahib V.N. Mandalik demanded absolute recognition of their proprietary rights.44 The government, cowed down by their agitation, appointed a Khoti Commission in 1874. The Khoti Settlement Act of 1880 was passed on the basis of report of the Commission. The new Act defined the various types of occupants in khoti villages and determined the rights and obligations of 39 40 41 42 43 44

Ibid., pp. 12–14. Ibid., p. 12. MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, pp. 59–60. Ibid., pp. 55–60. A.V. Patwardhan and Anant Vinayak, Serfdom in Konkan, pp. 1–3. MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, p. 57.

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside 57

tenant’s vis-à-vis the superior holder. The Act conferred occupancy rights on the holders who had cultivated the land since 1845 but the heritable permanent right could be transferred only with the consent of the khot.45 Some of the khots were also patels of their villages and acted as moneylenders for their tenants. The combined function of landlord, sahukar and village patel gave ample powers to the khots to exact vethi (forced labour) and many other exactions from tenants.46 Sumit Guha has concluded with sufficient authority that “there was no place in the new system [that is, of British rule] for that hybrid figure, part entrepreneur, part official, and part territorial magnate, that Patel or Deshmukh could be under the Maratha rule”.47 But the selective retention of the old proprietary rights especially in the case of the khots, taluqdars, etc., who combined the functions of territorial authority as landlords, financial powers as moneylenders and social powers as village patels in many cases clearly shows that the “old hybrid figures”, though their wings were clipped to some extent, continued to enjoy enormous powers under the colonial administration. Beside these major land tenurial systems, there were some minor tenurial systems, which were of local significance only. There were: maleki tenure in some village of Thasra taluqa of Kaira District, sarkati and kasbati tenures in some villages of Dholka taluqa in Ahmedabad and vanta tenure in some villages north of river Tapi.48

The Commercialization of Agriculture and Marketing Conditions The penetration of the colonial economy by metropolitan networks meant the expansion of trade and commerce. The growth of markets led to an increase in the demand for agricultural products. This resulted in the expansion of the area under commercial crops such as cotton, groundnut and sugarcane. There was a gradual and continuous increase in the volume of foreign trade at the 45 46 47 48

Ibid. A.V. Patwardhan and Anant Vinayak, Serfdom in Konkan, p. 10. Sumit Guha, The Agrarian Economy of the Bombay Deccan, Delhi, 1985, p. 52. See M.B. Desai, The Rural Economy of Gujarat, pp. 100–105 for details.

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Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

Bombay port with the exception of the year 1900–1901, which happened to be a famine year, and 1930–31 when the Great Depression had set in (see Table 1.2). The expansion of inter-regional trade was also facilitated by the development of the railways and roadways. As transport in the rural hinterland improved during the colonial period, the volume and significance of inter-regional and local trade also increased considerably. For instance, exports by rail from the Barsi taluqa of Sholapur District increased considerably (see Table 1.3). Table 1.2 Foreign and Coastal Trade at Bombay Port Year

Imports (Rs)

1880–81 259,809,132 1890–91 450,938,841 1900–1901 361,020,447 1910–11 799,509,993 1920–21 1,497,402,427 1930–31 748,465,057 Aggregate % increase 1880–81 to 1920–21

Percentage increase or decrease over previous decade – +73.45 –19.94 +121.45 +87.29 –50.01 +476.34

Exports (Rs)

Percentage increase or decrease over previous decade

274,730,962 395,422,879 336,285,061 685,862,241 996,353,907 584,976,617

– +43.93 –17.58 +102.95 +45.27 –41.28 +262.60

Source: The Annual Statements of the Trade and Navigation for Bombay Presidency: 1880–81 to 1930–31, MSA, Bombay. Table 1.3 Exports by Rail from Barsi Taluqa, Sholapur Period of six months ending in

31 30 31 30 30 31

December 1897 June 1898 December 1899 June 1900 June 1902 December 1902

Cotton (in maunds) 71,154 274,127 78,895 112,821 453,374 94,722

Food grains (in maunds) 32,577 34,361 212,264 5,272 122,696 39,005

Oilseeds (in maunds) 58,412 191,235 48,830 5,849 159,503 28,481

Source: SRBG (NS), CCCCXXXV, Second Revision Settlement of Barsi Taluqa, Sholapur, 1906, p. 3.

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside 59

Similarly, trade at Chalisgaon station in East Khandesh District, which belonged to the cotton tract, registered on increase in the export of cotton and in the import of food grains and pulses (Table 1.4). This was possible only because of inter-regional specialization in the cropping patterns. The volume of agricultural produce exchanged in the regional and local markets increased considerably over time and there was a general tendency towards the growth of interdependence of regional markets. For example, Khed taluqa of Poona District exported potatoes and imported large quantities of bajri from Ahmednagar District. Mavel taluqa of Poona exported wheat, rice and grass and in turn purchased large quantities of jowar and bajri.49 Table 1.4 Trade at Chalisgaon Station (East Khandesh) by Railways (figures in maunds) Year ending

31 31 31 31

December 1893 December 1903 March 1914 March 1923

Cotton

Grain and pulses

Exports

Imports

Exports

81,423 102,301 76,401 84,504

477 72 357 123

85,097 26,351 15,801 57,000

Imports 70,949 62,453 92,964 121,523

Source: SRBG (NS), DXIV, Second Revision Settlement of Chalisgaon Taluqa, East Khandesh, 1927, p. 8.

Apart from the prominent trading centres, the weekly bazaars were a common feature of the Deccan region, Karnataka and the Konkan. There were as many as 42 weekly markets in Sholapur District and 50 in Bijapur. The main items of exchange at these weekly markets included agricultural produce, cattle and articles of domestic requirement. In Gujarat, such organized weekly markets did not exist. Cotton was usually sold there to the ginning factories through middlemen or, in many cases, the produce was sold to the sahukar in the village itself.50 At the weekly market in Satara, the weekly sales during 1894–1923 increased from Rs 381,010 to Rs 104,150 (see Table 1.5). 49

SRBG (NS), DXIC, Second Revision Settlement of Khed Taluqa, 1922, p. 7; and SRBG (NS), DLXV, Second Revision Settlement of Mavel Taluqa, 1916, MSA, Bombay, p. 5. 50 Bombay Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee Report (BPBECR), 1930, pp. 99–102.

60

Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47 Table 1.5 Sales at Weekly Markets in Satara Taluqa (in Rs) Articles All grains Clothes Groceries Copper and brass Miscellaneous Cattle Total

In 1894

In 1923

13,752 7,938 10,712 1,800 3,660 148 38,010

29,200 21,000 25,000 8,750 5,200 15,000 104,150

Source: SRBG (NS), DXXXV, Second Revision Settlement of Satara Taluqa, 1929, p. 10.

But many imperfections existed in the marketing conditions. The Non-Brahmin Leaders’ Committee,51 commenting on the marketing conditions in Baglan taluqa complained: There is no railway in or near Baglan. Villages depend for their supplies on weekly markets. The dealers are chiefly Marwaris, Gujaratis and Laddasakha Vanis; …the people are buying food grains for family consumption at increased prices and sinking deeper and deeper into debt …. There are a large number of middlemen …. The cotton prices benefit middlemen, grain prices affect the poor ….52 In most cases, the cost of marketing fell on the farmers’ shoulders and the middlemen usually charged a very large amount for marketing many agricultural commodities.53 The Bombay Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee (BPBEC) condemned the expropriation of peasants through middlemen in marketing. Figure 1.1 indicates the channels through which cotton usually passed from the grower to the mill-buyer or the exporter.54 As most peasants were deep in debt, they were not in a position to take any steps to market their produce even when the prices were favourable. The sahukar would meet them at harvest time, 51

The members of the Non-Brahmin Leaders’ Committee were D.S. Jawalkar, K.M. Jedhe and K.S. Gupte. The Committee surveyed the agrarian situation in Baglan Taluqa of Nasik District and submitted its report in 1929. 52 Non-Brahmin Leaders’ Committee Report on Baglan Situation, 1929, pp. 18–21. 53 MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, pp. 73–74. 54 BPBECR, p. 101.

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside 61 Figure 1.1: Structure of the Markets Showing Intermediaries between Peasants and Markets Grower

Village dealer

Travelling buyer

Cooperative sale society (ginning also in Gujarat)

Market (through broker)

One or more middlemen (ginning stage)

Exporter, mill-buyer’s or merchant’s agent (ginning stage)

One or more middlemen at the ginning stage

Commission agent

One or more Bombay commission agent

Exporter, mill-buyer or merchant

leaving them only a bare subsistence. The cultivator was “seldom able to protect himself in his dealings with the man who was at once his banker and his market . . . .”55 The poor cultivators were restrained by their resources and were pressed for the payment of rent, interest and land revenue and were compelled to sell their produce immediately after the harvest, whereas the wealthy cultivators parted with a fraction of their produce only and retained a considerable part of the marketable surplus available with them for sale during the off-season when prices increased.56 This is precisely how the market mechanism exerted a differential impact on the various strata of rural society. Under the influence of the market economy, the organization of agricultural production underwent considerably changes. The 55 56

G. Keatinge, Rural Economy in the Bombay Deccan, p. 158. BPBECR, p. 167.

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Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

increased demand for certain commodities in the market necessitated a corresponding shift in the cropping pattern. The proportion of land under food grains declined whereas the proportion of land under commercial crops increased steadily. Almost all the districts of the Presidency showed a trend towards shifting from food grains to non-food grain crops. In some cases, the shift was considerable (see Table 1.6). The impulse for this shift in the cropping pattern came from the market demand for certain commodities. The initial high prices of such commodities lured cultivators. The colonial state demanded land revenue in cash and this provided an additional element of compulsion for such a change. However, the additional cost of investment, backward social conditions and geographical factors acted as barriers to the arbitrary increase in the area under cash crops. This tendency of limited expansion of commercial crops in some areas was partly related to the lack of proper irrigation facilities in the Bombay Presidency. The major irrigation works and their coverage are shown in Table 1.7. Table 1.6 Percentage of Area under Food Grain and Non-Food Grain Crops in the Various Districts of the Bombay Presidency, 1891–1931 District

Ahmedabad Kaira Panch Mahals Broach Surat East and West Khandesh Nasik Ahmednagar Poona Sholapur Satara Belgaum Bijapur Dharwar Thana Kolaba Ratnagiri North Kanara

Food grains

Non-food grains

1891

1931

1891

1931

69.67 91.69 88.53 50.23 71.11 57.91 84.52 91.70 90.97 86.62 90.80 86.26 84.35 75.37 93.43 97.16 89.00 83.56

63.78 63.27 73.53 41.89 39.72 52.35 80.81 82.80 84.11 76.39 63.09 65.54 69.69 58.71 65.82 86.11 82.36 70.05

30.33 8.31 11.47 49.72 27.89 42.09 15.48 8.30 9.03 13.38 9.20 13.74 15.65 24.63 6.57 2.84 11.00 16.44

36.22 36.73 26.47 58.11 60.28 47.65 19.90 17.19 15.89 26.61 36.91 34.46 30.31 41.29 34.18 13.89 17.64 29.95

Source: Agricultural Statistics of British India, Bombay Presidency, 1891, 1931.

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside 63 Table 1.7 Major Irrigation Works: Bombay Presidency District

Name of work

Satara and Sholapur Poona Ahmednagar Ahmednagar and Nasik Nasik

Capital outlay (in Rs lakhs)

Net return

Area irrigated in acres

Nira Right Bank Canal Nira Left Bank Canal Mutha Canal Pravara Canal Godavari Canal Girna Canal

412 144 70 150 106 21

3.13 3.13 4.65 1.70 0.03 1.78

35,867 64,760 13,262 35,575 27,860 9,705

Total

903

1.10

187,029

Source: R.D. Choksey, Economic Life in the Bombay Deccan, Bombay, 1955, p. 85.

The average double-cropped area improved only slightly from 3.5 per cent in 1919–20 to 4.1 per cent in 1945–46 in the Presidency.57 The only field that showed substantial improvement was the area under improved seed varieties, which improved from 2.8 per cent in 1922–23 to 15.8 per cent in 1938–39 for the Presidency as a whole including the Sind region.58 The expansion of area under commercial crops temporarily reduced the incidence of low productivity but made the cultivator increasingly dependent on the market. This made him what the Peasant Enquiry Committee of the MPCC appropriately called “a tiny cog in the intricate mechanism of international trade”.59 How this blind orbit of international exchange mechanism ruined the cultivator was to be clearly revealed by the impact of the Great Depression.

The Impact of the Great Depression The Great Depression of 1929 led to credit contraction throughout the world. Since the level of agricultural prices depended to a large extent on the availability of credit for stockpiling and forward 57 58 59

George Blyn, Agricultural Trends in India: 1891–47, Philadelphia, 1966, p. 191. Ibid., p. 200. MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, p. 7.

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Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

trading, credit remained the main support of the agricultural price level.60 The slump in prices of commodities affected all agricultural goods. The decline in price was minimal in the case of tea, but commodities such as cotton, groundnut and sugarcane suffered a substantial reduction in prices. Even staple food grains like jowar, bajra, maize and rice were equally hit. The average decline in the prices of these commodities was above 40 per cent during 1934–35 to 1938–39 as compared to the period 1924–25 to 1928–29.61 The index of wholesale prices shows that the decline was more severe before 1934–35. Blyn's figures on agricultural productivity show either decline or stagnation in per acre production of the major foodgrains during the twentieth century. However, if we take into account the severe decline of prices in the period of the Great Depression, the overall impact on the peasant economy was more devastating (see Table 1.8). Table 1.8 Index of Wholesale Prices (July 1914 = 100)

Rice Wheat Cotton

September 1929

Lowest during the Depression

May 1935

124 135 146

56 66 68

73 74 78

Source: MPCC, Peasant Enquiry Report, 1936, p. 14.

Moreover, the fall in the income of the cultivator was sharper than the fall in the value of his crops, the latter itself, however, was sufficient to ruin him. The cost of cultivation did not come down for the cultivator in the same proportion. The level of taxation remained the same, as did the marketing and transport charges.62 Although no data is available for the increase in the levels of debts for Bombay Presidency, the evidence from other provinces support this effect of the Depression. The Satyanathan Enquiry (1935) in Madras assessed that indebtedness increased substantially during the Depression. The Punjab Debt Enquiry Committee 60

Dietmar Rothermund, “The Impact of Great Depression on India in Nineteen Thirties”, in S. Bhattacharya, ed., Modern India Economic History, New Delhi, 1987, p. 237. 61 George Blyn, Agricultural Trends, p. 77. 62 MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, pp. 8–9.

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside 65

estimated that the total debt in Punjab Province rose from Rs 130 crores to Rs 270 crores during the Depression period.63 The situation was further aggravated by the deflationary policy of the Government of India that aimed at maintaining the high exchange rate of the Rupee fixed at the rate of ls 6d, and which the British refused to devaluate despite constant pressure from India.64 This resulted in large-scale distress sale of gold during the Depression period.65 The only way left to the peasants of the Presidency for survival was either drawing on capital or borrowing at high interest rates, or lowering the subsistence level of his household.66 The cumulative effect of all these factors was that land transfers from cultivators to non-agriculturist moneylenders occurred at an unprecedented level (see Table 1.9). Even the rich garden-landowners of Sirsi and Siddapur taluqas of North Kanara were reduced to bankruptcy when the Depression set in the 1930s.67

Usurious Capital and its Impact The production of commercial crops required larger and various kinds of inputs in irrigation, fertilizers, hybrid and new varieties of seeds, new implements, etc. This new range of investment was beyond the means of the ordinary peasant family. Apart from the production requirements, there were various other contingencies, which necessitated borrowing. The recurring periods of scarcity and famines compelled the cultivator to borrow from the sahukar in order to ensure the survival of his family. Social ceremonies like marriages and festivals also forced the ordinary peasant to borrow money. The moneylenders and the wealthy peasant creditors who provided credit to the poor ryot acquired a prominent position in rural society. Agriculture in the Presidency, to quote the Bombay Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee Report (BPBECR), was largely “a gamble 63

Report of the Congress Agrarian Reform Committee, 1949, p. 88. Rothermund, “Impact of Great Depression”, p. 239. 65 Ibid., p. 241. 66 MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, pp. 8–9. 67 Report on the Karnataka Provincial Congress Committee’s Enquiry Committee on Agrarian Distress in Sirsi and Siddapur, 1931, p. 8. 64

66

Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47 Table 1.9 Area Held by Agriculturists and Non-Agriculturists in the Bombay Presidency: 1917–43 (approximate figures)

Division

Northern division

Central division

Southern division

Total for the Bombay Province

Year

1917 1922 1927 1932 1937 1943 1917 1922 1927 1932 1937 1943 1917 1922 1927 1932 1937 1943 1917 1922 1927 1932 1937 1943

Agriculturists

Non-agriculturists

No. of persons (in lakhs)

Area held (in lakh acres)

No. of persons (in lakhs)

Area held (in lakh acres)

4.03 4.26 4.23 4.21 4.37 4.43 8.36 8.54 9.14 8.34 8.49 9.12 5.56 5.66 5.93 4.60 4.73 4.98 17.97 18.48 19.31 17.16 17.60 18.50

30.44 29.73 29.00 26.03 26.75 26.68 128.63 127.47 127.47 112.27 111.87 111.98 76.93 77.65 76.50 47.51 43.99 47.89 236.03 234.86 232.99 185.81 182.65 186.56

0.78 0.82 0.88 1.13 1.24 1.18 0.77 0.76 0.87 1.69 2.16 2.18 0.29 0.30 0.31 1.71 1.89 1.85 1.85 1.89 2.07 4.59 5.30 5.22

10.57 11.81 12.63 16.21 15.28 15.52 18.17 17.62 18.04 33.62 35.53 37.04 3.43 3.85 3.49 31.66 32.36 30.31 32.18 33.29 34.17 81.51 83.18 82.95

Source: Statistical Atlas of Bombay State, 1950, p. 58. Notes: Area held by Non-agriculturists in 1917 = 11.99 per cent. Notes: Area held by Non-agriculturists in 1943 = 30.77 per cent.

in rain”.68 The spectre of famine always loomed large on the horizon of the agriculturist. The Gujarat region was particularly liable to the uncertain and fluctuating nature of the monsoon, which resulted in both famines and floods alternatively. Although the severity of famines had declined in the twentieth century, there were famines in Gujarat in 1899–1902, 1911–12, 1915–16, 1918–19 68

BPBECR, p. 10.

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside 67

and 1920–21.69 In case there was a failure of crops, the cultivator had no choice but to borrow money from the sahukar. Crop failure was a recurrent phenomenon because of lack of proper irrigation facilities. In the whole Presidency (excluding Sind) only 10 lakh acres were under irrigation (from all sources such as canals, tanks, wells, etc.) out of a total net cropped area of 32,113,000 acres.70 In Gujarat, only 246,000 acres were irrigated out of the net cropped area of 3,572,000 acres, which constituted only 6 per cent of the net cropped area in the region in 1903–04.71 By 1936–37, the total acreage under irrigation in the Presidency from all the sources (government canals as well as private tanks and wells) was only about 11 lakh acres.72 Another major reason for the growth of indebtedness was the existence of a large number of fragmented, uneconomical dwarf holdings. The average size of holdings in the various regions of the Presidency in 1929–30 is provided in Table 1.10. In the Deccan, low rainfall and lack of fertile soil was responsible for the bigger size of the average holding. But then, even a bigger holding can be an uneconomical holding in a dry area. As land holdings were getting more and more fragmented owing to demographic transition, and pressure on land was increasing due to the process of de-industrialization, more and more holdings turned unprofitable (see Table 1.11). Out of this unprofitable business the cultivator had to meet the interest demands of the moneylenders, rent demands of intermediaries or heavy revenue demands of the colonial state. After covering the cost of cultivation, the cultivator Table 1.10 Average Size of Holdings in Various Regions of the Presidency Region Gujarat Deccan Konkan Karnataka

Average size of holding (acres)

Average assessment per acre (Rs)

07.7 14.5 7.95 15.3

02–14–01 01–00–06 01–13–11 00–15–09

Source: BPBECR, p. 13. 69

J.M. Mehta, A Study of the Rural Economy of Gujarat, pp. 8–11. BPBECR, p. 12. 71 Report of the Irrigation Commission, Part II, 1904, p. 46. 72 Department of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (1939), India, Statistical Abstracts for British India: 1927–28 to 1936–37, p. 461. 70

68

Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47 Table 1.11 Proportion of Dwarf Holdings (below 5 acres) to the Total Number of Holdings in the Various Districts of the Bombay Presidency (figures in percentages)

District Poona Ahmednagar Satara Sholapur East and West Khandesh Nasik Thana Kolaba Kanara Ratnagiri Belgaum Bijapur Dharwar Ahmedabad Kaira Panch Mahals Broach Surat

1880–81

1901–02

1921–22

17.16 5.97 26.28 3.41 9.51

18.48 5.88 25.01 9.27 9.27 8.39 14.84 59.65 67.59 56.69 63.36 15.34 4.53 10.59 42.71 61.49 39.43 46.13 51.80

47.23 27.10 61.46 20.13 31.58 12.55 32.70 69.79 74.65 65.79 73.27 49.40 20.81 38.26 54.17 76.79 49.69 50.69 70.57

15.53 57.32 58.97 53.27 56.20 14.90 4.45 9.94 37.54 56.37 47.11 44.15 74.74

Sources: Annual Jamabandi Reports of the Bombay Presidency, 1880–81, Appendix XVI and Statistical Atlas of the Bombay, Bombay Presidency, 2 & 3 edn, 1906, 1925.

was often left in arrears of land revenue, rent or payments of interest. So, indirectly, the uneconomical dwarf holding was responsible for the growth of indebtedness. To quote the Peasant Enquiry Report of the MPCC at length: Agriculture was fast becoming uneconomic due to excessive pressure on land, fragmentation of holdings, old methods of cultivation, etc. This together with the land revenue policy of the Government which placed an unusually high burden on the cultivating occupant of the village in several cases led to the passing out of the lands from the hands of the cultivating classes into the hands of non-cultivating rent-collectors . . . indebtedness causing alienation of land creates the problem of rent, and rent in its turn adds to the burden of debt because of the submarginal productivity of the land. The peasant proprietor, who now tills the land as a tenant of his sahukar, has to bear the

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside 69

burden of rack-rent which again accelerates the process of debilitating the “have-nots” in the favour of the “haves”.73 The amount of capital invested by the indigenous bankers in money lending was estimated to be between Rs 50 crores to Rs 75 crore.74 The total agricultural debt of the whole province was estimated at Rs 81 crore in 1929–30. The total debt formed about 53 per cent of the average value of the total agricultural produce of the province and was 2.5 times the annual cash requirement for agricultural operations. Khandesh had the largest burden of debt per family, followed by south Gujarat and the canal tracts.75 During the Great Depression, debts had almost doubled and were estimated at Rs 150 crore.76 The annual interest charge on this amount of debt at a liberal rate of 12 per cent amounted to 30 per cent of the total value of the annual agricultural income at the existing prices of the principal crops in the Presidency.77 As things stood, the rate of interest was much higher. In the cotton growing tracts of Khandesh, in Dalwada village, which had a population of 700 and an annual land revenue of nearly Rs 4,000, the total debt was Rs 85,000 and carried an annual interest charge of Rs 16,000 which was four times the annual land revenue.78 In Baglan taluqa of Nasik District, Marwari, Gujarati and Ladshikha Vanis dominated the economy of the taluqa and the life of the “quasi-slave” tenants and charged high rates of interests.79 Chronic indebtedness prevailed in the khoti areas of Ratnagiri and Kolaba. The rate of interest charged by the khots varied from 25 per cent to 50 per cent, and, after the expiry of one year, the khot charged compound interest.80 The BPBEC reached the conclusion that the agriculturalist with a small holding was not more heavily involved in debt than the agriculturalist with a larger holding, even after making allowance for the fact that his income from an acre leased and cultivated by 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, pp. 46–47. BPBECR, p. 34. Ibid., pp. 43–44 (see Table 1.10). MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, p. 62. Ibid., pp. 62–63. Ibid., p. 63. Non-Brahmin Committee Report, pp. 14–15. A.V. Patwardhan and Anant Vinayak, Serfdom in Konkan, p. 10.

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Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

him was smaller than from an acre owned and cultivated by him.81 But this conclusion can be easily refuted by facts. The average rate of interest charged by moneylenders from landowners in Gujarat ranged between 9.5 per cent to 18 per cent, whereas the rate of interest charged from tenant-cultivators was more than 20 per cent, and, in a few cases, reached as far as 100 per cent.82 This would naturally mean a greater incidence of the burden of debt on the poorer cultivators and agricultural labourers. The BPBEC admitted that the period of the loan was an important factor in determining the rate of interest. Sahukars charged a higher rate of interest for the smaller loans for short periods, the rate in a sense varying inversely with the amount and period.83 This itself would have meant a heavy burden of payment of interest charges on the small cultivators who usually borrowed small sums for short periods. G.C. Mukhtyar also demonstrated in his study of Atgam village in Bulsar taluqa of Surat District that the proportion of per capita debt to per capita income was more for small holders and less for big landowners, although indebtedness in absolute terms reveals a reverse trend.84 A survey conducted by V.M. Jakhade on the agricultural indebtedness in Pandharpur and Sangola taluqas in the year 1945–46 (Sholapur District) made a classification of debtors according to the size of the holdings and found that debt per holder was low in the case of small holders but debt per acre worked out to be more compared to the larger landowners whose debt was larger in absolute terms but low in terms of debt per acre.85 For indebtedness in the Bombay Presidency see Table 1.12. Repayment of older debts and interest charges itself became the reason for borrowing money for many cultivators. Another reason for borrowing was to save the family in case of crop failure, famine or some other distress caused by natural calamities. The peasant’s family also required some money for carrying out production, for improvement of land and purchase of livestock. Litigation also 81

BPBECR, p. 46. J.M. Mehta, A Study of the Rural Economy of Gujarat, p. 66. 83 BPBECR, p. 67. 84 G.C. Mukhtyar, Life and Labour in a South Gujarat Village, Bombay, 1930, p. 250. 85 V.M. Jhakade, “Agricultural Indebtedness in Pandharpur and Sangola Talukas’, in The Report of a Survey of Agricultural Indebtedness in Pandharpur and Sangola Talukas of Sholapur District, Poona, 1949, p. 98. 82

Table 1.12 Indebtedness in the Bombay Presidency Tracts

No. of agricultural families

North Gujarat South Gujarat Khandesh Konkan Transition tract Famine tract (non-cotton) Famine tract (cotton) Canal tract Aboriginal tract Bombay Presidency (excluding Sind)

220,400 77,000 204,200 517,000 240,000 220,000 140,000 110,000 72,000 1,800,600

Source: BPBECR, p. 42.

Total debt (in thousands)

Debt per family (Rs)

750,000 425,000 140,000 70,000 65,000 54,000 60,000 52,500 25,000 584,000

340 551 685 135 270 245 428 477 347 324

Net debt per acre Cropped Cultivated net acre acre 24 52 42 23 16 8 16 35 24 21

20 52 40 13 13 6 13 29 18 17

Debt as multiple land assessment 13 15 25 12 14 12 22 21 20 17

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Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

became a major cause for borrowing in some cases. Then, of course, cultivators borrowed for marriages and other social ceremonies (see Tables 1.13 and 1.14). The Karnataka Provincial Congress Committee (KPCC) appointed an enquiry committee, which enquired into the agrarian distress of Sirsi and Siddapur taluqas in 1931. They surveyed four villages and found that it was only in exceptionally rare cases that families were free from debt. The Committee found that the debt per family was very high (Table 1.15). Table 1.13 Object and Amount of Debt—Broach District Object of debt

Khanpur village Amount (Rs)

% of total

Amount (Rs)

% of total

28,723 63,780 42,433 7,065 29,924 28,110

14.3 31.9 21.2 3.5 15.0 14.1

6,891 41,650 33,315 3,249 31,465 39,043

4.4 26.8 21.4 2.1 20.2 25.1

200,039

100.0

155,613

100.0

Repayment of older debts Famine, distress and crop failure Agricultural operations Purchase of land Construction of houses and repairs Marriage and other ceremonies Total

Sajod village

Source: BPBECR, p. 49. Table 1.14 Object and Amount of Debt—Dharwar District Object of debt

Current agricultural needs Land improvement and purchase of land Domestic requirements Payments of older debts Trade Marriage and other ceremonies Litigation Miscellaneous Total Source: BPBECR, p. 49.

Bhadrapur village

Sangur village

Amount (Rs)

% of total

25,840 13,972

17.23 9.32

15,290 30,847 5,515 25,985

10.1 5,406–8 20.32 8,940 3.6 2,398 17.1 7,350

29,075 6,014

18.7 3.63

151,458

Amount (Rs) 6,536 1,334

Adisomapur village

% of total

Amount (Rs)

% of total

18.63 3.8

2,119–3 508

19.8 4.7

15.7 1,806–8 25.97 799 7.0 75–8 21.4 4,841

17.2 7.6 0.7 45.6

1,000 1,552

2.9 4.6

89 370

0.8 3.6

100.0 34,516–8

100.0

10608–3

100.0

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside 73 Table 1.15 Agricultural Indebtedness in Sirsi Taluqa Name of the village Hare-Hulikal Targod Mundgesar Gonsar

No. of families surveyed

Total debt (Rs)

No. of families free of debt

Average debt per family (Rs)

16 20 27 23

17,700 31,750 18,775 28,300

2 3 5 –

1,106–4–0 1,587–8–0 0695–8–0 1,230–0–0

Source: KPCC, Report on Agrarian Distress, pp. 7–8.

The rate of interest charged by moneylenders was usually very high. It was never less than 12 per cent. The practice of savai or charging of 25 per cent rate of interest was prevalent in many areas and even didhi or a 50 per cent rate of interest was common practice. In some backward districts, even higher rates could be charged.86 The jalap system of moneylending was prevalent in the Bhil tracts of western Khandesh. According to this system, the Bhils, who wanted to borrow before the harvest, agreed to give to moneylenders a certain amount of their produce when harvested. In return moneylenders gave them money calculating the price of the produce, which they had to receive from the borrowers at a much lower rate than the market price.87 The rate of interest on jalap loans worked out at 100 to 300 per cent in many cases.88 Through such operations, sahukars acquired control over the agricultural production and the lives of the tribal people. Where moneylenders were also shopkeepers and commission agents, they made it a condition that the agricultural produce would be sold only through them.89 In many places, there was also an initial charge of “purseloosening”, which varied from 6 per cent to 10 per cent of the principal. Before actually giving a loan, moneylenders retained 6 per cent to 10 per cent of the loan for his “generosity” shown to the cultivator. Interest for a year was often deducted in advance 86

MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, p. 65. Z.A. Ahmed, The Agrarian Problem in India, 1936, p. 30; MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, p. 66. 88 Ahmed, The Agrarian Problems, p. 30; MPCC, Report of the Peasent Enquiry Committee, p. 66. 89 BPBECR, p. 57. 87

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Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

and was calculated for a whole year even when the loan was taken for a short period. For loans for a short period, the security was usually the mortgage of crops. When the loan was larger or for a longer period, the security asked for was the mortgage of land.90 The various malpractices of the moneylenders made it more difficult for cultivators to repay the principal. On the other hand, the position of the moneylenders was considerably strengthened by the colonial state’s greater elaboration and strict enforcement of the law of property and contract. All these conditions provided fertile ground for the expropriation of the small cultivators in the ryotwari areas. V.M. Bhuskute aptly described the ryotwari system as a “Marwari system” in reality.91 The tampering of records by moneylenders could mean real doom for the cultivator. The National Front, the organ of the Communist Party, wrote in March 1938: “Sowcar’s pen is more murderous than the naked sword—They (sowcars) went to the villages with Dori-Lota (water-pot and a drawing-string) and came back with huge buildings in the towns.”92

The Problem of Land Alienation in the Bombay Presidency The combined pressure of the demand of the colonial state, debt and increasing rents led to large-scale alienation of lands. A large number of such land transfers were taking place in the Bombay Presidency, assisted by the legal machinery of the colonial state (see Table 1.16). The expropriation of the kaliparaj cultivators like the dhodias, dublas and kolis was very acute in some areas of south Gujarat. In Pardi Mahal of Surat district, most of the kaliparaj people had become landless losing lands to banias, anavil and Rajput landlords and sahukars. They were surviving by renting in land from these sahukars on half-crop sharing basis.93 Similar was 90

Ibid., p. 63. V.M. Bhuskute, Address to the All-India Kisan Congress, Faizpur, 1936, p. 3. 92 National Front, vol. I, no. 4, 13 March 1938, p. 8. 93 Letter from District Magistrate to Secretary to Government of Bombay, Home Department, dated 21 March 1940; and DSP, Surat, Notes Regarding Peasant Movement, dated 6 March 1940, in Home Department, Special File No. 1019/1940–41, MSA, Bombay. 91

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside 75 Table 1.16 Land Transfers in the Bombay Presidency Proper (excluding Sind) (in acres) Number of transfers

Area transferred

By order of the court

By contract

By order of the court

By contract

1902–03 Revenue paying proprietors Wholly or partially revenue free

295 48

85,627 9,164

3,274 288

754,921 74,128

1908–09 Revenue paying proprietors Wholly or partially revenue free

543 68

111,700 14,221

4,884 4,839

946,981 138,234

1918–19 Revenue paying proprietors Wholly or partially revenue free

773 32

126,956 11,360

6,246 1,550

794,739 110,355

Source: Statistical Abstracts Relating to British India, 1902–03, p. 187; 1808–09, p. 134; and 1918–19, p. 136, Bombay Presidency, MSA.

the fate of the kaliparaj villages of Mandavi taluqa where the original cultivators lost their lands to bania and brahmin sahukars.94 In the case of indebted peasants, land transfers occurred through various stages and the process was extremely slow and protracted. In such cases, land was mortgaged in the first instance and sold subsequently. The mortgages in the Deccan were of three types: (i) nagar gahan or ordinary mortgage in which land was still held and worked by the debtor on his own account; (ii) tabe gahan or mortgage in which land was handed over to the creditor but could be redeemed on repayment of debt and interest; and (iii) mudat kharedi or deferred sale in which land was handed over to the creditor and if the loan was not repaid within a definite period, the lender automatically took possession of the land.95 Land alienation led to the growth of non-agriculturist intermediaries. However, except for the Gujarat region, the area held by the non-agriculturists did not increase during 1907 and 1922 (see Table 1.17). But even then, the area held by the non-agriculturists 94 Confidential Letter from Assistant Collector of Surat to the Collector of Surat, dated 26 October 1938, in Home Department, Special File No. 800(53)-B, Part-III, 1939, MSA, Bombay. 95 H.H. Mann, Land and Labour in a Deccan Village, Study No. 1, Bombay, 1917, p. 130.

Table 1.17 Area Held by Non-Agriculturists and Agriculturists in the Various District (figures in acres) District

1907–08 Area held by agriculturists

Ahmedabad Kaira Panch Mahals Broach Surat Thana Nasik West Khandesh East Khandesh Ahmednagar Poona Sholapur Satara Kolaba Bijapur Belgaum Dharwar Ratnagiri Kanara

500,216 536,650 268,190 535,190 615,211 660,630 1,523,878 1,209,595 1,635,772 2,515,473 1,613,341 2,126,730 1,554,755 276,006 626,780 1,515,324 17,975,542 456,329 238,960

1921–22

Area held by non-agriculturists

% of total area held by non-agriculturists

Area held by agriculturists

Area held by non-agriculturists

% of total area held by non-agriculturists

210,907 154,460 43,471 98,162 140,258 299,828 390,974 193,582 418,159 389,291 364,540 232,336 32,988 190,988 61,962 156,619 317,459 39,255 96,080

29.66 22.35 13.95 15.49 18.47 31.22 20.42 13.79 20.36 13.40 18.43 9.85 7.88 43.70 8.99 9.37 15.00 7.92 28.68

502,081 568,547 258,044 484,351 493,659 659,910 1,868,928 1,292,608 1,674,822 2,350,925 1,743,469 2,149,914 1,666,552 299,112 2,811,722 1,642,525 2,126,652 585,525 300,440

272,548 210,643 64,690 148,361 237,300 235,111 343,906 193,844 238,894 379,302 334,656 175,819 95,905 131,607 35,885 83,910 75,119 20,260 38,924

35.18 27.03 20.04 23.44 32.46 26.31 15.54 13.04 12.48 13.89 16.10 7.55 5.44 30.55 1.26 4.86 3.41 3.34 11.46

Source: The figures for 1907–08 are from Revenue Department, Vol. 161 Compilation No. 1006 of the year 1911, and the figures for 1921–22 are from the Land Revenue Administration Report of Bombay Presidency, Part II, 1921–22, Appendix IV.

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside 77

was substantial in the Presidency. This tendency can be explained by the fact that many of the land transfers were taking place in the twentieth century between the agriculturists themselves. The rich and wealthy cultivators were emerging as a major and competing source of credit against the outside traders and moneylenders. The simultaneous growth of tenancy could have been due to the tendency of these new and wealthy cultivators to transform themselves into new landlords by buying the lands of the poorer cultivators and then letting it out to them as tenants. The process was made possible because of the anti-usury legislation of the colonial government which strengthened the position of the rich peasant creditors vis-à-vis the professional moneylenders in rural areas.96 In many cases, these rich khatedars or landowners were buying back lands from the non-agriculturists also. However, the professional moneylenders and non-agriculturist absentee landlords did not move into oblivion and continued to have their sway over many areas, although now they had to compete with the new agriculturist moneylenders or big peasant proprietors (Tables 1.18 and 1.19). The opportunity offered by the Great Depression was used by the non-agriculturist moneylenders to exert pressure on cultivators and acquire large tracts of land (see Table 1.19). With the increase in the weight of debt, the resulting land transfers became inevitable. The expropriation of cultivators by the parasitical non-cultivating rent receivers and moneylenders and to some extent by rich peasants in the some parts of the Table 1.18 Land Transfers in Surat District, 1903–04 Nature of transfers

No. of cases

By agriculturists to agriculturists By agriculturists to non-agrculturists By non-agriculturists to agriculturists

1,275 486 243

6,376 2,944 1,371

21,725 10,312 3,763

2,004

10,691

35,800

Total

Area transferred (in acres)

Assessment on area transferred (Rs)

Source: Bombay Land Revenue Administration Report (BLRAR), 1903–04, p. 34. 96

Brahma Nand, “Some Aspects of Agrarian Structure in Western India”, Ph.D. thesis, JNU, 1983, pp. 179–86.

78

Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47 Table 1.19 Land Transfers in Kaira and Surat Districts (in acres)

Year

District

From agriculturists to non-agriculturists

From nonagriculturists to agriculturists

Between agriculturists

1907–08

Kaira Surat

1,669 5,250

1,277 1,636

4,189 11,525

1908–09

Kaira Surat

16,409 4,368

1,549 2,468

10,205 9,500

Sources: BLRAR, Part-II, 1907–08, p. 59; BLRAR, 1908–09, p. 67.

Presidency resulted in large-scale leasing out of lands on tenancy basis. When the landlord tried to extract more and more out of his tenant, rent began to remain in arrears and the tenant was obliged to leave the land, swelling the ranks of landless labourers.97 Table 1.20 Land under Tenancy in Kaira District (ryotwari areas only) Taluqa

Nadiad Anand Borsad Kapadvanj Thasra Dhandihuka Viramgam

No. of owner cultivators

Area cultivated by them (acres)

% of total cultivated

No. of tenants

Area owned by them (acres)

% of total areas

19,900 13,078 21,644 16,129 13,823 407 3,106

66,767 52,873 44,683 79,464 68,057 25,845 80,849

54.0 42.4 47.36 56.6 56.2 49.0 55.5

18,829 23,755 23,324 12,575 12,097 1,243 5,481

56,267 72,391 49,714 60,753 52,260 27,748 71,373

46.0 57.6 52.7 43.4 43.8 51.0 44.5

Source: Tabulated by J.N. Barmeda from the Revision Settlement Reports of all Talukas, in his “Agrarian Classes and Growth of Tenancy”, Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, p. 100.

The Problem of High Incidence of Rent High incidence of rent and insecurity of tenure were major problems before the tenants. The declining man–land ratio or excessive 97

J.N. Barmeda, “Agrarian Classes and Growth of Tenancy in Gujarat”, Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, 1951, pp. 93–96 (extract of Ph.D. thesis).

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside 79

pressure of the population on land accelerated the process of the transformation of land-reclaiming landlords to rack-renting landlords.98 In North Kanara, the tenants were paying something between 55 per cent to 65 per cent of the gross produce as rent, in some cases rent going as high as 70 per cent of the gross produce. In the adjoining regions of Dharwar and Belgaum, the ardhel system, or 50–50 division of the gross produce, prevailed but the landlords were sharing the cost of production in certain proportion with the tenants. In North Kanara, tenants had to bear all the cost of production. Tenants were liable to eviction at the displeasure of the landlord in the case of non-payment of rent and accumulation of arrears of rent.99 In addition to the rent, there was also the custom which stipulated that tenants should pay for the conveyance of the produce to the landlord’s residence. Generally, the rent was four or five times the assessment (Table 1.21) of land revenue. Moreover, at the time of the revision of land revenue, landlords quietly transferred the enhanced assessment to the shoulders of the tenants in the form of increased rent.100 In Borsad taluqa of Kaira District, rents were usually 5–6 times the revenue assessment.101 The rental data given in the Settlement Reports give only the average rental figures for the village. They are not useful for investigating the variations in rents. They also do not throw any light on the relation of rent to the gross or the net produce.102 The system of cash rent was not common and the system of batai (crop sharing) prevailed in most areas. The ardhel system of crop sharing was the most common system. But there was no uniform system of crop sharing. In some areas, the landowners shared the cost of cultivation in certain proportions; in others, landlords paid the land revenue and tenants shouldered the entire cost of cultivation.103 As the cost of cultivation was around 50 per cent 98

S. Guha, The Agrarian Economy of Bombay Deccan, p. 200. Dinkar Desai, “Land Rents in North Kanara”, Kanara Brotherhood Journal, January 1940, pp. 5–8. 100 Ibid., pp. 11–12. 101 J.M. Mehta, A Study of the Rural Economy of Gujarat, p. 153. 102 D.R. Gadgil, “A Note on Agricultural Rents”, Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics: 1940–64, Selected Readings, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, Bombay, 1965, pp. 312–16. 103 Principles and Practices of Farm Costing with Farm Studies, Part II, Department of Agriculture, Bombay, 1933, p. 26. 99

80

Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47 Table 1.21 Average Rents as a Multiple of Assessment in Kalol and Halol Taluqas of Panch Mahals: 1912–22 Kalol taluqa

Group of villages class of soil

Jirayat (dry crop land) I II III IV Kyari (rice crop land) I II III IV

Halo taluqa

1912–13 to 1914–15

1915–16 to 1918–19

1919–20 to 1922–23

1912–13 to 1914–15

1915–16 to 1918–19

1919–20 to 1922–23

3.06 3.00 2.57 3.61 –

3.52 3.45 3.10 4.27 –

4.59 4.89 4.25 5.62 –

3.83 2.58 3.12 3.26 1.02

4.68 3.39 4.72 5.39 1.13

5.79 6.38 7.43 11.97 1.74

0.96 1.59 1.53

1.22 1.90 2.61

1.32 2.59 2.68

1.84 2.36 2.78

2.39 2.92 2.46

4.78 3.36 3.75

–

–

–

–

1.83

1.62

Sources: SRBG (NS), DCXVII, Revision Settlement of Kalol Taluqa, 1927, p. 12; SRBG (NS), DCXVI, Revision Settlement of Halol Taluqa, 1927, p. 11.

of the gross produce in the case of most crops, tenants usually worked below the subsistence level. This increasingly resulted in growing tension between the landholders and the tenants in the villages.104 The pressure of customary rent was also increasing. In some areas, apart from the grain rent, an additional fixed amount of money was being demanded. The amount of such money demanded varied from the land assessment to three times the assessment.105 Another pressure on the customary rent was added by the demand for rice straw in Thana and Kolaba districts. This demand for 40–50 bundles of straw per acre was an additional demand 104

MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, pp. 49–91. SRBG (NS), DLXXVI, Second Revision Settlement of Chopda Taluqa, East Khandesh, Bombay, 928, p. 7; SRBG (NS), DLX, Second Revision Settlement of Badami Taluqa, Bijpuar, MSA, Bombay, 1919, p. 11.

105

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside 81

made by landlords.106 But the rent varied according to the condition and productivity of the soil. It was calculated that rent generally worked out to be about 59 per cent of the gross produce in the east Deccan region, whereas in the canal-irrigated areas it could be only 20–21 per cent of the produce.107 But there was no uniform pattern of charging rent. The survey of Wai taluqa (Satara) in 1940 showed a great variation in the rent as a proportion of gross produce.108 Most of the tenants in North Kanara were chalgenidar or the holders of an annual lease on the expiry of which they could be easily evicted if they did not accept a new agreement after the enhancement of rent. Similar was the fate of the holders of palu leases, which was a crop sharing annual lease in the inferior gagnis or salt-lands in the forest tracts of North Kanara. Only the holder of mulgeni leases had security of tenure. Mulgenidars held the lands hereditarily and their rent was fixed. Such tenancy prevailed in garden lands that required heavy investments.109 The predominance of rent-in-kind over cash rent also favoured the landlords. The measure of khandi for measuring the rent varied from taluqa to taluqa and often within the same taluqa. This lack of uniformity of weights and measures left ample scope for the landlords to swindle tenants in the measurement of the rent payable. In North Kanara District, they used the geni-kolga measure for receiving rents which was a measure of a larger bulk than the standard measure or sikkekolga.110 In some areas, the labour of tenants was required for more than 15–20 days every year without any remuneration.111 The fate of the various strata of cultivators, however, varied according to their control over land and other economic resources like implements, cattle, irrigation and credit.112 106

SRBG (NS), CCXXIV, Second Revision Settlement of Alibag Taluqa, Kolaba, 1894, p. 15; SRBG (NS), DXXIV, Second Revision Settlement of Pen Taluqa, Kolaba 1928, p. 7; SRBG (NS), DCIII, Second Revision Settlement of Kalyan Taluqa, Thana, MSA, Bombay, 1927, p. 12. 107 “Principles and Practices of Farm Costing”, Department of Agriculture, Bombay, 1933, p. 730. 108 D.R. Gadgil, “A Note on Agricultural Rents”, pp. 318–19. 109 Dinkar D. Desai, “Land Rents”, pp. 112–22. 110 Ibid., p. 125. 111 Ibid., p. 127. 112 Brahma Nand, “Some Aspects of Agrarian Structure”, pp. 179–86.

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Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

The Condition of Agricultural Labourers Two types of people swelled the ranks of agricultural labour in the Presidency. First, the depressed castes, which constituted 8 per cent of the total population of the Presidency. They were mostly without land and performed the menial tasks as purely agricultural labourers. This group comprised the Mahars, Mangs, Dublas, Dharlas, Dhors, Khalpas and Kolghas, etc.113 Second, the tribal people such as Bhils and kolis, who had lost their lands to the sahukars, were also engaged in the agricultural operations either as bonded labourers or as free daily wage earners.114 According to S.J. Patel, there were four main types of agricultural labourers: (i) bonded or semi-free labourer, (ii) dwarf-holding labourer, (iii) under-employed landless labourer, and (iv) full-time free wage labourer.115 In British Gujarat itself, there were 149,294 families of agricultural labourers, Surat District having the largest number—63,746, followed by Broach and Panch Mahals, Ahmedabad and Kaira.116 In Surat District, most of the agricultural labourers belonged to the tribal people of the Dublas, Naikas and Dhodias. Most of these people worked as halis or bonded labourers.117 M.B. Desai estimated that in Surat district about one-fifth of the tribal population worked as halis.118 Choudras in Mandvi taluqa and kolis in other parts of Surat District also worked as agricultural labourers. The women of landholding castes of Anavils, Rajputs and KunbiPatidars could not work in the fields due to social taboo. These groups, therefore, employed agricultural labourers on a significant scale. In Broach, the labouring population consisted of the Bhils, Vaghris and Talavias. In this district too, social taboo prevented the Patidar and Bohra cultivators from using the services of their womenfolk in the fields. In Panch Mahals, apart from Godhra and Kalol taluqas where the Desais were completely dependent on hired labour for cultivation; the Bhils, Naikas and Paklia 113

Census of India, Vol.VIII, Part I, Bombay Presidency, General Report, 1931, pp. 384– 85. 114 M.B. Desai, The Rural Economy of Gujarat, p. 151. 115 S.J. Patel, Agricultural Labourers in India and Pakistan, Bombay, 1952, p. 71. 116 J.N. Barmeda, “Agrarian Classes”, p. 84. 117 Ibid., p. 94. 118 M.B. Desai, The Rural Economy of Gujarat, p. 157.

The Socio-Economic Fabric of Bombay’s Countryside 83

cultivators also employed seasonal field labour. In Kaira, many Dharlas and Naikas worked as agricultural labourers whereas in Ahmedabad, the kolis, Vaghris, Bhils and Choudras swelled the ranks of agricultural labourers.119 But, agricultural labour in north Gujarat was drawn mainly from the kolis and in south Gujarat from the Dublas who worked as halis or indentured labourers.120 But all the halis were not bonded labourers, only the bandhela halis were bonded labourers. The chutta hali was free to work for whom he pleased.121 The halis were the permanent estate servants of their masters or dhaniamas. When the Dublas borrowed money from the ujaliparaj classes, they undertook to work on their lands till they paid off their debt, but the dhaniama always took care to see that the debt was never returned. For their services as a bonded slave, the dhaniama provided them with “food” and “clothing”. The wives of the Dublas also worked as domestic servants at the houses of the dhaniama, for which they got food and a trifling sum of money.122 Therefore, it is ridiculous to see in this sort of agrarian serfdom, elements of “patronage” and to stress “the affection, generosity and intercession” of the “master class” towards their “clients”.123 The master even engaged the small son of the hali as a herdsman in return for his daily bread. The halis usually worked from sunrise to sunset whereas free labourers worked for fewer hours. The condition of the halis was no better than that of serfs or slaves.124 The work under the hali system was inefficient—the hali slackening the pace despite constant supervision. As the grainwage was not sufficient to maintain his family, the hali resorted to stealing crops from the field to make up the deficit.125 Out of the total number of 84,302 halis in the Presidency in 1921, 56,010 or about 67 per cent belonged to Surat District itself.126 Some other forms of labour employment also prevailed. In Panch Mahals, Broach, Kaira and Ahmedabad, a system of labour 119

J.N. Barmeda, “Agrarian Classes”, pp. 94–95. J.M. Mehta, A Study of Rural Economy of Gujarat, pp. 24–25. 121 S.J. Patel, Agricultural Labourers, p. 91. 122 Ibid., pp. 126–27; AICC, Report of the Congress Agrarian Reform Committee, Delhi, 1949, pp. 128–31. 123 Jan Breman, in his book Patronage and Exploitation, California, 1974, pp. 20–24, explains the relationship of the halis and dhaniamas in these terms. 124 G.C. Mukhtyar, Life and Labour, pp. 164–66. 125 M.B. Desai, The Rural Economy of Gujarat, pp. 160–61. 126 Census of India, Vol.III, Part I, 1921, Bombay Presidency, p. 223. 120

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employment known as chakar or sathi system was common. Under it, the labourer was hired for a period ranging 6–12 months for a cash payment in a lump sum for the entire period, daily food and a set of clothes.127 A similar system of engaging Bhils as saldars in the cotton tracts of Khandesh prevailed. Saldars were hired for a year with an advance payment.128 In the Dholka taluqa of Ahmedabad, the Bhil tracts of Panch Mahals and Matar taluqa of Kaira, another form of labour employment known as bhagia was more commonly used. Under this system, a certain proportion of the produce (one-fourth to one-fifth in Dholka) or a lump sum amount of grain (15 maunds for 5–6 months) was given for the labour services.129 The lands in the canal-irrigated areas of Krishna, Mutha, Nira, Godavari and Pravara canals had generally been acquired by big capitalist farmers (bagaitdars). These were cultivated wholly by the extensive use of hired labour.130 The spice gardens in the Kanara tracts also used hired labour only.131 The agricultural labourers were paid very low wages and the nature of employment was seasonal for most of them. The free labourers supplemented their living in the slack seasons by some other means. The wages of a field labourer in Gujarat, according to J.M. Mehta, were 8 annas in 1921 and 10½ annas in 1926.132 But J.B. Shukla gives the figure of 5 annas in Gujarat for the late 1930s.133 Harold Mann gave the figure of 6 annas for general agricultural labourers, but said that they received 12 annas in the sugarcane tracts.134 The process of transformation of the traditional and coercive forms of labour exploitation was gradually giving way to the system of daily wage labour. The system of long-term labour mortgage, which had existed in the Khandesh towards the early nineteenth century and the dissolution of which had led to the 127

Ibid., pp. 155–56. BPBECR, p. 61. 129 M.B. Desai, The Rural Economy of Gujarat, p. 160. 130 MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, pp. 82–88. 131 Dinkar Desai, “Land Rents in North Kanara”, p. 3. 132 J.M. Mehta, A Study of Rural Economy of Gujarat, pp. 127–28. 133 J.B. Shukla, Life and Labour in a Gujarat Taluqa, cited in S.J. Patel, Agricultural Labourers, p. 120. 134 Minutes of Evidence, II, Part I, Report of Royal Commission on Agriculture, 1928, p. 93. 128

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emergence of annually-employed saldars towards 1880, was gradually replaced by casual or daily paid workers.135 In Khandesh and the Deccan canal areas, a survey of farms found that in nine cases out of 21 there were yearly labourers working on the farms.136 Similarly the hali system in Gujarat, by which many depressed caste and tribal labourers found themselves bonded for several years for borrowing a small sum of money, was gradually breaking down.137 Many cases of flights of the halis to the industrial centres were reported.138

Grievances of Forest and Canal Zones Many of the complaints of the rural population in and around the forest areas particularly against the forest administration were brought to light before an official committee specially appointed to go into them. For instance, the “ignorant and meek” cultivators of Panch Mahals were forced to work in the forests without any payment and without giving any consideration to sowing or harvesting seasons.139 The Congress ministry had fixed a minimum wage of 6 annas per day for the labour employed by the forest administration. However, the Bhil farmers complained in 1944 that either on account of meagre allocations or for some other reasons, wages at this rate were not paid to them.140 Although it was legally allowed to the people living near forest areas that they could gather dead wood from forests for fuel and even use timber for the construction of huts and implements through the use of transit passes, there were complaints of exactions of money, grain 135

Gazetteer of Bombay Presidency, Vol. XII, Khandesh, 1880, p. 199; BLRAR, Part II, 1903–04, p. 8; SRBG (NS), DLXXVIII, Revision Settlement of Taloda Taluqa, 1920, MSA, Bombay, p. 5. 136 Principles and Practices of Farm Costing with Farm Studies, Part II, Department of Agriculture, Bombay, 1933, p. 22. 137 BLRAR, 1911–12, Part II, pp. 18–19; BLRAR, 1913–14, Part II, p. 22; BLRAR, 1920–21, MSA, Bombay, pp. 22–30. 138 Census of India, Vol. III, 1921, Part I, Bombay, pp. 219–22; J.M. Mehta, A Study of the Rural Economy of Gujarat, pp. 127–28. 139 Report of the Forest Grievances Enquiry Committee, 1927, Part II, MSA, Bombay, p. 75. 140 M.B. Desai, The Rural Economy of Gujarat, pp. 42–43.

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and ghee, etc., by the forest officials for issuing such transit passes.141 Another major complaint was regarding charging of grazing fees. The people complained that it was charged on all the cattle in the forest areas and not on the actual number of cattle that grazed in the forest.142 The colonial forest policy usurped many customary rights like free grazing facility, gathering of forest produce by the villagers. The tribal people were the worst sufferers because of these policies. For instance, the Bhils’ main source of subsistence was the selling of wood in the Khandesh region. In 1911, their privilege of bringing down cartloads of wood from forests for sale was taken away. Faced with survival problems, many Bhils took to robbery.143 In 1936–37, the number of animals on which grazing fees was paid was 1,746,533 while only 583,049 grazed without payment of grazing fees.144 The agriculturists were not only deprived of free grazing, in many cases they complained that they were charged for grazing their cattle in their own bettas (that is, lands given to agriculturists in north Kanara at the rate of an acre per one acre of garden land to enable the gardeners to prepare manure, etc., from the leaves therefrom). The curb on free grazing rights also led to harassment by forest officials and the frequent impounding of cattle.145 The canal-irrigated zones suffered from water logging. The fully damaged area in 1930 was 13,962 acres on Nira Left Bank in Poona District, 17,043 acres on Godavari Left and Right canals in Ahmednagar and Nasik districts, 12,415 acres on Pravara Left and Right canals in Ahmedangar District.146 The transfer of ownership of land to large bagaitdars and capitalist companies was another major problem. Saswad malis had purchased most of the lands from the original cultivators. The Belapur Sugar Company 141

Report of Forest Grievances Enquiry Committee, 1927, MSA, Bombay, p. 16. Ibid., p. 7. 143 R.D. Choksey, Economic Life in the Bombay Deccan, pp. 116–17. 144 Statistical Abstracts for British India: 1927–28 to 1936–37, pp. 478–79 (Department of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics). 145 Karnataka Provincial Congress Committee (KPCC), Report of the KPCC Enquiry Committee on Agrarian Distress in Sirsi and Siddapur, pp. 4–5. 146 MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, pp. 84–85; Bombay Chronicle (hereafter BC), 1 December 1937 and 29 July 1939. 142

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had purchased 10,000 acres of land along the Pravara Canal. There were some 12–15 such large-scale capitalist farms along the Pravara and Godavari canals, which each owned or held on a long lease 1,000 acres or more.147 The restrictions imposed on small cultivators for the use of irrigation water and the higher rates charged from them also caused resentment.148

Caste–Class Dynamics and Untouchability The class divisions and the caste groups often coincided in the rural society. The agents of exploitation of the cultivators and labourers were the upper castes. The khots in the Konkan region were mainly brahmins. In Khandesh, Satara, Poona, Nasik and Ahmednagar, the grain dealers, moneylenders and lawyers were mainly brahmins, Marwaris and Gujarati banias. Thus the class antagonism inherent in the existing economic situation viewed superficially appeared to be caste antagonism, an old and continuous tension with its history going back to the feudal times of the Maratha empire.149 Again, the landlords in the coastal area of Kanara were mostly Saraswat brahmins except for Bhatkal Peta, where they had been replaced by Navajats (a Muslim community); whereas the tenants were chiefly Halakki, Vakkals, Halpaiks, Komarpaiks and Bhandaris, the Halakkis being the most numerous and also the most backward.150 The social gulf became wider in Kanara because most of the Saraswat brahmins spoke Konkani (due to their Goan origin) while the tenants spoke Kannada being indigenous to the soil of Kanara. The former were educated and formed an “enlightened” class, while the latter were an illiterate and “ignorant” mass.151 In south Gujarat, the caste divisions got crystallized into two major divisions, the kaliparaj (renamed as Raniparaj by Gandhi) and the Ujaliparaj. The ujaliparaj comprised the higher castes such as the brahmins, banias, Rajputs, kolis and Suthars, whereas the 147 148 149 150 151

MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, p. 85. Ibid., pp. 86–87; BC, 12 October 1937 and 29 July 1939. MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, p. 91. Dinkar Desai, “Land Rents in North Kanara”, pp. 21–22. Ibid., p. 40.

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kaliparaj included lower castes such as Dublas, Dheds, Dhodias and Naikas. This distinction reflected on the various aspects of their social life—their food habits, literacy and their religious beliefs. The ujaliparaj had a higher rate of literacy, drank toddy moderately and occasionally and followed the religious tenets of Ramanuji Vaishnavas. The kaliparaj people were almost illiterate, drank toddy almost daily in large quantities and followed various local cults including fertility cults.152 There were vast differences of literacy, occupation and culture among the upper castes and the lower castes in other regions also. The brahmins and banias were more educated and were mostly rent receivers. The Agris, Bhandris, Maratha-kunbis, Patidars were mostly peasant-proprietors. The percentage of enrolment of Maratha children in school was between 8–12 per cent in various districts. The Untouchables, lower castes and tribal were mostly illiterate (only 2–3 per cent were literate), were mainly engaged in field labour and occasionally worked as tenant-cultivators. This group included the Mangs, Dheds, Dhodia, Mahars, Dublas, Dhangars, Chambars, Bhils, Ramoshis, Warlis and Choudras.153 But even among the lower castes, a number of people were (relatively) better off at least in Satara and Nasik. The Mahars had rights to traditional lands in the village in reward for their services as village servants. And they not only held on to them but also apparently demonstrated a great readiness to buy up lands when they had profits from city engagements.154 A considerable number of such land purchases by members of Untouchable castes to better their social standing were reported from Man and Satara taluqas.155 The Untouchables, however, suffered a number of social humiliations. Their touch was considered to be defiling. So they lived in separate quarters in the village and could not fetch water from the village well. A Mahar might not spit on the ground lest touching it with his foot should pollute a Hindu, but had to hang an earthen pot round his neck to hold his spittle. He was made to drag a thorny branch with him to brush away his footsteps and, when 152

G.C. Mukhyar, Life and Labour, pp. 61–68. Gail Omvedt, Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society, Bombay, 1976, pp. 73–97. 154 Ibid., pp. 95–96. 155 SRBG (NS), DC XXXIV, Second Revision Settlement of Man Taluqa, 1929, p. 11; Second Revision Settlement of Satara Taluqa, 1923, MSA, Bombay, p. 9. 153

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a brahmin came by, he had to lie face down at a distance lest his shadow fall on the brahmin.156 Unfortunately, the elements of Untouchability existed even among the lower castes. During the campaign led by Gandhi for the abolition of Untouchability, some Dublas refused any contact with those caste Hindus who had admitted the “impure” Dheds into their houses.157

156

Gazetteer of Bombay Presidency, West Khandesh, Vol. XII, p. 175. Cited from Census of India, Vol. XVII, Part I, 1921, p. 62; in Jan Breman, Patronage and Exploitation, p. 31. 157

TWO

Peasants, Parties and Politics: 1934–47 Studies of popular movements generally tend to focus attention on the most turbulent years or the periods of revolts. The conscious or unconscious assumption of such studies has been that history moves only by leaps. The peaceful, legal and extra-legal mobilizations have often been neglected, although they could be politically very significant, especially during times when open channels of protest are easily available to the masses.1 Admittedly, under autocratic governments, when popular aspirations are suppressed, the collective frustrations and grievances of the masses create an accumulated force which erupts violently and suddenly, but it has been demonstrated that peasants resort to violence only when legal, constitutional or peaceful extra-legal channels are completely denied to them.2 This chapter deals with peasant mobilization and its relationship with various political associations in the rural areas of the 1

In the case of India, the traditional, sporadic, catastrophic and violent modes of activities of the peasantry have been much idealized since the publication of Ranjit Guha’s Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency, New Delhi, 1983. It is assumed by Guha that the appeal of the violent, destructive modes of rebellious behaviour or the “semiotic of insurgency” is almost universal, see, for example, pp. 135–66. 2 See Gerrit Huizer, Peasant Rebellions in Latin America, Delhi, 1978, pp. 66–129; Hugo Blanco, Land or Death: The Peasant Struggle in Peru, New York, 1972, pp. 62–63; James Petras and Zamelman Merino, Peasants in Revolt: A Chilean Case Study, London, 1972, p. 16; Erich Fromm and Michael Maccoby, Social Character in a Mexican Village, New Jersey, 1970, pp. 114–16.

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Bombay Province. It is an attempt to focus attention on agrarian conflicts in various parts, especially the Konkan and south Gujarat. Although the focus is on the peaceful modes of mobilization and micro-level agitations, we hope to understand the role of the peasants’ own “subjectivity” in creating history. Such a study could also throw some light on weighty issues, such as the question of the correspondence between a social class and a particular political movement, the nature of the peasants’ identity shaped by religious symbolism and popular culture, and their life experiences under the joint oppression of the landlord-sahukar and the colonial state. At another level, a current in the historiography of popular movements believes that there are in society “two quite different constellations of social, political and cultural forces, involving diametrically opposite responses to the problem of time”.3 Taking a cue from this approach, there are historians who have reduced organized Indian nationalism into two separate domains based on the quality of their opposition or pattern of attacks on the colonial structure. They believe that the politics of the élites was constitutional, whereas “subaltern” nationalism was more sustained, determined and militant, often assuming violent forms.4 Others argue that, while the politics of popular groups is based on localism, the politics of élite group is based on country, kingdom or such larger loyalties.5 Ranajit Guha uses the same dichotomy but gives a different name to the latter “territoriality”, which he defines as “an intersection of physical space and ethnic space”.6 Our contention is that the “people” are not a monolithic group and can be divided into innumerable subsets according to the attributes of class, wealth, resources, age, sex, character types, status, occupation, residence, ideology, etc. The task of a historian 3

David Underdown, Revel, Riot and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England: 1603–1660, Oxford, 1985, p. 40. 4 This approach is reflected in David Hardiman, Peasant Nationalists of Gujarat: Kheda District—1917–1934, New Delhi, 1981, pp. 245–47; Ranjit Guha, “On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India”, Subaltern Studies I, New Delhi, 1982, pp. 1–18. 5 Paul D. Escort and Jeffery J. Crow, “The Social Orders and Violent Disorders: An Analysis of North Carolina in the Revolution and Civil War”, Journal of Southern Studies, 52, August 1986, pp. 373–402; Albert H. Tillson, “The Localist Root of Back Country Loyalism”, Journal of Southern Studies, 54, 3, 1988, pp. 387–404. 6 Guha, Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency, pp. 330–31.

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is to delineate real historical collectivities or aggregates according to their real historical significance.7 In the beginning of his book, Peasant Nationalists of Gujarat, Hardiman poses a very significant question: “Can a valid distinction be made between local village-based grievances of the peasants and the wider political grievances of the elites?” He himself provides the answer—“such distinctions are the hallmark of those in a position of authority”.8 But then suddenly he reverses his position and declares: “To the Bhils, the nationalism of Gujarati Babus was meaningless; their reality was their degraded position and poverty in relation to the high castes.”9 We are not contesting the distinction between the nationalism of the leadership and that of the masses. The former is bound to be more explicit, articulate, rational, logical and structured than the latter, which would tend to be inarticulate, sub-verbal or even mythic, archaic and symbolic. However, the “subaltern” historiography misses the dialectical link between the leader and the led through the mediation of ideology and organization. In this chapter, we would like to delineate various facets of the inter dependency between popular actions and political associations in the rural areas of the Bombay Province. Partha Chatterjee argues that peasants have “specific subjectivity” and we should not look at their political actions as “primordial”, “pre-political”, irrational and hence inherently inexplicable “spontaneous” acts, but “as actions informed by its own consciousness, shaped by centuries of its own political history structured by distinct conceptions of power and morality, and attempting to come to terms with and act within wholly new contexts of class struggle”.10 Moreover, the ideology that shapes the collective actions of peasants is religious. To quote him again, “Religion to such a community provides an ontology, an epistemology as well as practical code of ethics, including political ethics, when this community acts politically, the symbolic meaning of particular acts— 7

Nikolai Bukharin made this distinction between “artificial, imaginary or logical aggregates” and “real aggregates” in his book Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology, New York, 1928 (Reprinted, Delhi, 1969), pp. 84–85. 8 Hardiman, Peasant Nationalists, p. 10. 9 Ibid., p. 85. 10 Partha Chatterjee, “The Colonial State and Peasant Resistance in Bengal 1920–1947”, Past and Present, 110, February 1986, p. 202.

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their significance—must be found in religious terms.”11 Since the construction of community-based solidarities is never free of internal divisions, David Hardiman argues that community-based resistance does not preclude the self-assertion of subordinate groups within the community. Such contention can take place along the lines of class, caste, religion, age or gender within the peasant communities.12 The next question concerns the goal, the objective of political mobilization. Ranajit Guha argues that the nationalist bourgeois élite and Gandhi attempted “to discipline crowds and tried to appropriate them and their energies and numbers to be ‘harnessed’ to a nationalism which would allow the bourgeoisie to speak for its own interests in such a way as to generate the illusion of speaking for all of society”.13 It is further argued by him that nationalist ideology was “the ideology of class conciliation based on tenants subordination to landlords”14 and its basis was the “symbiosis with landlordism”. It is also presumed that the “élite” leaders’ task in mobilization was confined to bargaining and pressure politics and to check the subject’s right to rebel through the ideology of Bhakti, etc. On the other hand, the subaltern voice, which spoke out against the pliant and compromising attitudes of the élite, was mostly the voice of defiance and non-conformity. In reality, the actors on the historical stage arrive in different dresses and display diverse political shades. Attwood argues that the local group mobilizer (leader) claims that certain members of the local élite are illegitimately withholding or extracting resources, which should be available to the group. The group mobilizer’s strength lies in his capacity to forge and consolidate horizontal ties of interdependence within the mobilizing group.15 Many of the local Congress and other radical leaders performed such tasks of mobilization and they must be distinguished from the patrons that had access to widespread élite networks at local and regional levels. 11

Partha Chatterjee, “Agrarian Relations and Communalism in Bengal 1926–35”, in R. Guha, ed., Subaltern Studies I, New Delhi, 1982, p. 31. 12 David Hardiman, Peasant Resistance in India 1858–1914, Delhi, 1993, pp. 10– 11. 13 Guha, Dominance without Hegemony, p. 140. 14 Ibid., pp. 38, 132. 15 D.A. Attwood, “Patrons and Mobilizers: Political Entrepreneurs in an Agrarian State”, Journal of Anthropological Research, 30, 4, 1974, p. 237.

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The Spread of Organizational Links from the Urban Centres to the Rural Hinterland: 1934–36 Despite large-scale mobilization of peasants in Bardoli taluqa and in Siddapur and Ankola taluqas during the Civil Disobedience Movement, the organizational links of the Congress with the rural people in the Bombay Presidency as a whole were very weak at the beginning of 1934.16 This organizational weakness was probably responsible for the large-scale use of kinship networks during the Civil Disobedience Movement.17 The Civil Disobedience Movement had established a psychic bridge between the Congress and the masses. Now it was the task of the Congress leadership to reinforce the transmission belt through the construction of an organizational bridge. The Congress organization at this stage could be aptly described as an organization with mass appeal, which was not yet a real mass organization.18 Therefore, in order to develop the Congress as a mass peasant organization, the formation of village committees and Kisan Sabhas became imperative. Of a total membership of 28,258 in Maharashtra in September 1936, the Congress had only 16,578 members in rural Maharashtra. In rural Gujarat, in December 1936, the Congress had 23,444 members out of a total membership of 36,659 in Gujarat. In the Karnataka region of the Bombay Presidency, out of a total membership of 21,049 in September 1936, nearly two-thirds were 16

In the entire Maharashtra region, there were only 14 Village Primary Congress Committees in 1936, according to the MPCC Report to the AICC Secretary, dated 30 June 1936 in Rajendra Prasad Papers, NMML, New Delhi. In Gujarat and Karnataka (Bombay Province) also, only a few Village Congress Committee had been formed, according to the Bombay Chronicle (BC), 2 June 1934. 17 Patidar kinship ties were used as supplementary pressure in the Bardoli Satyagraha, see Hardiman, Peasant Nationalist, pp. 213–18. Similarly, in the Kanara region, the kinship ties of the nadvars and the vakkals were responsible for the success of nonrevenue movement, as indicated in the BC, 10 August 1934. 18 There was an apparent contradiction in the Congress self-critical acceptance of its own organizational weakness and the alarmist perception of the colonial administration, which can be resolved only in this manner. Linlithgow was worried about “the capacity of Bombay province for giving serious trouble” and described the Bombay Province as “the great stronghold of Congress”. Linlithgow to the Marques of Zetland, 8 June 1936 in Linlithgow Papers, NMML, New Delhi. Whereas the Congress was worried about lack of sufficient network in the villages.

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villagers.19 While the thinking that the old methods of constructive work, enrolment, the sale of khadi and the celebrations of certain national day and weeks were sufficient to organize the villagers persisted in some circles, most of the Congress committees insisted that new items were needed in the Congress programme which would include struggle against the day-to-day harassment of peasants by money-lenders, landlords and the petty officials of the colonial state.20 The MPCC, for instance, believed that the committees which helped peasants in their struggle for lowering of the “annewari” valuation of crops, enjoyed considerably more support and prestige among peasants compared to the committees which were engaged in simple constructive work.21 In this period, the agrarian question had assumed unprecedented importance in the political calculus of the Congress. The All-India Congress Committee (AICC) formed a Peasant Sub-Committee consisting of Rajendra Prasad, Vallabhbhai Patel and Purshottamdas Tandon to investigate peasant problems and advise the Working Committee on this issue.22 The MPCC also established a Peasant Enquiry Committee on 14 July 1935.23 After the withdrawal of the Civil Disobedience Movement, the most important task before Congressmen was to check demoralization and maintain the confidence of the cultivators who had lost their lands in the “Non-Payment of Revenue” Movement. Two committees, one, consisting of Gangadhar Rao Despande, Narayan Rao Joshi, S.R. Haladipurkar, Siddappa, Hosamani, Hanumantrao Koujalgi, R.S. Radbidri, D.P. Karmakar and R.S. Hukkerikar, for helping Kanara peasants of Siddapur and Ankola taluqas; and another, consisting of Chandulal Desai, Bhogilal Lala, Ravi Shankar Chottallal Puranik, Kaniyalal Desai and Dinkarrao Desai, for helping the farmers of the Gujarat region were established.24 These 19

“Reports of MPCC and GPCC” in AICC File No. P-25, 1937; KPCC Correspondence with AICC, 21 October 1936, in AICC File No. P-14, NMML, New Delhi, 1936. 20 Secretary, MPCC to the Convenor Mass Contact Committee (Jairamdas Doulatram), 19 July 1939, in Rajendra Prasad Papers; KPCC Correspondence with the AICC, 21 October 1936, in AICC File No. P-14, NMML, New Delhi, 1936. 21 “MPCC to the Secretary, AICC, June 30, 1936”, in Rajendra Prasad Papers, NMML, New Delhi. 22 AICC Annual Report, 1936, File No. G-76-77, NMML, New Delhi, 1936. 23 BC, 26 July 1935. 24 BC, 10 July and 2 August 1934.

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committees kept the morale of the suffering peasants high by providing immediate sustenance, cattle, seeds, agricultural implements and huts to them.25 The Congress used every opportunity of coming into contact with the villagers. In November 1934, Bhullabhai Desai addressed many election propaganda meetings in the villages of Panch Mahal and Ahmedabad, N.V. Gadgil and Govindrao Despande addressed metting in Nasik and Hosmani addressed meeting in the villages of Kanara District.26 In many cases, by airing the grievances of the villagers, the Congress organization came closer to the hearts of the people. A mass meeting of rural artisans and residents of Chikili in Surat District protested against the levy of a professional local tax. The meeting was organized under the leadership of Janardan B. Desai and Chottubhai Gulabbhai Desai.27 Congress activists also stood by villagers during natural calamities. In January 1935, relief work was organized for Bhil cultivators in Jhalod and Dohad taluqas of Panch Mahals under the leadership of Thakhar Bapa. Next year, again, the cultivators of Dohad and Jhalod were helped during the famine.28 Congress activists also provided relief work in Ratnagiri during the floods.29 Sardar Patel sent a number of volunteers to the villages of Borsad taluqa of Kheda to provide help to the plague-affected people.30 Congress activists also earned prestige for protesting against harassment by petty officials and police. One local Congress activist, Vagjibhai, was shot dead by a police constable when he intervened in the case of harassment of some cultivators of village Madar in Broach and Panch Mahals districts.31 With regard to the common folk, it may be kept in mind that they are often fascinated not so much by abstract theories and fanciful dogmas but by these concrete ideals in flesh. The Congress Socialists also emerged on the political scene in this period. In 1934, they adopted a radical programme for the 25

BC, 4 June, 10 July, 6 and 10 August, 25 and 30 October 1934; and AICC File No. P-14, NMML, New Delhi, 1936. 26 BC, 4, 10, 11, 13 and 14 November 1934. 27 BC, 20 August 1934. 28 BC, 25 January 1935, 22 August and 1 September 1936. 29 MPCC to Secretary, AICC, 30 June 1936; in Rajendra Prasad Papers, NMML, New Delhi. 30 BC, 13 April and 16 May 1935. 31 BC, 11 August 1934.

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peasant front which included the abolition of zamindari and taluqdari and the distribution of confiscated lands to the peasants, abolition of the burden of debt and arrears of rent, reduction of rent, complete remission of rent on uneconomic holdings, abolition of forced labour and feudal levies and encouragement to cooperative farming.32 The Executive Committee of the Maharashtra Congress Socialist Party (CSP), held on 14 January 1935, resolved to organize Kisan Sanghas in villages.33 Kamalashankar Pandya, the Secretary, Gujarat CSP and Dinkar Mehta visited Palsana, Vapi, Udwada and other villages of Pardi Mahal in Surat District explaining the CSP’s programme.34 At this stage, the political rivalry between the Congress and CSP activists over the adoption of more radical measures, which emerged during 1937–41, had not appeared and both political forces worked harmoniously. Kamalashankar Pandya and Dinkar Mehta, for instance, worked with the president of the Bulsar Taluqa Congress Committee, Natubhai Desai. They addressed a meeting at Bulsar and toured Bardoli, Karadi, Kachholi, Navasari and Billimora in Surat District and Wagra in Panch Mahals.35 Mrs Kamala Devi Chattopadhya, the CSP leader in the Karnataka region, addressed a large crowd of ryots at Jakli village (near Gadag) and appealed to them to support the Congress and to make it a mass organization. She also explained the Socialist programme.36 In her speeches at Chikodi, Kittur, Bail Hongal, Gokak and Khanapur in Belgaum District, in the first week of September 1935, she advocated the formation of Rayat Committees in all the villages.37 For the Communists, who had established their trench-work in the industrial towns of Bombay and Sholapur, the countryside still remained relatively an unexplored terrain. During 1934–36, they were hardly involved in peasant activities. At Rahuri and Bellapur in Ahmednagar District also, where Dange addressed kisan meetings on Kisan Day, 1 September 1936, the Communists 32 Maharashtra Congress Smajsattavadi Paksha: Dheyaya Ani Kariyakarm, MSA, Bombay, 1934. 33 Home/Special File No. 800(75) A-II, MSA, Bombay, 1935. 34 BC, 12 May 1935. 35 Weekly Reports, DM, Surat, 22 May 1935; and DM, Broach and Panch Mahals, 30 May 1935; in Home/Special File No. 800(75), A-II, MSA, Bombay. 36 BC, 27 August 1935. 37 Weekly Report, DM, Belgaum, MSA, Bombay, 12 September 1935.

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were engaged in organizing unions of workers of sugar plantations and factory workers at the Bellapur and Maharashtra sugar companies.38 Both the Congress and the Socialist workers organized mass meetings in villages and taluqa- and district-level peasant conferences in which some particular grievances of the locality were combined with general demands. In many cases, these peasant conferences were simply big peasant meetings drawing large attendance from adjacent villages rather than from the whole taluqa or district after which they were named.39 These conferences were like local melas that generated much enthusiasm among the peasants. These activists should also be seen as the articulation of the Congress’ mentality by the “silent and dumb” cultivators. In 1936 alone, nearly 20 such conferences were organized in different parts of Maharashtra. This is also contrary to the belief that the Congress “élites” were interested only in “constitutional concessions”.40 It was this active involvement that increased Congress membership in rural areas. In Gujarat, it increased from 23,444 in 1936 to 65,165 in 1937. In the countryside of Maharashtra the increase was from 29,516 in 1936 to 126,598 in 1937.41 In a pre-industrial society, when modern political associations and channels of protest were not available, idealization of the past was quite common for peasant movements.42 In such traditional rural revolts, they wanted “a return to the good old customs”.43 There is a crop of historians who idealize these traditional sporadic, sudden, catastrophic and violent modes of activities of the peasantry.44 It is one thing to trace continuities with past traditions but altogether a different thing to think them as rigid, fixed and 38 Congress Socialist (NS), 38, 12 September 1936 and BC, 4 September and 13 October 1936 39 AICC File No. G-13, NMML, New Delhi, 1936. 40 Hardiman, Peasant Nationalists, pp. 246–47. 41 Report of the GPCC dated 29 January 1938; and Report of the MPCC dated 8 December 1936–31, December 1937, in AICC File No. P-25, 1937, NMML, New Delhi. 42 Jean Chesneaux, “Secret Societies in China’s Historical Evolution”, in Popular Movements and Secret Societies in China: 1840–1950, pp. 17–18. 43 Ronald Mousnier, Peasant Uprisings in Seventeenth-Century France, Russia and China, London, 1971, p. 62. 44 Guha, Peasant Insurgency, pp. 135–66, emphasizes violent, destructive modes of rebellious behaviour.

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unchangeable entities. Therefore, “subaltern” historiography fails to see the Congress as a modern organization through which the collective will of a subject people begins to take concrete form.45

Peasant Conferences: 1935–36 A brief account of peasant conferences organized between 1935 and 1936 is presented here. (a) Anand taluqa peasant conference under Abbas Tyabji was held in the beginning of February 1935. It appealed to the government to postpone the collection of revenue till the survey of crop damage.46 (b) A conference of farmers at Matar in Ahmedabad under Dadubhai Desai, was held in the first week of February 1935. It made a representation to the government for the complete remission of revenue due to crop damage.47 (c) A big conference was held at Pali in Alibag taluqa of Kolaba on 5 January 1936, under S.K. Bole and N.N. Patil in connection with Chari Peasant Day. The main theme was the abolition of khoti and the enactment of tenancy legislation.48 (d) A mass meeting of 1,000 farmers from the villages of Nagar taluqa (Ahmednagar) was held in the last week of January 1936, at Ukadgaon in which B. Kanilkar and S.R. Bhagwat explained the village uplift scheme.49 (e) A cultivators’ conference was planned at Madha on 1 September 1935, along with a “Cleaning Week” in Sholapur village during the Navratra festival.50 45

Gramsci clearly recognized that without “the Party generals” and their “cohesive, centralizing and disciplinary powers”, the masses would easily “scatter into an impotent diaspora and vanish into nothing”. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, London, 1971, p. 152. E.J. Hobsbawm also thinks that subalternity of peasants (that is, their general separation froms non-peasants) makes certain forms of nationwide peasant action without outside leadership and organization difficult. See E.J. Hobsbawm, “Peasants and Politics”, Journal of Peasant Studies, 1, 1, October 1973, pp. 3–22. 46 BC, 4 February 1935. 47 Ibid. 48 BC, 9 January 1936. 49 BC, 31 January 1936. 50 BC, 2 August 1935.

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(f) The Dohad–Jhalod Conference at Mirakhedi under Indulal Yagnik, Raman Lal Seth, Matabhai Damor and Kamalashankar Pandya was held on 26 January 1936. Three thousand peasants attended the conference from 60–70 villages. The main demands advocated at this conference were the abolition of the existing land revenue code, a 50 per cent reduction in land revenue and rent, penalization of forced labour in law, abolition of other feudal levies, restriction of the rate of interest (to be 6 per cent only), fixation of annewaris (anna valuation of the crops by the revenue officials) according to the suggestion of village representatives and Kisan Sanghs and, finally, the abolition of taluqdari, inamdari, etc.51 (g) The Bhusawal Taluqa Conference (February 1936) demanded a 50 per cent reduction in land revenue, writing off of 50 per cent of debts, licensing of money-lenders and fixation of annewari after consulting village representatives.52 (h) Two conferences were held around 20 March 1936, at Vagra (Broach District). (i) A conference was organized at Dholka (Ahmedabad) on 15 March 1936, which protested against excessive valuation of crops (that is, the annewari) and demanded suitable remission in revenue.53 (j) A conference was held at Satana in Baglan taluqa of Nasik on 12 April 1936.54 (k) A conference of farmers of Mulshi-Peta (Poona) was organized in the first week of April 1936, under Rao Saheb Patwardhan. It resolved on the abolition of the existing revenue system, exemption of uneconomic holdings from payment of revenue, scaling down of debts and legal restrictions on money lending.55 (l) The Matar Taluqa Conference was organized on 21 January 1936 under Dadubhai Desai.56 51

BC, 27, 29 and 30 January 1936; Dohad Jhalod Congress Committee to the Secretary, AICC, 11 June 1936 in Rajendra Prasad Papers, NMML, New Delhi. 52 Congress Socialist (NS), I, 1, March 1936. 53 BC, 24 March 1936. 54 BC, 13 April 1936. 55 BC, 8 April 1936. 56 BC, 27 April 1936.

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Other such peasant conferences were held at Masur and Walve in Satara District on 13 and 14 June 1936, respectively, under K.M. Jedhe and N.V. Gadgil; at Rahuri on 11 July 1936 (Ahmednagar District); at Kalwan and Baglan in Nasik District (in May 1936); at Charholi (Haveli taluqa, Poona) on 9 May 1936; at Bhilwadi (Tasgaon Taluqa) on 5 and 6 May 1936; at Manor (Palghar taluqa); at Ghode (near Poona) on 14 May 1936; at Sinnar (which was attended by 5,000 famine-stricken peasants of Nasik); at Talegaon in Dindori taluqa of Nasik on 17 November 1936; at Hansbhavi in Hirekurur taluqa; and at Sanghmeshwar and Chiplun in Ratnagiri District (in November 1936).57

Faizpur and the Consolidation of the Rural Base In mid-1936, Congress activists started visiting distant villages to arouse enthusiasm for the Faizpur Congress Session. Appasaheb Altekar, President of the Satara District Congress Committee, visited villages like Masure, Indoli, Charegaon, Unibraj Shirgaon and Kale in Karad taluqa, enrolled members in the Congress and lectured on the significance of the Faizpur Congress.58 In these meetings, the speakers took up Congress propaganda, election themes and the grievances of the local peasants. Shankarrao Deo, President of the MPCC, addressed crowded meetings at Sawada and Pimprud attended by 3,000 kisans, to mobilize support for the Faizpur Session.59 Kamala Devi Chattopadhya, Shankar Kurkoti and Andanapa Dodameti toured villages in Dharwar District and addressed thousands of peasants.60 S.M. Joshi accompanied by saffron-robed women volunteers, visited Lavare, Kubharkheda, Saikheda, Gaurkheda, Chinaval, Kusambe, Bhalod and Savda near Faizpur and addressed thousands of peasants on the significance of the Faizpur Congress Session.61 K.M. Jedhe, N.V. Gadgil and V.V. Dandekar addressed crowded kisan meetings at Umbergaon, Wada, Palghar, Mahim, 57

Congress Socialist (NS), I, 27, 27 June 1936; BC, 7, 11 and 9 May; 2 June; 4 July; 23 October; 10, 12, 18 and 24 November 1936; and Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraphs 467, 488 and 489, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay, 1936. 58 BC, 14 October 1936. 59 BC, 14 August 1936. 60 BC, 4 November 1936. 61 BC, 10 and 26 November 1936.

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Allyali and Weoor in north Thana, in which they asked the kisans to vote for the Congress. Similar crowded election meetings were held at Gundi, Raipur, Bholad and Chawda, etc., in Ahmedabad by Darbar Gopaldass and Iswarlal Vyas.62 A Kisan March was organized from Manmad village in (Nasik District) to Faizpur covering 200 miles, which came into contact with thousands of villagers on the way.63 It was the result of this propaganda that the Faizpur Congress attracted an estimated crowd of 1.5 lakh.64 During January and the early part of February 1937, many election meetings were held. Bhullabhai Desai in Gujarat, Kamala Devi Chattopadhya in Dharwar, Hosmani Diwakar in Bijapur and Sardar Patel in Nasik and other regions had a tight election schedule.65 The election propaganda, by focusing on the problems of the kisans, heightened the hopes and expectations of the peasants. Their enthusiasm could be seen from their marching to the polling booths on foot and in bullock carts with Congress flags and shouting Congress slogans.66 The earlier form of mobilizing people through taluqa- and district-level conferences continued with more enthusiasm and the attendance of larger crowds, where the peasant’s problems regarding revenue, rent, indebtedness, crop valuations by revenue officials, relief during crop failures and problems of irrigation and grazing fees, etc., were aired. A Ryot Conference was arranged on 19 January 1937, at Kardi in Humgund taluqa of Bijapur.67 A big conference of 8,000 peasants, organized by Bhutekar, was held at Maral in Sinnar taluqa (Nasik) on 28 February 1937, to demand relief during famines.68 A Kisan Conference was also held at Vagjipura (in Godhra taluqa), which was attended by 3,000 peasants of Panch Mahals. Kamalashankar Pandya, Dinkar Mehta and Yusuf Meherally were the organizers of this conference.69 Another Kisan Conference was held at Asoda in East Khandesh 62

BC, 26 November and 16 December 1936. M.A. Rasul, A History of the All-India Kisan Sabha, Calcutta, 1974, p. 9; BC, 18 December 1936; and Secret Abstract of Intelligence, paragraph 104, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay, 1937. 64 Zetland to Linlithgow, dated 8 February 1937, NMML, New Delhi. 65 BC, 9, 13, 18, 25 January and 4 February 1937. 66 BC, 19 February 1937. 67 BC, 26 January 1937. 68 BC, 10 March 1937. 69 BC, 4 May 1937. 63

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in May 1937 and was presided over by J. Bhukari.70 In May and June 1937, Congress leaders also addressed many village meetings condemning the “puppet” interim ministry of Cooper. The Daksroi Peasant Conference at Dami Limbda (in Ahmedabad) and the Rahimatpur Peasant Conference in Satara also condemned the interim ministry.71 The Congress’ assumption of ministry had an electrifying impact on the masses. On the other hand, it demoralized the local administration, especially the petty revenue officials.72 A Kisan Day was organized by the Kisan Sabha on 1 September 1937, which was celebrated throughout the province by kisans organizing meetings, demonstrations, etc.73 K.F. Nariman addressed a crowded meeting of 8,000 peasants at Islampur in Satara District on 3 September 1937.74 Numerous kisan conferences attended by thousands of peasants were held during the rest of 1937. We list them here briefly: (a) Senapati Bapat, B.B. Kulkarni, V.B. Bhuskute and Indulal Yagnik addressed a crowded conference of 15,000 Ahmednagar peasants at Pengiri in the first week of September.75 (b) The Sinnar Taluqa Conference (Nasik) was organized at Wai in early September, under Bhutekar and Yagnik.76 (c) Another divisional conference under Yagnik was attended by 1,000 peasants at Vadhav in Pen taluqa (Kolaba) in the month of November.77 (d) A conference with an estimated crowd of 8,000–15,000 people which included hundreds of women was organized in Akola on 21 November. It was addressed by A.B. Latthe, the finance minister.78 70

BC, 27 May 1937. BC, 5, 7, 8, 27 May and 1, 4, 7, 8 June 1937. 72 Report No. 24 from the Governor of Bombay to Brabourne, 16 September 1938 in Linlithgow Papers, 52, NMML, New Delhi. 73 Congress Socialist (NS), 1, 38, 12 September 1937. 74 BC, 4 September 1937. 75 BC, 8 September 1937 and Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraph 630, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay, 1937. 76 BC, 10 September 1937. 77 Congress Socialist (NS), 2, 47, 27 November 1937. 78 Ibid., and Bombay Weekly Provincial Letter No. 48, 4 December 1937 in Home/ Special File No. 922(2), MSA, Bombay, 1937. 71

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(e) Peasant conferences were organized at Wadgaon on 2 November and at Andhani on 3 November under Bhutekar; at Bhadgaon on 7 November under Lalji Pendse and at Ghadegaon on 9 November under Abaji Sanab.79 (f) Peasant conferences were held at Nandgaon under Atmaram Patil on 25 October and at Amdade (Pachora taluqa) on 25 October and at Karangaon on 31 October and at Kajagaon on 1 November (in Khandesh) under Bhutekar.80 (g) At Shenoli on 9 October, A.B. Latthe addressed a large Kisan Conference. He dealt with the problem of agrarian debt before an audience of 10,000 kisans.81 (h) Other such conferences were held at Guttal (Dharwar District) on 27 October, at Prantiz (Ahmedabad), at Khandari (East Khandesh), and at Manmad in Nasik District.82 (i) Bhogilal Lal, Patel and Mridula Sarabhai addressed the Viramgam Taluqa Peasant Conference at Mandal in November. Other conferences were held at Vinchur in Sholapur under S.D. Deo, K.B. Antrolikar and T.S. Jadhav; at Vadala in Khandesh under Rajmal Lakshmichand; at Anniyeri (Dharwar) under A. Dodmeti; at Neri and Marwad in East Khandesh under K.M. Jedhe and at Bhingar (Ahmednagar) under P.H. Patwardhan.83 Between 1938 and 1939, a keen rivalry developed between the Kisan Sabha and the Congress organization in some areas, especially in the south Gujarat region. Village-level meetings were the main form of mobilization during this phase. Peasant conferences continued to be a major instrument of popular mobilization, but a new form of peasant mobilization also emerged during this period. This was the organization of peasant marches to the local mamlatdar’s kutcheris, collectors’ offices and so on. In January–February 1938, two taluqa conferences—one at Newasa under Shankarrao Deo, which was attended by 2,000–3,000 peasants and focused attention on the problem of annewari, and 79

Ibid. Congress Socialist, 2, 45, 13 November 1937. 81 BC, 22 October 1937; Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraph 790, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay, 1937. 82 Home/Special File No. 922(2), MSA, Bombay, 1937. 83 Ibid., and Home/Special File No. 800(53)-B-I, MSA, Bombay, 1937. 80

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another at Jamgaon (Parner taluqa)—were held in Ahmednagar. S.M. Joshi, P.M. Bapat and others addressed the latter.84 In January 1938, a peasant conference at Sinnar (Nasik) and another in Badagi taluqa and Bilgi Peta (in the Karnataka region) were organized. Badagi taluqa suffered from the problem of acute water shortage during the winter of 1938. This was highlighted by a conference, attended by 3,000 peasants from 30 villages of the area.85 In February 1938, a few big meetings were held to mobilize people for the Haripura Congress Session. Indulal Yagnik and D.M. Pangarkar addressed a number of village meetings in kaliparaj areas for mobilizing people for a proposed march to Haripura.86 At a large conference of Kalol taluqa peasants, attended by 5,000 peasants including 1,000 women, B.G. Kher, the prime minister, criticized the critics of the ministry for demanding what the Congress had never promised in its election manifesto, that is, a 50 per cent reduction in land revenue.87 A big meeting of 10,000 Harijans and other villagers of Bardoli taluqa was addressed on 17 February by B.G. Kher, Morarji Desai and Vallabhbhai Patel.88 A large Kisan March from Tharsada to Haripura was organized by the Kisan Sabha with a strength estimated at 1,000–10,000 by different sources. Yagnik, Ranchhod Patel, D.M. Pangarkar, N.G. Ranga and Swami Sahajanand addressed the marchers. Sardar Patel opposed the march.89 Sardar Patel probably felt embarrassed due to the existence of the hali system in the area of his political influence. Kisan Sabha leaders had decided to raise the issue at the Haripura Session and Patel felt that it might embarrass him in the eyes of the national leaders. A representative meeting of the peasants around Kalamb in Indapura taluqa (Poona) was held on 7 August 1938, at Ranamodwadi under the leadership of V.B. Karnik, Vishwasrao Mandhare and Namdeorao Savant. It was demanded that the Kalamb Sugar factory should restore land to the original owners 84

Weekly Report, DM, Ahmednagar, 21 January and 18 February 1938 in Home/ Special File No. 922(2), MSA, Bombay, 1937. 85 BC, 29 and 31 January 1938. 86 Indulal Yagnik, Atam Katha (in Gujarati), Gyan Prachar Trust, Ahmedabad (abridged 1896 version), 2, pp. 192–93; BC, 12 February 1938. 87 BC, 12 February 1938. 88 Home/Special File No. 950–I, MSA, Bombay, 1938. 89 Ibid., and also Indulal Yagnik, Atam Katha, pp. 193–95; BC, 19 February 1938; Dinkar Mehta, Oral Transcript, NMML, New Delhi, p. 131.

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or else make a three-fold increase in the rent, the landholders should be given employment in the factory, and the settlement of wages and conditions of work should be made in consultation with the Peasants’ Committee.90 On 8 October 1938, the Poona District Congress Committee and the Congress Socialists demanded modifications in the tenancy legislation and a liquidation of opposition from within to agrarian legislation. They organized a march of 2,000 peasants to Poona City. Shankarrao Deo, the president of the MPCC, criticized the march for showing lack of faith in the Congress.91 A conference of about 30,000 inamdari farmers in early November was presided by Bhogilal Lala at Vatva in Ahmedabad District. The conference demanded some changes in the tenancy legislation.92 In January 1939, Swami Sahajanand made a tour of the Gujarat region and addressed a large number of meetings along with Yagnik in the villages of Ahmedabad, Surat and Panch Mahals.93 In East Khandesh, 1,000 peasants marched to the Bhadgaon Mahalkari office under the leadership of Shetkari Sangh and Lalji Pendse.94 The Leftists proposed a march of Khandesh peasants to the collector’s office on 26 January 1939, for demanding remission of revenue. To mobilize people for the march, they organized preliminary peasant conferences at Phulgaon, Bodwad and Chalisgaon in East Khandesh under P.S. Sane and at Devagaon in West Khandesh under S.A. Dange. However, because of strong opposition from the District Congress Committee (DCC), the march was abandoned and both the Congress Committee and the Leftists agreed to organize a huge conference at Jalgaon on Independence Day. A conference of 50,000 peasants was organized on 26 January 1939 by the joint efforts of the Congress leaders K.M. Jedhe and Shankarrao Deo and Kisan March Committee leaders, Sane Guruji, Lalji Pendse and S.A. Dange.95 In January–February (1939), Yagnik, Pangarkar and other kisan activists conducted village-level propaganda tours 90

BC, 11 August 1938. Congress Socialist (NS), 3, 42, 16 October 1938. 92 BC, 7 November 1939. 93 Home/Special File No. 800(53)-B-IV, MSA, Bombay, 1939. 94 BC, 14 January 1939. 95 BC, 13 and 28 January 1939; Bombay Sentinel, 14 January and 13 February 1939; Weekly Provincial Letter No. 2, dated 14 February 1939 in Home/Special File No. 800(53)-B-IV, MSA, Bombay, 1939. 91

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in the Gujarat region for organizing the kisans. In their meetings, they made use of provisions of agrarian legislation passed by the popular Congress ministry. At Mujkuwa (Borsad taluqa in Kaira District), Yagnik explained to an assembly of 2,000 kisans, that under the Small Holder Relief Bill, their lands and agricultural produce were not liable to attachment.96 Although, the Kisan Sabha workers succeeded in persuading tenants not to pay rent in some isolated villages, the organization of the Kisan Sabha was not very impressive. In February 1939, the total membership of the Kisan Sabha was only 6,012 in all the districts of Gujarat, of which 2,850 members were in Kaira alone.97 On 1 and 2 April, a well-attended Provincial Gujarat Kisan Conference was held at Gusar in Panch Mahals, which discussed problems of land revenue, tenancy rights, forced labour and debt.98 Agitation was also organized in the villages around sugar factories. Around 500 cultivators of Ahmednagar protested at Muthewadgaon on 22 April 1939, under the leadership of the Communist leaders, V.M. Bhuskute and S.S. Mirajkar, against waterlogging of lands in the villages near the Belapur sugar factory.99 Led by Bhutekar, about 2,000 peasants from the villages of Malegaon taluqa in Nasik District protested against the irrigation policy which discriminated against the Girna Canal farmers in favour of the sugar factory plantations.100 Under the Communist-led taluqa peasant union, about 1,000 peasants marched from the villages of Kalyan Taluqa in Thana District to the camp of the collector of Thana at Belavli to demand remission and relief from exorbitant rents due to famine conditions.101 A similar conference of 3,000 agriculturists of Murbad taluqa of Thana was organized on 27 December 1939, under the leadership of S.V. Parulekar, which was also attended by Godavari Gokhale, N.V. Phadke and D.K. Desai. The conference took up the 96

Weekly Report, DM, Kaira, MSA, Bombay, 22 February 1939. Bombay Provincial Weekly Letter No. 8, 25 February 1939 in Home/Special File No. 800(53)-B-IV, MSA, Bombay, 1939. 98 BC, 6 and 8 April 1939 and Home/Special File 800(53)-B-IV, MSA, Bombay, 1939. 99 Bombay Secret Abstracts, for week ending 6 May 1939, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 100 BC, 29 July 1939. 101 BC, 24 November 1939. 97

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grievance against heavy rents and debts and demanded implementation of the legislation passed by the Congress ministry that had been introduced earlier.102 Attempts were also made by the Socialist workers in some places in the Karnataka region to organize the tenants. P.B. Muchadi tried to organize the resistance of tenants at Nidoshi, an inam village in Hukeri taluqa of Belgaum, where there were some differences between the inamdars and tenants.103 At a meeting of 300 tenants at Kinner (in Kanara District), on 11 December 1940, tenants decided not to cultivate the lands of dispossessed tenants.104 From December 1939 onwards, Congress activists became very active in anti-war propaganda in the villages. Many village-level meetings were held to explain the Congress’ attitude towards the war to villagers.105 The Kisan Sabha leaders, however, continued their propaganda in the villages against the landlords, moneylenders and forest officials between 1940 and 1941.106 At the surface level, the individual satyagraha in the late 1940s did not produce any impressive results. The number of active participants was very small. It did not pose any law and order problem for the authorities. But it kept the Congress activists busy and served the purpose of symbolic protest.107 Although, the actual number of people who offered satyagraha was not large, at the time of the offering of satyagraha, hundreds of people used to gather to hear the speeches of the activists. In big towns, the gathering used to be larger. But in villages, it used to be between 100 and 800. Even in the stronghold of the Congress, the individual satyagraha did not arouse much excitement. In Belgaum, where Lingayat Congress leaders were more enthusiastic about arousing the villagers, urban-based Congress leaders persuaded them to drop their more intensive agitation.108 Only at Jalgaon, a crowd of 102

BC, 30 December 1939. Weekly Report, DM, Belgaum, 16 February 1939, in Home/Special File No. 800(53)-B-IV, MSA, Bombay, 1939. 104 Bombay Secret Abstracts, for week ending 4 January 1941, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 105 BC, 5, 20 December 1939 and 10 January 1940. 106 Home/Special File No. 800(53)-B-V, 1939–41 and Home/Special File No. 1019, 1940–41, MSA, Bombay. 107 Y.B. Chavan, Oral Transcript, NMML, New Delhi, pp. 46–47. 108 Home/Special File No. 800(74)(7), III, 1941–43; File No. 800(74)(4) III, 1941–43, MSA, Bombay, Governor of Bombay to Linlithgow, 18 September, 30 November, 103

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4,000 clashed with the police on 24 November 1940, upon the arrest of a Congressman.109 In some cases, the individual satyagrahis got wide publicity. Between 11 and 18 January 1941, only 68 satyagrahis courted arrest. The attendance generally happened to be between 100 and 150 on these occasions. In one meeting in Bijapur District, however, a satyagrahi, R.G. Dube, addressed a large gathering of 6,000 people, who had gathered for a local fair.110 There were cases in Kolaba, Satara and Belgaum districts (February–April 1941) when satyagrahis were carried in carts drawn by 50, 75 and even 100 pairs of bullocks.111 In Belgaum District, the local initiative led to wellpublicized large meetings in the early part of 1941. The organizers even disregarded the instructions of the AICC that individual satyagraha should not take the form of organized demonstrations. In this, the organizers also frequently used the local fairs for mobilization purposes.112 All these activists prepared the villagers for the great volcanic eruption of 1942.

Tenant Struggles in the Konkan Region In the Konkan region of Maharashtra (that is, Kolaba and Ratnagiri districts), there was a peculiar land tenure system known as khoti tenure. Under this system, exactions of landlords included vethi or forced labour. In addition to economic exploitation, the tenants of the khots faced all sorts of social humiliations.113 In some cases rents were fixed, but in the majority of khoti lands, the actual quantity of grain to be paid was determined after the abhavani or the annual assessment of crops by inspection of the standing crops. Such estimates of crops were made by the khot, the tenant and a third person who was generally a partisan of the khot either through obligation or fear. The result was over-estimation of crops leading to appropriation of the bulk of the tenant’s production. One such 4 December and 16 January 1940; 3, 30 January, 4, 20 February, 19 April and 1 May 1941, in Linlithgow Papers, 54 and 55, NMML, New Delhi. 109 Home/Special File No. 1020(13), MSA, Bombay, 1940. 110 Secret Abstract of Intelligence, Bombay, 1941, paragraph 59. 111 Ibid., paragraphs 131, 238 and 329. 112 Ibid., paragraphs 222, 238 and 260. 113 A.V. Patwardhan and Anant Vinayak, Serfdom in Konkan, Maharashtra State Archives (MSA), Bombay, n.d., pp. 1–14.

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design was the use of different sets of measures for different purposes. The measurement used for receiving rent (in kind) from tenants was of a larger scale. Moreover, it was the responsibility of the cultivator to bear the cost of cultivation including that of seeds and manure. The khot could increase rent if he felt that the production had increased. Most of the tenants were tenants-at-will as they could be evicted easily. The lands were cultivated on the basis of yearly agreements or kabuliyats. The khot also received a share in the produce of the fruit trees planted by the tenants.114 Under the system of vethi or forced labour, the khot made use of the tenant’s family’s labour for his domestic needs as well as for agricultural operations on his “self-cultivated” lands.115 Among the tenants, there was a privileged group known as the dharekari or the occupancy tenants who were free from such semi-feudal obligations and who could not be evicted at the will of the khot. The colonial state tried to regulate the system through the Khoti Leases Act in 1865. However, most of the abuses associated with the khoti system continued.116 The khots were well organized in the form of the Khoti Association and in case of any resistance by the tenants, criminal cases and suits, attachment of fields, produce and cattle of the tenants were some of the common steps taken by the khots.117 The Khoti Settlement Act (1880) defined the various types of occupants in khoti villages and determined the rights and obligations of the tenants vis-à-vis the superior holder. The Act conferred the right of occupancy on the cultivators who had cultivated the lands since 1845, but even this right could be transferred only with the consent of the khot.118 Some of the khots were also patels (or hereditary village headmen) of their villages. They also acted as moneylenders for their tenants. The combined function of a territorial magnate, financial power and social power which a khot performed as a landlord, a moneylender, and a village patel, gave him ample powers to exact vethi and many other semi-feudal exactions from tenants.119 All sorts of tensions were inherent in such a social situation. 114 115 116 117 118 119

Ibid., pp. 9–10. Ibid., pp. 10–14. MPCC, Peasant Enquiry Committee, 1936, MSA, Bombay, pp. 59–60. Patwardhan and Vinayak, Serfdom in Konkan, pp. 1–3. MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, 1936, MSA, Bombay, p. 57. Patwardhan and Vinayak, Serfdom in Konkan, p. 10.

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In the 1930s, the Congress was in the process of expanding its rural base. The Peasant Enquiry Committee (1936) of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (hereafter MPCC) recommended the elimination of the khoti tenurial system within a period of 20 years.120 The election campaign of the Congress in 1937 also raised the hopes of the tenants. As a result of the emphasis on wide-ranging agrarian reforms and the anti-landlord propaganda, many villagers came to look upon the Congress box121 as invested with supernatural qualities.122 The khots and zamindars saw in the Congress propaganda “an attack on their legitimate rights and interest”.123 Similarly, the Ratnagiri District Khot and Zamindar Sabha complained to the president of the AICC on 11 August 1936 that, “The programme of abolishing Khoti is a confiscatory programme. It looks very much like socialism or communism . . . . If in the coming elections, Congress’ appeal to the tenant-voters on the programme of abolition of Khoti, the situation that would be created, can easily be understood. A class war would begin, in which passions would run high, leading perhaps even to riots with extremely undesirable consequences.”124 The MPCC, at its annual meeting held in December 1936, however, made it clear that the abolition of khoti had not been mentioned in the Congress manifesto.125 But the Congress propaganda had already fueled the aspirations of the tenants. In meetings, Morarji Desai tried to convince the crowds of peasants at Mahad, Indapur, Nagthna, Pen and Dhopwad in Kolaba District that revolutionary changes were not possible due to constraints imposed by the colonial constitutional framework, but promised some reforms.126 Some prominent Congress leaders such as N.V. Gadgil and K.M. Jedhe asked the district organizations of the Congress in the Konkan to raise their views on the abolition of 120

MPCC, Report of the Peasant Enquiry Committee, MSA, Bombay, 1936, p. 104. The reference is to the ballot box for the elections in 1937 held under the Government of India Act (1935), the villagers designated it as the “Congress box” because of their political inclinations. 122 P.N. Chopra, ed., Towards Freedom, 1, Delhi, 1985, pp. 542–57. 123 President, Khed Taluka Zamindar Sabha to the Secretary, AICC, 19 August 1936, in the AICC Papers, File No. P-16, NMML, New Delhi. 124 AICC Papers, File No. P-16, NMML, New Delhi. 125 BC, 8 December 1936. 126 Ibid., 29 July 1936. 121

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khoti or at least demand permanent hereditary rights of occupancy before the abolition of the khoti.127 The general meeting of the Ratnagiri District Congress Committee did pass a resolution on 4 December 1937, demanding the abolition of the khoti tenure.128 The Congress leadership’s decision to back away from its earlier position on khoti, however, cannot be assigned to the pressures generated by the khots. Important practical considerations, rather than “the betrayal of elitist and collaborationist” nationalist leadership,129 were responsible for the retreat. Actually the Congress had nothing to lose by alienating the khots and other landlords because they were not supporters of the party. On the other hand, it was eager to acquire some influence in the Konkan to counter the sway of Ambedkar’s Independent Labour Party on tenants and the depressed castes in the region.130 Moreover, the assumption of “collaboration” is invalidated by the fact that despite considerable opposition from the khots, zamindars, inamdars and taluqdars of the Bombay Province, the Congress ministry went ahead with its tenancy legislation, which considerably widened its rural base.131 The tenancy legislation angered not only the landlords, but even offended the privileged hereditary occupancy tenants or the dharekaris of the Konkan.132 Even without external political intervention, the Konkan region was prone to sporadic strikes by the tenants. The tenants of Chari village in Kolaba refused to pay excessive rents. The strike continued from 1932 to 1934. After a short interval, in 1934, cultivators in Chari left 700 acres of land uncultivated. When the khots tried to cultivate the land with the help of tenants from the surrounding villages, tenants used caste sanctions to counter the khots’ move. A final settlement that gave tenants some concessions could be reached only at the end of 1937, after the intervention 127

Ibid., 25 November 1937. Ibid., 9 December 1937. 129 Guha, Peasant Insurgency, p. 331, described organized nationalism, barring some small militant groups, as “élitist and collaborationist”. 130 Annual Report, MPCC, 1938, in the AICC File No. P-24, 1939 and the Governor of Bombay to Linlithgow, 22 June 1938, in the Linlithgow Papers, 51 (unpublished), microfilm section, NMML, New Delhi. 131 Rani Dhawan Shankar Das, The First Congress Raj: Provincial Autonomy in Bombay, Delhi, 1982, pp. 121–24. 132 K.V. Kubal, President, Dharekari Sabha, Vengurla to the Chairman, CWC, 19 December 1937, in the AICC File No. P.L.-13, Part II, 1937, NMML, New Delhi. 128

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of Morarji Desai.133 Dr B.R. Ambedkar was the main organizer of the depressed classes in the province. During the late 1930s, he realized the futility of symbolic struggle, for example, temple entry, and focused his attention on economic issues, such as the problems of tenants in the Konkan region. S.V. Parulekar, D.V. Pradhan and G.R. Ghatge were some of the other leading activists of the Independent Labour Party during this period in the Konkan region. The presence of B.R. Ambedkar, S.V. Parulekar and other activists of the Independent Labour Party further incited the social tensions, already ripe in the Konkan. This led to a number of clashes between the khots and tenants in the villages of Ratnagiri District.134 Some of these incidents were reported but many more went unrecorded. The situation was indicative of the general discontent among the tenants of the region. In a typical clash at Natu Village of Khed taluqa, around 20 Mahar tenants assaulted a small police party on 22 May 1938 that had come to help a khot. The clash, according to police sources, was a sequel to a public meeting of about 500 Mahars at Khed on 17 May 1938 at which B.R. Ambedkar, D.V. Pradhan and G.R. Ghatge urged them to stop payment of makta or rent to the khots.135 As a result of such social tension, which was reflected in the tenants’ reluctance to pay rent to the khots, a number of criminal cases were registered.136 The district magistrate of Ratnagiri reported more than 20 cases of assaults, trespass on the khot’s land and theft of crops in the year 1938. These cases were spread all over the district. The number of tenants involved in such cases, however, did not exceed 20 to 25.137 In some other cases, the accumulated tension led to direct collective resistance in the form of a strike by tenants. The tenants of Adavali village in Sangmeshwar taluqa stopped cultivation of their khot’s land and payment of rent. The strike continued from 133

Congress Socialist, 1, 9, 15 February 1936 and BC, 1 January 1938. T.E. Streatfield, Secretary to Governor of Bombay to Laithwaite, 21 August 1939, in the Linlithgow Papers, 53 (unpublished), microfilm section, NMML, New Delhi. 135 Letter from DM, Ratnagiri to Secretary, Government of Bombay, Home Department, 24 May 1938, in Home/Special File No. 927-B, 1938, MSA, Bombay. 136 Bombay Legislative Assembly Debates (BLAD), IV, September–October 1938, NMML, New Delhi, pp. 21–31. 137 Home/Special File No. 927-B, 1938, MSA, Bombay. 134

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December 1937 to April 1938, when a settlement could be reached only with the arbitration of the prominent radical Congress leader, A.S. Patwardhan.138 The Mahar tenants of Belari in Devrukh taluqa under the influence of the Independent Labour Party refused to pay their dues of rent to the japtidar (agent) of the khot. The Shetkari Committee of Kuvle village in Devgad taluqa collected the khot’s dues equal to the government assessment and kept them with the treasurer of the committee. Later, however, the Shetkari Sangh paid Rs 175 to the khot’s japtidar, and its president, Pandurang Sabaji Masurkar, resigned when the police started its investigations.139 In 1939, tenants of five villages of Devgad taluqa (villages Kuvale, Chaped and Bharni are mentioned in the sources) stopped payment of rent. Tenants of these village belonged to the Mahar, Kunbi and brahmin castes. Excessive rains had destroyed the crops of this region and the government had granted a remission of 2 annas per rupee to the khots, who refused to transfer this benefit to their tenants.140 These incidents of collective resistance, however, cannot be attributed to the emergence of “class consciousness” in a crystallized form. The emerging or nascent class consciousness was still tainted with caste and ethnic consciousness. The symbols of the past continued to appeal to tenants. For instance, Maharashtra had a strong sense of anti-Brahmanism and this was reflected in a meeting of the tenants of Maratha, Mahar, Teli, Sonar and Bhandari castes, held at Gothane in Malwan taluqa on 20 May 1939, when they decided not to cooperate with the brahmins (who were khots in many cases).141 The kinship relationship within the village also played a significant role in the localized clashes. For instance, the Maratha khots and their Kunbi tenants clashed at Talwat in Khed in September 1939. In the clash, both parties mobilized their own bhaubands or kinsmen.142 138

BC, 4 February and 26 April 1938. Weekly Report, DM, Ratnagiri, 29 April 1938 in Home/Special File No. 918-B, 1939, MSA, Bombay. 140 Bombay Sentinel, 3 May 1939. 141 Weekly Report, DM, Ratnagiri, 27 May 1939 in Home/Special File No. 918-B, 1939, MSA, Bombay. 142 Weekly Report, DM, Ratnagiri, 20 September 1939; and Letter No. B/17/194 of 193, 27 September 1939, from Deputy Superintendent of Police (henceforth DSP), Ratnagiri, to DM, Ratnagiri, in Home/Special File No. 918-A, 1939, MSA, Bombay. 139

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Tenant Agitation in South Gujarat The “kaliparaj” or tribal people of Surat District lost their lands to the outsider bania and brahmin sahukars. In most cases, the Choudra tribals were heavily indebted to these sahukars. In the northern division of the Bombay Presidency, of which Surat and Panch Mahal districts were a part, the area held by the nonagriculturists increased from 10.57 lakh acres in 1907 to 15.52 lakh acres in 1943.143 The principal reason for such land transfers was the high incidence of debt among the poor cultivators. In 1929–30, the Bombay Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee’s Report (BPBECR) estimated that the total agricultural debt of the whole province was Rs 81 crore. It was 53 per cent of the average annual value of the total agricultural produce of the province. Khandesh had the largest amount of debt per family (Rs 685 per family) followed by south Gujarat (Rs 551 per family). However, the south Gujarat region had the highest incidence of net debt per acre (Rs 52 per acre) in the whole of the province.144 During the Great Depression, agricultural indebtedness increased in the province and almost doubled.145 According to one study, there was a greater incidence of debt on the poorer cultivators, tenants and agricultural labourers. For instance, in south Gujarat, the moneylenders charged more interest from the tenant-cultivators compared to the larger landowners whose debt was larger in absolute terms but low in terms of debt per acre.146 The combined pressure of the demands of the colonial state, usury capital and landlords led to large-scale alienation of lands. In Pardi Mahal of Surat District, most of the kaliparaj people had become landless after losing lands to bania, Anavil and Rajput landlords and sahukars.147 In Panch Mahal, the area held by the non-agriculturists increased from 13.95 per cent of the total cultivable area in 1907–08 to 20.04 per cent of the total cultivable 143

Statistical Atlas of the Bombay State, 1950, MSA, Bombay, p. 58. Bombay Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee Report, 1, 1929–30, Bombay, MSA, pp. 43–44. 145 MPCC, Peasant Enquiry Committee’s Report, 1936, MSA, Bombay, p. 62. 146 G.C. Mukhtyar, Life and Labour, p. 250. 147 Letter from DM to Secretary to Government of Bombay, Home Department dated 21 March 1940 and DSP, Surat, Notes Regarding Peasant Movements dated 6 March 1940 in Home/Special File No. 1019/1940–41, MSA, Bombay. 144

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area in 1921–22. Similarly, the proportion of area held by nonagriculturists in Surat District increased from 18.47 per cent in 1907–08 to 32.46 per cent in 1921–22.148 In south Gujarat, caste and class divisions got crystallized into two major divisions—the kaliparaj and the ujaliparaj. The ujaliparaj comprised the higher castes, namely the brahmins, banias, Rajputs, kolis and Suthars, while the Kaliparaj included the lower castes such as the Dublas, Dheds, Dhodias and Naikas. This distinction was reflected in various aspects of their social life, food habits, literacy and religious beliefs.149 The social and economic conflicts were inherent in such an environment. The kaliparaj tenants of Pardi taluqa of Surat tried to get better terms out of their landlords in 1904–05, but had failed.150 The Choudras cultivated lands in Mandavi taluqa on a 50–50 crop-sharing basis, known as the ardhel system. Besides the half of produce charged as rent, the absentee landlords also charged several illegal cesses.151 In the south Gujarat region, the prominent radical kisan leader, Indulal Yagnik, played a key role in organizing tenants’ stgruggles. Other radical kisan leaders of the All-India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) in this region included D.M. Pangarkar, who later joined the Communist Party of India (CPI), the CSP leader Kamalashankar Pandya, Thakor Bhai K. Patel and Ramji Bhai Chandu. Thakor Bhai K. Patel used folk songs effectively for creating interest among the tribal tenants. The other leading Congress Socialists active in Panch Mahal were Mattabhai Damore, Kittabhai, Gendabhai and Hirabhai, who could use the local tribal dialect to communicate as they all hailed from the Bhil peasantry. The other local radical kisan leaders were Fulabhai Mohanji and Mohanjenaji. Thakor Bhai K. Patel published kisan Ran Git, which became popular among the peasants.152 148

Revenue Department, 161, Compilation 1006 of the Year 1911, MSA, and Land Revenue Administration Report of Bombay Presidency, Part II, 1921–22; Appendix IV, MSA, Bombay. 149 G.C. Mukhtyar, Life and Labour, pp. 61–68. 150 Bombay Land Revenue Administration Report, Part II, 1904–05, MSA, Bombay, p. 43. 151 Confidential Letter from Assistant Collector to the Collector of Surat, 26 October 1938 in Home/Special File No. 800(53)-B, Part-III, 1939, MSA, Bombay. 152 Home/Special File No. 800(53)-B, Part-III, 1939, MSA, Bombay; Kamala Shankar Pandya, oral transcript, NMML, New Delhi.

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The relief measures of the Congress ministry created a congenial environment for mass mobilization by the Kisan Sabha especially around the slogan of reduction of ganot or rent.153 During the season of paddy harvesting in 1938, tenant agitations emerged in villages like Amba-Pardi, Parvat, Tuked, Kasal and Nandpur. The tenant-cultivators refused to pay half of the produce to the landlords. They were, however, willing to pay 1.5 times the land assessment as rent. The village panchayats threatened to fine those who paid rent to the landlords.154 A series of village meetings were held. D.M. Pangarkar also helped Yagnik in organizing this movement. Pangarkar was the main Gujarati leader of the AIKS besides Indulal Yagnik. During the period of “the united front” of the Congress with the Communists, D.M. Pangarkar inclined towards Communist ideology. He and Yagnik exhorted the cultivators not to pay their dues till March 1939, when they were expecting a bill on rent regulation to be passed by the Congress ministry.155 Local Congress leaders opposed this agitation and they toured the villages with government officials to impress upon the cultivators the fact that the movement was detrimental to their own interests.156 Amba-Pardi, Parvat, Karudi, Untewa, Vantol, Mandavikuwa, Irotha and Malka were prominent villages affected by the movement. The authorities took recourse to legal means to curb the movement. Landlords obtained a large number of rent decrees and the authorities launched a number of criminal cases against the main activists.157 The local Congress committee and its president, Prem Shankar Bhatt, gave a helping hand to the authorities, especially in cases where the cultivators violated the law.158 The opposition of the 153

Indulal Yagnik, Atam Katha, 5, Ahmedabad, 1971, p. 120. BC, 2 and 3 December 1938 and Letter from Assistant Collector (Bardoli Camp) to Collector of Surat, 20 October 1938, in Home/Special File No. 800(53)-B, PartII, 1939, MSA, Bombay. 155 Bombay Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, 10 December 1938, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay, BC, 10 December 1938, and Weekly Report of DM, Surat, 22 December 1938. 156 Weekly Report, DM, Surat, 17 November 1938 in Home/Special File No. 800(53)-B, Part III, 1939, MSA, Bombay. 157 DSP, Surat, Notes Regarding Kisan Movement, 6 March 1940 in Home/Special File No. 1019, 1940–41 and Home/Special File No. 800(53) B-V, 1939–41, MSA, Bombay. 158 DSP, Surat, Notes Regarding Kisan Movement, March 1940, MSA, Bombay. 154

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Congress to such agitations was due to their policy of settlement of agrarian-class disputes through arbitration. The general policy was to obtain some concessions for the tenants, such as reduction of rent. This policy had a striking resemblance with the policy of postponement of the agrarian class struggle followed by the Chinese and Vietnamese Communists during a period when the national liberation struggle assumed primary importance.159 After the collapse of the tenant’s resistance under the pressure of law, Prem Shankar Bhatt, the president of the Taluqa Congress Committee, organized a meeting of landlords at Mandavi on 17 July 1939 and suggested that the rent be one-third of the produce. But there was no response from the landlords. However, in a private discussion the next day, he was able to obtain the signatures of some of the landlords promising reduction in rent.160 The Congress leaders apparently did not realize that the law is defined by the ruling social power. The socially-dominant group shapes the form and content of the law and therefore “legality” cannot be always equated with truth.161 The Kisan Sabha organized a similar agitation among the Dhodia and Naika cultivators of Pardi Mahal in Surat District. The agrarian conditions in Pardi Mahal were comparable to Mandavi taluqa. Here also landlords, who were creditors as well, appropriated the lands of tribal cultivators who now cultivated it on ardhel or cropsharing basis.162 The agitation was more intense in the southern villages of Pardi Mahal where nearly one-third to one-half of the total land was under grass. Sahukars found the cultivation of grass more profitable as the price of grass shot up due to famine conditions in Kathiawar, while its cost of cultivation, including the cost of labour, was low. There was also scope for additional income by planting other trees in the grasslands. By the time the Kisan 159

See Ralph Thaxton, “The Peasant of Yaocun: Memories of Exploitation, Injustice and Liberation in a Chinese Village”, Journal of Peasant Studies, 9, 1, October 1981, pp. 1–46; Christine White, “Peasant, Mobilization and Anti-Colonial Struggle in Vietnam”, Journal of Peasant Studies, 10, 4, July 1983, pp. 187–211. 160 Weekly Report, DM, Surat, 27 July 1939, in Home/Special File No. 800(53)-B, Part II, 1939, MSA, Bombay. 161 For this interpretation of legality, see Stephen Schafer, Theories in Criminology: Past and Present Philosophies of the Crime Problem, New York, 1969; Bernard Edelman, Ownership of Image: Elements of a Marxist Theory of Law, London, 1979. 162 Home/Special File No. 1019, 1940–41, MSA, Bombay.

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Sabha initiated a move for non-payment of rent in the area, most of the tenants had already paid their rent. The movement, therefore, took the form of cutting and burning of hedges, cutting of trees on landlords’ lands and damaging their mango crops.163 Indulal Yagnik, Thakor Bhai K. Patel, Ramji Bhai Chandu and D.M. Pangarkar were the main organizers. The prominent villages affected by the movement were Wankas, Paria, Rata, Pundul, Lavachha, Kawal, Karaya, Dehgam, Ambach, Koprali, Vapi, Kochawa, Bhat-Karwal and Panchlai. Kisan marches were organized to keep the morale high and folk songs were used effectively to rouse the cultivators. The representatives of the kisans fixed the rates of labour and cart-hire. The cultivators also refused to do vethi or forced labour for the landlords.164 The basic weakness of the Kisan Sabha-led agitations was that they were highly localized and related to specific grievances. They fizzled out whenever there was repression by the state authorities or whenever the Congress was able to secure some concession for the tenants.

The Hali Agitation in Surat Most of the agricultural labourers in Surat District belonged to the tribal people of the Dubla, Naika and Dhodia communities. Many among them worked as halis or bonded labourers. M.B. Desai estimated that in Surat 20 per cent of the tribals worked as halis. Halis were like permanent estate servants of their masters known as dhaniamas. For a trifling sum, they would become bonded labourers.165 Yet, a social scientist might spot elements of “patronage” and come across examples of “the affection, generosity and intercession” of the master-class towards their “clients”166 in this practice. At the time of the Haripura Congress Session in 1939, Kisan Sabha workers raised slogans against the hali system. Sardar Patel 163

Ibid. Weekly Report, DM, Surat, 1 February 1940; PSI-CID, Ahmedabad to DSP, Surat, dated 29 February 1940, MSA, Bombay. 165 Desai, The Rural Economy of Gujarat, p. 157. 166 This is how Jan Breman interprets this agrarian serfdom in his work, Patronage and Exploitation, California, 1974, pp. 20–42. 164

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did not approve of the slogans but was conscious that it would discredit his reputation if the national leaders came to know of this ignominious custom of unpaid labour.167 He, therefore, tried to impress upon the villagers that they should abolish the hali serfdom.168 At a joint meeting of landholders and Dubla halis at Bardoli on 26 January 1939, an accord was announced by the Congress leaders. Under this agreement, it was decided to free halis and pay them a daily wage at the rate of 4–6 annas for male labourers and 3 annas for female labourers. But only those halis were freed who had worked continuously for 12 years for their masters. Those halis who had worked for less than 12 years were credited to their account with one-twelfth of the total debt they had borrowed when they became halis for every year they had worked. An anna per day was to be deducted from their wages until the debt was cleared.169 At another joint meeting of landowners and halis of Olpad taluqa, held at Syadala on 19 April 1939, which was attended by 12,000 people, a similar settlement was announced by Kanaiyalal Desai, a Gandhian leader of the Swaraj Ashram, Bardoli.170 In many cases, however, the rich farmers resisted implementation of such agreements.171 The radical Congressmen were not satisfied with these settlements. Yagnik pointed out that as the latest borrowing was taken into account in the calculation of the 12 years period, and as many Dublas went on borrowing every year; only a few could get freedom under the accord. Moreover, he feared that a cut of 1 anna from the daily wage for repayment of debt would result in more borrowing by the hali to meet his family expenditure.172 Gandhi also thought that Dublas deserved a minimum wage of 8 annas irrespective of the sex of the labourer. He felt that their employers had struck a profitable deal with the Dubla halis.173 167

Indulal Yagnik, “Have Halis been Freed?”, Congress Socialist, 4, 7–8, 19 February 1939, NMML, New Delhi. 168 Weekly Report, DM, Surat, 28 January and 4 February 1939, MSA, Bombay. 169 See “Notes Before Gandhi’s Speech at a Meeting of Peasants of Bardoli, 26 January 1939”, in Mahatma Gandhi, Collected Works, 68, Ahmedabad, p. 333. 170 BC, 20 April 1939. 171 Governor of Bombay to Linlithgow, 15 March 1939 in Linlithgow Papers, 53 (unpublished), microfilm section, NMML, New Delhi. 172 Congress Socialist, 4, 7–8, 19 February 1939. 173 Mahatma Gandhi, Collected Works, 68, pp. 333–34.

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Such unequal settlements were bound to create tensions. Kanaiyalal Desai advised a meeting of about 300 halis at Swaraj Ashram, Bardoli, on 16 April 1939, to stop work if the farmers did not pay them their daily wages.174 The halis in Bardoli taluqa went on strike on 19 May 1939 and the landholders were troubled by this stoppage of work during the harvest season.175 The relations between the halis and dhaniamas remained strained in many villages of Bardoli taluqa despite the advice of Ravi Shankar Vyas, another Gandhian leader, to the halis to resume work. In some cases, trouble continued till January 1940.176 We may assume that the Congress opposition to tenant and labour radicalism was based on its policy of settling class disputes amicably, so as to give primacy to the national struggle over class struggle. Moreover, the Congress sought to gain the support of tenants and labourers by using legal means to win some concessions for them. The question is what are the terms on which class adjustment is carried out, who gets more and who gets less? We, therefore, now turn to the problem of legality in tenant mobilization.

Congress and the Problem of Legality After assuming office, the Congress ministry passed a number of ameliorative measures to help the tenants and small landholders in the province. In the second half of 1937, grazing fees to the tune of Rs 6.25 lakh were abolished, remissions of land revenue of Rs 16 lakh were given to the peasants who were in arrears of land revenue and the Bombay Small Holders Relief Act was passed to help tenants and cultivators temporarily, prior to the passage of the Debt Relief Bill and Tenancy Legislation.177 The Small Holders Relief Bill was designed to help all those cultivators who cultivated less than six acres of irrigated or 18 acres of dry land. The Bill envisaged the stay of execution of decrees passed against small holders up to 1 April 1938, for the 174

Weekly Report, DM, Surat, 27 April 1939, MSA, Bombay. Bombay Provincial Weekly Letter, No. 22, 3 June 1939, MSA, Bombay. 176 Weekly Reports, DM, Surat, 8 and 29 June 1939 and 11 January 1940, MSA, Bombay. 177 Congress Ministry and its Works: Six Monthly Review, 1938, MSA, Bombay. 175

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recovery of any debt; and the stay of eviction of tenants who were uninterruptedly cultivating lands since 1 January 1930 and who had paid rent regularly and who would pay rent dues up to 30 June 1938.178 The criticism of this Bill from the Left was that it did not cover agricultural labourers, did not apply to the holders of annual leases and stipulated full payment of rent under old terms and conditions. Another major reform, passed on 25 October 1939 against the opposition of money lending interests, the Agricultural Debtors Relief Bill, envisaged licensing of moneylenders; and limited the rate of interest to 9 per cent for a secured loan and 12 per cent for an unsecured loan. The Bill prohibited the charging of any extra expense on the loans.179 But the most important measure, which received a hostile reception, both from the Left and the Right, was the Bombay Tenancy Act. Taluqdars, inamdars, khots and watandars throughout the province opposed it.180 Under the provisions of the Act, any tenant who had held land and personally cultivated it continuously for six years immediately before 1 January 1938; whose land was situated in alienated land or in khoti or taluqdari areas and whose landlord owned 33.33 acres of irrigated or 100 acres or more of dry land, was given protection against eviction. Protection was extended to tenants who were evicted after 1 April 1937.181 Kisan Sabha leaders, Indulal Yagnik, Dinkar Mehta and Kamala Shankar Pandya, attacked the Bill for not providing substantial reduction in rent, for not remitting arrears of rent for not exempting uneconomic holdings from rent and for not making its provisions applicable to all tenants throughout the province.182 S.V. Parulekar and Jamnadas Mehta criticized the Bill for the restrictive clause of “personal cultivation by landlord”, and for the rigid condition of a termination of tenancy in case of failure to pay rent of a particular year by a specified date.183 But despite all the weaknesses, the Congress’s relief measures created an atmosphere for mass mobilization by the kisan sabhas.184 178

BLAD, Vol. II, January–February 1938, p. 1173. Rani Dhawan Shankar Das, The First Congress Raj, pp. 108–9. 180 BC, 17 and 23 August 1938. 181 BALD, Vol. IV, Part II, October–December 1938, Appendix 15, NMML, New Delhi. 182 BC, 25 August 1938. 183 Rani Dhawan Shankar Das, The First Congress Raj, p. 121. 184 Indulal Yagnik, Atma Katha, 5, p. 121. 179

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Here, two basic questions require attention. The first is, whether the control of the “élite leadership” of the Congress can be explained by their being “the publicists and negotiators to articulate the demands of peasants at the provincial level”185 or whether the nationalist leadership acted as negotiators, mediators and arbitrators even in the day-to-day struggles of the masses. We come across many instances where the “subaltern” groups willingly accepted the Congress “élite” leaders as mediators, arbitrators and settlers of their local grievances. Second, instead of ridiculing “élite” control we must, in the words of Gramsci, ask whether the mechanism of control was progressive or regressive, that is, whether it raised the backward masses to the level of a new legality or it merely functioned to conserve an outward, extrinsic order which acted as a fetter on the vital forces of history.186 The Congress was undoubtedly trying to raise the masses to a new conception of legality. For instance, the Congress ministry declared the following feudal dues charged from the cultivators of taluqdari lands as illegal: (a) Punchi-vero or tail tax when levied for grazing on land not belonging to the taluqdars; (b) Ubhad-vero or house tax on sites not belonging to the taluqdars; (c) Bham-vero or tax on hides; (d) Gadh-vero or fort tax.187 Peaceful method of gaining concessions through sending petitions to the authorities was also part of the peasant’s world, along with other forms of struggle. In fact, this was one of the major modes for peasants throughout the world for expressing their grievances against the prevalent social order and simultaneously implied acceptance of the existing legal order. French historian, Mousnier, regards them as “a deed of surrender” or as “the moderate demands of defeated men”.188 This understanding of petitioning may be appropriate for a specific context in which a peasant revolt has been crushed recently. But in view of the almost universal occurrence of this phenomenon of petitioning, it is more appropriate to 185 186 187 188

Hardiman, Peasant Nationalists, New Delhi, 1981, pp. 245–46. Cited from Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p. 155. BC, 3 July 1939. Mousnier, Peasant Uprisings, pp. 69–72.

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view it as an implied belief in the natural order of society, protecting the interests of the rich and the poor alike, which the authorities can be expected to enforce once the misdeeds of individuals are brought to their notice. In other words, petitioning implies a belief in the paternalistic attitude of the authorities.189 It is acceptance of the legitimacy of the policing functions of the state. Even in the traditional peasant revolts, riots were used only as the ultimate weapon, to be resorted to only when other means of persuasion had been exhausted.190 In a situation when other means of persuasion were available to them, peasants preferred to use them. These petitions represented several grievances of villagers in the Presidency. The villagers of Beja in Kalwan taluqa of Nasik sent a representation, in the beginning of 1935, to the collector asking for remission of land revenue.191 Some cultivators of Babulwadi in Nandgaon taluqa protested in early 1935 against the recovery of grazing fee at a higher rate of 12 annas per head of cattle compared to the cultivators of adjoining villages who were paying only 4 annas per head of cattle.192 The agriculturists of Igatpuri and some merchants at Nasik sent a petition in January or February 1935 regarding the use of a wrong measure of adholi—a local measure— by the merchants of Ghoti-Bazar in Nasik.193 In another case, the petitioners aired the grievances of the villagers of Sarod, Kardi, Pedudra and Vedach (in January or February 1935) in Jambusar taluqa of Panch Mahals and Broach regarding encroachment on a public road by the thakur of Sarod that created obstacle in the movement of their carts.194 Sixty-three applications were received between February and March 1936, by the Collector of Ahmedabad from the taluqdari tenants for preparation of special settlements of the affected khatas of crop-damage for the purpose of granting relief. The applicants were informed that this was not possible in the case of taluqdari villages.195 In another instance, the villagers of Kaparwadi in Patan taluqa of Satara sent applications to the 189 190 191 192 193 194 195

Underdown, Revel, Riot and Rebellion, p. 118. Ibid., p. 117. BALD, Vol. XLI, February–March 1935, p. 73. Ibid., p. 74. Ibid., pp. 909–10. Ibid. Ibid., Vol. XLV, February–March 1936, pp. 45–46.

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divisional forest officer in September 1936, about the demands made for grazing fees in case of oxen, which did not graze in the forest.196 A Rayat Conference at Hanasbhavi, on 1 May 1936, in Kod taluqa of Dharwar, sent a copy of their resolution asking for the grant of remission of water assessment under third class tanks, to the commissioner. As a result of this, the amount submitted for the year was remitted.197 The assumption of the ministry in the province by the Congress added a new dimension to this phenomenon. Now the Congress became a mediator between the “silent” and “dumb” peasants and the colonial bureaucracy as well as the immediate oppressors of the peasants. The peasants, therefore, sometimes on their own, sometimes through the Congress and Kisan Sabha workers and sometimes even through Congress Socialists and Communists sent many petitions, deputations, memorials and representations to this new authority. The peasants of Pravara Left Canal sent a representation to the irrigation minister complaining that water from distributaries numbers 6–10 was reserved for sugar factory plantations only and requested that water should be given to cultivators also.198 Shivaskarappa Devpur and Gururao Valvekar, on behalf of the Hubli Taluqa Congress Committee, went to Byahatti village in June 1936, to enquire into the cases of coercion and harassment used by revenue authorities in the collection of revenue dues.199 In 1938, the cultivators of East Khandesh sent a flood of applications to the extent of 6,191 in number for remission of revenue. The government gave remission of 2 annas in a rupee. Even after this, agitation continued. But when the government declared in May 1939, that further remission was not possible, this pacified the agitators.200 About 2,000 peasants cultivating lands on Girna Canal (Malegaon taluqa in Nasik) met in a conference at Dhabadi presided by Dr Bhutekar and resolved to send a deputation to the Public Works Department (PWD) Minister Mr Nurie. A deputation of 20 kisans met Nurie on 15 July 1939 and asked him to stop coercive measures for recovery of irrigation dues and to reduce the 196 197 198 199 200

Ibid., Vol. XLV, September–October 1936, pp. 465–66. BLAD, Vol. II, January–February 1938, pp. 302–3. BC, 12 October 1937. BC, 16 June 1937. Land Revenue Administration Report, 1938–39, MSA, Bombay, p. 42.

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irrigation cess.201 At Bhadgaon, in East Khandesh, a large meeting of 2,500 peasants was held under the Bhadgaon Peta Shetkari Sangh. They marched to the local Mahalkari kutcheri, on 10 January 1939, under the leadership of the Bombay Communist, Lalji Pendse, and submitted a petition. Lalji Pendse advised them not to pay the assessment until their application was decided.202 Many peasants of Mandavi taluqa and adjoining areas led by Yagnik and D.M. Pangarkar marched to Surat on 17 January 1939 and gave a petition to Morarji Desai and B.G. Kher, asking for a reduction of rent, enactment of a suitable tenancy Act, release of kisan prisoners and the abolition of taluqdari and inamdari tenures.203 In another case, farmers of 18 villages of North and South Daskroi taluqas of Ahmedabad, at a meeting held at Ahmedabad in the beginning of February 1939, resolved to withhold payment of half the assessed revenue alleging that the crop valuation of annewari made by the government official was excessive. They, however, sent a deputation to the revenue minister to get a final answer.204 At a conference of cultivating tenants of Nagasthana Mahal, held in the last week of December 1938, in Alibag taluqa, tenants of 60 villages decided not to pay rents if a remission of five maunds per khandi was not given to them.205 Congress leaders often intervened in the local class disputes between tenants and landlords and obtained some concessions for tenants in the settlements. The dispute between tenants and landlords of Chari village in Kolaba District (1934–37) was resolved only after the mediation of Morarji Desai, which gave tenants some concessions.206 In a tenant strike at Ghansoli in Thana District (1934–36), a committee of K.T. Sule, D.M. Damble and P.S. Bhagwat, appointed by the District Congress Committee, brought about a settlement in which the landlords’ share was reduced from 75 per cent of the produce to 50 per cent.207 Similarly, 201

BC, 29 July 1939. Bombay Provincial Weekly Letter No. 3, 31 January 1939 in Home/Special File No. 800(53)-B-IV, 1939, MSA, Bombay, Bombay Sentinel, 31 January 1939, BC, 14 January 1939, also Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, 1939, paragraph 92, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 203 BC, 18 January 1939. 204 BC, 13 February 1939. 205 BC, 29 December 1938. 206 Congress Socialist, 1, 9, 15 February 1936 and BC, 1 January 1938. 207 BC, 22 February and 14 July 1936. 202

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a tenant strike at Adavali in Sangmeshwar taluqa (1937–38) could be settled only when both parties accepted A.S. Patwardhan, the radical Congress leader, as the arbitrator with final say in the settlement.208 Even the radical section of the Congress Socialists adopted a similar position in the settlement of disputes. For instance, in 1935–36, the Congress Socialists in Dohad took up the cause of Nashirpur tenants under inami lands. After a long struggle involving a no-rent campaign, inamdars agreed to reduce rent by 12.5 per cent, which was accepted by the Congress Socialists.209 Similarly, the Dhandhuka Congress Committee took up the cause of tenants who were threatened by their taluqdars with eviction, physical assault and dispossession from their property.210 The tenants of 12 villages of Mansa state struggled for 174 days. They combined non-payment of rent with forest satyagraha and resisted attachment of their crops. Finally, a settlement was reached, through the mediatory offer of Sardar Patel, which secured 35 per cent reduction in rent, abolition of forced labour and recognition of the Khedut (kisan) Committee and occupancy right of peasants in lands and trees.211 The conflict between the Congress and the Kisan Sabha must not be seen as a reflection of a “conflict between class-collaborationist line of Congress and class-struggle line of Kisan Sabha”.212 In fact, the Kisan Sabha was not averse to accepting adjustment and mediation in class disputes. The Kisan Sabha, for example, persuaded a moneylender of Vejapur at Wachawad to accept rent at the rate of Rs 3 and 9 annas instead of Rs 7 and 8 annas per bigha.213 The Congress–Kisan Sabha conflict was actually a dimension of their political rivalry, as both competed for the same support base. The Congress Working Committee (CWC), at its Wardha meeting 208

BC, 4 February and 26 April 1938. Congress Socialist (NS), 1, 10, 22 February and No. 27, 27 June 1936; and also Dohad Congress Committee to the Secretary, AICC, 11 June 1936, in Rajendra Prasad Papers, Private Papers, Manuscripts Section, NMML, New Delhi. 210 Home/Special File No. 918-A, 1938, MSA, Bombay. 211 Congress Socialist, 3, 13, 26 March 1938 and No. 25, 18 June 1938 and BC, 29 February; 1, 15, 19, 25 March; 5, 13; May; 13 June 1938. 212 This is how Dinkar Mehta later described the conflict, see Dinkar Mehta, oral transcript, NMML, New Delhi. 213 Bombay Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay, 18 February 1939. 209

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(3–6 February 1936) took the decision to oppose those kisan sabhas, which were creating an atmosphere of violence.214 When the Kisan Sabha launched a no-rent campaign in villages around Vijalpur and Adadva in Panch Mahal, local Congressmen also toured the villages of Ghusar, Chora and Dungri, exhorting peasants not to be “misguided” by the Kisan Sabha.215 Let us compare two instances in which the Congress-led and the Communist-led kisan Sabhas adopted different approaches to the settlement of class disputes between tenants and their landlords. The Congress was able to achieve more because of its superior understanding of colonial legality. In Kalyan taluqa of Thana District, the Shetkari Sangh launched a movement in January 1940, which stipulated payment of only one-third of the produce as rent to the landlords. This movement was quite intense in 14 villages of Badlapur circle—Vast, Chiklolo, Belavli, Katrap, Shergaon, Uarande, Jereli, Chamtoli, Kasgaon, Saavare, Sonivli, Eranjad, Dhoke and Dapivli.216 Moreover, the tenants led by R.S. Nimkar, the prominent Communist leader, wanted to pay rent according to the old customary measure of 24 adholis,217 under which a maund was equal to 55 and 3/16 seers and not according to the new standard of 32 adholis under the 1932 Measures Act, under which a maund was equal to 64 seers. The officials took a legal stand.218 The local Congress Committee through Bhagwan Gopal proposed a settlement whereby sahukars would give a reduction to the extent of 4 maunds per khandi. (A khandi was a measure of 20 maunds for collecting rent. A reduction of 4 maunds per khandi meant that tenants would pay 16 maunds instead of 20 maunds as rent.) They also proposed that the maund to be used should be the new standard maund of 64 seers. Both landlords and tenant leaders rejected the proposal. The relations between tenants and landlords 214

AICC File No. 42, 1936–38, NMML, New Delhi. Home/Special File No. 800(53)-B-VII, 1939, MSA, Bombay. 216 Collector, Thana to the Commissioner, Northern Division, Ahmedabad, 16 January 1940; and Landlords Association of Badlapur Representation to Prant Officer, 6 January 1940 in Revenue Department, File No. 33–8/39–I, 1940, MSA, Bombay. 217 Under the Measures Act (1932), 32 adholis were equal to a maund of 64 seers or an adholi was equal to 2 seers. But prior to the Measures Act (1932), 24 adholis constituted a maund of 55 and 3/16 seers or an adholi was more than 2 seers. 218 Prant Officer, Kalyan to Collector, Thana, 8 January 1940, MSA, Bombay. 215

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remained quite strained, but tenants could not achieve anything substantial.219 In the other case, Congress workers organized tenants of Karjat taluqa (Kolaba District) in January 1940. Tenants of 16 villages around Pashane instituted a social boycott of landlords. The eventual compromise, agreed to in writing and approved by the mamlatdar, was payment of 13.5 maunds in the khandi of 20 maunds by the tenants, which meant that in a measure of 20 maunds, tenants would pay 13.5 maunds as rent-in-kind. This was slightly less than 70 per cent of makta or rent. In similar cases, landlords of eight villages around Kondivade agreed to accept 14 maunds in the khandi of 20 maunds (that is, 70 per cent of the makta) in January 1940. Landlords later complained that the settlement was forced on them by the mamlatdar and wanted to take recourse to legal action against the tenants. The authorities held the view that the allegation of undue influence made by the well-to-do Marwari landlords was absurd, as they had voluntarily given receipts for the whole amount of rent. In fact, the tenants were prepared to withhold all rent and the revenue authorities had only rescued the landlords at their own request from a difficult situation.220 Compared to the proposal of the Kalyan Shetkari Sangh, the Congress move was a clever and practical one that secured the necessary concessions for the tenants and at the same time committed both the administration and the landlords to their own legality. It appears that the “élite” leaders, who intervened in the political process, could evoke mass appeal only because the mediatory offers of the Congress were able to secure some concessions for the peasants. Another important aspect of peasant mobilization was the frequent use of religious and folk symbols by the political activists. According to psychologist Edward Edinger, religious symbols are an expression of “subjective dynamism which exerts a powerful attraction and fascination on the individual”, because they are “alive and the releaser and transformer of psychic energy”.221 In 219

Collector, Thana to Under Secretary, Government of Bombay, Revenue Department, 24 October 1940, MSA, Bombay. 220 Letter No. REV 209, from the Commissioner, Southern Division to the Secretary to Government of Bombay, Revenue Department, 16 January 1940 in Revenue Department No. 3308/39-I, 1940, MSA, Bombay. 221 Edward F. Edinger, Ego, and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Functions of Psyche, New York, 1972, pp. 109–10.

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fact, both Congressmen and peasant radicals used such symbols to gain wider appeal. A meeting of the Congress Socialists of Maharashtra on 16–17 November 1935 decided to carry on propaganda among pilgrims of Alandi Fair with a view to peasant organization.222 Sardar Patel, in his speech at Kurai (in Baroda state) on 30 November 1937, compared the Congress session with the Kumbh, the Pandharpur Asadhi Fair and the Brindavan pilgrimage.223 V.V. Kirtane and P.R. Dandekar, leaders of the Thana District Congress, addressed a crowded meeting of villagers at Murambe in Palghar taluqa on Ganapati festival day in September 1939. They discussed the agrarian legislation of the Congress ministry and the character of the war.224 The radical peasant leader, Indulal Yagnik, used the Vautha Fair in November 1939 to carry out kisan propaganda.225 R.L. Rede, the Thana Congress leader, taking advantage of the local Datta Jayanti Utsav at Sanpada, addressed a large gathering of villagers from Ulva, Juhi, Kukshet, Sarsola, Vasi, Divale, Turumbha, Shiroha, Rabada, Bellapur, Gothivli and Karawe in December 1939.226 G.B. Bhutekar, conducting propaganda against the revised land revenue settlement in the taluqas of Satana, Kalwan and Malegaon from January to May 1940, used the symbolism of Bhakta Prahlad, who rebelled against his father, to incite anti-colonial feelings among the villagers.227 The Maruti temples were used for propaganda by the Congress in Sholapur and Belgaum districts. Similarly, some leading members of the MPCC used the Pandharpur Mela in November 1935 to do propaganda among pilgrims.228 Hayes highlights the resemblance between nationalist icons and religious symbols. In both certain temporal moments and sacred spaces are celebrated and become the unifying elements of a shared identity.229 According to Richard Cashman, the motivation for Tilak in resurrecting the Shivaji festival was “to insert politics into a religious festival in order to 222

Congress Socialist (NS), 1, 3, 4 January 1936. Chopra, Towards Freedom, 1, pp. 1211–15 224 BC, 13 September 1939. 225 Weekly Report, DM, Ahmedabad, 7 December 1939, in Home/Special File No. 800(53)-B-V, 1939–41, MSA, Bombay. 226 BC, 29 December 1939. 227 Home Special File No. 924-D, Part I, 1940–41, MSA, Bombay. 228 Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraphs 260, 1157, 1291, 1935, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 229 Carlton J.Y. Hayes, Nationalism: A Religion, New York, 1960. 223

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bridge the gap between brahmin and Non-brahmins and between the Congress and the traditional masses”.230 During the twentieth century, a number of kirtankars played a leading role in combining religious symbolism and elements of modern political mobilization. The traditional religious institution of kirtan was made use of in Maharashtra to spread the message of national awakening and social reform. Three important kirtankars were Gadage Maharaj, Dr D.V. Patwardhan and V.S. Kolhatkar. Gadage Maharaj came from a dhobi family and concentrated on reforms in the educational field, religious reforms and countered social evils such as untouchability, indebtedness and alcoholism. Some of his disciples participated in nationalist agitations and Gadage Maharaj himself attended the Faizpur Congress Session in 1936 and undertook the work of keeping the venue clean. Meerabai Shirkar, a woman disciple of Gadage, and another disciple, Yashwantrao Gondavalekar, organized a rashtreeya dindee or national pilgrimage march during the Quit India Movement. Dr Dattatreya Vinayak Patwardhan, another famous kirtankar glorified the heroic deeds of Rani Laxmibai, Vasudev Balwant Phadke, Damodar Chapekar, etc., and preached Swadeshism. V.S. Kolhatkar, another important kirtankar joined the Non-Cooperation Movement. He presented many “national” kirtans in the 1930s in the villages of Pune District. He combined the themes of Swarajya, Swadeshi and cow-protection. Kolhatkar worked for the Congress before Independence times, but joined the revivalist Hindu Mahasabha and the Ram Rajya Parishad after Independence.231

Mobilization on the Eve of Independence Historians have often been fascinated by the problem of recurrence.232 The problem of relating short-term explosions with underlying long-term trends is also rooted in this problem of 230

Richard Cashman, The Myth of Lokmanya Tilak, Berkeley, 1975, p. 85. This description is based on G.N. Dandekar, Shree Gadge Maharaj, Bombay, 1982; V.G. Patwardhan, Chittapavan Koundinya Gotri Patwardhan Kula Vrittanta, Sangli, 1958; and S.K. Barve, Bharatacharya Kolhatkar Buvanche Sanniddhya, Pune, 1963. 232 Berce’s analysis of “itinerary through the ideas and the practice of revolt” in the early European societies led him to conclude that there were “recurrences in the aspirations of rebels, and permanent features in the manner in which they revolted”. Yves-Marie Berce, Revolt and Revolution in Early Modern Europe, Manchester, 1984, p. 215. 231

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recurrence. It is easily assumed that the enduring structures historically create the enduring patterns of consciousness and political traditions. Our own understanding of the problem is that even if there were similarities at the surface level, the activities of the popular masses would acquire a definitely different connotation with a change in the historical conjuncture. Therefore, the popular mobilization, its patterns and growth during the 1945–47 period might appear to resemble the patterns of mass activities during 1936–39,233 but the historical conjuncture gave them different meanings and shapes. It is, therefore, necessary to describe a few important elements of the historical conjuncture to understand and fully appreciate the nature of mass activities during 1945–47. In the first place, the poison of communalism was spreading even in the countryside during this period.234 This constrained the Congress organization to a large extent in pursuing its goal of popular mobilization. Second, it had become clear after the successful completion of Quit India agitation that the British could not rule for long. In January 1946, Gandhi was already thinking that independence for India might prove to be a matter of a few months. Whereas some Congress leaders still envisaged the possibility of another struggle on the 1942 model.235 The latter type of thinking was more associated with the Congress Socialists and the Communists. For example, a secret meeting of the Congress Socialists from the Rahuri taluqa of Ahmednagar held in April 1946 planned a secret organization under the leadership of Mahadeo Kohokade and Sadashiv Zambare and envisaged a fresh movement on the 1942 model, which would attack the taluqa kutcheris, post and telegraph offices, and Sub-Inspector’s residence if the negotiations for the transfer of power failed.236 233

In both the periods, the popular mobilization took the forms of mobilizations through meetings, conferences, etc., by the political organizations, the microrevolts or village-level revolts in a few instances and isolated taluqa-level kisan agitations in some cases. 234 Fortnightly Reports, 1946–47, Bombay, National Archives of India (hereafter NAI), New Delhi, give a general impression of the communal flare-up during the period. 235 Weekly Political Appreciation Report to the Secretary of State for India, by I&B Department, No. 134, dated 23 January 1946 in Home/Political F.51/3/46, 1946, NAI, New Delhi. For Gandhi’s perception that independence was round the corner, see Gandhi, Collected Works, 83, pp. 92, 95 and 97. 236 Bombay Provincial Weekly Letter No. 21, 25 May 1946, MSA, Bombay.

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The same sentiment was expressed by such Socialist leaders as Achyutrao Patwardhan, P.S. Sane, S.M. Joshi, S.P. Limaye, N.G. Gore, Aruna Asaf Ali and Dr Uttam Girdhar Patil in a number of meetings in the villages of Poona, Nasik and Khandesh.237 Envisaging that only another round of movement would compel the British to leave India, they urged the people to establish the “patri sarkars”, to form “toofan senas” (storm troops), and to be ready for the coming struggle.238 “Toofan senas” were actually established in places like Chalisgaon, Talonda, Mehunbara, Malunje and Patonda in East Khandesh and Ahmednagar districts.239 Congress Socialists, to the extent they worked separately, concentrated on organizational work believing that the interim government and the Constituent Assembly would end in chaos, and expected to play a dominant role in the coming upheaval.240 In some cases, this led to the adoption of methods that brought them into confrontation with the established bureaucracy. At Tandoda in East Khandesh, for example, they attempted to estsablish a “gram rajya” (village government). The Socialist organizers established a private cattle pound and received fines from people whose cattle had strayed into the fields of others. The district authorities intervened to break it up.241 The Communists, like the Congress Socialists, believed that independence was not possible without another round of mass upsurge.242 Third, there was now a change in the attitude of the Congress organization with respect to popular agitations. With the assumption of power by the Congress ministry, these agitations were increasingly seen as a problem of law and order. To some extent, this shift in the attitude of the Congress leaders was due to the worsening situation of law and order in the province as a result of communal flare-up. Communist agitators, who were organizing the tenants of Bhatkal Petha of the North Kanara District, were 237

Bombay Provincial Weekly Letters Nos 23, 24, 25, 27, dated 8, 15 and 26 June and 6 July 1946 in Home/Special File No. 540-II, 1946, MSA, Bombay. 238 Ibid. 239 Bombay Provincial Weekly Letter Nos 27 and 28, dated 7 and 13 July 1946; Weekly Report, DM, Ahmedmnagar, 11 July 1946, MSA, Bombay. 240 Fortnightly Report, Bombay, Second half of October 1946, NAI, New Delhi. 241 Ibid., Second half of September 1946, NAI, New Delhi. 242 CC Resolution, CPI, The New Situation and Our Tasks, December 1945.

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detained under the Bombay Public Security Measures Act 1947, under the plea of “maintaining peace in these villages”.243 The struggle of the Warli agitators was contained by externment of the main Communist agitators from the affected taluqas of Thana District and the arrest of the “mischievous Warli elements”.244 One local tenant leader, Gopal Kashinath Surve of Guhagar Village in Ratnagiri District, was asked not to leave his village for six months as he was allegedly “creating the feeling of enmity between the Khots and tenants”.245 At meetings on 16 and 17 April 1947, in Surat City and at the Bardoli Swaraj Ashram, Sardar Patel advised the people not to create trouble, not to disturb the peaceful, harmonious relationship between peasants and labourers. He equated the creation of trouble in a period when India was moving towards independence with sin, a social crime worse than dacoity.246 He was thus voicing the preoccupation of the Congress ministry with the law and order situation and that too in ethical-religious idioms. If in its first experiment in running the ministry in the provinces during 1937–39, the Congress was tolerant and in fact contributed to the growth of mass activity, now the Congress’s main preoccupation was how to contain and control the growing mass activity which could easily lead to a law and order problem. This was the first step in the transformation of “the Congress-as-movement” to “the Congress-as-party”.247 The same standard was applied to Congressmen who were found involved in such mass-incitement. Morarji Desai, the home minister in the Bombay ministry, perceived the case of tension between Marwaris and villagers at Borkund in Dhulia taluqa of West Khandesh in a similar fashion, that is, as a law and order problem. As a result of constant tension and pressure, eleven Marwari families had fled from the village, lands belonging to a Marwari had been occupied and a house 243

Extracts, Bombay Secret Abstracts, 17 May and 7 June 1947, in Home/Special File No. 540-II, 1945–47, MSA, Bombay. 244 Land Revenue Administration Report, Bombay, 1946–47, MSA, Bombay, p. 44 and also BC, 16 December 1946; and People’s Age, 5, 23, 8 December 1946, p. 8. 245 DM, Ratnagiri to the Secretary, Government of Bombay, Home Department, 20 October 1947, MSA, Bombay. 246 BC, 18 April 1947 and Times of India, 17 April 1947. 247 The Bombay Provincial Congress Committee had already sought a ban on the “formation of parties” inside the Congress and a constitutional amendment in the constitution of the Congress to this effect in late 1946. See BC, 12 September 1945.

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belonging to another Marwari had been occupied by his debtor. Onkar Narayan, the president of Dhulia Congress Committee and other local Congressmen were directly involved in the massincitement.248 Morarji Desai viewed it simply as a village factional dispute, which had nothing to do with the Congress organization, although some Congressmen were involved in it.249 A notice was served to Nana Ramji Patil, the hero of the Satara underground movement during the Quit India days, for making objectionable speeches at Walvane on 6 April 1947, at Ashwi on 7 April 1947, at Kadlag on 7 April 1947 and at Kotul on 8 April 1947 (all these places were in Ahmednagar District), warning him that his speeches were inciting disobedience of law amongst the public and if he made such speeches again action would be taken against him.250 The fourth important element of the historical conjuncture was that the Congress organization had used its capacity to mobilize the masses to the fullest possible extent during 1942–45. Therefore, as happens in the case of mass activity which moves in a wavelike fashion, the Congress organization’s capacity to organize active agitations was constrained to a large extent, even though its ability to use the technique of mobilization through public meetings, conferences, etc., remained unhampered. In this no other organization could match the Congress even at this stage. We will discuss this aspect a little later. For the Communists, it was the other way round. The Communists conserved their organizational capacity during the Quit India phase as their belief that the World War was a “people’s War” meant the abandonment of class struggle and the agrarian revolution and even agitations. This resulted in an uneasy compromise with landlords and other parasitical classes in the countryside.251 Besides the discredit their non-participation in the nationalist upsurge brought them, the Communists also faced the dilemma of how to claim to represent peasants and labourers while at the same time refusing to take up 248

BLAD, Vol. X, 12 March to 12 April 1947, pp. 2249–50. Ibid. 250 Weekly Report, DM Ahmednagar, 22 May 1947, MSA, Bombay. 251 E.M.S. Namboodripad had justified the Communist stand by saying that the production and distribution of the food grains was not only in the interest of the kisans but also in the interest of the jenmis or landlords, the moneylenders and the middle-class (A Short History of Peasant Movement in Kerala, Bombay, 1943, p. 47). 249

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their grievances through active agitations. The end of the war resolved their dilemma; and now they were more determined than ever to prove through a policy of active agitation that they were the true and real representatives of the toiling masses. They, therefore, embarked on a sudden outburst of agitations. The peaceful modes of mobilization of the people through meetings, conferences, etc., continued to be the main political work by various organizations. The Communists fired the first shot in their salvo by organizing the first session of the Maharashtra Provincial Kisan Conference at Titwala in Thana District on 7 January 1945, which was attended by 5,000 peasants. The major resolutions passed at the conference were as follows: (a) Requesting the government to apply the Debt Alienation Act to all the districts and to remove the existing flaws in the Act. (b) Requesting the government to enforce the Tenancy Act throughout the province and to reduce the scale of land levy according to the rules laid down in the Act. (c) Requesting the government to stamp out black-marketing and to fix levy according to the conditions of the standing crops. (d) Eradication of forced labour, that is, vethi. (e) Warning Congress workers that their attempt to establish independent kisan sabhas would cause friction between the two institutions and harm the cause of national unity.252 The added significance of the conference was the attendance of a few Warli tribals, which proved highly significant later on.253 The other major conferences organized by the Communists in 1945 were the Pachora Taluqa Kisan Conference at Veruli in East Khandesh on 11 and 12 March, attended by 3,000 peasants; the North Kanara District Ryot Conference at Hiregutti on 22 April 1945; the Karwar Taluqa Ryot Conference at Ulge on 25 April 1945; the Yawal Taluqa Kisan Conference at Atrawal in East Khandesh on 26 May 1945; and a conference of 5,000 peasants at Kupadne on 252

Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, Bombay, paragraph 55, 1945, Office of the IG of Policy, Bombay. 253 S.V. Parulekar, “The Liberation Movement Among Warlis”, in A.R. Desai, ed., Peasant Struggles in India, Bombay, 1979, pp. 571–72.

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1 and 2 October 1945 in West Khandesh.254 In East Khandesh District, there was an active rivalry between the Communists and Congressmen and the local Congressmen actively propagated their views against the Pachora Taluqa Kisan Conference. The Communists criticized the Congress for this attempt to create a split in the ranks of the kisans. Congressmen criticized the role played by the Communists in the 1942 struggle.255 The Congress Socialist workers were also busy attempting the formation of peasant associations in Kolaba and West Khandesh. They also established unions of village servants in Sholapur and East Khandesh districts.256 The Socialist workers also collected many applications from the peasants in the Mangaon, Mahad, Pen, Karjat and Roha talukas of Kolaba District and sent the applications to the government in April 1947, demanding the return of their lands under the Debt Conciliation Act from the sahukars. Besides, they set up cooperative credit societies in Karjat taluqa to advance loans to peasants.257 By the end of 1947, there were at least 22 “nyayadan mandals” working in the villages of Kolaba District under Socialist guidance.258 These mandals decided the disputes between villagers so that villagers could avoid the problem of litigation. Threats of ex-communications were used as a punitive measure by the mandals to make the people abide by their decisions.259 Congressmen also organized a number of peasant conferences in 1945 to counter the Communist attempts. The Thana District Kisan Conference was held at Sahapur on 14 May 1945, under G.H. Deshpande.260 The Nasik Taluqa Peasants’ Conference was held at Bhagur on 16 September 1945 and was attended by about 4,000 cultivators.261 Congressmen like G.H. Deshpande, V.N. Naik 254

Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, Bombay, 1945, paragraphs 230, 398, 520 and 934, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 255 Bombay Provincial Weekly Letter No. 11, 17 March 1945 in Home/Special File No. 800(53)-BC-IV-6, 1943–44, MSA, Bombay. 256 Fortnightly Report, Bombay, First half of October 1946, NAI, New Delhi. 257 Weekly Report, DM, Kolaba, 19 April 1947; Bombay Provincial Weekly, Letter No. 17, 26 April 1947, MSA, Bombay. 258 Secret Abstracts of Police, 29 November 1947 in Home/Special File (Extract) 540-III(a), 1947, MSA, Bombay. 259 Bombay Provincial Weekly Letter No. 43, 25 October 1947, MSA, Bombay. 260 Secret Abstracts, paragraph 472, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 261 Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, Bombay, 1945, paragraph 892, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay.

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and B.S. Hire asked them to establish panchayats for settling disputes without recourse to law and to support the Congress in the elections. Congress leaders Bhau Rongate, K.S. Firodia and K.R. Garud established a Sewa Mandal for the uplift of kolis, Thakurs, Vanjaris and other hill tribes living in the Sahyadri Hills in Ahmednagar District in June 1946.262 D.N. Wandrekar and S.R. Bhise in Mokhada Petha of Thana District organized an Adivasi Conference at Saturli on 2 December 1945.263 A conference of adivasis was also organized by the Adivasi Sewa Mandal at Ambhau in Palghar taluqa of Thana to discuss their problems in the last week of December 1945.264 Local Congressmen also channellized the discontent of the peasants of Dholka and Dhandihuka taluqas of Ahmedabad over the government-imposed grain levy in the form of a petition to the collector in February 1945.265 The Congress organization started mobilizing popular support for the election at the end of 1945. In all parts of Bombay, a large number of public meetings were organized. The attendance at these meetings varied from a few hundred persons to a few thousand depending on the occasion and the speaker. Between 6 and 13 October 1945, about 94 such meetings were held.266 Between 17 and 24 November 1945, the number of such meetings was 143.267 Some of the peasant conferences were also used for asking for support for Congress candidates in the forthcoming elections besides discussing the local grievances of peasants. The Nasik Taluqa Peasant Conference held on 16 September 1945, and a conference of West Khandesh cultivators at Kapadne held on 1 and 2 October 1945, were examples of such a use of the peasant conferences.268 In the early part of January 1946 also a large number of public meetings were organized for election propaganda purposes. One of the major points made in these election meetings was the heroic role of the people in the 1942 struggle.269 262

Ibid., paragraph 559. Ibid., paragraph 1161. 264 BC, 24 December 1945. 265 Bombay Provincial Weekly Letter No. 8, 24 February 1945, MSA, Bombay. 266 Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraph 921, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 267 Ibid., paragraph 1075. 268 Ibid., paragraphs 892 and 934. 269 Home/Special File No. 503-II, 1945–47, MSA, Bombay. 263

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The Indian National Army (INA) campaign was more intensive in the urban centres of the Presidency. But although no agitation developed around the issue in the countryside, political activists raised it at many election and propaganda meetings. For example, G.H. Deshpande asked the people at Navapur, Sai Kheda in East Khandesh and at Mhalsakore in Nasik District to support the Congress for the release of INA prisoners.270 P.H. Patwardhan also addressed similar meetings in the villages of Ahmednagar in December 1945.271 An ex-soldier of the INA, Imamsab Mohmed Kulgeri, described the INA activities to 1,000 persons at Bagal Kot in the third week of August 1946.272 When Nana Patil and his associates of the underground movement in Satara appeared at a meeting at Koregaon in the beginning of May 1946, a huge gathering of 30,000 peasants welcomed them.273 In one meeting of the underground leaders of Satara held in early May, an attendance of about 60,000 was reported.274 There was also some frustration among these heroes of the underground leadership of the Quit India Movement. Achyutrao Patwardhan, for instance, complained at a meeting in Koregaon Village in Satara District that the Congress leaders were busy in negotiations and discussions while no definite task had been allotted to Congress workers.275 The political career of Nana Patil depended on the survival of the story of a “parallel government” in Satara. His mode of activity was no longer suitable for the new, peaceful, settled times (as seen by the Congress leadership).276 He, therefore, moved away from the Congress towards the Socialists. But, despite his popularity, the Socialists considered him a political risk because of his confused thinking. The Socialists also, therefore, excluded him from their party activities in early 1947.277 On 7 April 1947, Nana Patil complained in a meeting at Jawalo-Kadlag in 270

Secret Abstract of Intelligence, for the week ending 1 December 1945, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 271 Ibid. 272 Home/Special File No. 503-11, 1945–47, MSA, Bombay. 273 Home/Special File No. 503-II, 1945–47, MSA, Bombay. 274 BC, 7 May 1946. 275 Bombay Provincial Weekly Letter No. 20, 18 May 1946, MSA, Bombay. 276 Ibid. 277 Report of the EC meeting of the Maharashtra CSP, held on 5 April 1947 at Kalya from DIG, CID, Bombay to the Secretary, Government of Bombay, Home Department, 11 April 1947, in Home/Special File No. 540-II, 1945–47, MSA, Bombay.

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Ahmednagar that his services had been exploited for electioneering purposes, but he was not given any important position in the Congress organization.278 He said at a meeting at Ashwi in Ahmednagar on 7 April 1947 that he envisaged workers’ and peasants’ rule.279 On 18 March 1947, at Vadgaon Rasai in Poona District, he advised a gathering of 4,000 peasants to avoid unnecessary expenses in marriages.280 At village Anagar in Sholapur District, along with K.M. Jedhe, he collected a sum of Rs 12,000 for Maratha Mandir.281 At Walwane in Ahmednagar on 6 April 1947, he expressed satisfaction that villagers had stopped the evil practice of slaughtering goats to appease the village deity.282 On 4 and 6 May, he organized a conference of about 400 talathis and saundankars at Nasik.283 It has to be remembered that earlier his “Prati Sarkar” in Satara had attacked these local revenue officials. Earlier in May 1946, he had also declared at a meeting at Poona that Satara had acted upon the glorious traditions of Shivaji the Great, and had revolutionized the whole political, social and religious life in Satara.284 He seemed to have combined a bit of socialistic thinking and a bit of the glorious Maratha tradition with socio-religious reformist ideas. “Passive” mobilization through meetings and conferences gives the people an opportunity to raise their grievances peacefully and in a legalistic manner. We have already noted that people prefer this avenue of protest when it is available. Violent social eruptions occur only when this avenue is closed. Economic hardships and other social grievances do not directly lead to violent reaction as long as people feel that they can raise their voice against them in a peaceful manner. As the stoic philosopher Epictetus put it: “Men are not disturbed by things, but by the views which they take of things.”285 Village and local-level “micro-revolts” and agitation also perform the same function, which “passive” mobilization 278

Bombay Provincial Weekly Letter No. 16, 19 April 1947, MSA, Bombay. Ibid. 280 Ibid. (No. 13, 29 March 1947). 281 Weekly Report, DM, Sholapur, 11 April 1947, MSA, Bombay. 282 Bombay Provincial Weekly Letter No. 16, 19 April 1947, MSA, Bombay. 283 Weekly Report, DM, Nasik, 12 May 1947, MSA, Bombay. 284 BC, 17 May 1946. 285 Epictetus, The Enchirdion, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, Gateways to the Great Books, Vol. 10, Philosophical Essays, p. 238. 279

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performs. Historians who tend to focus on the big “social volcanoes”, called the peasant revolts, often neglect them. These smallscale agitations and revolts provide the essential historical continuity in the development of social dynamics. To sum up, we find that: (a) The popular masses preferred to use peaceful means, both legal and extra-legal, to violence when the former were readily available. (b) The Congress’ opposition to tenant–landlord antagonism was not because of its collaborationist stance, but because of its policy of settling such disputes through mediation. (c) The two main contending domains of politics were the nationalist and the peasant radicals. The former enjoyed an edge over the latter because of its appropriate understanding of colonial legality. (d) In practice, both the peasant radicals and Congressmen used religious and folk symbols of popular culture to attract the peasants.

THREE

Survival, Contested Power and the Polyphonic Tribal Resistance in Western India: 1934–47

The coercive state apparatus of the British in India was reinforced by hegemony. Hegemony can be defined as a dominant discourse, which imposes a structure of ideas and beliefs—deep assumptions about social proprieties and economic processes and about the legitimacy of relations of property and power. It creates a limited horizon of moral norms and practical probabilities beyond which all must be blasphemous, seditious, insane or apocalyptic fantasy—a structure, which serves to consolidate the existent social order and enforce its priorities and which is itself reinforced by rewards and penalties. Hegemony, thus, imposes blinkers that inhibit imagining alternatives. The subtle and sometimes not too subtle attempt to exclude the subjects and to erase their subjectivities, however, was never successful, marked as it was by a process of continuous, unceasing contestation between the imperial power and the subjected people. The collective actions of tribal people in western India which we wish to investigate whether in the form of crimes for survival, religious reform or the politically motivated struggle against economic subservience can be dramatized only in the background of this contestation. The Criminal Tribes Act (1871) recognized some tribal communities as criminal tribes. The legal language of the colonial rulers

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was used against “a wide variety of marginals who did not conform to the colonial pattern of settled agriculture and wage labour, against wandering communities, nomadic petty traders and pastoralists, gypsy types, hill and forest-dwelling tribals.”1 Speaking about the criminal propensity of some tribes at the time of enactment of the Criminal Tribes Act (1871), T.V. Stephens, a member in the Viceroy’s Executive Council, said that a criminal tribe was “a tribe whose ancestors were criminal from time immemorial, who are themselves destined by usages of caste to commit crimes and whose descendants will be offenders against the law, until the whole tribe is exterminated or accounted for in the manner of thugs. When a man tells you that he is an offender against the law, he has been so from the beginning, and will be so to the end, reform is impossible, for it is his trade, his caste, I may almost say his religion to commit crime.”2 The investigation of such popular “illegalities” and historical tracking of change in the inscription and regulation of crime, which further subjugated and criminalized the “criminals”, may help us to understand what Talal Asad calls “the anthropology of western imperial power”, and which “radically altered form and terrain of conflict inaugurated by it—new political languages, new powers, new social groups, new desires and fears, new subjectivities”.3 The fundamental question is whether we can treat our language, our conscience and our community as a product of chance and time, or as a product of contingency?4 Institutionalized order is not a natural outcome of fortuitous, accidental factors. It results “from being brought up to follow certain behaviour patterns (the process of socialization); from formalized bureaucratic rituals, from the expectations of reciprocity in social relationships; from converging social interests; and from a system of positive social sanctions that reward approved behaviour through moral honours 1

David Arnold, “Crime and Crime Control in Madras, 1858–1947”, in Anand A. Yang, ed., Crime and Criminality in British India, Tuscon, Arizona, 1985, p. 85. 2 Quoted from V. Raghaviah, The Problems of Criminal Tribes, Delhi, 1949, p. 6. 3 Talal Asad, “Afterward: From the History of Colonial Anthropology to the Anthropology of Western Hegemony”, in George W. Stocking Jr., ed., Colonial Situations: Essays on the Contextualization of Ethnographic Knowledge, Wisconsin, Madison, 1991, pp. 322–23. 4 Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, Cambridge and New York, 1989, pp. 22–23.

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and long-term security; and negative sanctions which punish ‘bad’ behaviour in various ways that have little to do with the law.”5 Moreover, the notion of “social order” itself involves ambiguities. The dividing line between “order” and “disorder” may be extremely fine. Even the most autocratic and rule-bound orders incorporate, as part of their “custom” or “tradition”, certain approved temporary but regular reversals of themselves, which Gluckman calls “rituals of rebellion”.6 Apart from the field of law, religious reform was another arena in which the nebulous boundaries between order and disorder could be breached. Despite the prominent role of religious ideologies in conserving and consolidating social domination, the common sense of shared experience could use religious codes in an enabling way that could rudely interrupt the pronouncements of a dominant ideology. Then political mobilization against parasitical landlords and usurers by the radical political associations offered more open scope for class hostility. All these multiple forms of resistance are investigated in this chapter.

Tribal Resistance to the Expanding Colonial Space The restrictions imposed on their customary forest rights, the increasing demographic pressure on land and extraction of huge amounts of surplus by the colonial state and its beneficiaries like landlords, moneylenders and merchants made inroads into the subsistence needs of the tribal communities. Consequently they adopted “loot and plunder” as an act of survival. The colonial forest policy usurped many customary rights of the tribal communities like free grazing facility and gathering of forest produce. Village and tribal communities “cherished and maintained these rights (in the forest) with the same tenacity with which private property in land is maintained elsewhere”.7 For instance, selling of wood was the main source of subsistence for some Bhils in the 5

Angela P. Cheater, Social Anthropology: An Alternative Introduction, London, 1986, p. 225. 6 See M. Gluckman, Custom and Conflict in Africa, Oxford, 1956. 7 Quoted from the Memorial, 3 March 1878, Puna Sarvajanik Sabha, and the inhabitants of city and camp of Puna in Madhav Gadgil and Ramchandra Guha, This Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India, Delhi, 1992, p. 126.

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Khandesh region. Many Bhils took to robbery when their privilege of bringing down cartloads of wood from the forests for sale was taken away.8 In Thana District, an important source of income for tribal households was the sale of firewood to koli fishermen. The discontent of the kolis, which initially manifested itself in peaceful petitioning, later on found expression in overt collective protest also.9 Where it was legally allowed for people living near forest areas to gather dead wood from forests for fuel and the use timber for the construction of huts and implements, through the use of transit passes, there were complaints of exactions of money, grain and ghee, etc., by the forest officials for issuing such transit passes.10 Similarly, a grazing fee was charged on all the cattle in the forest area and not on the actual number of cattle that were grazed there.11 The tribal cultivators of Panch Mahals were forced to work in forests without any payments and without any consideration of the sowing or harvesting seasons.12 The Bhil farmers complained in 1944 that although the Congress ministry had fixed a minimum wage of 6 annas per day for the labour employed by the forest administration, wages at this rate were not paid to them.13 The tribal communities resisted colonial subjection from the beginning of British rule in India. Ramoshis revolted under their nayak Umiaji in 1826–27. The Ramoshi’s revolt could be controlled only in 1828 when Umiaji was appointed as the head police officer of Purandhar and Bhimthadi taluqas of Pune District. Other rebels were also appeased with land grants and by employing them in the police. The kolis in north-west Poona and Ahmednagar also remained turbulent for nearly 20 years, the years 1827–30 being the years of most serious rebellions.14 In Kaira District, the initial 8

See R.D. Choksey, Economic Life in the Bombay Deccan, p. 126. Gadgil and Guha, This Fissured Land, p. 160. 10 Report of the Forest Grievances Enquiry Committee, Bombay, 1927, Part II, p. 16. 11 Ibid., p. 7. 12 Ibid., p. 75. 13 M.B. Desai, The Rural Economy of Gujarat, pp. 42–43. 14 Gazetteers of Bombay Presidency (1833–85): Poona District, 1885, pp. 306–9; Ahmednagar, 1884, pp. 415–20; Nasik, 1883, pp. 199–204; and also see David Hardiman, “Community, Patriarchy, Honour: Raghu Bhangare’s Revolt”, Journal of Peasant Studies, 23, 1, October, 1995, pp. 97–98; F. Bruce Robinson, “Bandits and Rebellion in Nineteenth-Century Western India”, in Anand A. Yang, ed., Crime and Criminality, pp. 48–61. 9

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revolts against the colonial rule were led by the Rajput girasiyas who were traditional revenue claimants and strove to recover their lost claims. They turned outlaws (or baharvatias) and engaged in burning, murdering and plundering. The other rebels were the koli chiefs. Govindas Ramdas who was believed to have supernatural powers by his followers led the koli unrest in 1826–30. The koli gangs stole crops and murdered oppressive moneylenders in Kaira District in 1828–30.15 Hardiman investigates the koli rebellions in what is known as Bavan Mavals (52 valleys)—the region of inaccessible hills and valleys west of Poona, running from Bhor Ghat in the south to Nasik in the north. Rama Bhangre (1829), Raghu Bhanagre (son of Rama Bhanagre) (1844–48) and Honiya Kengle (1872–76) led the three main revolts of the kolis. The region had a strong tradition of bandkaris or revolts. According to Hardiman, Raghu Bhanagre’s revolt, although initially geared to gain concessions from the colonial state, gradually metamorphosed into an anti-usurers’ tradition which became necessary so as to maintain the support base. Solidarities, which empowered the individual “hero”, have been identified, as well as the notions of honour, morality and patriarchy that informed the actions of rebels.16 The Bhils also revolted in 1809, 1846 and 1857–59. Bhagji Naik in Ahmednagar and Kajar Singh in Satpuda organized the revolt of 1857–59. Govind Giri organized a Bhil army in 1911–12, for which he was tried and exiled for life.17 The Sankheda’s Naikdas revolted under Rupa and Keval nayaks plundered the Narukot outpost and fought against the British army for two days at Jhamughoda. When repulsed, they occupied villages between Champaner and Narukot and plundered villages as far as Godhara. Naikdas again revolted in 1867–68, inspired by Joria Bhagat and supported by Rupsing and Gobar. They also temporarily collected revenue, partly from religious gifts and fines and partly by the levy of transit duties and declared Vedak as the royal seat.18 In 1879, Vasudeo Balwant Phadke used Ramoshi, koli, Bhil and Dhangar cultivators against the colonial rule. The rebellion broke out from 15

Gazetteer of Bombay Presidency, Kaira District, Bombay, 1879, pp. 30–32 and 120–21. 16 Hardiman, “Community, Patriarchy, Honour”, pp. 80–130. 17 V. Raghaviah, Tribes of India, Vol. II, New Delhi, 1972, pp. 174–79. 18 Ibid., pp. 186–88; Gazetteers of Bombay Presidency, Panch Mahals, Bombay, 1879, pp. 253–55.

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Dhamri village; the rebels attacked moneylenders in the villages of the Deccan and Konkan region.19 These tribal followers told Phadke to forget about the British and instead urged him to attack a number of particularly avaricious moneylenders to whom they were all in debt.20 In 1885, the Talavias revolted in Broach; inspired by the Bhagats who told the tribals that the establishment of their own kingdom was the will of a mata (mother-goddess).21 In 1899, there were anti-usurer and anti-colonial protests by Bhils in Jhalod Mahal of Panch Mahals. The houses of moneylenders were looted; and Bhils were also not happy with the forest laws of the colonial government. The Bhils confronted the British troops at Jhalod and Limbdi in large groups (ranging between 1,000 and 5,000). Even in the looting of moneylenders, large crowds (500–2,000) participated in each case. The main centres of revolts were Jhalod, Muwade, Kadwad, Warod and Limbdi.22 Michel Foucault points out that the function of the penal system at the end of the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century in Europe was to stamp out rebellion. Therefore, the penal system was aimed, very specifically, against the most mobile, the most excitable, the “violent” elements among the common people; those who were most prepared to turn to direct, armed action, including farmers who were forced by debts to leave their lands, peasants on the run from tax authorities, workers banished for thefts, vagabonds or beggar who refused to clear the ditches, and those who lived by plundering the fields. It was these “dangerous” people who had to be isolated so that they could not act as the spearhead for popular resistance.23 The British penal system, similarly, was directed against the rebellious tribal people. 19

V.S. Joshi, Vasudeo Balwant Phadke: The First Rebel against the British Rule, Bombay, 1959, pp. 33–100. 20 “Translation of the Diary of Vasudeo Balwant Phadke”, in S.K. Patil, ed., Source Materials for a History of Freedom Movement, Vol. I, Bombay, 1957, p. 121. 21 Resolution No. 8631 of 1885, Judicial Department, Bombay, dated 18 December 1885 in Revenue Department, Vol. 293, Compilation 1978 of the year 1885 and Resolution No. 2254 of 1886, Judicial Department dated 8 April 1886 in Revenue Department, Vol. 262, Compilation 1978 of 1886, MSA, Bombay. 22 Revenue Department, Vol. 234, Compilation 131 of the year 1900, MSA, Bombay. 23 Michel Foucault, “On Popular Justice: A Discussion with Maoists”, in Power/ Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 (trans. Colin Gordon et al.), Brighton, Sussex, 1980, pp. 14–15.

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Notions of Law and Crime in Criminogenic Theories We have indicated tribal resistance to the expanding colonized space in the Bombay Presidency. The categorization of petty crop thefts, etc., by tribal people as criminal activities and the labelling of such communities as “criminal tribes” reinforced the negative and “criminal” propensities among these tribal and nomadic people.24 Stewert N. Gordon traces various strands of beliefs that contributed to the making of criminal tribes ideology in relation to the Bhils. These elements were: the fear of brahmin subordinates of British, fear of the forest, the cultivators’ fear of huntinggathering people, the high castes’ fear of people without a similar institutional framework. To this was added the British tradition of associating forests with crimes and outlaws. To this was further added the idea of criminals as a race apart, and finally in line with nineteenth century ideas of progress, the idea of redeemability of the criminal—the idea that to impose a penalty on somebody is not in order to punish what he has done, but to transform what he is.25 The belief in the “professional and hereditary character of crime”26 was very common among the colonial administrators in the nineteenth century and survived even in the twentieth century. In the early nineteenth century, Forbes described the Bhils and kolis in his Rasmala as “hereditary and professional plunderers”.27 The Kathiawar Gazetteer and H.B. Rowney’s description also echo 24

According to Goffman, the labelling and stigmatized social reaction to “criminality” reinforces the negative social identity of being a “criminal”. See E. Goffman, Stigma: Notes on Management of Spoiled Identity, Middlesex, 1968, pp. 9–10; Richard V. Ericson, “Social Distance and Reaction to Criminality”, The British Journal of Criminology, 17, 1, January 1977, pp. 16–29. 25 Stewart N. Gordon, “Bhils and the Ideas of a Criminal Tribe in NineteenthCentury India”, in Yang, ed., Crime and Criminality, pp. 128–39. 26 Lombroso, who believed in the notion of a “born criminal”, popularized the hereditary-based crimogenic theory in Europe. Gabriel Tarde challenged this notion in the late nineteenth century. See Piers Beirne, “Between Classicism and Positivism: Crime and Penalty in the Writings of Gabriel Tarde”, Criminology, 25, 4, November 1987, pp. 785–819. The modernist version of Lombroso’s crimogenic theory is found in H.J. Eysenck, Crime and Personality, London, 1977. 27 Cited in R.V. Russell, Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Vol. II, Delhi, 1975 (reprint), p. 283.

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similar sentiments.28 M. Kennedy, the DIG of Police, Railways and Criminal Investigations in Bombay Presidency, prepared his notes on the so-called criminal classes in India. Although he gave some weightage to the social causes of crimes, he still eloquently vocalized colonial ethnographic stereotypes to explain the criminal behaviour of the tribal people. Explaining crimes among the Berads, he wrote:”. . . the blood of the freebooters runs in their veins, and as a tribe they are liable, with any disturbing cause, to form gangs, go into outlawry, disturb the peace of countryside and defy police and authorities”.29 A season of scarcity, the grasping avariciousness and the exacting demands of moneylenders or domestic grievances, etc., acted only as the precipitating agents, but the instinctual propensity to engage in extralegal forms of behaviour and their love of adventure and plunder were thought to be the underlying, prime morbid causes of their criminality, Kennedy’s description of Ramoshis makes this amply clear. To quote him: From the time immemorial the Ramoshi has been a dacoit and robber and though with the march of civilization and good government he has settled to a more or less regular life, his restless spirit and predatory instinct which he has inherited, is soon aroused whenever through scarcity and other cause, necessity drives or a favourable opportunity offers.30 This priggish disposition towards these tribal communities was not merely confined to the colonial administrators. Kautilya’s Arthasastra devotes a whole chapter on how such “habitual offenders” have to be traced if they commit thefts and allied crimes.31 B.S. Haikerwal, who claims to have analysed the socio-economic aspects of crimes, reiterates the colonial hypothesis. He writes: “The men and women born within it [that is, the criminal tribe] take to crime just as duck takes to water because it is duck.”32 K.M. Kapadia’s analysis reflects prejudices about criminal tribes as well as a patriarchal bias. To quote him: “The Women of Bedars in 28

H.B. Rowney, The Wild Tribes of India, Delhi, 1974 (reprint, first edn. 1882), p. 40. M. Kennedy (1907), The Criminal Classes in India, Delhi, 1985 (reprint), p. 13. 30 Ibid., p. 145. 31 Damayanti Doongaji, Crime and Punishment in Ancient Hindu Society, Delhi, 1986, pp. 226–27. 32 B.S. Haikerwal, Economic and Social Aspects of Crime in India, London, 1934, p. 144. 29

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Bombay are often prostitutes and mistresses and remain long in order to pave the way for burglary . . . . The women of Manggarudis are more criminal than men who are known to subsist on the criminality of their wives.”33 V. Raghavaiah also offers a similar explanation. According to him, in most states, those criminal tribes who preyed upon the urban community “carried on their profession through their women whose fine features and loose morals helped in their overtures to men”.34 The notions of law and order are central to any criminogenic theory. Western evolutionists formulated a number of dichotomous categories to understand “primitive law” in relation to their own. Maine recognized that all societies had some form of contract, but nonetheless postulated that there was a general historical progression from assessing a person’s rights and obligations in society on the basis of his or her ascriptive status in a “corporation” based on kinship, to the individualization of contractual responsibility.35 Durkheim regarded “repressive” law, which punished infractions, as a corollary of integrating society by means of “mechanical solidarity”, in which humans as workers substitute for one another. In contrast, Durkheim saw “restitutive law”, which sought to restore the social status quo ante among disputants, as part of the “organic solidarity” based on a more specialized division of labour. Restitutive law was also identified with the “civil” or “private” law and the repressive variety with the “criminal” and “public law”. Moreover, according to Durkheim, the function of conflict in society was to uphold order, and similarly the concept of crime was needed to keep the rules.36 Malinowski avoided the dualism of the evolutionists and emphasized the universal aspects of legal behaviour rather than the institutional difference among the different cultural systems. Not all societies had courts and policemen but they all had “law” in both its public and private manifestations. According to him, while it is in the long-term interest of individuals to cooperate with others, their pursuits of short-term interests often result in breach of the rules and conflict. What constrained people to abide by the rules were the benefits 33

K.M. Kapadia, “The Criminal Tribes of India”, Sociological Bulletin, 1, 2, 1952, p. 102. 34 Raghavaiah, Tribes of India, Vol. II, p. 137. 35 Cheater, Social Anthropology, p. 232. 36 See E. Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society, New York, 1964 (first edition 1893).

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of systematic reciprocity and the psychological as well as material rewards that such compliance normally brought. Malinowski further argued that if people thought they could do better by breaking the laws, they would; and the withdrawal of reciprocity, together with their public shaming, would soon bring them back into line.37 These notions of crime and order cannot explain the colonial institutionalized arrangements that were imposed from without by an alien agency. S. Roberts (1979) relates law to the rules of property and its governance. According to his Marxian notion, hunters and gatherers have minimal law and government, because their notions of property are not very elaborate. Pastoralists require legal protection for their ownership of livestock. Agriculturists’ need still more rules of property to govern arable and residential land, the distribution of products and so on. With literacy comes the codification of these customary rules into written law, explicitly to maintain order, so as to protect property. The centralized state then comes into existence to administer law in the interests of property.38 E.P. Thompson and other Marxist historians have attempted to analyse how the law mediates and determines, “criminality”. They demonstrate how social crimes such as thefts, poaching and smuggling arise out of the different notions of property rights made by the poor and the rich. The creative nature of resistance to the moral codes of the ruling classes is amply demonstrated by the careful selection of targets in social crimes.39 Hobsbaum believes that social crimes provided a form of self-help to escape from crisis situation in certain particular conditions.40 This thinking is rooted in Marx’s writing itself. Marx had challenged the encroachment of “legality” on the customary rights of the poor people.41 George 37

Branislav Malinowski (1926), Crime and Custom in a Savage Society, translated by Kaushal Kumar (in Hindi) as Vanya Samaj Mein Apradh aur Pratha, Bhopal, 1971. 38 Roberts, Order and Dispute, Harmondsworth, 1979. 39 Social history writings such as E.P. Thompson, Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of Black Act, New York, 1975; George Rude, Criminal and Victim: Crime and Society in Early Nineteenth-Century England, Oxford, 1985; Clive Einsley, Crime and Society in England: 1750–1900, London 1987, represent this trend. 40 E.J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels: Studies in the Archaic Forms of Social Movements in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Manchester, 1959. 41 See K. Marx and F. Engels, “Debates on the Law of Thefts of Wood”, in Collected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1975, pp. 224–63.

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Rude, instead of using administrative distinction between crime against property and crime against persons, list three major types of crimes: acquisitive, social or survival and protest crimes. According to him an acquisitive criminal, far from turning his back on an acquisitive society, in fact only accepts its norms to acquire property or wealth. To distinguish between “acquisitive” and “social” crimes, scale and purpose of crime are to be investigated. According to Rude, even “survival” crimes are not a form of class war, the only suggestion of class war is that engaged in by certain participants in unlawful protest—protest in breach of the law. Although in some cases like machine breaking, food rioting, demolition of fences, it is fairly easy to recognize the elements of protest, in other marginal protests, the shadowy realm between crime and protest is very difficult to distinguish.42 The problem with Marxist social history of crimes is that not all forms of criminal activity can be construed as political action. Its focus is on the elucidation of the structure and functioning of class and power in society as refracted through the lens of social crime and law.43 So they are forced to make a distinction between “good” bad guys and “bad” bad guys. The former are the forerunner of popular protests and the latter are those criminals who commit crimes without such qualifications.44 Michel Foucault regards punitive measures not as simple consequences of legislation or an indicator of social structure, but as techniques with their own specificity that are a product of a complex intermixture or blend of power and knowledge produced by the “human sciences”.45 The Foucaultian approach, novel in itself, however, treats power only as a strategy of those who exercise it and never as a social relation, ordered equally by the strategies of those who oppose and contest it. As a result, resistance looses its focal place as a constitutive element of the history of the technology of power.46 Although, Foucault wishes 42

Rude, Criminal and Victim, pp. 78–115. For Marxist criminology, deviance represents a normal and purposeful attempt to correct or protest social injustice. In response, society seeks to repress this challenge by criminalizing (that is, arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating) the actors involved. See Ian Taylor, Jock Young and Paul Walton, The New Criminology: For a Social Theory of Deviance, London, 1973. 44 Yang, Crime and Criminality, pp. 2–3. 45 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish. 46 Yang, Crime and Criminality, pp. 4–5. 43

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to “emancipate historical knowledges” from subjection of inscribed knowledges in “the hierarchical order of power associated with science” so as to render them capable of opposition and of struggle against “the coercion of a theoretical, unitary and scientific discourse”;47 the central problem remains: how to liberate the local, marginalized discursivities or the subjected knowledge if they are so vulnerable to the “technologies of power and self” which lead to “an objectivizing of the subjects”.

Adaptation/Contestation for Survival Y.C. Simhadri on the basis of the “differential-association” theory of Sutherland48 traces the roots of criminal behaviour of tribal people in learned behaviour, which they acquire in contact with criminal patterns through family, community and neighbourhood associations.49 Such an analysis ignores the motivation, which compels the tribal people not to submit to laws. In fact, many of the tribal and nomadic communities were pushed to inferior lands. The Choudhras of Surat District, for instance, inhabited the eastern hilly and forest tract where the soil was poor and cultivation difficult due to intense gully erosion.50 The Bhils living in the hilly tracts of Khandesh were dependent on the collection and sale of forest produce. They also worked as forest labourers, as manufacturers of charcoal. As cultivators, they subsisted on a coarse grain called nagdi. During harvest time, many worked as reapers and field labourers. Hunting, fishing and pastoral activities were other complimentary sources of livelihood for them.51 Berads, besides 47

See M. Foucault, “Genealogy and Social Criticism”, in S. Seidman, ed., The Postmodern Turn: New Perspectives on Social Theory, Cambridge 1994, pp. 42– 44. 48 According to E.H. Sutherland’s theory of “differential association”, criminal behaviour is learned like other kinds of behaviour—learned in association with others, according to the frequency, priority and duration of contacts. See Edwin H. Sutherland, Principles of Criminology, Philadelphia, 1947. 49 Y.C. Simhadri, Denotified Tribes: A Sociological Analysis, New Delhi, 1991, pp. 46– 65. 50 Ghanshyam Shah, Socio-Economic Study of Choudhras: A Re-Study, Surat, 1977, p. 15. 51 See Irawati Karve, The Bhils of West Khandesh, Bombay, 1957, p. 28; R.V. Russel, Tribes and Castes, Vol. 3, pp. 292–93; M. Kennedy, Criminal Classes, pp. 42–53.

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partly depending on agriculture, were also involved in woodcutting, selling of fuel collected from the forests and in cattle and sheep rearing. A large number of them also worked as village sanadis or watchmen, field labourers and coolies.52 The occupations followed by the Katkaris, Warlis and Ramoshis were also similar in nature. The Kaikadis worked as musicians, mat and basket weavers and sold and repaired grinding stones. The Mangs worked as village watchmen, musicians, songsters, scavengers and leather workers. The Manggarudis were a nomadic group subsisting on begging, performing conjuring tricks before villagers and trading in barren buffaloes and buffalo calves.53 The Banjaras or Lamanis were the common carriers of grain, salt and merchandise of all sorts. The spread of colonial trading networks especially transport and railways virtually deprived them of their ancestral vocation. They were forced to take to agriculture or field labour, the poorer ones supplementing their livelihood by collecting forest produce and rearing cattle.54 The problem of survival became more vital and distressing during the period of natural calamities and tribulations for such communities. Despite enormous pressure, it was found to be difficult to persuade the koli field labourers to leave their hills for work in the plains. Similarly, the Bhils of Khandesh were reluctant to accept gratuitous relief even in the form of grain during the 1897–98 famines due to their sense of self-respect.55 There were, however, no moral constraints on breaking laws to pull through the harrowing times. The city of Bombay frequently experienced a spate of robberies whenever the excruciating famine conditions in Gujarat or the Deccan drove large number of starving people to seek shelter and food in the urban areas.56 Many grain dealers of Panch Mahals fled to the towns during the famine of 1899–1900 in fear of spoliation.57 Even the surveillance of crime in normal times suggests that most of the cognizable crimes in the Bombay Presidency were attempts to pull through for the marginalized social 52

V.B. Solanki, “Berads”, in A.V. Thakkar, ed., Tribes of India, Delhi, pp. 133–35; Kennedy, The Criminal Classes, p. 13. 53 Kennedy, The Criminal Classes, pp. 65–121. 54 Ibid., pp. 5–6. 55 Report of the India Famine Commission (1898) (reprinted), New Delhi, 1979, p. 292. 56 S.M. Edwardes, Crimes in India, Delhi, 1983, pp. 41–42 (first edn 1924). 57 Report of the Indian Famine Commission (1901) (reprinted), New Delhi, 1979, p. 54.

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groups. In 1928, most of the “property crimes” included robberies, dacoities, cattle thefts and housebreaking.58 During 1934–41, the majority of cognizable offences against “criminal tribesmen” were offences against property rights.59 Unpopular moneylenders, landlords and traders were the main target of these attacks. A gang of 15 men armed with guns and dharias (dharia is a kind of scythe) looted the houses of banias and other traders on 6 February 1936 in Ambawada village in Prantij taluqa of Ahmedabad District.60 Generally small groups were involved in such activities but sometimes larger bands could be effectively organized. For instance, about 300 kolis and Thakardas participated in an armed dacoity in Zanzarva village in Ahmedabad District on 16 July 1934.61 A large band of about 200 Bhils looted houses in Khanpur village in Gunawade State near Ahmedabad on 19 May 1934 and also killed three persons.62 Violence against persons was minimal in such activities. Violence was used only in cases of non-compliance with their demands. The crimes of the Katkaris, as a rule, avoided unnecessary acts of cruelty. The Katkaris generally satisfied themselves with ordinary crop thefts, or stealing of goats, sheep and fowls, only occasionally attacking and robbing the grasping forest contractors.63 An armed band in Bhinsiya village of Ahmedabad District raided the house of a Luhana merchant on 9 July 1935. The raiders demanded Rs 500 and, as the trader was unable to pay the amount in cash, his 10-year-old daughter was kidnapped.64 A gang of 15–20 Bhils who demanded the keys of the safe raided the house of a rich person in Vanz village. On non-compliance with their demand, the owner was beaten and forced to open the safe. Property worth Rs 9,000 was removed and gunshots were fired in the air to scare off neighbours.65 M. Kennedy’s account of Bhil crimes tells us that Bhils turned outlaws only as a result of bad years, want, the exactions of moneylenders or some other disturbing causes, when the pinch of agricultural distress was felt. In such 58

Perin C. Kerrawalla, A Study of Indian Crime, Bombay, 1959, pp. 82–83. Annual Police Administration Reports: 1934–51 (hereafter APAR), MSA, Bombay. 60 BC, 7 February 1934. 61 BC, 20 May 1934. 62 BC, 17 July 1934. 63 Kennedy, The Criminal Classes, p. 87. 64 BC, 10 July 1935. 65 APAR, Bombay, 1936, p. 22. 59

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circumstances, they resorted to crop stealing, looting of good strains, cattle lifting, dacoities and burglaries.66 A gang of about 14–15 persons was active in committing dacoities in the villages of Dahanu Taluqa of Thana District and Jawaharl State during 1934–36. The band looted the moneylenders and burnt their books of accounts before the police at Tawa village of Dahanu taluqa rounded it up.67 Sometimes, bands went to urban centres because of good opportunities available at such centres. A number of burglaries in Bijapur City in 1936 were thought to be the work of Haran-Shikari tribesmen.68 Sometimes, minor cases of crop stealing led to the conviction of poor tribal people. The first class magistrate of Dohad sentenced two Bhils of Khengela to prison terms for stealing maize dodas (ears of corn) from the fields. The third accused, a boy of 15 years, was released on furnishing a security of Rs 100 for keeping peace.69 Penetration of usury capital and its continuous proliferation provided very fertile ground for such activities. A gang of 30–40 persons armed with bows and arrows broke open the shop of a trader at Vandeli village under the Morwa police station in Broach and Panch Mahal District. The resisting villagers were held in check by the band who threw stones at them with slings. One policeman was killed in the clash.70 Kondya Hari Navale, a Maratha bandit, utilized the discontent among the kolis in Mawal region regarding the high rate of interest charged by the sahukars and organized a gang of about 40 kolis with the avowed object of looting the Gujarati sahukars. The band committed about 13 dacoities between February and June 1940 in Poona, Ahmednagar, Nasik, Thana and Kolaba districts. The gang clashed with a special police party on 23 July 1940 on the Poona–Ahmednagar border in which Kondya Hari Navale was killed and seven of his associates were captured. Subsequently, the whole group was rounded up.71 A special police force of 150 policemen had to campaign for six weeks to achieve this objective.72 The Katkaris of Murbad taluqa of Thana 66

Kennedy, The Criminal Classes, pp. 43–45. BC, 22 February 1936. 68 APAR, Bombay, 1936, pp. 23–24. 69 BC, 19 September 1936. 70 APAR, Bombay, 1940, pp. 23–24. 71 Ibid., pp. 32–33. 72 Governor of Bombay to Linlithgow, dated 1 August 1940, in Linlithgow Papers (unpublished), Vol. 54, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (hereafter NMML), New Delhi. 67

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and Kolaba districts were hard pressed during 1939–40. They depended for their livelihood on field labour in paddy fields, on advances from forest contractors for preparing charcoal and by gathering roots from the forests. Due to the failure of the rains, there was no employment in the fields and the roots in the forests did not grow. The forest contractors deferred payment of advances as the government tried to impose a wage structure on them and they reacted by withholding payment of wages in advance to the Katkari workers. Deprived of their livelihood, a large number of Katkaris resorted to crime in order to survive.73 Some koli gangs were also active in Nasik and Ahmednagar in 1941. One such combined gang of kolis, Marathas, Dhangars and Ramoshis attacked the house of a wealthy Marwari in Nandurpatar village of Parner taluqa in Ahmednagar District and looted Rs 13,000. They also burnt the account books, documents and promissory notes relating to his moneylending business. Later on, 25 members of this gang were arrested from 10 different villages which fell under the Narayangaon police station in Poona District.74 A series of dacoities and robberies were committed by bands of the Khandu Arjun kolis and the Kalya Bhavdya Bhils in Igatpuri, Ghoti, Trimbak and Nasik and in Mokhada police station of Thana District in 1940–41. Another band was active under Lumya Limba koli in Nasik, Ahmednagar and Thana districts.75 The kolis in general regarded the leaders of koli gangs as heroes, sympathized with them in their campaign against moneylenders and forest officials and provided aid to them in evading the police and feeding and harbouring them if need arose. This helped in checking the forest officials’ and moneylenders’ exorbitances.76 The Congress agitators of “Prati Sarkar” in 1942–43 utilized the skills of the Ramoshis in Satara and Sholapur in the looting of moneylenders.77 Such activities continued as late as 1945. A gang of 25 Ramoshis and some underground Prati Sarkar activists raided the house of a rich landlord in Dahigaon village under the Malsiras police station of Satara District on 16 May 1945 73

APAR, Bombay, 1940, p. 9 and BC, 26 August 1939. APAR, Bombay, 1941, pp. 20–22. 75 Ibid. 76 Kennedy, The Criminal Classes, pp. 95–96. 77 Weekly Report, DM, Satara, 21 January 1943, Home/Special File No. 800(74) (14), III, 1941–43, MSA, Bombay. 74

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and looted Rs 3,000.78 Certain tribal communities such as the Berads in Karnataka, the Bhils in Ahmednagar and the Katkaris and Ramoshis in Satara were often described as “paid criminals” engaged in anti-government disruptive activities during the Quit India Movement.79 The rise in the prices of food grains due to scarcity conditions in East Khandesh in 1936 resulted in rioting and looting of grain shops at the Chalisgaon weekly bazaar on 29 August 1936. There was some tension in Nasik also when Bhils started visiting the houses of Marwaris to beg for food. The Marwaris were annoyed with this and apprehended some serious trouble.80 Some cases of food grain looting occurred in Nasik, Surat, Satara, Thana and West Khandesh between July and December 1942 due to the prevailing war-time high prices of food grains.81 However, the specific composition of crowds in such situations is difficult to ascertain. When there was a marked shortage of food grains in Nasik in early 1943, looting of grain shops was reported from one or two places.82 In 1946, 13 cases of looting of goods trains were reported on the Bombay–Poona railway line between Kalyan and Thakarwadi railway stations within a radius of 50 miles. All these incidents took place between 23 May and 4 July 1946. The usual mode of operation was the stopping of the train at night by tampering with the signals and then looting certain wagons. One gang of hill tribesmen operating near Thakarwadi was especially interested in looting wagons containing poultry and egg baskets.83 Moneylenders and banias were not the only target of the tribals. Unnecessary harassments by excise officials, village officials and forest officials also provoked them. In March 1935, the headman of Chamasa village near Ahmedabad was shot dead by some Thakarda tribesmen because he had seen them distilling illicit 78

Weekly Report, DM, Sholapur, 23 May 1945, Home/Special File No. 501-I(a), 1945–56, MSA, Bombay. 79 Home/Special File No. 1110(125)-A, 1942–43, MSA, Bombay. 80 Secret Abstracts of Intelligence (SAI), paragraph 784, 1936, IG Record Room, Bombay. 81 See my article “Crowed Vigour and Social Identity: The Quit India Movement in Western India”, Indian Economic and Social History Review (IESHR), 33, 4, October–December 1996, pp. 459–79. 82 Governor of Bombay to Linlithgow, 8 February 1943, Linlithgow Papers, Vol. 57 (unpublished), NMML, New Delhi. 83 The Times of India, 4 July 1946.

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liquor.84 An excise party raid at Narangi village under Virar police station on 12 September 1937 for the detection of illicit distillation angered the villagers who assaulted the excise party. The incident occurred on Gauri Ganpati Day, the day when the villagers indulge in an orgy of drinking. One sub-inspector, who was severely injured, died later on.85 Three thakurs of Rodwal village in Shahapur taluqa of Thana District killed a forest officer on 21 May 1934. The forest officer had suspected that they had set a portion of the jungle on fire and had rebuked them and had slapped one of them. They were sentenced to five years of rigorous imprisonment by the session judge of Thana.86 There were frequent clashes or maramaris in the Turmale Jungle in 1935 due to the discord over the free right of villagers to graze their cattle in the forest areas around Turmale village in Panvel taluqa of Kolaba District. In one such dispute, 10 Agris of Nandgaon in Panvel taluqa were implicated.87 There seemed to be less socio-economic differentiations within a tribe than were seen among caste Hindu peasants, so their “community-consciousness” was much stronger. The British-created institution of Criminal Tribes Settlements begot new avenues which lent a hand in transforming communitybased resistance into a multi-community agitation based on modernist ideals such as equality before law in which the radical intelligentsia also played a key role. In the next section, we describe the Sholapur Criminal Tribes Settlement agitation, which exemplified such transformation. Although urban-based, we have included the Sholapur settlement agitation in our present work because the settlers came mainly from the villages.

The Sholapur Criminal Tribes Settlement Agitation The Criminal Tribes Act (1871) provided for the registration of all or any members of tribes declared as “criminal tribes” under the law. It also required a registered members to report themselves to the police at fixed intervals and to notify their place of residence 84 85 86 87

BC, BC, BC, BC,

23 March 1935. 1 October 1937; APAR, Bombay, 1937, p. 15. 6 September and 17 November 1934. 14 September 1935.

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and any change or intended change of residence and any absence or intended absence from his residence. Any contravention of these provisions of the law invited severe punitive measures.88 These restrictions on the movement of the tribal people often led to their harassment by village patels and police officials. The provision of regular hazeri (attendance) was used to exact forced labour from the tribals under threats by the patels.89 Occasionally, resentment was expressed by the people against the application of the provisions of the Criminal Tribes Act. For instance, the trial of a koli tenant of Pelhar village in 1935, who was charged under the Criminal Tribes Act, for failure to appear before the Magistrate of Bassein, led to considerable excitement in the villages near Bassein. The police patel of Pelhar expressed his ignorance of the provisions of the Criminal Tribes Act and testified that the accused was an honest tenant-cultivator who had not committed any offence for the last six years.90 The Act was amended from time to time, but the main change in policy came with the Criminal Tribes Settlement Act (1908). The Act provided for the settlement of convicted members of tribes in special settlements, so as to reform them by teaching them “work habits” under the supervision of special settlement officers.91 The total population of “settlers” and “free colonies”92 in the Bombay Presidency was more than 15,000 in 1937 (8,231 were “settlers” and 7,212 were in “free colonies”). Out of these, 2,233 men, 727 women and 104 “half-timers” (children) were employed in industrial activities such as spinning and weaving mills, railway workshops and factories. Others were engaged in road construction, metal breaking, lumbering, field labour and casual labour. The Sholapur Settlement was the largest settlement in the province with a population of 3,500–4,000. The other major settlements in the province were—Hubli, Gadag, Ahmedabad, Belgaum, Bijapur, Beramati, Mundawa, Ambarnath, Khanapur, Nira Project, Dhulia and Jalgaon. In these settlements, Kaikadis, 88

See Simhadri, The Ex-Criminal Tribes of India, New Delhi, 1979, pp. 29–30; S.S. Shashi and P.S. Varma, A Socio-History of Ex-Criminal Communities OBCs, New Delhi, 1991, pp. 20–23. 89 Report of the Criminal Tribes Act Enquiry Committee, 1939, Bombay, pp. 40–41. 90 BC, 18 October 1935. 91 Simhadri, Ex-Criminal Tribes, pp. 32–33. 92 The “settlers” were kept in the settlements under double wire enclosures whereas people in “free colonies” were kept under single wire enclosures under slightly less strict conditions.

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Bhamptas, Manggarudis, Bhats and Haranshikaris were the main tribesmen, besides Bhil, Waddars, Ramoshis, Mangs, Waghris, Dharalas, kolis, Berads, Lamanis, Thakurs and Katkaris.93 In some cases, even law-abiding tribals were brought to the settlements. A number of Manggarudis, who were in the cattle dealing business, were brought to the Sholapur Settlement. Juza Bahadur Pardhi in Sholapur Settlement was a conscientious cultivator in Moghlau village and Laxman Pandu Gaikwad was owner of two farms at Sarore and Chikoli villages.94 All sorts of physical punishments were meted out to the settlers for counteracting the provisions of the Criminal Tribes Act and they were kept within the bounds of the settlement after 7 p.m.95 Jawaharlal Nehru condemned “the monstrous” Criminal Tribes Act in a speech at Nellore (Andhra Pradesh) in October 1936. He declared that the Act constituted a negation of civil liberties and was out of consonance with all civilized principles of criminal justice and treatment of offenders.96 The Communist agitators especially R.C. Karadkar, B.T. Ranadive, Channusing and Ambadas Parikh started taking a keen interest in the Sholapur Settlement after August 1937. R.C. Karadkar held two meetings of settlers on 23 and 26 August 1937 to initiate them as members of Red Flag Union (RFU). A series of meetings were also held from 4 to 7 September 1937 in which the Congress’ promise of humane treatment of settlers was reiterated. As a punishment for these activities, the settlement officer transferred three politically-active settlers on 7 September 1937.97 Another important meeting was held on 12 September 1937 and was attended by 500 settlers. The meeting approved of a charter of demands which included: (a) The settlers should not be employed in quarries and municipal work, and in case they are employed, they should get a monthly wage of Rs 20. 93

Annual Administrative Report Regarding the Working of Criminal Tribes Act, Home Department, Government of Bombay, File No. 312(a), E Branch, 1937, MSA, Bombay. 94 BC, 23 October 1937. 95 Bombay Sentinel, 15 September 1937. 96 Cited from Raghaviah, The Problems of Criminal Tribes, p. 13. 97 Report of the Police Sub-Inspector, IB, Sholapur, 8 September 1937, Home/ Special File No. 543(82), 1937, MSA, Bombay.

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(b) A weekly holiday for settlers working in quarries and those employed for municipal work. (c) Punishments like separating wives and husbands and children and parents to be stopped. (d) Revocation of transfer order of three settlers. (e) Settlers should be allowed to go out of the settlement till 9 p.m. (f) Settlers should be free to become members of the RFU, the Congress and other associations. (g) Repeal the Criminal Tribes Act or change it completely.98 A committee was appointed by the Congress provincial ministry to report on necessary changes to be introduced after investigating into the working of Criminal Tribes laws. The committee consisted of N.G. Joshi, G.K. Chitala, Abdul Latif Haji Khan, K.B. Antrolikar, Fulsimhji B. Dhabi, C.S. Devadhar and K.M. Kunshi. As a result, the agitation subsided for a couple of weeks to resurface again on 29 September 1937.99 After a meeting of about 600 settlers, one settler activist led them, carrying the Red Flag, blowing the bugle and shouting slogans to the settlement gate. The leading activist threw a stone at the guard of the gate, which knocked off his cap. The settler was locked up for the night for this token, yet significant gesture of assertiveness. As tension heightened, the district magistrate banned all processions, meetings, etc., in the settlement area after 2 October 1937.100 The Communist agitators continued to hold meetings throughout October and early November despite the ban. In a meeting of 500 settlers on 8 November 1937, S.G. Sardesai and R.G. Karadkar advised them not to trouble B.G. Kher during his proposed visit to the settlement, and to decorate the settlement to welcome him so as to give an impression that they (the settlers) were followers of the Congress. However, B.G. Kher’s visit failed to pacify the settlers. Three more politically-inclined settlers were transferred on 9 November 1937. The next day, when the authorities tried to shift these three settlers along with their families, a crowd of 1,500 settlers stoned the settlement officials. An armed police party was used to restore peace in the settlement. A case of rioting was registered against 98

Bombay Sentinel, 15 September 1937. Home/Special File No. 543(82), 1937, MSA, Bombay. 100 Ibid. 99

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nine active settlers and a fresh order banning meetings was issued.101 The flustered response of the well-bred, well-mannered, enlightened and educated Indians to the whole incident echoed its resemblance with the colonial ethnography. K.M. Munshi writing about the riot to Mahadev Desai described how the “break the wire of settlement” slogan of the Communists was responsible for the riot. According to him, “The result was that the criminal tribes settlers, ignorant and impulsive people, created violent disturbance in the settlement itself”; and he complained that “These tribes have an inveterate tendency to commit crime . . . . ”(emphasis added).102 The Bombay Chronicle, which earlier appeared sympathetic to the demands of settlers, also condemned the activities of the Communists.103 The Times of India also blamed the Communists for “sowing seeds of discontent among ignorant people, who as a consequence indulged in violence at the least provocation or imaginary grievance”.104 Abdul Karim Lunje, the secretary of the Sholapur City Congress Committee, however, condemned the role of K.M. Munshi in tackling the problem of the criminal tribes settlement and praised the settlers for showing self-restraint in presenting their case to the Congress ministry. The City Congress Committee protested against Lunje’s statement and he resigned from the secretaryship of the Committee.105 The agitation in the settlement, however, fizzled out. When the Communists gave a call for a general strike on 14 February 1938, settlers working in the Sholapur mills also participated.106 The flagellation of a settler, Gangaram Chavan, who was an active member of the RFU and had been arrested on 14 February 1938 during the general strike, in Bijapur jail further led to the discomfiture of the Congress ministry. Gangaram Chavan was not only allotted the ‘C’ class in jail but was also compelled to grind 30 lbs of corn daily. He refused to grind the complete quota of corn and went on a hunger strike 101

Ibid. K.M. Munshi to Mahadev Desai, 14 November 1937, in K.M. Munshi Papers, NMML, New Delhi. 103 BC, 13 November 1937. 104 The Times of India, 15 November 1937. 105 Bombay Sentinel, 30 November 1937 and BC, 1 December 1937. 106 Telegram from the Backward Class Officer to the Secretary to the Government of Bombay, Home Department, 14 February 1938, Home/Special File No. 543(82), Part I, 1937–38, MSA, Bombay. 102

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along with 12 other comrades from the settlement, demanding that they be given the status of political prisoners. As a result of this, he was whipped for the breach of jail discipline. The Government of Bombay promised that such ugly incidents would not recur.107 Detention of all the main Communist leaders of Sholapur for nine months created a political void and even after their release the agitation failed to pick up.108 The Criminal Tribes Act Enquiry Committee (1939) suggested a few minor changes in the working of the Act like leniency in taking hazeri (attendance) and the gradual relaxation of rules concerning it, making provision for recreational and sanitary facilities in the settlements and denotification of smaller tribes such as the Bagdis, Chaparbands, Futgudis and Vanjaris. It also stressed the need for the reassessment of the criminality of tribes such as the Berads, Bhils, kolis, Lamanis, Wadars and Waghris. But the Committee still underscored the need for maintaining the Criminal Tribes Act and settlements.109 The Committee legitimized and exonerated the Criminal Tribes Act (1911 Amendment) in the following words: “The main objective of the Criminal Tribes Act was to safeguard the rights of society against the antisocial influences. Its secondary aim was the reformation of the criminal tribes—a reformation, which in early stages, had to be carried out against the will of its members” (emphasis added).110 The Committee also dubbed the Sholapur Settlement agitation in discursive phrases, which emphatically reflected the preconceptions, stereotypes and warped world view of the higher social groups. They wrote: “The Criminal Tribes by heredity and temperament fall an easy prey to any irresponsible agitation which does not impose any self control. The restlessness and criminal tendencies of these tribes easily lead to violent activities and are likely as they did in Sholapur, to create a formidable problem in the life of an industrial town.”111 107

Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the Case of Flogging of Gangaram Chavan, A Prisoner of Bijapur Jail, Government of Bombay, Home Department, 1938, MSA, Bombay. 108 Governor of Bombay to Brabourne, 15 August 1938, Linlithgow Papers, Vol. 52 (unpublished), NMML, New Delhi. 109 Report of the Criminal Tribes Act Enquiry Committee, Government of Bombay, 1939, pp. 29–57. 110 Ibid., p. 26. 111 Ibid., p. 58.

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Social Reform, Idiom of Ethical Values and Elements of Dissent If demarcation between social crime and protest was obscure and crepuscular then the defined boundaries between religious idioms and protest were still more nebulous and indistinct. According to Buganov, who has analysed the role of religious ideologies in the Russian popular the movements of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, religious ideologies played a contradictory, double-faced role of both conservation and consolidation of submissiveness, and as a convenient mask through which hopes and expectations of people were expressed.112 F. Engels also believes that class struggles of feudal times were invariably “clothed in religious shibboleths”.113 Ladurie also explains how popular revolts in sixteenth-century France drew on an ethical and religious value system in which justice and God were on the rebel’s side against “the thieves and robbers”.114 Apart from the use of religious idioms in many popular protests, sometimes-religious reform might itself become a threat to the established order. In fact, the oppressed groups often use religiosity and religious idioms against dominance and exploitation. Although some of the religious reforms in western India reflected attempts to integrate tribals into the orbit of Hindu society, some other aspects especially anti-drinking campaigns of preachers went against the local magnates especially the moneylenders. Most of the tribals were heavily indebted to these moneylenders due to their habit of drinking which became a costly affair due to colonial excise policy that prohibited self-manufactured liquors. The moneylenders were also the owners of toddy and liquor shops in many cases.115 The preaching of Viswanath Maharaj, who was active especially in the 1930s, influenced the social life of the Dhankas, kolis and Rajputs in south Gujarat. He asked the Adivasis to give up drinking, practice vegetarianism and stop calling the 112

Viktor I. Buganov, “Religious Ideologies and Russian Popular Movements in the 17th and 18th Centuries”, in Janos M. Bak and Gerhald Benecke, eds, Religion and Rural Revolt, Manchester, 1984, pp. 212–13. 113 F. Engels, The Peasant War in Germany, Moscow, 1974, p. 42. 114 E. LeRoy Ladurie, Carnival: A People’s Uprising at Romans: 1579–80, London, 1980, p. 60. 115 P.G. Shah, Tribal Life in Gujarat, Bombay, 1964, pp. 72–74.

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tribal priests such as the Bhagat, Badva and Bhuwa for their ceremonies and insisted instead that they call a brahmin priest to officiate at their ceremonies. He also used bhajan mandlis to take his preachings to the heart of the people.116 The Gandhian workers also discouraged drinking in the 1920s and 1930s in south Gujarat.117 Vallabhbhai Patel and Kasturba Gandhi addressed a big Adivasi conference, attended by 25,000 in 1924 in Sekhpur. Gandhian social workers opened their ashrams at Madhi and Sekhpur. As a result of the impact of the Gandhian programme of prohibition and khadi (spinning), the Choudhra tribe got fractured into two main factions. The followers of Gandhi and the Bhakti tradition came to be known as the Varjelas while the section, which continued to follow the traditional rituals, customs and way of life came to be known as the Sarjelas.118 The Congress leadership tried to establish its political influence by combining reform measures with some economic demands. A conference of Kaliparaj groups, held at Magarkui Village in Baroda State in February 1935 and presided over by Sardar Patel, passed resolutions on the use of khaddar, avoidance of superstitions and drinking, demanded a Rent Regulation Act to protect the interest of tenants and also demanded the complete remission of land revenue for the year due to failure of crops.119 The Bhil Sewa Mandal of Panch Mahals led by Thakkar Bapa, Halpati Majur Mahajan Sabha of Jugatram Dave in Surat and the Bhil Sewa Mandal of Khandesh also engaged in prohibition, social reform and educational welfare work among the tribals in the 1930s and 1940s.120 The influence of Gandhian ideals was also perceptible in community assemblies of the Naikas and Gamit tribes. The Naikas of 32 villages met at Nagdhara in Jalalpore taluqa of Surat District through their panchs (representatives) in 1940 and framed rules for their community regarding widow remarriage, divorce, khandadia (service marriage), expenditure in marriage and death ceremonies and the eradication of the problem of Untouchability. Similarly, 116

Ibid. See Hardiman, The Coming of Devi, Delhi, 1987, for details. 118 Ganshyam Shah, Socio-Economic Study of Choudhras, 1977, pp. 34–38. 119 BC, 27 February 1935. 120 See J.L. Rathod, “Choudras, Chodias and Dublas” and P.N. Nanavati, “Bhils of West Khandesh”, in A.V. Thakkar, ed., Tribes of India, 1950, pp. 130–52 and also Kamala Shankar Pandya, Oral Transcript, NMML, New Delhi. 117

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the Gamit tribes also drafted rules through a number of meetings. The proposals included limitation on marriage expenditure, abolition of khandadia marriages (service marriage), ghar-jamai (the system of the son-in-law staying at his father-in-law’s house after marriage), a ban on dancing ceremonies, acceptance of vegetarianism and use of home-made textiles and articles.121 David Hardiman believes that the political significance of Varjela–Sarjela divide ceased to exist in the 1930s as the tribal tenants started their common struggle against the exploitative system. However, the Varjela–Sarjela controversy continued to reign in some areas even as late as 1940.122 In East Khandesh, a meeting of Bhils was organized by the Bhil Sewa Mandal to welcome the governor of Bombay. One Bhil patil spoke about the necessity of closing all liquor shops. As soon as the speaker finished his speech, there was an indignant repudiation of the speaker from many sides and a heated controversy emerged over the issue.123 The emergence of the Gulia Maharaj Movement among the Bhils of West Khandesh also reflected the Adivasi concern for their way of life. Guila Bhamda of Marwad Village in Taloda taluqa of West Khandesh initiated the campaign. Gulia Maharaj, as he came to be popularly known, admonished the Bhils not to drink and advocated vegetarianism. Bhil women were advised to use bangles and kumkum on their foreheads. When Gulia died on 9 July 1938, about 10,000–12,000 Bhils from adjoining villages came to have his last darshan (pay their last respects). Many Bhils stopped drinking as a result of his preachings. The excise department suffered a loss of Rs 22,000 due to the decline of liquor sales within a twomonth period (June–July 1938). One liquor dealer of Taloda also suffered a loss of Rs 44,000 in two months’ time.124 The influence of Gulia Maharaj was more pronounced in Taloda, Shahda, Nandurbar and Navapur Sakri taluqas of West Khandesh and some adjoining regions of Nasik District. On 9 August 1938, more than 20,000 Bhils came to Marwad to worship the saint. After Gulia’s death, his younger brother, Ramdas took up the mantle of 121

P.G. Shah, Tribal Life, pp. 123–28. Hardiman, The Coming of Devi, pp. 212–14. 123 Governor of Bombay to Linlithgow, 4 February 1940, Linlithgow Papers (unpublished), Vol. 54, NMML, New Delhi. 124 Weekly Reports, DM, West Khandesh, 1938, Home/Special File No. 982, 1938–43, MSA, Bombay. 122

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his elder brother. Many Bhils believed that Gulia was not dead and was simply concealing himself. In the second week of August 1938, a large congregation of about 30,000 Bhils paid obeisance to Ramdas as he stood on a raised platform. Congress leaders Mangesh Babhuta Patil, S.V. Thakkar and Mohini Raj Deshmukh approached the Bhil congregation on 9 August 1938, but the Bhils told them that they had no belief in the Congress and they were not allowed to hold a meeting.125 The Congress ministry declared West Khandesh as a dry area after the emergence of Gulia’s movement in order to appease the Bhils, but the consumption of liquor had already declined as a result of Gulia Bhagwan’s movement.126 The largest congregation of Bhils at Marwad was reported in the last week of August 1938, when 60,000–70,000 Bhils visited Gulia’s samadhi (funeral site), after which fewer and fewer Bhils gathered at Marwad. Moreover, internal cleavage also surfaced within Bhil society. There were several clashes between the followers of Ramdas, who were named artiwallas or dindiwalas and non-followers between December 1939 and 1941. Thirty-one casualties were reported upto November 1941, of which six proved fatal. The district magistrate used this as a pretext to ban the arti ceremony at the samadhi of Gulia.127 Ramdas recruited a number of unmarried Bhil girls and tried to use their appeal to attract more followers. The district administration prohibited the entry of 33 such girls into Marwad village. The active followers of Ramdas, who had been externed from the district, entered the district in February 1943. Fearing trouble, a contingent of 75 military men was posted at Marwad to prevent the arti ceremony. The followers of Ramdas clashed with the military men on 2 March 1943, in which about 14 Bhils were killed and many more injuried. After the clash, 291 Bhils (male adults) were captured but 278 women and 200 children who were with the band were left free. A police sub-inspector of Taloda, who had received information about the group of artiwallas on 1 March 1943, went to the Satpura Hills with the police patil 125

Special Report of Collector and DM, West Khandesh, 9 and 16 August 1938 and The Report of Mamlatdar of Taloda, Home/Special File No. 982, 1938–43, MSA, Bombay. 126 BC, 30 August 1938. 127 Home/Special File No. 982, 1938–43; Janam Bhumi, 13 November 1941; APAR, Bombay, 1941, MSA, Bombay.

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of Talve village to locate the group. The artiwallas asked him to go away if he wanted to remain alive and send the “white people” to them. The next day, when the police party approached them, the Bhils started shooting arrows with the slogans of “Ramdas Maharaj Ki Jai” and “Gandhi Maharaj Ki Jai” on them. They were armed only with swords, spears, axes, dharias (scythes), bow and arrows, sickles and cudgels and had only one gun. Among the captured Bhils, 162 were cultivators and 111 were landless labourers. Later on cases against all the arrested Bhils except for 20 ringleaders were withdrawn. The session judge of Dhulia also acquitted the ringleaders, who were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment by the assistant session judge of Dhulia, in appeal. The district magistrate, however, restricted the movement of these leaders to certain areas of Dhulia taluqa.128 Once tamed and subdued, the acquiescent Bhils posed no threat to the colonial state. However, the political trajectory of this Bhagat movement reveals that it was not simply a movement to assert their status as caste Hindus. It also contained seeds of agrarian and forest-based mobilization.

Mass Mobilization and Contention for Hegemony Different political streams were contending with each other to gain influence among the tribal people, the main among them being the Congress, the Congress Socialists and the Communists. Congressmen had been active in providing certain philanthropic services to the tribals long before the arrival of the Congress Socialists and the Communists on the scene. Long before Kamala Shankar Pandya and other Congress Socialists entered the villages of Panch Mahals, the Congress enjoyed a considerable sway among the Bhil peasants through the work of its Bhil Sewa Mandal.129 But there was no universal pattern of support for a particular political stream 128

Weekly Reports of DM, West Khandesh, 1941–42 and Letters of DSP and Special Officer for Bhil Upliftment (1943), Home/Special File No. 982, 1938–43, MSA, Bombay, and Governor of Bombay to Linlithgow, 18 and 23 March 1943, Linlithgow Papers, Vol. 57 (unpublished), NMML, New Delhi. 129 Kamala Shankar Pandya, Oral Transcript, NMML, New Delhi, pp. 79–80.

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among the tribal people. They responded according to the hopes and expectations generated by the various organizations and their own perception of them. A conference of Matar taluqa peasants in January 1936, under the leadership of the local nationalist leader Dadubhai Desai, failed to attract the support of the poor Dharla cultivators because middle and rich peasants dominated the conference.130 The Congress Socialist Conference of Peasants of Dohad taluqa at Mirakheri under the leadership of Ramanlal Seth, in January 1936, however, attracted about 3,000 Bhils. Both the conferences, however, raised similar demands of the abolition of the existing land revenue system, debt, forced labour, oppressive forest and excise laws, etc.131 The Congress Socialists benefited from the fact that some of their leading activists in Panch Mahals—Mattabhai Damore, Kittabhai, Gendabhai and Hirabhai—hailed from the Bhil peasantry and could express themselves in their own dialect.132 When Swami Sahjanand was on his tour of Gujarat in 1938, the Congress Socialists organized a large meeting of 3,000–4,000 Bhils at Limbdi (Panch Mahals District) on 11 February 1938. Sahjanand advised them to satisfy their needs first and then give the produce to the taluqdars and inamdars.133 The assumption of power by the “popular ministry” raised new hopes among the tribals. When B.G. Kher and Morarji Desai went to Jhalod in January 1939, around 5,000 Bhils from many villages of Jhalod taluqa assembled to welcome them. Word had gone around in the Jhalod villages that “Mahatma Gandhi’s men” were expected in Jhalod and that all Bhils were gathering to welcome them. Bhil women in rags with their babies in their arms joined their menfolk in the scorching heat to reach Jhalod. Lalaji Jejaji Munia, a Bhil teacher, spoke on behalf of his brethren welcoming the “people’s ministers” in the Bhil land and thanked the Congress ministry for their work for the Bhils. B.G. Kher advised the Bhils to liquidate illiteracy and keep their villages clean.134 The Bhil Sewa Mandal organized a conference of Bhils, Pawaras and other 130

Congress Socialist, 2, 6, 25 January 1936. Ibid. 132 Kamala Shankar Pandya, Oral Transcript, NMML, New Delhi, p. 87. 133 Home (Special) Department, Government of Bombay, File No. 800(53)-BPart II, 1938, MSA, Bombay. 134 BC, 13 January 1939. 131

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tribals of the hilly tracts of the Tapi Valley and Satpura Hills at Dhadgaon, under Shankarkant Shet (a Congress MLA in the Bombay Assembly), in May 1939. An assembly of 3,000 passed resolutions seeking to improve the conditions of tribals Bhils and 1,000 others.135 In the same month, about 2,000 Warlis and Dublas trudged long distances to attend the Thana District Political Conference at Bordi, along with their women and children. The Dubla children carried portraits of Gandhi and tri-colour flags and sang songs in crude Marathi. Ganga Dhar Rao Despande addressed the conference.136 A meeting of 2,500 men and women Katkaris was held at Murbad in Thana District, on 20 August 1939. They were mostly landless labourers who were facing starvation because the forest contractors were withholding the payment of advances of wages. The forest contractors were protesting against the imposition of a fair wage by the Congress ministry. The Katkaris discussed their problems in the meeting.137 A Bhil conference held at Dhavali in Chalisgaon taluqa threatened to launch a satyagraha throughout the Khandesh region and sent a deputation under D.G. Jadhav, the leader of the Independent Labour Party, to demand the grant of forest lands for cultivation, return of confiscated lands by the government, abolition of forced labour demanded by government officials and an end to the practice of compelling them to report at police chowkies everyday for trivial offences committed 10–15 years ago.138 Yagnik, Chandulal M. Bhatt, Laxmishankar, G. Pandya, Ratilal Chandulal Bhatt and Pitamberdas Trivedi organized a large meeting of about 2,000 Dharalas of Thasra taluqa (Ahmedabad) in the compound of the mamlatdar’s office on 15 January 1940. They demanded a reduction in the annewari (anna valuation of the crops by the revenue officials), as they believed that the annewari prepared by the petty revenue officials was arbitrary. They also demanded the implementation of the Tenancy and Debt Relief Bills passed by the Congress ministry and relief to the cultivators due to scarcity conditions in the taluqa. The Dharlas appreciated that part of the speech very much where Yagnik made sarcastic 135 136 137 138

BC, BC, BC, BC,

27 29 26 14

May 1939. May 1939. August 1939. February 1940.

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comments about government officers.139 The mamlatdar not only listened sympathetically to them but also provided spacious mattresses within the compound of the office for the peasants.140 The commissioner of the Northern Division instructed the collector of Ahmedabad to make sure that such meetings were not held in government offices and to use the police to prevent them if necessary.141 In another march, about 3,500 Dharlas marched from Mujkuwa village to the office of the malatdar in Borsad (Kaira District). At 9 a.m., a drum was beaten in Mujkuwa village to rally together the peasants and a party of 300 males and 100 Dharala women marched out of the village with the beating of drums and the playing of bands led by Yagnik, Fulabhai Mohanji and Mohanjenaji. Yagnik was taken on a special decorated chariot drawn by 22 bullocks. The march passed through Asodar, Ambav and Davol where thousands of Dharala cultivators joined it from Asodar, Ambav, Narpura, Navakhad, Bhetasi, Kasumbawad, Karwadi, Ambali, Amrol, Kantharia, Bodal, Davol, Jantral and the neighbouring villages of Umreth.142 Throughout the procession kisans sang songs from a booklet titled Kisan Ran Git published by Thakorebhai K. Patel while the Dharala women sang their usual marriage songs. Many members of the procession were armed with lathis, spears and dharias. Despite the instruction of the Home Department not to allow meetings inside the mamlatdar’s office, their meeting was held in the compound of the office. Besides the usual kisan demands regarding the reduction of the annewari and rent in taluqdari villages by 50 per cent and the implementation of the Tenancy Act and Debt Relief Bill, the meeting demanded the removal of the Criminal Tribes Act and its application to the Dharalas of Kaira District.143 A large number of Adivasis visited the Ramgarh Session of the Congress to the accompaniment of drums and carried green leaves and Congress flags. These Adivasis paraded in Congress Nagar 139

PSI, CID, Ahmedabad to DSP, Ahmedabad, dated 16 January 1940 in Home (Special) Department, Government of Bombay, File No. 1019, 1940–41. 140 BC, 14 February 1940. 141 Commissioner, Northern Division, Ahmedabad to the Secretary to the Government of Bombay, Home Department, 22 January 1940, MSA, Bombay. 142 Indulal Yagnik, Atam Katha, Vol. 3, pp. 192–95; and PSI, CID, Ahmedabad to DSP, Kaira, dated 16 February 1940. 143 Ibid.

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and made offerings to the rain god praying for him to stop the rains.144 However, creating their sphere of influence among the tribal people while following the line of adjustment of class interests always remained a perpetual problem for the Congress organization. Because of acute class conflict between the tribals and the sahukars, the Adivasis readily responded to the more militant forms of struggle of the Congress Socialists and later of the Communists. The Adivasi Sewa Mandal was not very effective in East Khandesh owing to a “continual disposition of many of its members to compromise with Sowkars”.145 Sometimes, even the local Congress cadres were not happy with the “comprising tendency” of some of the leaders. A Congressman from Dohad criticized the role of Pandurang G. Vaniker, who was vice-president of the Local District Board, elected on a Congress ticket, in mobilizing about 3,000 Bhils for honouring the governor of Bombay during his visit to the area in December 1940 and for inducing other members of District School Board elected on Congress tickets to participate in ceremonies welcoming the governor.146 Occasionally, the gulf between the Congress organization and the tribal people became unbridgeable as happened in the case of the Dharalas. The Congress workers inspired a conference of the Rajputs, Girasias and Dharalas, which was attended largely by the Dharalas, at Valod in Anand taluqa (Kaira District) on 30 August 1942, at the height of the national upsurge, to gain their support for the Quit India Movement. But contrary to the expectations of the organizers, the conference resolved that they would have nothing to do with the political movement and that they would not do anything to embarrass the government.147 But these were the exceptional circumstances where class conflicts were acute. In general, Congressmen were able to use nationalism as a vital emotional asset for overcoming localism and were able to integrate the peasant and tribal movements into the wider national struggle. 144

BC, 15 March 1940. Governor of Bombay to Linlithgow, dated 4 February 1940, in Linlithgow Papers, Vol. 54, NMML, New Delhi. 146 From Chandulal Mithalal Shah (Dohad, Panch Mahals) to the President, AICC, dated 22 December 1940 in AICC Files, No. P-9, 1940–41, NMML, New Delhi. 147 Weekly Report, DM, Kaira, 7 September 1942, in Home (Special) Department, Government of Bombay, File No. 800(74)(4)-III, 1941–43, MSA, Bombay. 145

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Challenging Economic Subjection through Collective Political Action The last category of overt, undisguised protests emanated from economic imperatives. In 1934, many non-brahmin tenants (which included many koli tenants) of Parner taluqa of Ahmednagar went on a strike against the brahmin landlords. Nearly 6,000–7,000 acres of land remained uncultivated during the strike.148 There were tenant agitations by tribal cultivators in Surat and Panch Mahals districts in 1938–39.149 The Congress Socialist Party leader, B.G. Durve, mobilized the kolis and other communities of Khirla village in Ahmednagar District in April 1947 to socially boycott the village sahukars. The villagers refused to supply milk, firewood and other daily requirements to the moneylenders. The agitation was the outcome of the appropriation of the cultivators’ land by moneylenders for non-payment of debts. P.H. Patwardhan, the Congress leader, intervened on behalf of the peasants and the moneylenders returned about 300 acres of land after which the kolis lifted their social boycott.150 Koli cultivators at the insistence of B.G. Durve organized a similar boycott of moneylenders at Rajur and Belwandi villages. Some Marwari moneylenders buckled under the pressure of the social boycott and agreed to return the lands in their possession. The social boycott of the Marwaris, who refused to return their lands continued till the end of October 1947.151 Inspired by the success of the Socialists, the Communist Party also deputed Buwa Navale to initiate a similar agitation in Dhamgaon, Awari and Gardani villages of Ahmednagar but the agitation did not pick up momentum in these villages.152 A much wider agitation was that of the Warli cultivators.

The Warli Peasant Struggle During World War II, the Indian Communists stressed the need to maintain harmonious class relations between tenants and 148

APAR, Bombay, 1934, p. 4. See my article “Peasant Mobilization, Political Organizations and Modes of Interaction: The Bombay Countryside—1934–1941”, IESHR, 32, 4, 1995, pp. 429–46. 150 Home/Special File No. 540-II, 1945–47, MSA, Bombay. 151 Home/Special File No. 540-III(a), 1947, MSA, Bombay. 152 Ibid. 149

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landlords. Justifying the enrolment of jenmis (landlords) in the food committees in the Malabar, E.M.S. Namboodripad wrote: “Production and distribution of food and other daily necessaries are equally in the interest of the Jenmis, the moneylenders, the middle classes and the peasants.”153 After the war, however, the demand for “the destruction of all vestiges of the medieval feudal order, especially the parasitical landlordism and usury”154 was raised. The oppression of the landlords and moneylenders in Umbergaon, Dahanu and Palghar taluqas of Thana provided the Communists an opportunity to intervene. Moneylenders who acted as absentee landlords had appropriated most of the lands in Warli Adivasi area. Warlis as tenants cultivated the lands and paid 50 per cent of the produce as rent. They were forced to provide free labour services on the landlords’ farms. Free services imposed on the Warlis included cutting grass, felling trees, transportation of the landlord’s goods, collection of wood for fuel and collection of wild fruits for the landlords. The system of forced labour was known as vethi. Landlords exploited the Adivasis in their triple capacity as landlords, grassland owners and forest contractors. Landlords enhanced rents on tribal tenants. Moneylenders unscrupulously charged heavy interest on loans. The tribals were unable to pay the enhanced rents or the interest on the money that they borrowed and the non-tribal moneylenders and landlords usurped their lands. The tribals became tenants on their own land. In case of non-compliance with the landlord’s demand for forced labour, the Adivasis were tortured by the Avari Pathans who were in the employ of the landlords and acted as slave drivers.155 The landlords-cum-usurers maintained their control over the life of the Warlis by advancing grain loans for family consumption and sowing purposes. These were known as khawti loans. The local bureaucracy especially the mamlatdar, talathi, circle inspector and forest officials teamed up with the landlords in a display of esprit de corps. The Warlis, deprived of their resources, needed money for marriage ceremonies that was not more than Rs 100–200. As 153

E.M.S. Namboodripad, A Short History, p. 47. Central Committee Resolution, CPI, The New Situation and Our Tasks, Bombay, 1945, p. 12. 155 Godavari Parulekar, Adivasi Revolt: A Story of Warli Peasants in Struggle, Calcutta, 1975, pp. 1–3; BC, 26 November 1945; Peoples’ War (hereafter PW), 3, 52, 24 June 1945, p. 3. 154

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the interest rate was unusually high, the Adivasis were seldom able to repay their loans and they were converted into life-long bonded labourers, who came to be known as “marriage servants”.156 The Assistant Backward Class Officer, Mr Save, advised the Warlis in 1944 not to perform illegal forced labour for the landlords and to demand a daily wage of 12 annas. About 3,000 Warlis of Umergaon taluqa organized a strike during the monsoon harvesting season of 1944, demanding a daily wage of 12 annas for agricultural work, cutting grass and felling trees. The strike fizzled out and the landlords resumed the practice of vethi.157 A few Warlis attended the Maharashtra Provincial Kisan Conference held at Titwala in Thana District on 7 January 1945, and impressed by the slogan of eradication of vethi, carried red flags back with them.158 The trimmings of political culture such as flags, banners and caps, usually play a significant symbolic role in social conflicts. After the Titwala Conference, Godavari Parulekar and Dalvi addressed a series of village meetings and impressed upon the Warlis that vethi was an illegal practice. They explained to the Warlis at a meeting at Talasari in Umbergaon that the law could be used by the poor people also to put restraint on their enemies and that the Communist Party would put an end to the atrocities of the landlords by using law as a weapon.159 This understanding of the law was in direct contradiction to the orthodox Marxist thinking in which law is seen as the expression of economic class interest. A conference of Warlis was held at Zari village in the Umbergaon taluqa on 2 May 1945 and was attended by about 2,500 Adivasis. The demand for abolition of vethi and “serf tenure” was reiterated at the conference.160 The increasing Communistsponsored activity in the region activated the Congress also. Congress leaders B.G. Kher, S.R. Bhise, V.V. Dandekar, Mangal Das and M. Rakwasa established Adivasi Sewa Mandals at Mokhada, Khodalo, Talasari and Mhaswari.161 After the Zari Conference, 156

Parulekar, Adivasi Revolt, pp. 54–94; PW, 4, 18, 28 October 1945; BC, 10 May 1945. 157 S.V. Parulekar, “The Liberation Movement among Warlis”, pp. 570–72, BC, 24 October 1945; PW, 3, 52, 24 June 1945. 158 Ibid. 159 G. Parulekar, Adivasi Revolt, pp. 20–21. 160 SAI, paragraph 495, 1945, IG Record Room, Bombay. 161 Ibid., paragraph 532, IG Record Room, Bombay.

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there was large-scale resistance to vethi in Umbergaon taluqa. The Communist agitators opened a centre in Khatalwada village to receive complaints about vethi.162 K.Y. Ranadive and some other agitators advised a large gathering of 5,000 Adivasis at Kavada on 25 September 1945 to oppose vethi and report grievances in this regard to the Communist Party at its Khatalwada office.163 The Adivasis socially boycotted those who provided free labour for the sahukars. The Adivasis hung bones on the house of the family to be boycotted. This was a sign of extreme ex-communication for that particular family.164 This is how, according to Hobsbawm, the popular masses often use the material accumulated in the past of that society, in an inventive way, in a new political context. For this invention, such an elaborate language of symbolic practice and communication is always available.165 The movement was well organized and coordinated through agitators in Umbergaon, but it remained more or less spontaneous and unpremeditated in Dahanu taluqa. Large meetings of Warlis at Akharmal and Narpad took a decision to exterminate vethi and the practice of “marriage servants”. After the meetings, the Warlis marched into various villages in large batches, stopped in front of moneylenders’ houses and called out the names of bonded “marriage servants”. They then declared them free in the name of the Red Flag. The landlords did not dare to oppose them and in this way hundreds of bonded Warlis were emancipated.166 A large meeting at Kosbad village in Dahanu taluqa on 8 October 1945, attended by 7,000 Warlis, took the decision to end the system of bonded “marriage servants”.167 The scheme for liberating bonded Warlis was, thus, conceived and executed in its entirely by the Adivasis themselves, without the intervention of the Kisan Sabha.168 In October 1945, the Warlis of Umbergaon and Dahanu taluqas went on strike demanding wage increase for agricultural work 162

G. Parulekar, Adivasi Revolt, pp. 81–88. SAI, paragraph 911, 1945, IG Record Room, Bombay. 164 G. Parulekar, Adivasi Report, p. 86. 165 Eric Hobsbawm’s introduction to Hobsbawm and Terene Ranger, eds, The Inventing of Tradition, Cambridge, 1983. 166 S.V. Parulekar, “The Liberation Movement among Warlis”, pp. 575–76. 167 PW, 4, 18, 28 October 1945. 168 G. Parulekar, Adivasi Revolt, p. 92. 163

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and grass cutting. There was substantial acreage under grass and grass was cut within a particular time. Any delay in cutting the grass damaged its quality. It was also time for paddy harvesting and the seasonal demand for agricultural labour was high.169 A large gathering of about 6,000 Adivasis from 40 villages of Dahanu was held at Narpad on 6 October 1945, in which the decision to go on strike was taken. A local tribal worker, Govind Dhadga, read the demands of the Adivasis. These were as follows: (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f)

(g) (h) (i)

Abolition of vethi. Non-payment of increased rents. Landlords not to be given grass, cereals and fowls, etc. Three-year-old arrears of rent or debts not to be paid. Adoption of new standard weights while measuring produce for rent. Three rupees for cutting one bale (ganji) of grass or one rupee eight annas to be given to male workers and one rupee to female workers. Marriage servants to be paid Rs 31 per month as wages and landlords to recover part of it as payment of debt. Land to be demarcated for grazing cattle of the Adivasis. Furthermore, the Adivasis were advised not to drink toddy unless it was sold for six paise per bottle and not to incur marriage expenses of more than Rs 50.170

The strike progressed peacefully. Landlords spread a rumour on the night of 10 October that all Adivasis were to assemble at Talwada, where the Communists were holding meetings regularly, because Bai’s, that is, Godavari Parulekar’s, life was in danger and she had asked for help. The Adivasis came armed with lathis and hatchets, etc. It was alleged that they attacked the DSP’s car, which led to police firing on them at Bhilad. As a large crowd rushed to Talawada, police firing continued on 11 October 1945. As a result of which five Warlis lost their lives.171 After the police firing, attempts were made for a settlement. At a joint meeting of the representatives of the landlords and Adivasis at Kosbad on 169 170 171

Ibid., pp. 92–97; BC, 24 October 1945. BC, 11 October 1945. BC, 24 October 1945; G. Parulekar, Adivasi Revolt, pp. 99–101.

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17 October 1945, the strike was called off and a daily wage of 12 annas for male workers and 8 annas for female workers was fixed. S.R. Bhise and other local Congress leaders were instrumental in arriving at this settlement.172 The Communists, however, criticized the Adivasi Sewa Mandal and Congress leaders for siding with the landlords.173 The Communist-led Kisan Sabha called a conference of Adivasis at Mahalaxmi174 in Dahanu taluqa on 21 January 1946. Over 5,000 Warlis attended the conference. The conference demanded the revision of rents and asked for an enquiry into the police firing on Adivasis at Talawada.175 In early 1946, there were some cases of burning of haystacks, attacks on notorious landlords and damaging of orchards belonging to landlords. After June 1946 also, there were cases of looting of landlord’s property by small groups of Adivasis.176 The government functionaries often described the Warli peasants’ actions as “assaults”, “robberies” and “dacoities”.177 But there was no indiscriminate attack on all the landlords and moneylenders.178 The Warlis simply wanted recognition of their natural “legitimate rights”. The orchards of Irani landlords of Dahanu were destroyed because they were involved in an attack on the huts of Warlis in Musalpada village. One Parsi landlord and a 172

BC, 18 October 1945. PW, 4, 18, 28 October 1945. 174 The selection of the venue of the conference was not incidental. The cult of the mother goddess is central to the lives of the Warlis. She is worshipped in the form of Dhartari, the earth mother; Gavatri, the cow mother; and Kansari, the corn goddess. On all important occasions, Warlis congregate at the Mahalaxmi Hill in Dahanu taluqa, whose conical peak, which resembles the yoni, they worship as mother. See Yasodhara Dalamia, The Painted World of the Warlis, New Delhi, 1989, pp. 35–39. 175 BC, 29 January 1946. 176 Land Revenue Administration Report, 1946–47, MSA, Bombay, p. 44. 177 Home/Special File No. 540-II, 1945–47, MSA, Bombay; and Fortnightly Reports of Bombay, September and October 1946, National Archives of India (NAI hereafter), New Delhi. 178 Mao Tse Tung while investigating the peasant movement in Hunan Province of China described how peasants generally take revenge on the “corrupt officials”, the “evil gentry” and the “local tyrants”. See Mao Tse Tung, Selected Works, Vol. I, Peking, 1977, pp. 34–41. E.P. Thompson’s notion of “moral economy” also has a similar connotation, according to which, an oppressed group develops an autonomous notion of their economic and social rights. Members of the ruling class, who step over these rights, usually become the target of the oppressed people. See E.P. Thompson, “The Moral Economy”, pp. 76–136. 173

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talathi (a stipendary village accountant) moving in a truck were obstructed by about 3,000 Adivasis near Pimpleshet village and the truck was smashed. The Parsi landlord had tried to set a Warli ablaze by pouring kerosene on him. The farmhouses of several landlords were marked for onslaught because they had acquired notoriety as places for torturing the male Warlis and for outraging the modesty of Warli women.179 About 15,000 Warlis went on strike again on 10 October 1946. The issue at stake was the wage rate for timber cutting, known as todi in the region.180 The strike swept from village to village. Warlis circulated the message to stop work by sending sticks to which toddy leaves and a chit conveying the message was tied. Wherever the stick reached, Warlis stopped work.181 This was an innovative way of transmission. The administration blamed the Adivasi labourers for interfering with the employment of outside labourers for timber cutting and accused them of trespassing the contractors’ lands.182 The Communists, in return, argued that the contractors were forcing Adivasi workers to work under “prison conditions”. Large groups of Adivasi workers marched to Kainad and Shinsa villages to free such “imprisoned” labourers. The Warlis also stopped plying carts for the transportation of hay and timber in order to put more pressure on landlords and contractors.183 The representatives of Warlis and timber contractors came to an agreement on 10 November 1946 in which the labourers’ demand of fixing the rate of todi according to the girth of the trees was accepted.184 However, even after the settlement of the dispute, the Government of Bombay (which by now was being run by the Congress) citing cases of “rioting”, “assaults” and “intimidations”; and accusing the Communist agitators of inciting Warlis for “violent activities”, externed some prominent activist from the Thana District on 20 November 1946. These agitators were Godavari and S.V. Parulekar, Haribhai Veerkar, Ramakant Gupta, Dalvi, and Kamalkar Ranadive. A “state of emergency” was declared in Thana 179

G. Parulekar, Adivasi Revolt, pp. 124–35. People’s Age (hereafter PA), 5, 17, 27 October 1946. 181 S.V. Parulekar, “The Liberation Movement among Warlis”, in Desai, ed., Peasant Struggles, p. 587. 182 Fortnightly Reports of Bombay, First half of October 1946, NAI, New Delhi. 183 PA, 5, 17, 27 October 1946; and Vol. 5, 21, 24 November 1946. 184 PA, 5, 21 & 23, 24 November and 8 December 1946. 180

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District and a contingent of about 150-armed policemen was deployed to control and subdue the Warlis.185 Resistance by the Warlis continued for sometime and a few attacks on forest contractors were also organized in December 1946. Using these actions as a plea, the district magistrate banned all meetings, assemblies, etc., in all parts of Dahanu taluqa on 29 December 1946 for a period of one month.186 These repressive strategies and devices to silence and subjugate the human subjectivities of the Warlis, and the denial of public space to articulate their woes and sufferings did enable the state to contain and stifle overt defiance and intransigence that was threatening the established order.

Conclusion We are living in a woebegone era in which the distinction between the “historical” and the “fictional” discourse has been vilified, berated and censured. According to Hayden White the very distinction between real and imaginary events presupposes a notion of reality in which “the true” is identified with “the real” only insofar as it can be shown to possess the character of narrativity.187 The metaphorical disjuncture between the word and its referent is thus mobilized as a radical skepticism of writing the past. Deconstruction, according to Marc W. Steinberg,188 removes discourse from the realm of historical and human performance, creating an essential ambiguity in the voices from the past that precludes the historical narrative. However, the multivocal human performances, collective actions through which their context-specific identity is authenticated endow human experience with meaning. Thus, despite the attempts of the imperial powers to silence the subjugated people, to erase their subjectivities, tribal communities resisted the expansion of colonial space and struggled against the notions of law, order and property imposed by an alien rule. Their multiple voices can be read and inscribed only through historical sensitivity. It was through 185

BC, 22 and 23 November and 16 December 1946. BC, 30 December 1946. 187 Hayden White, The Content of Form, p. 6. 188 Marc W. Steinberg, “Culturally Speaking: Finding a Common between PostStructuralism and the Thompsonian Perspective”, p. 202. 186

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such voices that externally-imposed order was breached, and the praxeological realities of struggle found expression in lifeadaptive crimes, moral revolts and overt collective political actions against economic oppression. The established order was challenged by the power of moral and political languages, which served as the weapons of the weak. Such moral and political languages, which punctured the order, thus necessarily conditioned social identities of mobilization such as community or class, rather than being epiphenomenal to identities pre-given by social structure. In this process of identity actualization in which tribal people creatively and collectively responded to their involuntary life circumstances in all their diverse forms, depending upon the context, the articulation of moral and political languages was necessarily an entanglement in power which could be enabling or stultifying. Moreover, in this realm of contested power, the dominant nationalist discourse, which otherwise posed a threat to the hegemonic colonial practices, identified with the colonial ethnographic concerns as we have tried to demonstrate in the case of the Sholapur Criminal Tribes Settlement agitation as well as the revolt of the Warli Adivasis.

FOUR

Strategies of Dalit Mobilization: Caste Structure and the Politics of Mobilization The complexity of the institution of caste has evoked several distinctive responses from sociologists, ethnographers, anthropologists and political activists. Although the basic concern of this chapter is to analyse different strategies of “Dalit” mobilization in the rural areas of the Bombay Province, a few comments about the “structure” are necessary because it has a direct import on the processes of mobilization. Barbara R. Joshi condenses the various activities of Dalits into four main political strategies to achieve dignity, equality and justice. These are: (i) acquisition of powers, (ii) economic independence from the dominant castes, (iii) internal social reform through education, change in lifestyle, etc., and (iv) religious change to transform self-images and identities.1 Gail Omvedt, however, provides a simpler binary division of Dalit mobilization. The anti-systemic movement or value-oriented mobilization which were challenging and trying to transform basic structure of the Indian social system and whose purpose was the establishment of an egalitarian casteless society, were the first type of movement. Its examples were Jotiba Phule, Ambedkar and Periyar’s movements. The others were reformist, incorporative, 1

Barbara R. Joshi, Democracy in Search of Equality: Untouchable Politics and Indian Social Change, Delhi, 1982, pp. 123–28.

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“norm-oriented” trends. Gandhi’s Harijan Movement was of this variety.2 Any particular type of mobilization, however, would be contingent on our understanding of the caste structure. Louis Dumont describes the structure of caste in terms of binary opposites of purity and pollution. It is this ideological construct, which encompasses other structural elements of caste such as division of labour, distribution of power and resources.3 This approach perceives caste simply as a form of cultural domination. The political implication of this understanding would be that protests against the cultural symbols of domination and oppression—the acts that violate segregation based on “pure–impure” such as access to sacred space, inter-dining among castes and end of barriers to endogamous marriages, have the potential to destroy the structure. Contrary to this, the Marxian approach has tried to understand the structure simply in terms of the instruments of class exploitation. For them, the ideology of caste represents merely the rationalization of surplus appropriation in the pre-modern times. Following such an approach, the Socialists and Communists denied the specific nature of caste oppression and made caste liberation dependent on class struggle and emancipation from class exploitation. The Congress Socialists articulated this approach at their third conference in the following words: “While asserting for them (i.e., the oppressed castes) the right of freedom of conscience and liberty of entering all places including temples, this Congress believes that most of the untouchables being peasants and workers, the real freedom of these classes can only be achieved by their participation in the broader struggle of the exploited masses for political and social emancipation.”4 While the Communists and leftists were involved in anti-caste struggles at the local level in some places, they generally did not evolve any programmatic understanding of “non-class” contradictions based on the institutions of patriarchy and caste.5 They tended to believe that 2 Gail Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution: Dr. Ambedkar and the Dalit Movement in India, New Delhi, 1994, p. 10. 3 Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste Structure and its Implications, Delhi, 1970, pp. 33–61. 4 All-India Congress Socialist Party, Constitution and Programme, Resolution of Third Conference of the Party, in Home/Special File No. 800(75)-A-V, 1937, MSA, Bombay. 5 Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution, pp. 183–85.

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the new forces of production, the factory and machines would dismantle caste relations by fostering the new identity of class interests.6 It is astonishing to note that the AIKS, the leftist-inspired peasant mass front, made no mention of caste or Untouchability in any of its programmes until 1945 when a September meeting of the Central Kisan Council worked out a “Charter of Demands” that included as one clause, “the penalization for enforcing social disabilities on the ‘untouchables’”.7 The Dalit radicals and scholars commiserating with their cause perceive caste oppression as synonymous with exploitation. They fail to see the difference between “the instruments of exploitation and the instruments of oppression”.8 They fail to see that both overlap and coincide at certain points but are distinct. For example, Ambedkar visualized Untouchability as “a system of unmitigated economic exploitation”. It is a system in which “there is no appeal to public opinion, for whatever public opinion is there, is the opinion of the Hindus who belong to the exploiting class and as such favour exploitation”.9 Gail Omvedt sets apart the conscious ideology of Varnashramdharma as a system authorized by religion used to interpret and support the caste system as well as the economic exploitation involved in it from the actual rules of behaviour defining relationship among various jatis. The latter are seen as a set of kinship social practices and rules that surround them.10 While the leftists and nationalists perceived caste as an instrument which was detrimental to the crystallization of both the national and class identities, hence caste mobilization as diversionary in the broad anti-imperialist struggle, Omvedt celebrates the anti-caste movement as “nationalist” and “anti-imperialist” in its own way, as it saw opposition to colonial powers as fundamentally connected with the struggle against “feudalism” or the caste system.11 If the left-inclined intellectuals 6

S.A. Dange, Hiren Mukherjee, S.G. Sardesai and Mohit Sen, eds, The Mahatma: A Marxist Evaluation, New Delhi, 1969, p. 25. 7 Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution, p. 180. 8 Samir Amin makes this distinction in another context, although it may be equally helpful in analysing the caste–class continuum. See Samir Amin, Class and Nation: Historically and in the Current Crisis, London, 1980, pp. 1–20. 9 Quoted from G.S. Lokhande, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar: A Study of Social Democracy, New Delhi, 1977, p. 30. 10 Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution, p. 30. 11 Ibid., pp. 15–16.

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and activists failed to link anti-imperialist mobilization with the urgency to create genuine casteless identities by embarking on an anti-caste movement, the Dalit radicals also ignored the existence of psychic barriers between various castes and sub-castes of Dalits as well as the almost universal oppression of Dalit women by Dalit males. The Dalit radicals are also oblivious to the compliant behaviour of Dalits who accept the dominant Hindu beliefs about fate, transmission of souls and pollution. The internalization of moral standards of society, whose victims they are, frustrates any realistic prospects of overturning the social order.12 This does not, of course, mean that Dalits were only eager to be assimilated by the Hindu society. M.N. Srinivas stresses the “commonality of interests” within the village despite caste segregation. In his views, exclusion of depressed castes from wells, temples, etc., was only contextual as even the higher castes were excluded in certain rituals. Therefore, the meaning of exclusion and inclusion in traditional society was different and acceptable to the whole village community without dissent.13 In such a stagnant model, the process of social change among Dalits is explained in terms of the Sanskritization strategy, that is, imitating the lifestyles, behaviours, customs, etc., of the higher castes by the lower castes.14 The dynamic tensions in the form of protest movements and devotional cults such as the Warkari panth in Maharashtra are completely tucked away in such a paradigm. Owen Lynch gives the concept of “Dichotomization” which is concerned with the process of dyadic relationship of a status and counter-status. He tries to understand what happens when a third party, that is, the state enters into the relationship.15 The mechanism of this dyadic relationship becomes more intricate as three elements—(i) inherited attitude towards manual work, (ii) racial purity, and (iii) ritual purity are interwoven in spelling out defiling practices of Untouchability.16 Dumont is partially right when he says that the 12

Barrington Moore, Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt, New York, 1978, pp. 56–63. 13 M.N. Srinivas, The Dominant Caste and Other Essays, Delhi, 1987, pp. 47–49. 14 M.N. Srinivas, Social Change in Modern India, Bombay, 1972. 15 See M. Owen Lynch, The Politics of Untouchability, New Delhi, 1972, pp. 17– 18. 16 Stephen Fuchs, At the Bottom of Indian Society: The Harijans and Other Low Castes, Delhi, 1981, p. 17.

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village in India was an “architectural and demographic entity”, while caste was a real “sociological” reality.17 The colonial state, however, was involved in the production of the cultural forms we have unwittingly labelled as pre-colonial traditions. In the colonial discourse, caste became increasingly the only relevant social site for the textualization of the Indian identity. This is noticeable in the politicization of the invented forms of caste in the census, in the community-based franchises of early electoral reforms and in the development of legal codes, which made formal civil and criminal distinctions on the basis of caste.18 To cite an example, 13 Mahars entered the enclosure of an idol named Maganath in Washer village in Chanda District and offered customary puja. Justice Prideaux (Atmaram vs. King Emperor, 1924, AIR Nagpur Case) held that their act was against the Hindu caste customs and that they had committed an offence within the purview of Section (S-294), Indian Penal Code.19 Mark Juergensmeyer has studied the Adi-Dharma movement of the 1920s against Untouchability in Punjab. New political organizations provided models of corporate identity and their organizations and educational institutions trained new leadership for the Dalits. The leaders of the Adi-Dharam projected the notion of a separate community (quam), with rituals, gurus and separate religious traditions for the Punjab Untouchables. The movement appropriated Ravi Das, a sixteenth-century saint, and made use of a loose network of shrines and pilgrimage centres or deras dedicated to his devotion. However, the AdiDharma failed to create a unified quam as it remained confined to the Chamars and with the Chuhras identifying with it only in a few areas. There were differences between the educated leaders and illiterate followers. Many of the important leaders also returned to the fold of the Arya Samaj in 1929.20 Ambedkar, on the other hand, tried to use modern methods based on education and exercise of legal and political rights to achieve equal status for the Dalits in Maharashtra. He tried to make use of caste loyalties and 17

See Louis Dumont, “The Village Community from Munro to Marx”, Contribution to Indian Sociology, 9, 1966, pp. 67–89. 18 Nicholas B. Dirks, “The Invention of Caste”, Social Analysis, 25, pp. 42–52. 19 Cited from P.T. Borale, Segregation and De-segregation in India: A Sociological Study, Bombay, 1968, pp. 121–24. 20 For details, see Mark Juergensmeyer, Religion as Social Vision: The Movement against Untouchability in 20th Century Punjab, Berkeley, 1982.

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traditions only to create modern mass organizations, which would eventually fight to transcend caste identities.21

Political Antecedents of Dalit Mobilization Jotirao Phule (1827–90) was an excellent mobilizer of the shudras in the Bombay Province. Bal Shastri Jambhekar and his Marathi Dnyan Prasarak Mandali and the Paramhansa Mandli of Dadobha Pandurang, who attempted to reform caste-ridden Hindu society, were the ideological precursors of Phule.22 Phule and his fellow radicals projected a new collective identity for all the lower castes. Phule depended on the existing symbols from Maharashtra’s warrior and agricultural traditions for the discovery of this identity.23 There were differences of literacy, occupation and culture among the upper castes (brahmin Seths) and the lower castes in western India.24 Brahmins already enjoyed enormous powers as peshwas, as warriors, as village kulkarmis, as landlords and as the interpreters of the scriptures during the rule of the peshwas. The consolidation of British rule transformed the brahmins into an educated Indian élite who enjoyed powers as subordinate officials.25 Brahmins also retained many of their privileges like watans, imams, etc., in the new colonial setting.26 The wealthy and powerful Kunbi families laid claims to the status and identity of Kshatriyas.27 The British government recognized their claims by issuing instructions to record as Maratha Kunbis those Kunbi cultivators in censuses who claimed to be Marathas after 1871.28 There was much internal cleavage among the lower castes. Therefore, Phule consciously underplayed the differences that divided the lower castes in his strategy of mobilization.29 This could be achieved only through the 21

Eleanor Zelliot, “Gandhi and Ambedkar: A Study in Leadership”, in Michael Mahar, ed., The Untouchables in Contemporary India, Tuscon, 1972, p. 77. 22 M.S. Gore, Non-Brahmin Movement in Maharashtra, New Delhi, 1989, p. 3. 23 Rosalind O’Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology, p. 8. 24 Omvedt, Cultural Revolt, pp. 73–97. 25 Gore, Non-Brahmin Movement, pp. 5–9. 26 Kenneth Ballhatchet, Social Policy and Social Change in Western India, London, 1957, pp. 63–87. 27 O’Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology, pp. 17–20. 28 Gore, Non-Brahmin Movement, p. 6. 29 Ibid., p. 29.

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use of traditional social categories in a new way so as to create a new collective identity of “Mali-Kunbi” and “Mang-Mahar” or shudra-Ati-shudra. In his Ballad of Raja Chatrapati Shivaji Bhonsale (1869), Phule depicted all the shudras and Ati-shudras as the forgotten descendants of the heroic race of Kshatriyas of ancient India, led by the mythical daitya King Bali.30 In his refiguration of Bali’s myth, Phule represented Bali as a popular “peasant” King representing the utopias of beneficence, castelessness and prosperity and the popular local deities like Khandoba, Jotiba and Naika were depicted as the officials of Bali.31 By claiming Kshatriya status for all the lower castes, Phule was trying to harness the impetus of an existing process of upward social mobility to a radical end— that of suggesting a permanent and irreconcilable hostility between brahmins and all other lower castes. Such an ideology contained nebulous and vague elements. Its strength lay in retention and absorption of traditional loyalties and aspirations in a new radical guise. But it also had the possibility of slip back into a single Sanskritizing claim.32 In his attempt to unite all the Dalits, Phule accepted the “Aryan race theory” as the basis of the caste system but inverted the theory to serve his own radical ends.33 Another tactic was Phule’s attempt to combine the issue of economic exploitation or “class” with the theme of cultural domination in his writings. The Junnar Campaign (1884) of the Satyasodhak Samaj, in which service castes refused to visit brahmins and cultivators refused to till the land of brahmin landlords and in which marriages were performed without the help of brahmin priests, represented this approach.34 The Satyasodhaks, however, failed to evolve a unified sense of identity among the shudra castes even after years of effort. The cultural-religious attacks on the brahmins suited the Marathas and Kunbis for a while. Soon, however, a new Maratha identity crystallized around the ruler of Kolhapur and this new identity did not accept cultural equality with the “Untouchables”. In fact, the Satyasodhaks themselves contributed to the negation of a unified identity by organizing 30

O’ Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology, pp. 131–36. Omvedt, Dalit Visions: The Anti-Caste Movement and the Construction of an Indian Identity, New Delhi, 1995, p. 20. 32 O’Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology, pp. 138–39. 33 See Jotiba Phule, Samagra Wangmay, Bombay, 1990, pp. 118–20. 34 O’Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology, pp. 277–79. 31

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separate caste conferences (1907–33) of Marathas, Bhandaris, Malis, Shimpis, Agris, Parits, Salis, Mahars and Mangs for promoting educational activities among these castes.35 As early as in 1883, Gangarambhay Mhaske, a former associate of Phule, established the Deccan Maratha Education Association to support Maratha and Kunbi students. This legitimation to caste-based associations for the promotion of education later enabled nationalist leaders to approach separate caste-based groups in order to mobilize and integrate them.36 There was also a vocal and pronounced reformist trend in mobilization of Dalits. Gopal Baba Walangkar established the Anarya Dosh Parihar Mandali at Dapoli in Ratnagiri District in 1886 to initiate a programme of social reform against drinking and eating beef. He struggled for the basic human rights of Dalits and toured Maharashtra spreading his message through bhajans and kirtans.37 Mahirishi Vithal Ramji Shinde established the Depressed Classes Mission (1906) to promote education and reform among Dalits as well as to assimilate Dalits as reformed Hindus.38 Shivram Janbe Kamble organized a meeting of Mahars at Saswad in Pune District in 1904 for demanding the recruitment of Mahars in the army. He published the Somvanshiya Mitra, a monthly Marathi patrika (periodical) from Poona (1908–10). His Somvanshiya Mitra Samaj (1910) tried to abolish the Devdasi system among the Mahar and Mang women and the practices of animal sacrifice, eating beef and drinking.39

The Gandhian Strategy The Gandhian ideology has been accused of directing attention away from the “secular inequalities” and subserving the interests of the dominant classes by defining the interests of different classes of Indians as mutually non-antagonistic.40 The radical Dalit 35

Gore, Non-Brahmin Movement, pp. 37–40. Ibid., pp. 51–53. 37 R.K. Kshirsagar, Dalit Movement in India and its Leaders, New Delhi, 1994, pp. 80–81. 38 Ibid., p. 393. 39 Ibid., pp. 237–40. 40 Satish Sabherwal, “Sociologists and Inequality in India: The Historical Context”, Economic and Political Weekly, 14, 7 & 8, 1979. 36

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intellectuals and scholars castigate Gandhi for betraying the interests of the Dalits.41 According to Omvedt, “Gandhi subordinated the interests of Dalits and women to bourgeois, male, and brahmin interests. Such subordination not only weakened class and castestruggles but also weakened the anti-imperialist movement.”42 She further accuses Nehru of the accepting the functionalist and integrative role of caste.43 Instead of debunking Gandhi, we must scan through the historical context to understand why Gandhi adopted a less aggressive posture. In Gandhi’s political strategy, practical considerations always outweighed utopian schemes. Mahatma Gandhi established the All-India Anti-Untouchability League in September 1932, which was renamed the Harijan Sevak Sangh in December 1932. His campaign that started from Wardha on 7 November 1933 lasted nine months and covered a distance of 20,000 kms. During this time, Gandhi addressed meetings, collected funds for the uplift of Harijans and tried to mould the thinking of the upper castes.44 The attitude of the upper castes was marked by viciousness and vindictiveness. Many cases of harassment of Dalits were reported from the rural areas in western India. The crops of Harijan cultivators were burnt at Samarkha village in Kheda District. A Dalit was horsewhipped at Dholka for using a public well.45 Some Mahar youths of Devpur village in Nasik District, who entered the local temple during the Baba Bhagwat Fair, incurred the wrath of the Marathas. They were saved by the intervention of a police constable.46 The high -caste Hindus launched a severe “social boycott” of Harijans at Kavitha in Ahmedabad District as they sent their children to the village school. The boycott was lifted only when Dalits gave an undertaking that they would not send their children to the school.47 The upper-caste Hindus 41 This theme of “betrayal” has been repeatedly made in N.D. Kamble, Deprived Castes and their Struggle for Equality, New Delhi, 1983, and in Barbara R. Joshi, Untouchables: Voices of Dalit Liberation Movement, London, 1986. 42 Omvedt, Dalits and Democratic Revolution, pp. 186–87. 43 Omvedt, Dalit Visions, p. 14. 44 Kshirsagar, Dalit Movement in India, p. 118. 45 Mahatma Gandhi, Collected Works, Vol. 56, Ahmedabad, 1973, pp. 177–78. 46 The Times of India, 18 April 1933. 47 All-India Harijan Sevak Sangh Report, October 1934–September 1935, AICC File No. G-76, 1936, NMML, New Delhi, also reported in BC, 14 January and 14 August 1936, and BLAD, Vol. XLV, September–October 1936, pp. 205–9.

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assaulted five Dalits including a woman at Kasore in Baroda State because they believed that Dalits were spreading cattle disease.48 There was a complaint of ill treatment and social boycott of Dalits from Achegaon in East Khandesh as they followed Ambedkar.49 Even Harijans were not allowed to provide shelter to a Harijan teacher who was appointed to the local Harijan school because he had attended the highest class in the common village school.50 The Secretary of the Gujarat Harijan Sevak Sangh went to inspect the construction of Harijan wells in Naroli village of the Navasari region on 2 June 1935. He took water from a public “parab” and then went to Harijan mohalla. The local police officials mistook him to be a Dalit and thrashed him.51 The president of the Palghar Taluka Local Board was ex-communicated by the caste Hindus for declaring all the public wells open to Harijans in Chatale village.52 Many Dheds and Chamars complained to A. Thakkar, General Secretary, Harijan Sevak Sangh, during his tour of Gujarat, about their inability to send their children to school due to the stiff opposition of the caste Hindus.53 Such conflicts over the entry of Dalits into educational institutions were not new. In the late nineteenth century, some pensioner Mahar soldiers had sent a petition to the Dapoli municipality to allow their children entry into municipal schools. After two years of struggle and with the help of official intervention, they finally succeeded in their mission. Even after the entry into schools, however, their children suffered discrimination and segregation in such schools. Incidentally, Ambedkar’s father was also a signatory to this petition. When faced with stiff and persistent opposition, some Harijans established separate schools by the end of nineteenth century through their voluntary efforts.54 According to Dilip M. Menon, Gandhi and the Congress defined the problem of caste inequality “in terms of an opposition 48

BC, 14 October 135. BC, 17 May 1935. 50 AICC File No. G-76, 1936, NMML, New Delhi. 51 BC, 7 June 1934. 52 BC, 24 April 1934. 53 BC, 1 December 1934. 54 Vasant W. Moon, “From Dependence to Protest: The Early Growth of Education and Consciousness among ‘Untouchables’ of Western India”, in Barbara R. Joshi, ed., Voice of Dalit, pp. 20–25. 49

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between cleanliness and the lack of it, locating the whole issue not in terms of economic or social realities but a physical state . . . in Congress activity cleanliness became a secular metaphor for castelessness. Khadi, conceived initially as a symbol of Indian selfreliance, now came to assume a pivotal role in this context as the great leveler. Caste difference had been stressed earlier in the way people dressed. The advocacy of Khadi implied that if everyone dressed alike this difference could be eliminated.”55 Gandhi might have used the symbols of cleanliness and khadi, but clearly he was not locating the problem merely in the physical state of lowcaste persons. He was clearly aware of social attitudes as sanctioned by religious and customary practices. He was also aware of the practice of “inner Untouchability” among the lower castes.56 The existence of “inner Untouchability” among the Dalits was an indication of the oppression of “minorities within minorities”.57 Such internal hierarchy spoiled any realistic chance of creating a unified identity for the Dalits as whole. Stephen Fuchs puts it in the following words: . . . No human being wants to be at the bottom of human society and the lowest man, in order to retain a shred of his self-respect, desires to look down on other human being and at least pretend that the other man is still a little lower! And since he clings desperately to this superiority, whether real or only pretended, he may even be more intolerant towards other castes or noncastes than high caste people would be.58 Mahars, for example, were divided into various sub-castes, which inter-dined with each other but marriages were strictly 55

Dilip M. Menon, “Intimation of Equality: Shrines and Politics in Malabar, 1900–1924”, in Peter Robb, ed., Dalit Movements and the Meaning of Labour in India, Delhi, 1993, p. 274. 56 Ronald Duncan, ed., The Writings of Gandhi, Oxford, 1993, pp. 183–84. 57 The Dalits, despite their sizeable number never constitute a majority within a village community, due to the existence of a large number of intermediate castes. The Mahars, therefore, who were in minority, were dominated by the caste Hindus. They, however, practiced Untouchability on other Dalit castes such as the Mangs. Gandhi was aware of such ground realities. See Gandhi, Collected Works, Vol. 54, p. 130. 58 Fuchs, At the Bottom of Indian Society, pp. 5–6.

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restricted within sub-castes. Somavanshi Mahars were considered higher in status and Samsanjogi (the juggler and magician subcaste) Mahars sat apart from other Mahars during community feasts.59 Mangs and Mahars lived in close proximity and in permanent animosity. The relation between the two castes was such that “allegedly the greatest joy for a Mang was to ‘prepare the rope with which a Mahar would be hanged’”.60 Dhors (tanners), Madaris, the semi-nomadic snake charmers, Kolhati, the village entertainers who performed artistic shows like dancing and weight lifting, were all considered inferior by the Mahars.61 Gandhi, therefore, only tried to resolve the problem through persuasion, without following a confrontationist line. In such cases of “non-antagonistic contradictions” among the people,62 a less aggressive course of action was the only plausible direction, though without yielding to the orthodox, conservative opinion. Initially, Gandhi was cautious. He did not outrightly denounce caste. He declared, “I am one of those who do not consider caste to be a harmful institution. In its origin, caste was a wholesome custom and promoted national well-being. In my opinion the idea that inter-dining and inter-marrying is necessary for national growth is a superstition borrowed from the West.”63 Then, in an audacious and defiant mode, he affirmed that Untouchability did not have the sanction of religion but was a device of Satan.64 Elsewhere, he described it as “the greatest blot on Hinduism”.65 Gradually, Gandhi also started favouring inter-dining and inter-caste marriages to ease and lighten the rigidity of the caste structure.66 While Ambedkar stressed the need for political rights and representation in legislatures, Gandhi’s emphasized the need to protect Dalits from social and religious persecution. Although Gandhi was aware 59

Traude Pillai-Vetschera, The Mahars: A Study of their Culture, Religion and SocioEconomic Life, New Delhi, 1994, pp. 7–29. 60 Ibid., p. 46. 61 Ibid., pp. 46–47. 62 This is how Mao Tse Tung, the Chinese Communist leader, also advised the tackling of the contradictions among people. See Mao Tse Tung, “On Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People”, Five Essays on Philosophy, Peking, 1977. 63 Duncan, The Writings of Gandhi, p. 167. 64 Gandhi, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 58. 65 Ibid, p. 49. 66 Gandhi, Collected Works, Vol. 62, pp. 121 and 142.

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that legislative action was required to expedite the reform process, he still favoured drastic social reform for abolishing caste oppression as it had moral and religious sanctions behind it.67 Therefore, Gandhi undertook the strenuous tour of Bombay’s countryside during the first half of 1934 despite the vehement impetuosity of the orthodox caste Hindus. For Gandhi, this was another act of disobedience.68 Yet, this was not the disobedience of a “rebel without a cause”; it was an act of affirmation of reason and will. Writing about the temperament of a prophet, Erich Fromm appropriately observes that the prophet need not be “aggressive or rebellious; he needs to have his eyes open; to be fully awake, and willing to take responsibility to open the eyes of those who are in the danger of perishing because they are half-asleep”.69 However, the Marxist assessment of Gandhi’s programme to uplift the Harijans put it in a pitiable light. According to Namboodripad,” . . . . This was a great blow to the freedom movement. For this led to the diversion of the people’s attention from the objective of full independence to the mundane cause of the upliftment of Harijan.”70 In the beginning of March 1934, Gandhi toured the Kanara region for the cause of the Harijans. He addressed public meetings at Siddapur, Sirsi, Haveri, Aloor, Devihosur and Byadgi. During this tour, he opened local Subramania temple at Sirsi to Harijans and collected Rs 2,297 for the Harijan fund. In Karwar taluqa, Gandhi visited several villages on his way from Karwar to Akola and collected Rs 600 for Harijan work.71 The local Congress leaders were also active in the province, propagating ideas against Untouchability. Bhailal Bhai Patel, Chaturbhai Patel and Chiman Lal Narkhi visited about a dozen villages in Kheda District on behalf 67

Gandhi, Collected Works, Vol. 54, pp. 88–90. Erich Fromm gives a beautiful description of disobedience. To quote him: “In order to disobey, one must have courage to be alone, to err, and to sin. But courage is not enough. The capacity for courage depends on a person’s state of development. Only if a person has emerged from mother’s lap and father’s commands, only if he has emerged as a fully developing individual and thus acquired the capacity to think and feel for himself, only then can one have courage to say ‘no’ to power, to disobey.” See Erich Fromm, Disobedience and Other Essays, London, 1984, p. 6. 69 Ibid., p. 33. 70 E.M.S. Namboodripad, Indian Freedom Struggle, p. 492. 71 BC, 3 and 4 March 1934 and Secret Abstract of Intelligence, paragraphs 250 and 277, 1934, IG Record Room, Bombay. 68

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of the Kheda District Gandhi Purse Committee and collected about Rs 1,200 for Harijan work. More than Rs 10,000 were collected from suburban villages in Bombay such as Ghatkopar, Santa Cruz, Veraval and Pratashas-patan for the Harijan Fund.72 In Kathiawar region, four Harijan Ashram functioned at Wadhwan, Vartij, Chhaya and Bhavnagar. The Kathiawar Harijan Sewak Sangh ran 19 primary schools and constructed wells and tanks to solve the problem of drinking water for the Harijans. The endeavors of the Congress workers, however, were not always successful. They failed to open the temple of Nagnath at Amreli to the Dalits despite their repeated persuasions.73 Gandhi toured the Gujarat region in June 1934 for the uplift of Harijan and addressed meetings at Busbar, Billimora, Navasari, Dohad, Sihor, Songarh, Dhola, Nigala, Botad and Ranpur.74 Later on in December 1934, A. Thakkar visited towns and villages of Gujarat along with local activists and realized the difficulty of helping Dheds and Chamars due to the stiff opposition of the higher castes.75 The overall progress, however, was tardy and torpid, exemplifying social inertia. It was still very difficult to get Harijan children admitted to the village schools. Realizing that segregation was well entrenched, attempts were made to sink separate wells and open special schools for the Dalits. In 1935, however, there were only 1,298 such special schools with an enrolment of 34,273 boys and 2,816 girls.76 The modest and unpretentious and rather lowpitched campaign might have been unimpressive, but committed people kept on working with all their energies. The Village Uplift Association of Bagalkot (Bijapur District) opened schools and wells for Dalits at Sirur and Angoli in April 1935.77 Swami Sadanand, an Arya Samaj activist, went on a hunger strike in January 1935 to induce the villagers of Bhagpur in Poona District to admit Dalits to the local Maruti temple. The villagers agreed after local Congress leaders persuaded them to accede to Swami’s demand.78 72

BC, 13, 15 and 19 June 1934. BC, 8 June 1934. 74 BC, 27, 29 June and 4 July 1934. 75 BC, 1 December 1934. 76 All-India Harijan Sevak Sangh Report, October 1934–September 1935, AICC File No. G-76, 1936, NMML, New Delhi. 77 BC, 8 April 1935. 78 BC, 13 January 1936. 73

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Both Suvarna Hindus and Dalits agreed to use the well, newly inaugurated by Kaka Kalelkar at Neglur in Dharwar District on 2 October 1938.79 Such isolated and exceptional cases of success acted as a morale booster for the unassuming social workers. L.B. Bhingardeve of Vita in Sangli District belonged to the Mang community and was a staunch follower of Gandhi. He raised his voice against daily hazeri (reporting) of Mangs, Ramoshis, etc., to police stations and combined Gandhian social reform and politics.80 Bal Krishna Devrukhkar of Khadki in Poona District belonged to the Chambar community and did Gandhian reforms before joining Ambedkar’s Independent Labour Party (1936).81 Muldas Vaisya Vankur was another major Gandhian worker from the Mehsana District of Gujarat. He organized tanning and weaving classes for Dalits, advocated moral and educational uplift and removal of Untouchability. He organized a big conference of the Maha Gujarat Dalit Harijan Samaj at Ahmedabad on 14–15 March 1936.82 Ramchandra Khandale was a political activist and a follower of Ambedkar from Kurkhumbh in Poona District. He organized the All-India Matang Sewa Samaj (1932–44). He tried to unite Mahars and Mangs. Although politically a follower of Ambedkar, he concentrated on socio-religious reforms among dalits on Gandhian lines. He campaigned against beef eating, idol-worship, alcoholism and practices of Maharbi and Mangki (balutas) for hereditary services performed by Mahars and Mangs.83 To conclude its anti-Untouchability drive, the Congress ministry passed the Harijan Temple Worship Bill (Removal of Disabilities Act) 1938 under which a trustee of a temple or a majority of trustees in case there was more than one trustees could declare a temple open to the Harijans.84 The eagerness of the nationalist leaders for gaining support of the lower castes is also evident from the fact that Dalits gained almost double reserved seats under the Poona Pact (1932) than given to them in the MacDonald Award. The British government had given Dalits a separate electorate for 78 seats in the provincial assemblies, but under the Poona Act, Dalits 79 80 81 82 83 84

AICC File No. P-10, 1940–41, NMML, New Delhi. Kshirsagar, Dalit Movement in India, p. 186. Ibid., p. 208. Ibid., p. 354. Ibid., pp. 243–44. BALD, Vol. II, 1938, pp. 357–79.

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got 158 seats in the provincial assemblies, though without a separate electorate.85 Gandhi also differed from Ambedkar on the issue of religious conversion. Gandhi believed that all religions are true, all have errors in them and therefore to seek the conversion of others to one’s own religion was wrong. Gandhi favoured internallygenerated religious reforms. He advised the Christian missionaries to stop their evangelistic work and devote themselves to philanthropic work. Gandhi believed that the Dalits were incapable of either understanding the Christian message or evaluating it in relation to other alternatives. Gandhi also doubted whether conversion would really make any difference in the lives of Dalits who converted.86 Gandhi emphasized the change of heart of caste Hindus without seeking to destroy the prevailing socioreligious order. Gandhi also wanted to reform Dalits, because despite the denial of sacred places and scriptures, Dalits had internalized many aspects of the pervasive Hindu religious ethos including the pernicious practice of Untouchability in their social behaviour. This was Gandhi’s strategy in removing Untouchability and its accompanying disabilities.

The Choices in Ambedkar’s Politics Gail Omvedt identifies two broad trends in the modern political mobilization of Dalits in the Maharashtra region on the basis of their chronological arrival and thematic focus. Dalit politics and organization before the 1920s was petition-oriented around the demand for the recruitment of Dalits into army and other subordinate services and organization based around caste associations for the purpose of achieving internal reform and educational progress.87 Sometimes their objective was to seek integration into the Hindu fold through such Sanskritic reforms and appeal to Bhakti religious traditions. This trend lacked a sufficient mass base.88 The other 85

Eleanor Zelliot, “Congress and the Untouchables: 1917–50”, in Richard Sisson and Stanley Wolpert, eds, Congress and Indian Nationalism, Berkeley, 1988, p. 190. 86 John C.B. Webster, Religion and Dalit Liberation: An Examination of Perspectives, New Delhi, 1999, pp. 55–57. 87 Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution, pp. 142–43. 88 Ibid., pp. 112–13.

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radical, autonomous trend rejected the Brahmanical ideology and was based on Dalit–Bahujan or shudra–Ati-shudra type alliance that Phule had advocated. It laid stress on class issues as well as the need for political power for Dalit Emancipation. Ambedkar represented this mass-based politics.89 However, such simplistic dichotomy fails to capture the complex interaction of various choices and symbols made use of by the Dalit leaders. The political choices were not arbitrary but were determined by their own social experience and their links within their own communities. Their mode of politics also changed as their broader social environment changed. Taking a cue from Shivram Janbe Kamble, who published a monthly, Somvanshiya Mitra, from Poona for Dalit uplift during 1908–10, Ambedkar started a weekly in Marathi, Mooknaik, in January 1920. Ambedkar, experienced as he was in the Western models of mobilizing public opinion, later published the Bahiskirit Bharat (a Marathi fortnightly) in 1927 and the Janata from November 1930. P.N. Rajbhoj, important Dalit organizer of the period, founded the Dalit Bandhu in 1928.90 The Bahiskirt Hitkarni Sabha, organized on 20 July 1924 in Bombay by Ambedkar, concentrated on the promotion of education among Dalits by opening hostels, libraries, social centres and study circles, etc.91 Similarly, the Paschim Khandesh Dalit Shikshan Prasarak Mandal, established in 1939 at Dhulia under P.L. Lalingkar, focused on the spread of education and establishment of hostels for Dalits.92 P.N. Rajbhoj convened the first conference of Dhor and Chambhar castes at Pune in 1926.93 The next step was to adopt an agitational stance. Shivam Janbe Kamble and P.N. Rajbhoj jointly organized the Parvati Temple Entry Satyagraha in September–October 1929. Their repeated attempts failed due to the hostile reaction of the upper castes.94 However, Ambedkar’s agitation utilized much wider networks during the Chawdar Tank Satyagraha at Mahad. The Bahiskrit Hitkarni Sabha had connections through migrants from Mahad to Bombay. The Mahad municipality had already passed a resolution 89 90 91 92 93 94

Ibid., pp. 164–70. Kshirsagar, Dalit Movement in India, pp. 123–24. Ibid., p. 82. Ibid., p. 97. Ibid., p. 305. Ibid., pp. 240–41.

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to open the Chawdar Tank to Dalits and there was a nucleus of strong caste Hindu support. A.V. Chitre, a Kayastha activist of the Bahiskrit Hitkarni Sabha, Surendra Nath Tipnis, president of the Mahad municipality, and G.N. Sahasrabudhe, a brahmin belonging to the Social Service League, all provided support. About 1,500 participated in the satyagraha in March 1927, leading to rioting, police complaints and subsequent “cleansing” of the tank by brahmins. The satyagraha conference in December 1927, however, mobilized about 10,000–15,000 dalits and featured the burning of the Manusmriti. The satyagrahis honoured the injunction of the deputy magistrate not to take water from the tank.95 As a step towards organizational preparatedness, Ambedkar had established the Samata Sainik Dal in March 1927. Sitaram Gangaram Gangurle in Nasik, P.L. Lalingkar in Khandesh and Sasalekar in Bombay were some prominent youth leaders of the Samata Sainik Dal.96 Sambhoji Tukaram Gaikwad, another Mahar leader of Kolaba District, was instrumental in enlisting the support of saints belonging to the Kabir Panth, Ramanand Panth, Nath Panth and Warkari Panth for the Mahad Satyagraha. He also organized the Mahar Samaj Sewa Sangh in 1928–29 and later the Mahar Dnyati Panchayat Samiti in 1942.97 The Dalits also organized another major satyagraha at Kalaram Temple in Nasik (1929–30) to seek entry into the temple and participation in the rath (chariot) procession during the Ramnavmi festivities. The Government of Bombay banned the rath procession from 1930 to 1935 due to the fear of clash between caste Hindus and the “Untouchables”.98 Some of the prominent activists of this satyagraha were: R.B. Chandorkar, Keshav Narayan Deo, Bal Krishna Deorukhkar, B.R. Gaikwad, P.N. Rajbhoj and Shankar Mukunda Bele. Shankar Mukunda Bele was deputed along with a group of satyagrahis by L.N. Hardas who had organized the Mahar Samaj (1922) in Nagpur and was opposed to idol worship and opposed bathing in “dirty” tanks. He, on the other hand, tried to remove sub-caste barriers among Mahars by arranging dinners on the 95

Omvedt, Dalits and Democratic Revolution, pp. 150–51; Source Material on Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar and the Movement of Untouchables, Vol. I, Bombay, pp. 13–33. 96 Kshirsagar, Dalit Movement in India, p. 102. 97 Ibid., pp. 216–27. 98 The Times of India, 20 and 28 March 1933; and Home/Special File No. 355(64)IV-A-Part IV, 1934, MSA, Bombay.

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occasion of the death anniversary of Saint Chokhamela at Chokamela Temple, Nagpur.99 Keshav Narayan Deo, popularly known as Patit Pawan Das, was the chairman of the Satyagraha Committee of the Kalaram Temple Entry Satyagraha. He founded the Bharat Sant Samaj, an organization of Dalit sadhus in 1927, and was himself under the influence of Phule and Maharishi Shindhe.100 Some differences started surfacing in the movement by 1933. Ambedkar expressed his views against such stray attempts to acquire religious equality.101 However, B.R. Gaikwad, the local hero of Nasik Dalits, was in favour of resumption of the satyagraha. A large number of Dalits assembled at Nandurdi (Niphad taluqa, Nasik District) to celebrate a fair in honour of Ambedkar. The day coincided with the annual mela of a local deity, Hari Bhuse Bhuwa. The district magistrate banned the mela, apprehending trouble. Dalits took out a procession up to the samadhi of Hari Bhuse Bhuwa. The upper-caste Hindus were boycotting the Dalits in the village and had stopped giving balutas or traditional service charges in kind. However, neither the police nor the upper castes intervened in Dalit activity. At a meeting in Maharwada in the night, Dalits urged the Satyagraha Committee to resume Kalaram Temple Entry Satyagraha.102 At the time of Ramnavami in 1934, Dalits planned to revive the satyagraha. They decided to protest by prostrating before the chariot. The decision was taken in a meeting at Mandsamgui, near Nasik. As Dalits were assembling in Nasik and nearby villages with the intention of joining in the rath yatra, the district magistrate of Nasik again banned the rath procession. P.N. Rajbhoj addressed a number of meetings at Bhadwan, Ambe-Vane, Kalwan, etc., in April 1934, urging Mahars and Chamars to resort to a satyagraha if they were not allowed to drag the chariot. A large crowd of about 25,000 caste Hindus stoned a police party as a mark of protest against the ban on the rath procession.103 Ambedkar changed his stance now realizing the futility of such political exercises. He addressed a large gathering of about 15,000 99

Kshirsagar, Dalit Movement in India, pp. 224–26. Ibid., pp. 203–4. 101 The Times of India, 28 March 1933. 102 The Times of India, 30 March 1933; and Home/Speial File No. 355(64)-IV-A-Part IV, 1934, MSA, Bombay. 103 This account is based on reports in The Times of India (February to April) and Home/Special File No. 355(64)-IV-A, Part IV, 1934, MSA, Bombay. 100

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Dalits at Vinchur, who had assembled to observe the tenth day funeral rites of the local Dalit leader, Dhondiba Ram Kamble. He remarked in the rally that the temple entry issue had made the Dalits conscious and was now no longer needed. He urged Dalits to concentrate their energies and resources on politics.104 Other Dalit leaders like B.R. Gaikwad and P.N. Rajbhog, however, continued to favour such symbolic protests. A meeting of Dalits, who had gathered to observe the death ceremonies of Ghayawate, an activist of the Dalit movement, decided to continue the satyagraha at the Kalaram Temple in March 1934. The decision of the Nasik District Untouchable Youth League to resume the movement at Nasik was announced at a gathering of about 10,000 Dalits at Nadurvaidya in Igatpuri taluqa on the occasion of the funeral ceremony of their leader, Rokade (April 1935). B.R. Gaikwad and Deoram Sitaram Dangle talked to 4,000 Mahars on the same night to implement the decision of the Youth League.105 The selection of such occasions for political mobilization was remarkable. Freud describes the unconscious significance of death in the following psychic terms: “Our unconscious inaccessibility to the idea of our own death, of men’s belief in self-immortality, our deathwishes towards stranger and alien, and ambivalence towards the death of the loved ones.”106 Among the Mahars, the third, tenth and thirteenth day after the burial of the dead are very important days for rituals.107 The worship of Mariai, the goddess of death, was a popular form of worship among the Mahars, Mangs and other Dalits groups of Maharashtra. Sacrifices of male goats, male buffaloes and cocks were made occasionally to propitiate the goddess. Some people also offered male children as lifetime devotees to the goddess. The attitude towards Mariai, however, was ambivalent as both evil and good qualities were attributed to the goddess. The mortality rate among Dalits was quite high due to poverty and unhygienic conditions of living. By attributing death to the displeasure of the goddess, these people relieved some of their inner anxieties and psychic stress.108 Thus, Dalit mobilizers 104

The Times of India, 21 November 1934. The Times of India, 22, 24 March 1934 and 4 April 1935; and Home/Special File No. 355(64)-IV-A-Parts IV & V, 1934 and 1935, MSA, Bombay. 106 Sigmund Freud, Collected Papers, Vol. 4, London, 1971, p. 316. 107 See Traude, The Mahars, pp. 132–40. 108 Kamble, Deprived Castes, pp. 207–11. 105

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utilized religious Bhakti traditions and their concrete embodiments in Dalit sadhus as well as the customs from popular Dalit culture.109 Bhimrao Kardak from Kasabe Sukene village (Nasik District), a Mahar folk singer, utilized the medium of folk songs and drama to spread the message of Ambedkar especially during 1931–45. Satyagraha Jalsa, Maharbi, Satnami brahmin, Dharantar and Congress Bhakti were some of his popular plays.110 The decision of Ambedkar to withdraw his forces from the temple entry movement was resented by P.N. Rajbhoj and the Nasik District Untouchable Youth League. About 1,000 youths burnt Hindu scriptures, such as the Manu Smriti, Shivlilamrit and Ravijya, which recognized Untouchability, at Nasik in September 1935. Hindu scriptures were burnt by Dalits at Sukene village in Niphad taluqa of Nasik District. They also trampled images of some Hindu gods including the local deity Khanderao Mhasaba. The Dalit Gosavis tore off their sacred bead necklaces. Another such incident was reported from Sai Kheda village of Nasik District. However, after the withdrawal of Ambedkar’s followers, district authorities found it much easier to tackle the depleted Dalit mobilization. They allowed the rath procession in 1935 after a gap of five years. They averted trouble from P.N. Rajbhoj’s followers simply by issuing an order under Section 144 of the Indian Penal Code on 9 December 1935.111 As Ambedkar retracted from such agitations, P.N. Rajbhog played safe and compromised with the high-caste Hindus. About 200 Dalits led by P.N. Rajbhoj obtained “diksha” from Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya in March 1936 in the presence of a large number of caste Hindus and the priest of the Kalaram Temple. They took a holy bath in the Godavari chanting mantras and smeared their forehead and arms with caste marks. A conference of Chambars at Makhmalabad in Nasik, organized by Rajbhoj, later on asserted the rights of those 109

Judith Devlin, The Superstitious Mind: French Peasants and Supernatural in Nineteenth Century, New Haven, 1987, provides an interesting analysis of religious rituals and popular culture in terms of their psychological significance for the people. 110 Kshirsagar, Dalit Movement in India, p. 242. 111 This information is from the following sources: The Times of India, 16 November 1935, BC, 19 and 25 November 1935; Prabhat, 1 October 1935; Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, 1935, IG Record Room, Bombay, and Home/Special File No. 355(64)IV-A-Part VI, 1935–36, MSA, Bombay.

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“Untouchables” who had obtained diksha from Pandit Malaviya to participate in the rath yatra of Kalaram Temple. These chosen few, in fact, did participate in a 30,000 strong procession of the rath yatra in 1936.112 The unified Dalit identity, however, got fractured along caste lines. Mahars and Chambars started drifting in different directions. Sitaram Narayan Shivtarkar, a Chambar leader, criticized Ambedkar in a meeting of Chambars held at Khond in Ratnagiri District on 24 October 1937 for securing benefits for his own Mahar caste and ignoring other Dalit groups. The First Ratnagiri Chambar Conference, chaired by S.G. Songaonkar on 26 December 1937, echoed this resentment against Ambedkar. Narayan Rao Kajrolkar criticized Ambedkar for spending money received from a government grant for patronizing Mahar students only and ignoring Chambar and Mang students in the depressed caste boarding houses. He urged the conference to join the Congress as it was willing to take measures for tenant’s relief such as checking of arbitrary evictions and forced labour, and was committed to the removal of restrictions on the use of tanks, wells and grazing grounds by means of legal provisions. The conference opposed Ambedkar’s idea of conversion to avoid disabilities and demanded equality of treatment within the Hindu community. It also paid attention to the problem of sub-castes among Chambars and demanded the right to free tanning material from forests.113 Meanwhile, Ambedkar endorsed the idea that it was almost impossible for Dalits to gain a respectable place of equality within the great Hindu tradition. At a huge conference of about 10,000 Dalits at Yeola (1935), Ahmednagar, Ambedkar resolved not to die a Hindu. He advised Dalits to sever their connections with Hinduism and to choose a new religion, which would offer them equality of treatment, status and opportunities. He hinted that such provisions of equality were found in Buddhism, Islam and Christianity. He, therefore, advised them to direct their energies to establish their civic rights and status.114 Another large meeting of Mahars at Satana on 21 March 1936 passed a resolution to shun Hinduism and celebrate Ambedkar’s birthday (that is, 14 April) 112

The Times of India, 18 March and 3 April 1936 and BC, 28 March 1936. Weekly Report, DM, Ratnagiri, 6 January 1938; in Home/Special File No. 922(2), 1937, MSA, Bombay. 114 The Times of India, 16 October 1935. 113

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as a festival. Mahars also discussed the problem of the deliberate delay by officials in the grant of wastelands to Mahars.115 Ambedkar wrote an article “Away from the Hindus” in late 1936 or early 1937 to justify his stand on religious conversion. In this he rejected all the objections raised against conversion. He refuted the notion that goodness is universal in all religions. To quote him, “while one religion holds that brotherhood is good, another caste and untouchability is good”.116 He also cast aside the viewpoint that religious conversion would not make any difference in the status or life of the Untouchables. Ambedkar believed that by converting to a religion, which had universalized and equalized all values of life, Dalits would become members of another community with which they could establish kinship relations.117 In another place, Ambedkar tried to demonstrate how the “philosophy of Hinduism” failed the test of social utility, justice, equality and fraternity. He said, “How can a philosophy which dissects society in fragments, which dissociated work from interest, which disconnects intelligence from labour, which expropriates the rights of man and which prevented society from mobilizing resources for common action in the hour of danger, be said to satisfy the test of socialutility.”118 However, Ambedkar did not expedite and push for conversion despite arguing for religious change at this stage. The British government’s tight and rigid religious categories for communal electorates and reserved benefits for the Scheduled Castes proved to be a severe handicap. The Dalit leaders had to fit themselves into the necessary categories laid down by the government or lose many of their constituents who preferred immediate (reserved), economic benefits to long-term potential socio-cultural gains that might have accrued from conversions.119 Some prominent Dalit leaders like P.N. Rajbhoj and G.A. Gavai expressed themselves against conversions. Ambedkar was also aware that many Christian converts carried their caste beliefs with them and Christianity only acted as an addendum to their old faith. Lack of 115

Weekly Report, DM, Nasik, 1 April 1936 in Home/Special File No. 355(64)-IVA-Part IV, 1935–36, MSA, Bombay. 116 Babasaheb Ambedkar, Writings and Speeches (compiled by Vasant Moon), Vol. 5, Bombay, 1989, p. 405. 117 Ibid., pp. 412–17. 118 Ambedkar, Writings and Speeches, Vol. 3, p. 71. 119 Webster, Religion and Dalit Liberation, p. 33.

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such a social-emancipatory movement among Dalits and Dalit converts neutralized the efficacy of conversion.120 Ambedkar now repositioned himself and switched from organizing purely symbolic protests like temple entry and use of water tanks to much wider socio-economic issues as the khoti problem in the Konkan area. He organized the Independent Labour Party121 in 1936 with the objective of the welfare of the labouring classes. Its programme pledged to save peasants from the clutches of moneylenders and opposed the British land revenue policy. It wanted legislation for a more equitable system of taxation, establishment of land mortgage banks and agricultural producers’ cooperatives and marketing societies and protection of tenants.122 This step terminated Ambedkar’s self-imposed isolation from other caste Hindus and brought him closer to the Satyasodhak ideology of Phule. For example, the problem of khoti was an agrarian issue, which could unite the Mahar, Kunbi, Maratha, Teli, Bhandri and other caste tenants.123 A crucial condition for the success of this policy was “the unity of dalit and caste Hindu tenants, especially Mahars and Kunbis”.124 Ambedkar had opposed the strike method and promised to push for a fair arbitration board at the third session of the Kolaba Zila Shetkari Parishad in December 1934.125 Now he led an intense agitation in Khed and Chiplun talukqs and associated himself with the radical Socialist and Communist leaders for the abolition of khoti landlordism. B.T. Ranadive, G.S. Sardesai, Shamrao Parulekar and Surendranath Chitnis addressed the meeting of Chari village peasants held on 17 October 1937, in which about 3,000 red flag waving peasants participated.126 Ambedkar introduced a Bill in the Bombay Legislative Assembly 120

Ambedkar, Writings and Speeches, Vol. 5, pp. 469–73. The Independent Labour party was established on 15 August 1936 at Bombay with Ambedkar as its president and treasurer and M.B. Shamrath as its secretary. K.V. Chitre and S.A. Upashyam were the joint secretaries. The party won 14 seats (11 reserved and 3 unreserved) in the Bombay Legislative Assembly in the 1937 election and two more of its members were nominated by the governor under the nomination category. See Kshirsagar, Dalit Movement in India, p. 91. 122 Omvedt, Dalits and Democratic Revolution, p. 193. 123 Weekly Report, DM, Ratnagiri, 27 May 1939 in Home/Special File No. 918/B, 1939, MSA, Bombay. 124 Omvedt, Dalits and Democratic Revolution, p. 196. 125 Ibid., p. 195. 126 Janata, 27 October 1937. 121

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in September 1937 for the abolition of khoti.127 There were large meetings of village representatives in Chiplun (on 8 October 1937) involving 100 villages.128 At the end of 1937, Ragunath Dhondiba Khambe, the leader of the Tillori Kunbi Shetkari Parishad, joined the tenant agitation and raised the slogan of “adhi potoba mag vithoba” (first fill up our stomachs then worry about gods) to counteract objections to working with Dalits.129 Khambe organized large meetings of tenants with attendance ranging from 10,000 to 15,000 in Khed, Chiplun and Dapoli at the end of 1937.130 Communists, Socialists and Ambedkarites jointly organized a march of about 20,000 peasants to Bombay Council Hall on 12 January 1938. The main organizers were K.V. Chitre, Indulal Yagnik, D.V. Pradhan, Lalji Pendse and S.S. Mirjakar.131 This political camaraderie, however, was short-lived and was torn apart in one full swoop. The coming of the war proved to be a critical moment and all political groups now started following different trajectories. In a meeting of Mahars at Ahmednagar on 26 December 1939, Ambedkar stated that the government was now engaged in a war and it was the proper time for them to get their grievances redressed. He demanded sufficient Watan lands for Mahars and criticized heavy land assessment on such lands.132 During 1940–41, Ambedkar mobilized the Mahars of Sinnar taluqa (Ahmednagar) against the increased judi (quit rent) charged on the watan lands. Mahar watandars stopped payment of increased judi during 1940–41. The agitation subsided only when the government order suspended the collection of enhanced judi.133 Tensions also emerged in the unified tenant movement in the Konkan region. Mahars refused to participate in the Ganpati festival in MaujTarode village (Kolaba District). The Maratha-Kunbi tenants sided with the village khot and threatened Mahars with retaliation. Mahars then made an idol out of flour and filled it with jaggery. They went to sea but instead of submerging it, as was the custom, they cut 127

Omvedt, Dalits and Democratic Revolution, p. 196. Janata, 1 January 1938. 129 Omvedt, Dalits and Democratic Revolution, pp. 196–97. 130 Janata, 8 January 1938. 131 Ibid., 15 January 1938. 132 Cited from Krishnan Bhaskaran, Quit India Movement: A People’s Revolt in Maharashtra, Mumbai, 1999, pp. 135–36. 133 Land Revenue Administration Report, Bombay, 1940–41, MSA, Bombay, p. 36. 128

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off its head and ate it, challenging the god to produce a miracle. This defiance infuriated the Marathas and Kunbis, but they could do little beyond subjecting the Mahars to petty harassment.134 The incident only highlighted the fact that the bonhomie between Dalits and tenants exploited by caste Hindus was over and Dalit leaders again started to harp on the separate identity of the Dalits. Ambedkar established the All-India Scheduled Caste Federation in July 1942. N. Shivaraj was elected its president and P.N. Rajbhoj acted as the general secretary. The Federation passed resolutions condemning the Cripps Mission proposals as they failed to consider the interests of the Dalits. It stressed the separate identity of the Dalits and demanded separate budgetary proposals for the education of Untouchables at the provincial level and proportional representation for Dalits in legislatures, local bodies and government jobs.135 Meanwhile, Ambedkar became the labour member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council (1942–46). He secured 81/3 per cent reservation in government appointments for the Scheduled Caste in 1943, which was raised to 12¼ per cent in 1946. The ministry of education adopted a scheme of post-matriculation scholarships for the Scheduled Caste students in 1944.136 The Scheduled Caste Federation launched a satyagraha on 15 July 1946 in Poona under the leadership of P.N. Rajbhoj against the Cabinet Mission Plan for not making provisions for separate Dalit representation in the Constituent Assembly. In the meantime, Ambedkar who had been elected to the Constituent Assembly, became the chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution and became the law minister of free India.137 To conclude, while Gandhi tried to link the issue of cultural oppression and domination with the socio-economic betterment of the life of the “Harijans”, Ambedkar began his political career with a radical attack on caste. In the second phase, he organized tenants against the economic exploitation of the khots in the Konkan region. He secured certain concessions for the Scheduled Castes 134

Cited from Janata, 23 November 1940 in Omvedt, Dalits and Democratic Revolution, p. 205. 135 See Kshirsagar, Dalit Movement in India, pp. 76–77; and Bhaskaran, Quit India Movement: A People’s Revolt in Maharashtra, Mumbai, 1999 pp. 136–37. 136 Kshirsagar, Dalit Movement in India, pp. 77–79; and Zelliot, “Congress and the Untouchables”, p. 192. 137 Kshirsagar, Dalit Movement in India, pp. 78–79.

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in government services during 1942–46 as the labour member of the Viceroy's executive. These concessions were further strengthened in the Constitution of independent India drafted under his chairmanship. The shifting political learnings of Ambedkar, therefore, did not create any “autonomous radical space” as Omvedt gives us to believe. Such a political trajectory was gradually assimilated with the needs of the state. Gandhi adopted the path of moderation and persuasion. As the leader of the national liberation struggle, he combined the issues of caste oppression, class exploitation and national oppression in a subtle way, giving the national issue the primacy it deserved in the era of colonial rule.138 Despite Ambedkar’s vitality and vivacity in espousing the cause of the most exploited and downtrodden strata of society, Ambedkar did not associate with the anti-colonial agitations. Was it because he hoped, like the Satyasodhaks, for a long period of benevolent paternal rule by the British government, during which the lower castes would have time to acquire skills and resources needed to take up their rightful place in society? Ambedkar had a clear-cut perception of the nature of the colonial state and he was aware that it ignored the interests of the Dalits, and though it did provide employment to them, did not place the Untouchables in administrative authority over the caste Hindus. He also favoured a responsible democratic polity in place of the existing bureaucratic colonial state apparatus. He was on the side of a Swaraj Constitution, but being alive to the economic and social power of the powerful caste Hindus, he demanded political and educational safeguards for the Dalit people.139

138 See Bipan Chandra, Indian National Movement: The Long-Term Dynamics, New Delhi, 1988 for an assiduous and thorough exposition of this viewpoint. 139 I am indebted to my friend Dr Sarvar Kumar Chahal for this perception of Ambedkar. Ambekdar’s anti-colonial perceptions, as pointed out by him, can be seen in a number of places especially in Vasant Moon, ed., Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol. 5, pp. 16–17, 104–9 and in Bhagwan Das (compiled), Selected Speeches of Dr Baba Saheb B.R. Ambedkar, Vol. I, Jalandhar, 1963, pp. 8–11.

FIVE

Crowd Vigour and Social Identity: The Quit India Movement in Western India The present chapter is an attempt to re-examine a few significant questions relating to crowd actions, their nature and their linkages and communication with the articulation of social identity in the context of western India during the Quit India Movement. In social history, scholars try to trace, interpret and transcribe “the hidden transcript”. They engage in efforts to reproduce and record “the silences” in order to illuminate the structure of collective subjectivity. This may be a useful exercise in periods of disguised resistance. However, in a period of open, purposive, observable or manifest crowd behaviour, crowd activity itself reveals and indicates the mentality and the autonomous human actions from which a singular narrative can be retold. In this chapter we will deal with the various dimensions of mass activity in the rural areas of the Bombay Province, such as destructiveness, spontaneity, social composition and social identity besides re-examining the historiographical and theoretical issues related to these aspects.

The Theory and Historiography of Crowd Behaviour Collingwood sets the agenda of historiography in idealist terms. The object of a historian, according to him, is to discern the thoughts

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of its (that is, history’s) agents. He further broadens this to include “the corporate mind of a community or an age”.1 As historians, we deal with collectivities that mould many social-cultural institutions of our society. However, “the collective subjectivity” of a society is in itself insufficient to recapture its past. The past includes the autonomous human actions productive of radical novelty. To quote Dupuy: “Acting is the human power to beget histories, to set processes in action through the network of human relations.”2 The question arises: which coordinates of the multidimensional social grid (class, religion, caste, gender, ethnicity, etc.) are significant in the investigation of active historical processes? A recent approach to Indian historiography, propounded in the series on Subaltern Studies (edited by Ranajit Guha), generally insists that the oppressed and the dominated classes (called “subaltern” classes) have their own spontaneous, traditional and generally more radical methods of resistance, and that these developed in India independently of the nationalist leadership which sought to suppress or divert them into channels useful to the “élite” leaders. Thus, “subaltern” historiography stresses a kind of unique collective subjectivity of the oppressed and dominated classes. In analysing the factors that determine the identities that are selected as poles of activation, the “Subaltern” School subsumes various identities based on caste, class and gender under the rubric of “subaltern”. The binary fission of the entire lived and perceived social experience into “élite” and “subaltern” categories is not very convincing. Second, “subaltern” identity is treated as something rigid, timeless, unchanging and an undifferentiated conglomerate. Third, the role of the dominant culture and ideology of the “élite” in shaping “subaltern” identities is negated in the name of the autonomous domain of “subaltern” politics. “Subaltern” historiography, while claiming to fracture history writing still perpetuates a unitary conception of history. It stresses certain unchangeable, rigid and fixed modes of crowd behaviour, which are termed spontaneous, violent and ferocious in pattern; and which (it believes) are periodically activated. Gyanendra Pandey, for instance, fits the Quit India Movement into a vision 1

R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, Madras, 1989, pp. 213–19. Jean-Pierre Dupuy, “Myths of the Information Society”, in Kathleen Woodward, ed., The Myths of Information: Technology and Post-Industrial Culture, London, 1980, p. 11. 2

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of history that runs from one violent outbreak to another.3 This vision of history assumes, consciously or unconsciously, the existence of predetermined psychic structures in the popular mind. It also assumes, like Marxian dialectics, a unilinear progression of social development through leaps. Gradual processes are simply reduced to a process through which a leap is prepared and evoked.4 However, if history ever follows a set pattern, it is just akin to what Lorenz calls the zigzag path of phylogenesis. Such a notion of history is based on the assumption that nothing extant has ever existed before and nothing that happens has happened before.5 Gustav Lebon was the first social psychologist to pay serious attention to the phenomenon of crowd behaviour. Lebon described the crowd as a psychological entity characterized by the presence of a collective mind. Two major attributes of the collective mind are: (i) disappearance of all individual and particular selfconsciousness in the members of the group, leading to the emergence of instincts and the commonly shared attributes of the species; (ii) the flow of affective and cognitive elements in the same direction. Moreover, Lebon portrayed the empirical characteristics of crowd behaviour such as heightened emotional sensitivity, impetuosity, capriciousness, increased suggestibility, credulity, personal disinterestedness and exaggerated and one-sided opinion.6 Freudian psychoanalysis traced crowd behaviour to the submergence of heterogeneous individual entities into a homogeneous collectivity due to regression, which produced conditions conducive for the emergence of repressed unconscious instinctual impulses. Freud attributed suggestibility in crowd behaviour to a form of group hypnosis. Although, he emphasized the spontaneity, the violence and the ferocity of the crowd, he also recognized that under the influence of suggestion, groups were capable of high achievements in the form of abnegation, sacrifice and devotion to an ideal. Psychoanalysis posited a substitution of libidinal cathexes by the affective ties with the other members of the group, 3

Gyanendra Pandey, ed., The Indian Nation in 1942, Calcutta, 1988, p. 122. See Georgi Plekhanov, Selected Philosophical Writings, p. 602 for the Marxian notion of social development. 5 Lorenz, The Waning of Humaneness, pp. 19–27. 6 Cited in Robert E. Park, The Crowd and the Public and Other Essays, Chicago, 1972, pp. 12–16. 4

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the leader and even an abstract idea.7 The basic weakness of such analysis is that crowd behaviour is seen as an immutable entity. It fails to explain how the crowd develops a common interest in an object or displays similar emotional bias and why the crowd selects particular targets and omits others from attack in the absence of social processes.8 “Subaltern” historiography inherits the model of spontaneous, violent and destructive crowd behaviour from early social psychology. However, it traces such violent, destructive crowd behaviour to the autonomous social experience of class exploitation, caste, gender or ethnic oppression, or the religious experience of the “subaltern” groups, which act in opposition to the “élite” domination. Thus, in the words of Gyanendra Pandey, during 1942 the message of destruction coexisted uneasily in many places with Gandhi’s principle of non-violence. Pandey also stresses the role of spontaneous peasant organization in shaping the contours of crowd behaviour.9 Another historian, Max Harcourt, also believes that 1942 was a recrudescence of the violent kisan politics that emerged in the first four decades of the twentieth century. To quote Harcourt: “. . . volatile, predisposed to violence, the kisan represented the most cogent threat to the policy of restraint represented by the official Congressmen, the men of property”.10 Because of their propensity to attribute certain immutable proclivities to the subalterns, historians of this school are baffled by discriminatory target selection and purposive crowd behaviour during the Quit India Movement. Whenever they come across the salience of a new social identity hindering the influence of subaltern identity as defined by them, they are compelled to superimpose some arbitrary factors to account for the new situation. For instance, the lack of anti-landlord sentiments and absence of attacks on feudal elements in 1942 is assigned by Gyanendra Pandey to the circumstances which did not give the mass movement either time or 7 Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, London, 1967, pp. 6–23. 8 Philip Wexter appropriately remarks that the abstraction of human interaction from the concrete social-historical context has been the central blind spot of social psychology. See Philip Wexler, Critical Social Psychology, London, 1983, p. 2. 9 Pandey, The Indian Nation, pp. 134–44. 10 Max Harcourt, “Kisan Populism and Revolution in Rural India: The 1942 Disturbances in Eastern U.P. and Bihar”, in D.A. Low, ed., Congress and the Raj: Facets of Indian Struggle in 1917–47, London, 1977, pp. 328–29.

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space to produce a second, more radical wave of revolt. What hampered this culmination, Pandey further argues, was the brutal, effective and quick repression of the British government. As a result of which in most places where the movement survived it was a sort of hit-and-run guerrilla campaign.11 David Hardiman assigns to war-time high prices the same inhibitory role when explaining the absence of a no revenue campaign in Gujarat during the Quit India Movement.12 Max Harcourt accounts for the absence of a no rent campaign in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar during 1942 in the same way. Harcourt does not furnish any information as to what happened to the rent and debt obligations of the kisans which might have varied throughout the region, but his general argument is that as the prices of agricultural produce rose due to war-time demand, and as many peasants were selling part of their produce in the market, they found it easier to pay their rents. This, according to Harcourt led to “leveling out of rent demands and curtailment of foreclosure proceedings”.13 Biswamoy Pati has, however, tried to show elements of anti-feudal struggle during 1942 in Orissa.14 But such instances are confined to the princely states whose praja perceived them as being part and parcel of the colonial structure. They were, therefore, well suited to be the target of popular fury. We may wonder why the subaltern groups could not make use of hit-and-run guerrilla attacks against their immediate oppressors especially the landlords, a method so successfully employed against the powerful colonial state and its symbols. Second, the explanation in terms of war-time prosperity is also arbitrary as it neglects the fact that this prosperity had a differential impact on the various sections of the peasantry. While the war-time boom in agricultural prices benefited the rich peasants and landlords, it had a very adverse effect on the livelihood of the poor cultivators and agricultural labourers.15 The “subaltern” historians fail to realize that in 1942 open class hostility was 11

Pandey, The Indian Nation, p. 4. David Hardiman, “The Quit India Movement in Gujarat”, in Pandey, The Indian Nation, pp. 98–99. 13 Harcourt, “Kisan Populism”, pp. 333–38. 14 Biswamoy Pati, “The Climax of Popular Protest: The Quit India Movement in Orissa”, IESHR, 29, 1, 1992, pp. 1–35. 15 Stephen Henningham, “Quit India in Bihar and the Eastern United Provinces: The Dual Revolt”, in Ranajit Guha, ed., Subaltern Studies II, New Delhi, 1983, pp. 138– 39. 12

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inhibited neither by war-time prosperity nor the severe repression unleashed by the colonial state, but because the alternative social identity of nationalism became salient, cognitively preponderant and activated. Historian George Rude, as well as psychologist N.J. Smelser rejected the theories of Lebon and Freud. Rude analysed crowd protest in France and Britain during their transition from a preindustrial to an industrial society. He investigated crowd protest in terms of social conditions, the overt behaviour of the crowd and the social consequences of such behaviour.16 Smelser listed six major determinants of crowd behaviour whose interactions determine all forms of collective actions. His social determinants are: (i) structural conduciveness or the characteristics of the structure; (ii) structural strain based on the ambiguities, deprivations, conflicts and discrepancies; (iii) growth and spread of a generalized belief which identifies the source of strain, attributes certain meanings to that source and specifies certain characteristic response appropriate to the strain; (iv) precipitatory or immediate factors; (v) mobilization of participants for action; and (vi) the operation of social control.17 Smelser’s paradigm provides a useful tool for the analysis of crowd behaviour. The colonial structure had in-built structural characteristics which were liable to produce strain and conflict, which was accentuated by years of agitation and propaganda by the nationalist leadership. The precipitatory factors were many—the disregard of the symbolic protest of individual satyagraha by the British government during 1941, the war-time situation leading to the resignation of the Congress ministries and the failure of the Cripps Mission. The “do or die” mantra of Mahatma Gandhi served as a powerful instrument of mass mobilization and finally the brutal and severe repression of the colonial state served as a regressive mode of social control.18 16

George Rude, The Crowd in History: A Study of Popular Disturbances in France and England: 1730–1848, London, 1964. 17 Neil J. Smelser, Theory of Collective Behaviour, New York, 1962, pp. 15–17. 18 These social dimensions have been thoroughly discussed in the historical literature of 1942. See Francis Hutchins, Spontaneous Revolution: The Quit India Movement, Delhi, 1971; Arun Chandra Bhuyan, Quit India Movement: The Second World War and Indian Nationalism, New Delhi, 1975; Bipan Chandra, Mridula Mukherjee, Aditya Mukherjee, K.N. Pannikar and Sucheta Mahajan, India’s Struggle for Independence, New Delhi, 1988; Pandey, ed., The Indian Nation, Calcutta, 1988.

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The structural strain increased because of the contradiction between the professed British war goal of democracy and their failure to apply this in a colonial context. The Indians experienced provincial autonomy during 1937–39, which established an equality of legitimacy for the Congress organization. Therefore, the natural next step for the Congress was to contend for supremacy. In such circumstances, the nationalist leadership, and especially Gandhi, favoured a more militant movement—a movement, which could use violence in a non-violent way. Now Gandhi was prepared to define his non-violence in terms of a spontaneous resort to violence in self-defence.19 Smelser’s theory, however, fails to explain why the same structural determinants produce different reactions and generalized beliefs in different sections of society. It also fails to explain the dynamic interchangeability among the various social identities. There is considerable amount of evidence to suggest the salience of other social identities during the Quit India Movement although Panigrahi contends that the Quit India Movement brought within its fold Indians from all sections and classes, irrespective of distinctions of caste, creed, community or religion.20 Can we explain these aberrations in the onward march of Indian nationhood through negative reasoning, by considering them as detours that ought not have taken place? For instance, Muslims in many areas did not participate in the movement, although there were no communal clashes.21 The Baraiya Rajputs or Dharlas in some cases actively opposed the movement in Gujarat.22 The Mahars in Maharashtra also stayed away from the movement.23 The social identity theory of John C. Turner resolves the problem of simultaneous operation and activation of various social identities in a particular situation as well as the problem of convergence and interchangeability of social identities at the individual and 19

Cited in Hutchins, Spontaneous Revolution, p. 282. D.N. Panigrahi, Quit India and Struggle for Freedom, New Delhi, 1984, p. 23. 21 Chandra et al., eds, India’s Struggle for Independence, p. 468; Hardiman, “The Quit India Movement in Gujarat”, in Pandey, ed., The Indian nation, Calcutta, 1988, pp. 91–100, also attests to the non-participation of Muslims in Ahmedabad. 22 Weekly Report, DM, Kaira, 7 September 1942; Home/Special File No. 800(74)(4)III, 1941–43, MSA, Bombay. 23 Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraph 986, 1942, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 20

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social levels. The basic assumptions of Turner’s theory are as follows: (a) The self-concept is a set of cognitive representation of self available to a person. (b) The self-concept comprises many different components and every individual possesses multiple concepts of self. (c) The functioning of the social self is situation-specific. The particular self-concepts tend to be activated in specific situations producing specific self-images. Any particular self-concept tends to be salient, activated and cognitively preponderant or operative as a function of the interaction between the characteristics of the perceiver and the situation.24 In Turner’s paradigm, the social self is a sort of continuum covering identities ranging from the personal, family, caste, locality, ethnicity, class and nation to a wider human species identity. In a given situation, there is always functional antagonism between the salience of one level of identity and the other levels. The salience of one level leads to the inhibition of other identities. Moreover, as these identities are the product of specific circumstances, they are easily interchangeable. The advantage of the social self theory is that it easily accounts for aberrations like the non-participation of certain groups in the Quit India Movement by the operation of social identities, which provided an alternative to the identity of nationhood. Thus, it explains the aloofness of the Muslims and Mahars in the Bombay Province. The political trajectories of some prominent leaders lay bare how they swap identities over a period of time. Keshavrao Jedhe was an important leader of the non-brahmins. He organized in the 1920s Shivaji melas in Pune in which libellous songs written by Govind Rao Jawalkar against brahmins were sung. Keshavrao Jedhe along with Govindrao Jawalkar, Bhaurao Patil and Shripatrao Shinde moved away from the non-brahmin Party during 1925–27 as they disapproved of a compliant, or rather supplicant, attitude 24

John C. Turner, Michael A. Hogg, Penelope J. Oakes, Stephen D. Reicher and Margret S. Wetherell, Rediscovering the Social Group: A Self-Categorisation Theory, Oxford, 1987, pp. 42–67.

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towards the British prevalent among members of the non-brahmin party. Keshavrao Jedhe participated in the Gandhian Salt Satyagraha and civil disobedience and was closely associated with N.V. Gadgil during 1930–47. After Independence, Jedhe again moved away from the Congress Party, which he described as a party of the landed gentry. He founded the Workers and Peasants Party in 1952, rejoined the Congress in 1954 but participated in the Goa and Maharashtra Ekkikaran Movement against the compulsion to follow directives issued by the party.25 Faguji Bansode (1870–1946) was a pre-eminent radical leader who in his later years turned away from radicalism, identified himself with Hinduism through devotion to the Mahar Saint Chokamela.26 Many Dalit leaders fought against Brahmanism and caste hierarchy, but some even went over to the Hindu Mahasabha, like, for instance, G.A. Gavai of Nagpur.27 Pandurang Mahadeo Bapat renowned as Senapati Bapat, was a militant nationalist in his early political career. Later, he shifted his political course and became a Gandhian satyagrahi. He, however, combined social reform, trade unionism and Gandhian non-violent activities in his politics.28 Vasudev Balwant Gogte, a disciple of Savarkar, who was called Hotson Gogte for having fired shots at Governor Hotson in 1930, accepted Gandhian methods in the late 1930s, but rejoined the Hindu Mahasabha in 1942.29 Shri Madhukar Deval was a militant nationalist of the Sarvarkar brand and joined the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). He, however, become disillusioned with the RSS as he was not allowed to participate in the Quit India Movement. He started to work for the uplift of the Bhils in Malegaon in 1945, left the RSS in 1948 and worked for the social welfare of Dalits in the Sangli District of Maharashtra.30 Balkrishna Deorukhkar started his political career as a Congressman, but later joined Ambedkar’s Independent Labour Party.31 We will describe the nebulous and 25

Gore, Non-Brahmin Movement, pp. 63–69. Omvedt, Dalit Visions, p. 35. 27 Ibid., p. 39. 28 H.M. Ghodke, Revolutionary Nationalism in Western India, Delhi, 1990, pp. 159–67. 29 Ibid., pp. 188–92. 30 Vasant Deshpande, Struggle of the Deprived for Development: The Mhaisal Untouchables, Pune, 1983. 31 Kshirsagar, Dalit Movement in India, p. 208. 26

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fluctuating visions of Nana Patil, the “hero” of Satara’s parallel government in a subsequent section of this chapter. Recent studies of crowd behaviour focus on the purposive, change-inducing behaviour of the crowd expressed in the consistent patterns of mobilization, crowd composition, internal organization, discriminate selection of certain key symbolic targets and recurrent expression of key ideas involved in this symbolism, which moves diverse individuals in concert.32 In other words, they study the operation of a particular social identity as indicated by the collective actions. The systematic selection of symbolic targets of the colonial administration during the Quit India Movement by the crowds and small guerrilla-type groups (discussed in the next section) is a clear indicator of the assertion of the powerful social identity of nationalism. However, exceptions to crowd behaviour of this type can be explained only in terms of alternative group identities. The patidars of Anklav in Borsad taluqa, who were the most ardent supporters of the nationalist cause, attacked Chambar houses on 14 August 1943. The reason for this attack was that the patidars believed that the death of a large number of cattle in epidemics was a result of the black magic practised by the Chambar community.33 Another kind of anomaly in crowd behaviour is provided by the cases of food riots during the Quit India Movement. Although attacks on private property during the Quit India Movement were minimal, and confined to property owned by loyalist local village-level officials such as patels (the village headman), kulkarnis (village accountant), talathis and shanbhogs (the names for village accountants in different regions);34 the scarcity of food grains and war-time high prices did lead to the looting of food grains in a few cases in Maharashtra. Just before the beginning of the Quit India Movement, there were rumours of imminent looting of corn shops at a weekly bazaar of Bhadgaon in Khandesh. In July 1942, around 200 persons tried to reduce prices through threats of force, but police intervention prevented any serious 32

A few significant studies on these lines include Mark Harrison, Crowds and History: Mass Phenomenon in English Towns, 1790–1835, Cambridge, 1988; Nicholas Rogers, “Popular Protest in the Early Hanovarian London”, Past and Present, 79, May 1978, pp. 70–110; Andrew Gordon, “The Crowd and Politics in Imperial Japan: Tokyo 1905–1918”, Past and Present, 121, November 1988, pp. 145–70. 33 Weekly Report, DM, Kaira, 23 August 1943; Home/Special File No. 800(74)(4)III, 1941–43, MSA, Bombay. 34 See next section on crowd behaviour in this chapter.

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rioting. In the last week of July 1942, a crowd looted the stocks of a cheap-gain shop at Nasik. The police suspected the hand of local Congress activists in this as they had addressed a crowd of 5,000 people there earlier.35 The mamlatdar (revenue officer in charge of a taluqa) of Olpad in Surat District reported the looting of two grain shops and a liquor shop at Pinjrat by a mob on 17 August 1942.36 The authorities also reported the looting of a grain store at Karad in Satara on 9 September 1942 and six grain stores at Bhiwandi in Thana District on 27 December 1942. In a more serious case of rioting around the same time, large crowds, including jobless millhands, looted about 30 grain shops and stores at Dhulia in West Khandesh District due to an acute shortage of grains.37

Crowd Phenomena and the Nature of the Mass Upsurge in the Bombay Province: 9 August–10 September 1942 It has been argued by David Hardiman that in western India the Quit India Movement was not very dramatic and in rural areas there was no mass insurrection. Hardiman argues that it was only in East Khandesh, Satara, Broach and Surat that there were largescale guerrilla attacks by the peasants on government property, lines of communications and on loyalist elements known for their sympathy to British rule.38 This is an underestimation of the intensity of the mass upsurge in the Bombay countryside. In Bombay, unlike the rest of India, the interval between the urban and rural upsurge was very short. On 9 August 1942, a huge crowd gathered at a Maruti temple in Belgaum District and dispersed only when lathi-charged twice. Police opened fire at Bassein in Thana District to control a large crowd on 11 August 1942, killing one person and injuring several others. On the same day, a large gathering stoned the kutcheri, the school, as well as the houses of the local officers at Sinnar in Nasik District. A police constable was forced to lead 35

Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraphs 670 and 733, 1942, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 36 Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(7), 1942, MSA, Bombay. 37 Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraph 858, 1942 and paragraph 15, 1943, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 38 Hardiman, “The Quit India Movement in Gujarat”, p. 77.

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the procession with a Congress flag. The crowd could not be controlled despite repeated lathi-charges and, ultimately, police firing injured four persons.39 Similarly, a big crowd forced some policemen to take off their uniforms at Chinchani in Thana District on 12 August 1942 and compelled them to join in their procession. The crowd then burnt the court and its records.40 Another crowd stoned the police and attacked a school building at Chalisgaon in East Khandesh on the day when a local Congress leader was arrested.41 The crowds which participated in the Quit India Movement followed a strategy of careful selection of certain key targets and also identified themselves with the nationalist leadership. The crowd cannot be simply treated as a mindless, manipulable, howling rabble or a bundle of unfocused rage. We find that during the Quit India Movement, violence against individuals was minimal. Even Gandhi regarded these instances of violence but as a flea-bite in proportion to the vast size of the country.42 However, there was widespread intimidation of local village officials such as patels, kulkarnis and shanbhogs. The key targets of the rural masses were policemen, local village officials, government property, railways and telegraphs, forest chowkies, timber shops, district and local board schools and dharmshalas, mail bags and mail runners and the chavdis (the village hall where village officials did their work; also known as chora). All these were concrete symbols of the colonial administration. But even in the case of attacks on government property, such actions were geared towards systematic dislocation rather than demolition.43 Mass activities followed a consistent pattern of mobilization and recurrently used certain key symbols and images. These crowd actions were the clear indicators of a translation of the national identity into collective actions. Here we cite some examples. A huge crowd of 2,500–3,000 stoned the police at Dakor in Kaira District on 13 August 1942. In the ensuing clash two policemen 39

MSA, A Calendar of Quit India Movement in Bombay Presidency, Bombay, 1985, pp. 3–9. 40 Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(8), 1942 and Home/Special File No. 1110(21)II, 1942, MSA, Bombay. 41 Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(10), 1942–43, MSA, Bombay. 42 M.K. Gandhi, Gandhi’s Correspondence with the Government: 1942–44, Ahmedabad, 1957, p. 139. 43 Hutchins, Spontaneous Revolution, pp. 282–83.

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and two members of the crowd died and several were injured.44 Another clash between a crowd and the police took place at Chaklashi in Kaira District on 14 August 1942.45 On the same day, a large crowd tried to burn down a government dispensary and post office at Chinchani in Thana District. Three persons were killed and eight were injured in a police firing there.46 However, crowd reaction was not always spontaneous. In some places, the local Congress leadership channellized it. Sakharam Patel, a local Congress leader, mobilized peasants and villagers from the villages around Palghar in Thana District especially from Shirgaon, Nangaon, Murbar, Dhansar, Navali and Satpati on 14 August 1942 to protest against the arrest of another local Congress leader. The crowd’s intention was to burn down the kutcheri at Palghar. The crowd took shelter in the local Ramji Temple to avoid repeated lathi-charges by the police and stoned the police. The police ultimately gained control opening fire and killing five persons and injuring 10 others.47 There were confrontations between the police and crowds at Malegaon (Nasik District) and Rahata (Ahmednagar District) leading to police firing at both the places on 14 August 1942. A similar incident took place at Sangahmeshwar (Belgaum District) when a crowd of 5,000 persons stoned the police.48 The villagers of Aslali in Ahmedabad District started a boycott of village public servants because they supported the colonial state. In some villages of Ahmedabad, efforts were made to boycott policemen and stop to supply of milk, vegetables, etc., to them. A serious riot took place at Amalsad in Surat District on 15 August 1942, when the police arrested some persons. A large crowd of 3,000 people destroyed railway property, removed rails, cut telegraph wires and burnt the records of the post office.49 A rumour 44

Home/Special File No. 800(74)(4), III, 1941–43, MSA, Bombay. Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(4), 1942, MSA, Bombay. 46 Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(8), 1942, MSA, Bombay. 47 Bombay Provincial Congress Committee File No. 25, 1942, and Home/Special File No. 1110(21)-II, 1942, MSA, Bombay. 48 MSA, A Calendar of Quit India, p. 18 and Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(12), 1942, MSA, Bombay. 49 Deputy Superintendent of Police (henceforth DSP), Ahmedabad, Daily Report on Political Situation, 14 August 1942 and Additional DSP, Ahmedabad, Daily Report C/185, dated 15 August 1942; and DM, Surat to the Secretary, Government of Bombay, Home/Special Department, 24 August 1942; Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(3), 1942, MSA, Bombay. 45

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that Sane Guruji, the well-known Congress leader, would address a meeting at Amalner in East Khandesh on 15 August 1942 attracted a large crowd of 5,000 people. The atmosphere was so emotionally charged that Mrs Lilawati, wife of Dr Uttamrao Patel— the local Congress leader—fainted while delivering her speech. The assembled crowd then burnt down the post office, the subjudge’s court, the railway station and a few railway coaches.50 A large crowd of about 3,500 persons stoned the mamlatdar’s office at Saundatti in Belgaum District on the same day. The local officers released some arrested persons in order to appease the crowd.51 There were strikes in many villages of Ahmedabad and Surat on 16 and 17 August to mourn the death in jail of Mahadev Desai, a prominent Congress leader of Gujarat.52 Such actions were clear indicators of the identification of the villagers with the nationalist cause. Apart from direct attacks on the symbols of colonial power, the intimidation of local village officials and police patels53 became a major tactic of the villagers. This tactic became more pronounced in the later phases of the Quit India Movement. However, agitators made use of intimidatory tactics against local officials and patels in Kaira District even in the initial phase of the movement.54 Extensive damage to railways lines was reported from Surat District on the night of 17 August 1942. The railway track was dismantled at several places between Bardoli and Chalthan, and between Madhi and Timberva on the Tapi Valley line. A crowd also attacked the railway station and burnt the records at Timberva.55 Hutchins describes the Quit India Movement as a spontaneous revolution. Panigrahi calls it totally “directionless and uncontrolled”.56 Gyanendra Pandey traces the spontaneous trend in the Quit India Movement to the work of “autonomous forces that 50

Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(10), 1942; and Home/Special File No. 1110(125)A, 1942–43, MSA, Bombay. 51 MSA, A Calendar of Quit India, Bombay, 1985, p. 21. 52 Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(3) and 1110(6)-A(7), 1942, MSA, Bombay. 53 Village headmen entrusted with administrative and policing functions in the villages were called police patels; such headmen, when entrusted with revenuerelated functions, were called revenue patels. 54 Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(4), MSA, Bombay. 55 Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(7) and Home/Special File No. 1110(8)-B(1), 1942, MSA, Bombay. 56 Panigrahi, Quit India and Struggle for Freedom, p. 9.

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repeatedly challenged the notion of a necessary Congress leadership”. These forces, according to him, had their roots in “the farfrom-complete integration of the Indian economy, in the significant divide between the elite and the masses and in the long-standing traditions of militant resistance to class and state oppression”.57 The rapid spatial spread of the movement in the Bombay countryside also appears to reinforce the notion of spontaneity. The movement appears to have spread horizontally without any apparent control and direction throughout the province. In all the districts, we find a recurrent theme in the attacks on the symbols of colonial power. However, Satara remained relatively calm in August 1942 and became an important centre of crowd action from September 1942 onwards. Documents such as the “ABC of Dislocation” were unearthed at Nasik and they envisaged an elaborate plan for the formation of a nationwide guerrilla force, to be called the “Azad Dastas”.58 Such documents merely represented wish fulfilment although the British government used them to pin the responsibility on the Congress. The Viceroy himself, however, made a distinction between “Congress responsibility for the disturbances” and “Congress organization of the disturbances”. The former was undeniable but the latter was true to only a limited extent.59 The movement, however, was not purely unpremeditated. In many cases, the underground Congress and Socialist leaders advocated concrete measures like sabotage of communications, non-payment of taxes and picketing of government offices. In many cases, activists themselves organized subversive activities in the villages.60 The usual method adopted by the agitators was to visit the villages in the night, deliver speeches and disappear before the arrival of the police.61 An important question to be resolved is why the same targets were selected in all the attacks, despite the spontaneous or emergent crowd behaviour? How could it happen in the absence of preestablished situations, specific norms of relevance and institutionalized means of deliberation? The “subaltern” historiography’s 57

Pandey, ed., The Indian Nation, pp. 9–10. Home/Political File No. 3/64/43, NAI, New Delhi. 59 Home/Political File No. 3/31/42, NAI, New Delhi. 60 Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraphs 784 and 803, 1942, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 61 Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(10), 1942, MSA, Bombay. 58

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hypothesis of the absence of control by the “élite” leaders does not explain the limits to the process of norm-creation in such spontaneous situations. Hitesh Ranjan Sanyal points out that many items of mass activity adopted during the Quit India Movement had, in fact, been envisaged by the Congress leadership before the beginning of the movement. These included defence of the notion of armed resistance by Gandhi, complete freedom for every individual to choose his or her own method of struggle, total defiance of the colonial state including interference with communications, railways and the war effort and even setting up of a parallel government.62 Therefore, it appears that the binary cleavage of experience between separate domains is an artificial fissure created by “subaltern” historiography. Young people, especially students, played a prominent role in mass mobilization. There were two major disturbances in Belgaum on 17 August 1942. Students led both of them. High school students, joined by a large crowd at Nipani, destroyed a sentry box and a post office, cut telegraph wires and then advanced towards the police station. Police firing at this stage killed two persons but the crowd burnt the chavdi, the magistrate’s court and some toddy and liquor shops. The arrest of a few students at Bailhongal attracted a large crowd of 7,000 people who followed the police up to the police station. Later, four persons were killed in police firing.63 Students were at the forefront of the struggle in Kaira District also. They distributed leaflets about azadi (freedom). Police firing at the Adas station killed four students.64 The arrest of local Congress leaders often led to villagers clashing with the police. The crowds invariably tried to shield the political leaders. The arrest of a local Congress leader, Bhagwan Sakharam Bhusan, at Adgaon village of Erandol taluqa in East Khandesh led to a clash between the villagers and police, which culminated in the death of three persons in police firing.65 A large crowd of 1,000 persons gathered at the Modasa police station in Ahmedabad on 19 August 1942, as a sequel to the arrest of two local Congressmen, Ramanlal Mathuradas Gandhi and Mohanlal Gandhi and stoned the police 62

Hitesh Ranjan Sanyal, “The Quit India Movement in Medinapur District”, in Pandey, ed., The Indian Nation, pp. 19–21. 63 MSA, A Calendar of Quit India, pp. 25–26. 64 Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(4), 1942, MSA, Bombay. 65 Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(10), 1942, MSA, Bombay.

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station.66 On 21 August 1942, three policemen went to arrest some activists at Chinchpur-Ijade in Ahmednagar District. Five hundred villagers who detained them in a school overpowered them. One of the policemen managed to escape and reported the matter to the police headquarters. The next day, a large police party rescued the other detained policemen.67 Policemen from Pachora police station in East Khandesh went to arrest an absconder, Sapadu Bhadu, who was addressing a crowd of 2,000 people. When the sub-inspector and the mamlatdar tried to arrest him with the help of policemen, the crowd tried to prevent his arrest and stoned the police. Three persons were killed in the resultant police firing.68 The initial mass upsurge in the rural areas of the Bombay Province continued up to the middle of September 1942. After that guerrilla-type, small-band actions became more common. A large crowd of about 3,000 koli cultivators from Matwad, Karadi, Machhad and Kothmadi in Surat District fought against policemen at Matwad with lathis and dharias on 21 August 1942. In the fight, four persons including one policeman died. The crowd also snatched away four police muskets and two bayonets.69 The situation in the villages of Borsad, Anand and Thasra taluqas became so aggravated that a company of British troops was marched through the villages between 22 and 24 August 1942.70 Satara District, which remained relatively peaceful initially, also began to stir. Heavy damage was done to telegraph property at Yedini Pani and Itakare villages on the nights of 18 and 19 August 1942. Besides extensive cutting of wires, 17 telegraph poles were demolished. It appears that the action was planned at a meeting on 16 August in which the villagers including Ramoshis were addressed by the Congress absconders.71 The first half of September 1942 witnessed the most spectacular mass activity, which became very conspicuous and pronounced in 66

Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(3), 1942, MSA, Bombay. MSA, A Calendar of Quit India, pp. 33–34. 68 Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(10), 1942, MSA, Bombay. 69 Home/Special File No. 1110 (8)-B(1), 1942, MSA, Bombay and Secret Abstrats of Intelligence, paragraph 803, 1942, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 70 Home/Special File No. 800(74)(4), III, 1941–43, MSA, Bombay. 71 DSP, Satara (No. C/37), 22 December 1942 to Additional Secretary, Government of Bombay, Home Department, Home/Special File No. 1110(125)-A, 1942–43, MSA, Bombay. 67

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Satara District. A huge crowd of 3,000 people was led by the local activists Kurhade, Page and Dr Sohoni to attack the Tasgaon taluqa kutcheri on 3 September 1942. The crowd collected outside the court of the sub-judge at Tasgaon, forced him to stop work, wear a Gandhi cap and join in shouting slogans. Then the crowd marched towards the taluqa kutcheri. Nana Ramji Patel, the chief organizer an underground movement which started later in Satara and the leader of “Prati Sarkar” (protective government), waited outside the town to assist the crowd with a band of 50 men, some of whom were armed with guns. On reaching the kutcheri, the leaders of the procession sought the permission of the mamlatdar to hoist a Congress flag atop the building. When the mamlatdar allowed a few persons to hoist the flag, the crowd, sensing victory, demanded the release of Shevde, a political detenu. The mamlatdar refused this, but the person was shown to the crowd from a distance. The crowd dispersed at this stage. But in the process of dispersal, the crowd burnt down the district local board inspection bungalow at Bambavele and damaged telegraph property at Himani by uprooting 15 telegraph poles.72 This was, in the words of the prominent Congress leader of Satara, Y.B. Chavan, a typical case of the “symbolic capture of taluka kutcheries”.73 As pointed out earlier too, the trimmings and frills of political culture such as flags, banners, caps, hats and songs, usually play a very significant role and acquire symbolic and political weight in a social conflict.74 In the symbolic seizure of taluqa kutcheries, the Congress flag and the Gandhi cap gained currency as symbols of national identity. There were rumours of another attack on a taluqa kutcheri at Vita in Satara District. The administration made full bandobast (arrangement) at Vita but nothing transpired there.75 A large student demonstration took place at Ankola in Kanara District on 72

Weekly Report, DM, Satara, 10 September 1942, Home/Special File No. 800(74)(14), III, 1941–43, MSA, Bombay and Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraph 842, 1942, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 73 Y.B. Chavan, Oral Transcript, NMML, New Delhi. 74 See the study of such embellishments of political culture in James Epstein, “Understanding the Cap of Liberty: Symbolic Practice and Social Conflict in 19th Century England”, Past and Present, 122, February 1989; Paul A. Pickering, “Class without Words: Symbolic Communication in the Chartist Movement”, Past and Present, 112, August 1986, pp. 144–62. 75 Home/Special File No. 800(74)(14), III, 1941–43, MSA, Bombay.

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6 September 1942. The villagers around Ankola, numbering 1,000 to 1,500 also attempted a march in Ankola. The police prevented the march but the crowd mishandled a constable when he tried to arrest a person from the crowd.76 A crowd of 150 persons held up a goods train between Madhi and Bardoli in Surat District and forced the driver to sing “Vande mataram”. The crowd spared the driver as well as the train when the driver submitted to their demand. The incident took place on 7 September 1942.77 Several demonstrations took place in Satara District on 7 September 1942. The largest one was that which took place at the Malikaran Hills, where 3,000–3,500 people assembled and where the plan of an armed attack on the Islampur taluqa kutcheri was also announced.78 There were processions and demonstrations throughout the province on 9 September 1942 to mark the first monthly remembrance of the arrest of the Congress leadership.79 A crowd of 400 people hoisted a Congress flag on the PWD bungalow at Kadod in Surat District on that day.80 A crowd of 1,000 persons gathered at Nandurbar in West Khandesh at the initiative of students. The crowd stoned the police after the arrest of the main organizers. The police opened fire, killing five persons.81 A crowd of 2,000 people attempted another symbolic capture of a taluqa kutcheri at Waduj in Satara District on 7 September 1942. The crowd marched in two columns from two different directions. However, in the ensuing clash with the police, seven persons died and about 20 were injured.82 A similar attack was directed at the Islampur kutcheri in Satara on 10 September 1942. The crudely-armed crowds converged on the taluqa kutcheri from different directions. The crowds used slings to hurl stones at the kutcheri. The police quelled the disturbance by firing at them, killing one person and injuring several others.83 Another crudely-armed group marched to Mahad in Kolaba District on 10 September 1942 with the aim of looting 76

MSA, A Calendar of Quit India, p. 55. Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(7), 1942, MSA, Bombay. 78 Home/Special File No. 800(74)(14), III, 1941–43, MSA, Bombay. 79 MSA, A Calendar of Quit India, pp. 59–60. 80 Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(7), 1942, MSA, Bombay. 81 Home/Special File No. 1110(89), 1942–43, MSA, Bombay. 82 Home/Political File No. 3/15/43, NAI, Delhi. 83 Home/Special File No. 800(74)(14), III, 1941–43, MSA, Bombay; and Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraph 858, 1942, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 77

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the treasury and burning the post office. It was a pre-planned attack as the organizers had carried out clandestine propaganda in the surrounding villages before the attack. On the way to Mahad, the crowd captured a circle inspector and an aval karkun (a clerk in the revenue office). The crowd forced them to wear Gandhi caps. The aval karkun was compelled to take a Congress flag and lead the march. The crowd burnt the post office in the town. Later on, the crowd captured a sub-inspector, tied his hands with ropes and forced him to join the procession. When the police opened fire at the crowd, the captive government servants were used as shields. As a result, the aval karkun died in the firing. The crowd captured three muskets and some ammunition from the police. Five persons were killed in subsequent police firing. The whole incident appeared to have been a pre-planned one as telegraphic communication in the whole district was dislocated and roads leading to Mahad were either damaged or blocked.84 A large crowd of 4,000–5,000 marched at Ankola in Kanara District on 10 September 1942, and another mass demonstration by 3,000 persons was held at Gokaran in the same district.85 A large crowd of 5,000, led by the local leaders—Gulab Genaba Shelke, Madhavrao Shinde, Dnyabha Tatyaba Shelke, Nensukh Bhikamdas Marwari, Abdul Hussain Attar and Baburao Genoba Shelke—destroyed telegraph wires and poles, the post office and the railway station at Baramati in Poona District.86 It appears from the evidence at our disposal that the ambience of the Bombay countryside during the month of crowd activity following the Quit India Movement was characterized by changeinducing, fluid social situations in which supra-institutional forms of activity played a prominent part. However, even in this fluid social context there were limits to the process of norm-creation and the norms of mass activity were determined by the nationalist discourse. Crowd behaviour was partly coordinated by the local, ad hoc and underground leadership, which ensured the continuity of nationalist traditions. 84

Home/Political File No. 3/15/43, NAI, Delhi; Bombay Provincial Congress Committee, File No. 25, 1942, NMML, New Delhi; and MSA, A Calendar of Quit India, pp. 63–64. 85 MSA, A Calendar of Quit India, 1985, p. 63. 86 Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraph 842, 1942, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay.

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The Decline of Crowd Activity and the Emergence of the Karnataka Pattern After mid-September 1942, large-scale crowd actions disappeared from the rural areas of the Bombay Province. Now, anti-state activities assumed the form of coordinated attacks by smaller bands of unarmed or crudely-armed persons on certain symbolic targets. These techniques of guerrilla-type attacks and intimidations came to be known as the Karnataka pattern and ensured the continuation of the movement for a long period. The principal symbolic targets for the most part remained similar to the targets in the earlier phase. These targets were government property, policemen and police posts, post offices, revenue collection centres, forest chowkies, irrigation inspection bungalows, local board schools and dharamsalas (shelter houses), toddy shops, railway and telegraph property and the loyalist elements. A few typical cases of such attacks will make their nature clear. A band of 70–80 persons led by a local Congressman, who assumed the pseudonym of Dr Pol, tied up two policemen at Nandra in Jalgaon taluqa of Ahmednagar on the night of 14 September 1942. They took them to another village, Bhokar, some 14 miles away from Nandra and locked them up in schoolroom. The policemen escaped in the morning after breaking open the door.87 A gang of 75 persons led by the local Congress leaders, Chandrashekar M. Bhat and Raising Dhabai attacked the Vedach Police Station in Jamusar taluqa of Broach and Panch Mahals District on 22 September 1942. The band was armed with guns, dharias and bows and arrows. They snatched six muskets, eight bayonets and 220 cartridges along with some cash from the policemen.88 A small police party went to Kalve in Thana District on 24 September 1942 to arrest an absconder. They were attacked by a group of 11 persons while returning with the arrested person. Three policemen were injured in the clash.89 The villagers of Bavale, 87

DSP, East Khandesh to the Additional Secretary, Government of Bombay, Home Department No. A/3/145, 19 December 1942, Home/Special File No. 1110(125)-A, 1942–43, MSA, Bombay. 88 DSP, Broach and Panch Mahals, to the Additional Secretary, Government of Bombay, Home Department No. C/207, 28 December 1942, Home/Special File No. 1110(109)F, 1942, MSA, Bombay. 89 Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(8), 1942, MSA, Bombay.

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Kavitha and Adrola in Dholka taluqa of Ahmedabad expressed open hostility to policemen on duty during the last week of September 1942.90 A police party of four and the village police patel (village headman with policing functions) was attacked by a small band of 25 persons at Samgaon in Belgaum District on 14 October 1942. After throwing chilli powder in their eyes, the group managed to snatch away two muskets from the policemen. Villagers clashed with a military party at Khavakop and Kaligud in Belgaum on 5 November 1942 when the military tried to carry out combing operations for political saboteurs.91 A group of 200 people armed with axes, spears and guns attacked the Savlaj police station in Satara District on 27 October 1942. The leaders of the group were Nana Patil, Balya Kusha Mang and Dattu Dhangar. In the exchange of fire with the police, many were injured and one person was captured. The captured person died subsequently.92 Another band of 100 people attacked a small police party posted at the Ulware ferry in Kanara District on 27 November 1942 and captured four muskets from the police force.93 A group of 100 persons attacked the Sarbhan police outpost in Broach and Panch Mahals on 15 December 1942. In the clash one policeman was killed and the band captured six muskets and 120 cartridges.94 A group of 50 people attacked a police party, who were escorting four arrested “saboteurs” near Matwad in Surat District on 26 December 1942. In the scuffle, the raiders took away one police musket and rescued one arrested person.95 All such incidents were indicative of the declining hegemony of the colonial state and although the number of participants in such attacks was small compared to the crowd activity which took place during the first month of the Quit India Movement, the villagers identified with these bands and refused to cooperate with the CID officials in providing evidence against the political activists. The investigating officials often met with 90

Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(3), 1942, MSA, Bombay. MSA, A Calendar of Quit India, pp. 112 and 141. 92 Home/Special File No. 800(74)(14), III, 1941–43, MSA, Bombay and Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraph 977, 1942, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 93 MSA, A Calendar of Quit India, p. 169. 94 Home/Special File No. 1110(109)F, 1942, MSA, Bombay and Home/Political File No. 3/15/43, NAI, Delhi. 95 Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(7), 1942, MSA, Bombay. 91

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what the colonial administration described as a general conspiracy of silence.96 The village officials and their records were the other principal targets. Their image as the symbol of local oppression made them more vulnerable to such attacks. However, even among this group, village officials who were staunch supporters of the British government were singled out for attacks. Although physical assaults were not ruled out, methods, which involved less harm, were more common. Damaging crops and property was the more usual, plebian mode of attack. A group of 200 persons belonging to the patidar, brahmin and bania communities completely destroyed the chora (the village hall where the village officials worked) of Piplav in Kaira District on 9 September 1942. The patidars of Mitral in Nadiad taluqa of Kaira District socially boycotted the village patel, as he was instrumental in the arrest of two local activists who were distributing illegal newssheets in the villages.97 A loyalist police patel and his wife were injured in a bomb explosion at Sarbhan in Surat District on 7 October 1942.98 A large meeting of 3,000 patidars of Kaira District resolved on 12 October 1942 to socially boycott informers and collect arms for use against government servants.99 The house of a village patel at Orgam in Bardoli taluqa (Surat District) was burnt down when he refused to resign from his post. The haystacks of one police patel were burnt and cotton and jowar crops of the patels of Att and Sultanpore in Surat District were cut on 27 October 1942 in order to force them to join the movement.100 Such organized and collective intimidation of loyalist elements assumed serious proportions in Jalalpore taluqa of Surat. A group of 100 persons destroyed the chora at Kharsad in Jalalpore taluqa and burnt the village records at Kharsad, Sarav and Abrama on 4 November 1942. The group members carried lathis, dharias and spears and used masks to hide their identity. In similar incidents, the village revenue records, choras and chavdis were destroyed in many villages of Jalalpore taluqa and village patels and talathis 96

Fortnightly Reports, Bombay, October 1942, Home/Political File No. 18/10/42, NAI, Delhi. 97 Home/Special File No. 800(74)(4), III, 1941–43, MSA, Bombay. 98 Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(7), 1942, MSA, Bombay. 99 Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraph 965, 1942, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 100 Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(7), 1942, MSA, Bombay.

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(a stipendiary village accountant) were threatened despite the presence of a strong military force.101 Such incidents of collective fury were spread all over the province although the pitch and intensity varied from region to region. Several Congress “absconders” were moving about in the villages of Chikhodi taluqa in Belgaum District in early October 1942 in the guise of beggars and sadhus. Such underground activists stimulated the growth of politically-volatile situations in the rural areas. About 100 people dragged out the kulkarni (village accountant) of Morab in Dharwar District from his house, forced him to sit on a donkey and took out a procession on 17 October 1942.102 A group of 50 persons armed with axes, spears and lathis threatened the talathi of Pachumbri in Shirala Peta of Satara District and burnt the records of four villages kept with him on 24 December 1942.103 A band of 70 persons attacked four houses of kulkarnis and village patels at Bunder-Catti in Belgaum District on 17 January 1943 and decamped with the revenue records and guns.104 The bands concentrated on the destruction of revenue records in Belgaum District with a design to hamper revenue collection.105 There were also a few instances in which revenue collection centres were looted. When revenue collection was in progress at Tolgi in Belgaum District on 20 January 1943, about 100 persons, mingled with the villagers and then suddenly overpowered the police guards and village officials in the chavdi. They took away six muskets, 100 rounds of ammunition and Rs 2,305 besides destroying the village records.106 Another group of 200 people attacked the revenue collection centre at Honatti in Dharwar District on 16 February 1943 and looted five muskets, cartridges, police uniforms and Rs 800.107 Another group 101

Mamlatdar Jalalpore to the Collector, Surat, 6 September 1942; Daily Express Letter, DM, Surat, 6 November to 22 December 1942; Home/Special File No. 1110(6)-A(7), 1942, MSA, Bombay, and Home/Political File No. F/3/15/43, NAI, Delhi. 102 MSA, A Calendar of Quit India, pp. 105 and 116. 103 Weekly Report, DM, Satara; Home/Special File No. 800(74)(14), III, 1941–43, MSA, Bombay. 104 MSA, A Calendar of Quit India, p. 230. 105 Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraph I, 1943, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 106 Home/Political File No. F.3/15/43, NAI, New Delhi, and Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraph 75, 1943, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 107 Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraph 138, 1943, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay.

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of 50–60 persons armed with guns, spears and sticks attacked the chavdi at Kulwad in Tasgaon taluqa of Satara District on 14 April 1943. They beat up eight persons including the police patel and the assistant veterinary surgeon of Tasgaon and took away one gun, two swords, some cash and ornaments from the revenue patel’s house.108 Public Works Department bungalows and rest houses, forest depots, railway property, irrigation offices, police informers, mail bags and mail runners were the other principal targets of such underground bands especially in Satara District.109

The Social Composition of the Quit India Movement An important question regarding social movements is the identification of the participants. Epstein concludes that the national movement in the Bombay Province was basically one of the rising commercial farmers—patidars in Gujarat, Nadores in Kanara, and Lingayats in Belgaum and Dharwar districts.110 Such an analysis is based on the notion of concurrence between specific communities and a particular social class. While a peasant community is delineated on the basis of caste, the social class is a category based on relations of production. Therefore, this type of analysis ignores the internal class differentiation within the peasant castes. It also negates the participation of other communities and groups in the national movement. The Rudolphs’ refute a priori theories according to which a person belonging to a particular class “exhibits a distinct orientation”.111 The Quit India Movement reveals that although some groups and communities kept relatively aloof from the movement, the villagers as a community did not help the British administration and the investigating agencies.112 The 108

Home/Special File No. 800(74)(14), III, 1941–43, MSA, Bombay. Weekly Report, DM, Satara, 3 and 19 December 1942 and 18 January and 4 November 1943, HS, No. 800(74)(14), III, 1941–43, MSA, Bombay. 110 S.J.M. Epstein, The Earthy Soil: Bombay Peasants and the Indian National Movement: 1917–1947, Delhi, 1988, pp. 85–95. 111 Llyod Rudolph and Sussane Rudolph, “Determinants and Varieties of Agrarian Mobilization”, in Meghnand Desai et al., eds, Agrarian Power and Agricultural Productivity in South Asia, Delhi, 1984. 112 Fortnightly Reports, Bombay, October 1942, NAI, Delhi. 109

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Harijans, especially the Mahars, the Muslims in Ahmedabad and the Dharlas in Kaira District did not participate in the movement actively. But there were instances where the Dharlas were collectively involved with other communities in destructive activities aimed against the colonial state and they were fined for such activities. In some villages, communities other than the Patidar, Kanbi, bania and brahmin were exempted from the imposition of collective fines but there were also cases where the entire villages were held responsible for the disruptive activities and fined collectively. Kolis as a group were also described as very turbulent and active in the Quit India Movement.113 The Nadores in Kanara were equally the most active elements in many villages.114 Certain tribal communities such as the Berads in Karnataka, the Bhils in Ahmednagar and the Katkaris and Ramoshis in Satara were often described as “paid criminals” engaged in anti-government disruptive activities.115 The nature of evidence suggests that no conclusive statement can be made regarding the exact social composition of the participants, but it appears that diverse groups and classes gave the movement its momentum. This diversified participation was essential to the sustenance of the movement.

The Legend of Prati Sarkar in Satara Hutchins claims, and many others would agree, that during the Quit India Movement “revolutionary governments of various sorts” came into being in different parts of the country. He classifies these parallel governments into two main categories: (i) in cases where police stations were captured and arrangements for tax collections and courts were extemporized and (ii) where they emerged as part of the underground movement, governing at night areas which the British nominally controlled during the day. In such cases, they were sort of sinews of the underground movement that provided shelter, communication and funds for the roaming bands 113

Home/Special File No. 1110(8)-B(1), 1942, MSA, Bombay. Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraph 1042, 1942, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 115 DSP, Broach and Panch Mahals, DSP, Bijapur, DSP, Belgaum and DSP, Ahmednagar, Reports to the Additional Secretary, Home Department, Government of Bombay, Home/Special File No. 1110(125)-A, 1942–43, MSA, Bombay. 114

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of political agitators.116 In Hutchin’s classification, the Satara Prati Sarkar could be seen as an example of the latter type. Gail Omvedt in her study of this Satara movement117 reinforces a legend created by the leading activists and reinvented by the later Maratha and other writers.118 These writers had their own reasons for keeping the legend of a parallel government in Satara alive. History writing is “a subjective process of re-creation” and according to Gottschalk historical knowledge is limited by the incompleteness and subjective nature of the records themselves as well as by the personal bias of the historian. Therefore, Gottschalk properly argues that the historian’s aim is verisimilitude with regard to a perished past, that is, to get as close an approximation to the truth as possible, a subjective process in itself.119 A more critical scrutiny of the historical evidence pertaining to the Satara Prati Sarkar is a pre-requisite to understanding the origin and nature of this legend. Harcourt, while recognizing the weakness of this type of rebel authority, which according to him functioned more like a petty rajahdom or a band of dacoits under the authoritarian rule of the local strong-arm man, also stresses that they aimed at carrying out all the functions of the modern state.120 The existence of roaming bands and groups reveals that they did not intend to create any stable organizational structures, even of a rudimentary kind. Nine groups of Prati Sarkars have been identified. These were: (i) the Nana Patil group, (ii) the Yashwantrao Chavan group at Karad, (iii) the Kashinath Deshmukh group, (iv) the Vasant Dada Patil group, (v) the Baburao Chorankar and Barade Master group, (vi) the Bapurao Kachare and Kisan Veer group, (vii) the Swami Ramanand Bharti group, (viii) the Amanpur group, and (ix) the Bhupali Kattee group.121 The “parallel” government also did not impose any taxes nor did it borrow funds. It was solely dependent upon the collection of funds, fees and fines, 116

Hutchins, Spontaneous Revolution, p. 250. Gail Omvedt, “The Satara Prati Sarkar”, Pandey, ed., The Indian Nation, pp. 223– 59. 118 See Dattaray Balwant Lohar and Nabhiraj Dada Adumuthe, Swatantryacha Sangram 1930–48, Sangli, 1982; Harihar Vaman Despande, Yavlicha Swatantrya Sangram: 1942, Nagpur, 1947; Jaysingrao Pawar, ed., Krantisinh Nana Patil, Kolhapur, 1983. 119 Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History, pp. 42–48. 120 Harcourt, “Kisan Populism”, pp. 312–22. 121 Krishnan Bhaskaran, Quit India Movement, p. 213. 117

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extortions and dacoities for financing its subversive activities.122 Although A.B. Shinde proclaimed that between February 1945 and April 1946, the Prati Sarkar came to possess all the attributes of a modern government and performed legislative, executive and judicial functions,123 a cursory glance at the actual working of the Prati Sarkar reveals that there was no such unified voice. There are no references to the Prati Sarkar in the government documents during the active phase of the Quit India Movement. The colonial administrators later termed the activities of the Satara underground activists as Patri Sarkar. It was derived from patra, which denotes horseshoe in Marathi. As these underground activists used bastinadoing (patra-lavana in Marathi) to penalize the loyalist elements, Patri Sarkar was linked to this particular form of punishment. This was to belittle the underground movement and discredit it. On the other hand, the underground activists started calling their organization the Prati Sarkar. The term “prati” means the roof of a house in Marathi, therefore, denoting certain protective functions. Apart from Satara, there are some other references to the establishment of “parallel governments” in the Bombay Province. But they represented a symbolic wish-fulfilment. In Ahmedabad, for instance, an “Azad Sarkar” was proclaimed with one Jayanand as the district magistrate, who imposed a “war tax” on the people. This “Azad Sarkar” collected Rs 7,000 as “tax” up to 15 October 1942.124 The “tax” collected, however, was simply a voluntary contribution given by the people for the Congress fund. Some women volunteers collected such a “tax” of the “Azad Government” from Ode in Anand taluqa of Kaira District on 23 November 1942.125 The activities of underground activists in Satara District were also not very different from hit-and-run attacks carried out by the agitators in many districts of the province between September 1942 to the middle of 1943 against the symbols of colonial administration and their weakest links in the villages. What made the Satara case legendary was prolonged sustenance of such forms even up to 1945. The colonial administration in its attempt to curb the political 122

Ibid., p. 218. A.B. Shinde, The Parallel Government of Satara: A Phase of Quit India Movement, New Delhi, 1990, p. 147. 124 Home/Political File No. 3/84/42, NAI, Delhi. 125 Home/Special File No. 800(74)(4), III, 1941–43, MSA, Bombay. 123

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turmoil in the district reinforced the notion that some sort of a parallel administration was running in the villages of Satara. There was no attempt to organize systematic state functions in Satara. The underground agitators carried out political dacoities, attacked trains, police outposts and post offices. They also used village panchayats to decide legal cases in some instances.126 A small band, formed out of local Rashtriya Sewa Dal units in Kundal (Aundh State), carried out arbitration and victimization orders and came to be known as the “Dahsatwadi Dal” (Terrorist Party).127 The government seized some documents to prove that the Congress absconders were running a skillfully-organized administration to which the villagers were turning either through pressure or sympathy. The police raided a temple at Nerla in Satara District on 26 June 1945, where a “people’s court” was functioning. It was claimed that a register of summary trial proceedings and some notices bearing the name of the Prati Sarkar along with 27 persons assembled there were captured.128 The main functions of the Prati Sarkar were to attack symbols of colonial rule such as the railway, telegraph and postal services. It also procured money and arms through donations, contributions, political dacoities, fees and fines. Besides, it punished loyalist elements and police informers, established charkha sanghas, organized Hindi classes, organized Rashtriya Sewa Dals and attempted to control crime.129 Some guerrilla activists surrendered after Gandhi’s appeal on 28 July 1944 to concentrate on constructive programmes while others refused on the ground that the call for the Quit India Movement had been given by the Congress Working Committee and not by Gandhi.130 As the Prati Sarkar symbolized a protective roof, a paternalistic notion of justice and maintenance of moral and social order, various groups and bands interpreted it according to their own needs. The notion assumed the form of a myth. According to Roland 126

Fortnightly Reports, Bombay, March 1945, Home/Political File No. F.18/3/45, NAI, Delhi. 127 Fortnightly Reports, Bombay, June 1945, Home/Political File No. F.18/6/45, NAI, Delhi. 128 Fortnightly Report, first half of July 1945, Bombay, Home/Political File No. F.18/7/45, NAI, Delhi. 129 Shinde, The Parallel Government, pp. 139–44. 130 Ibid., pp. 145–47.

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Barthes, the quantitative abundance of forms is possible in the meta-language of myth because a signified can have several or almost unlimited mass of signifiers at its disposal.131 The legend of the Prati Sarkar also assumed multitudinous forms for various social groups. An armed group of 25 Ramoshis and some underground activists raided the house of a rich landlord in Dahigaon (Sholapur District) on 16 May 1945 and looted property worth Rs 3,000.132 As the constraints imposed by the salience of nationalist identity on the process of norm-creation lapsed when the active phase of the Quit India Movement was over, these bands attempted to enforce their conception of social justice and moral order. Some bands took up issues like victimization of a wife by her husband, marriage expenses, bribery by revenue officials, traffic in women and atrocities of in-laws against brides.133 About 20 Prati Sarkar workers visited Pachegaon in Sangola taluqa in Sholapur on 21 July 1945 to decide the charges of immorality against the village police patel, a Ramoshi and the village Mahar. The patel had illicit relations with a Kumbhar’s wife and it was suspected that he had sold his own sister to a hotelkeeper in Vita. There were also charges of extraction of money from the villagers against the patel and the Ramoshi. The village Mahar was involved in the illicit distillation of liquor. All the three culprits were thrashed with lathis in a night assembly of about 200 villagers. The villagers refused to reveal the matter to the authorities until they were compelled to speak.134 Ten Congress activists captured a head constable at Bhikawadi in Satara District, tied him to a post in a temple and slapped him with chappals (slippers). After a few hours, they took him to a place where 4,000 people had assembled. A court was held which punished 12 persons including the head constable. This incident occurred on 28 July 1945.135 The protracted nature of the movement in Satara created a sort of legend around it and made the leaders of this Prati Sarkar 131

Susan Sontag, ed., Barthes Reader, London, 1982, pp. 95–107. Weekly Report, DM, Sholapur, 23 May 1945, Home/Special File No. 501-I(a), 1945–46, MSA, Bombay. 133 Free Press Journal, 6 October 1945, Home/Political File No. 98/45, NAI, Delhi. 134 Mamlatdar, Sangola to DM, Sholapur, 26 July 1945 and DSP, Kolhapur, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay, Home/Special File No. 501-I(a), 1945–46, MSA, Bombay. 135 Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, paragraph 695, 1945, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay. 132

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especially Nana Patil, Kisan Veer (an activist from Wai in northern Satara) and Pandu Master (Pandurang Patil of Vede Nipani in Valva taluqa) into sort of folk heroes. The popular imagination identified Satara with the “protective” kingdom of Shivaji. Mahadev Bagal, the leader of the kisans of Kolhapur, went to the extent of identifying Shivaji’s kingdom with “a government of farmers and labourers”. This declaration was made at the Khatav Taluka Youth Congress Conference on 15 December 1945. Channusing Kalyan Singh Chandeli, a Sholapur Congress activist, speaking at the same conference, however, attributed the creation of the Prati Sarkar to the government’s hirelings and stressed the need for the establishment of a Prati Sarkar through nonviolence.136 However, during 1945-46, the subversive acts gave way to social control functions. The police informers, the patils and the talathis were severely punished. The sale of opium and liquor was prohibited. Gambling, prostitution, etc., were restricted, slaughtering of cattle was penalized and the supply of milk, eggs, etc., to towns was withheld. Tribunals were established to resolve civil and criminal cases. Gandhi vivah paddat (the Gandhian method of marriage), avoiding ostentatious expenses was propagated and morality was stressed.137 The internal social tensions found their mirror image in the activities of the Prati Sarkar, which continued up to the end of 1946. New targets, often the immediate oppressors of the common villagers, were selected for attacks now. The Prati Sarkar, therefore, threatened the rich Marwaris, government officials, liquor dealers and village officials. A shopkeeper of Akluj in Sholapur District received a threatening letter from the Prati Sarkar asking him to close down his shop for 11 days as a punishment for not participating in a strike, which was observed to mourn the death of Subhas Chandra Bose. Later, 10 Congress Sewa Dal members were arrested for serving such a notice.138 A group of Prati Sarkar activists led by Rangarao Vithalrao Patil entered Kolhapur from Satara on 11 February 1946 and tried to prevent people from using 136

DIG, CID, Poona (Bombay Province) to the Secretary, Government of Bombay, Home Department, 16 December 1945; Home/Special File No. 503-III, 1945–47, MSA, Bombay. 137 Shinde, The Parallel Government, pp. 148–49. 138 The Times of India, 6 September 1945 and BC, 13 September 1946.

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the liquor shop.139 The Prati Sarkar propaganda was responsible for the refusal of the villagers of Kelwade, Shiware, Kamthodi and Umbre in Purandhar taluqa of Poona to transfer the grain purchased under the Levy Purchase Scheme from the village chavdis to the government store at Kikvi.140 A group of 50–60 Congress activists from Nipani, Kurli and some other neighbouring villages approached two liquor dealers of Nipani in Belgaum District on 12 May 1946 and forced them to drain all their liquor casks and close down their shops. They also threatened customers with bastinadoing (a favourite Prati Sarkar punishment) if they continued to drink liquor.141 Sankar Gojaba Chor, an associate of Nana Patil, continued to threaten merchants, farmers and liquor dealers despite the disapproval of such activities by Nana Patil and the local Congress leaders. His 20–25 strong band committed dacoities in Poona, Satara and Bhor State.142 A band of 15–16 Prati Sarkar members visited Pargaon in Dhond taluqa of Poona on 1 June 1946 and conducted an enquiry in the village chavdi. Two women were warned not to continue adultery and a fine of Rs 5,000 was imposed on patils as punishment for taking extra grain from the cultivators in the previous year. On their refusal to pay the fine, they were dragged out of the village to a solitary place and threatened with bastinadoing. Two patils paid Rs 1,388 and the third patil offered ornaments, as he had no cash with him. The activists refused the ornaments and the patil was asked to keep cash ready on their next visit.143 A group of 30 persons looted two rich Marwaris of Morgaon in Poona District on 30 June 1946. Initially, the Marwaris were reluctant to speak out due to their fear of the Prati Sarkar, but when persuaded by the authorities, it was revealed that they had been threatened with drastic action by the Congress youths of Pandare for opposing the Congress candidate in the district local board elections.144 139

Home/Special File No. 501-I(a), 1945–46, MSA, Bombay. Mamlatdar, Purandhar to the DM and the Controller of Prices, Poona, 1 May 1946; Home/Special File No. 501-I(a), 1945–46, MSA, Bombay. 141 DSP, Belgaum to DM, Belgaum, Letter No. HB/6, 15 May 1946, Home/Special File No. 501-I(a), 1945–46, MSA, Bombay. 142 DSP, Poona to DM, Poona, Letter No. B14/1350, 23 May 1946; Home/Special File No. 501-I(a), 1945–46, MSA, Bombay. 143 Secret Abstracts of Intelligence, week-ending 22 June 1946, Office of the IG of Police, Bombay, Lokshakti, 7 June 1946 and Navakal, 8 June 1946. 144 Home/Special File No. 501-I(a), 1945–46, MSA, Bombay. 140

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Another important dimension of the Prati Sarkar social activities was the preponderance of actions against “trouble-makers”, especially the tribal and lower-caste persons engaged in pilfering, thefts, burglaries, etc. Some of these social groups had formed bands for committing dacoities in the name of the Congress. They carried Congress emblems, tri-colour flags and Gandhi caps. Some such prominent band were the Savalya Dhanger, Bhiwa Dnyanu Kumbhar, and Mhedu Ramoshi and Maruti Ramoshi bands in south Satara.145 The Prati Sarkar punished 69 persons for these social crimes, which included 17 Mangs, 14 Ramoshis, 12 Mahars, 2 Chambhers and 23 others. One Mang woman was beaten to death at Gondi Village in June 1946. Compared to these, figures for land disputes (21 persons), moral perverts (14 persons), addicts and alcoholics (22 persons) and blackmarketeers (13 persons) were relatively low.146 These activities of the Prati Sarkar reveal that the groups involved in them were trying to maintain a moral and social order and impose their own notion of justice. These agitators were functioning more like social bandits, as outlaws against the state and the people considered them heroes, as champions, avengers and fighters for justice. There was hardly any institutional framework of an alternative administration. It does not mean that the Prati Sarkar was a concocted or forged story. However, the activities of the Prati Sarkar assumed mythical qualities. To quote Barthes again, “Myths hides nothing and flaunts nothing, it distorts; Myth is neither a lie nor a confession, it is an inflexion.”147 The political trajectory of Nana Patil’s career can also be seen as a sort of revelation in understanding the true nature of the Satara Prati Sarkar. A young man of middle peasant background from Valva taluqa, Nana Patil worked as a talathi and espoused social reforms under the influence of the Satyasodhak Movement. In 1932, he resigned his service and became fully involved in political work. The misery of the peasants, he argued, their exploitation by the sahukars and bhatjis (bania and brahmins) was due to exploitation by imperialism. Nana Patil thus combined the Satyasodhak and nationalist traditions and took this message to the rural areas.148 145 146 147 148

Shinde, The Parallel Government, pp. 120–21. Ibid., pp. 184–89. Santog, ed., Barthes Reader, p. 116. Omvedt, “The Satara Prati Sarkar”, pp. 235–36.

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Nana Patil’s activities when the Prati Sarkar came to an end also deserve attention. His political career in the post-Prati Sarkar days depended on the survival of the myth of a “parallel government” during the Quit India Movement in Satara. When Nana Patil and his associates appeared in an open meeting in the beginning of May 1946 at Koregaon, a huge gathering of 30,000 peasants welcomed them back to normal life. In another meeting, 60,000 were present. However, there was also a sense of frustration among the heroes of the earlier underground movement. Achyutrao Patwardhan complained that the Congress leaders were busy in negotiations and discussions while no definite task was assigned to the Congress workers.149 Nana Patil, in fact, found that his heroism of the Satara days was no longer suitable in the new, peaceful and settled times. Congress leaders were now more concerned with the law and order situation. In this new political scenario, Nana Patil moved away from the Congress and came closer to the Socialists. But even the Socialists considered him a potential risk because of his lack of ideological refinement. He was, therefore, excluded from the Congress Socialist Party activities in early 1947. Nana Patil complained in a meeting at JawaloKadlog in Ahmednagar District on 7 April 1947 that his services were exploited for electioneering purposes during 1946, but he was not given any important position in the Congress organization. In another meeting at Ashwi in Ahmednagar, he advocated the establishment of workers and peasants rule.150 Sometimes Nana Patil regressed to his earlier political thinking of the Satyasodhak reformist period. In a meeting at Vadgaon Rasai in Poona District, he advised a gathering of 4,000 peasants to avoid unnecessary expenses in marriages. At Anagar in Sholapur District, he collected a sum of Rs 12,000 for a Maratha Mandir along with K.M. Kedhe, another old leader of the Non-Brahmin Movement. In a meeting of villagers at Walwane in Ahmednagar on 6 April 1947, he expressed satisfaction that the villagers had stopped the evil practice of goat sacrifice to appease the village deity.151 A notice was served on Nana Patil in April 1947, for making “objectionable speeches” 149

Home/Special File No. 503-III, 1945–57; Home/Special File No. 540-II, 1945–47, MSA, Bombay; BC, 7 May 1946. 150 Home/Special File No. 540-II, 1945–46, MSA, Bombay. 151 Ibid.

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and warning him that his speeches were inciting disobedience of the law and that if he made such speeches again, action would be taken against him.152 Nana Patil also organized a conference of about 400 talathis and saundankars at Nasik on 4 and 5 May 1947.153 His Prati Sarkar had impetuously attacked these local revenue officials earlier. He also continued to refer to the Satara Prati Sarkar days. In a speech at Poona in May 1947, Nana Patil declared that Satara had acted up to the glorious traditions of Shivaji the Great and had revolutionized the entire political, social and religious life in Satara. 154 Thus, we find that in Nana Patil’s egoidentity,155 the juxtaposed and contiguous elements of ideology such as the Great Maratha tradition, the social reform ideology of the Satyasodhak variety, peasant radicalism, nationalism and, to some extent, socialism lay amicably in a kind of unison. Nana Patil was in this sense, a real folk hero whose identity absorbed the folklore of the region. Gramsci defines folklore as “a confused agglomerate of fragments of all the conceptions of the world and of life that have succeeded one another in history” and whose surviving evidence can be traced in “an adulterated and mutilated form in the folklore”.156 Convergence of elements of various identities in an individual, as we have seen in the case of Nana Patil, also resolves the problem of incongruity and supposed irreconciliability of different levels of identities.

Conclusion The Quit India Movement was the zenith of the anti-imperialist movement in India. Crowd actions during the movement can be used to understand the problem of social identity. The multiple forms of experience cannot be reduced to the dichotomy of “subaltern” and “élite” experience. Even in the context of the Quit India 152

Home/Special File No. 540-III(a), 1947, MSA, Bombay. Home/Special File No. 540-II, 1945–47, MSA, Bombay. 154 BC, 17 May 1947. 155 Eric Erikson defines identity as “the accrued experience of the ego’s ability to integrate all identifications with the vicissitudes of the libido, with the aptitudes developed out of endowments, and with opportunities offered in social roles”. See Eric Erikson, Childhood and Society, London, 1947, p. 235. 156 Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Cultural Writings, London, 1985, p. 189. 153

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Movement, various identities were operational along with the possibility of change from one form to another. While recognizing this, there can be no doubt that the nationalist current became preponderant and was the most significant articulation of mass political activity during the Quit India Movement. Crowd behaviour was not purely spontaneous, violent and destructive in nature and we find that crowd actions were constrained by the superimposition of nationalist ideas. The people systematically selected most mass activities, even in the absence of control by “élites” or leaders. The political maturity of the “spontaneous” crowd behaviour was reflected in the selective attacks on the symbols of the colonial state and on people loyal to it. It was also reflected in the people’s preference for attacks on the property of the colonial state and elements loyal to it. Moreover, the characteristics of the Quit India Movement as “spontaneous” needs to be modified in the light of evidence which indicates the existence of local networks and the emergence of ad hoc organizations led by locally-influential Congress leaders. Though repression by the colonial state severely hampered efforts towards the wider coordination of the movement, the local leadership could not be wiped out, and it played a crucial role in many of the spontaneous mass actions in the rural areas. The relationship between the local and wider national-level politics, between social being and social consciousness, between hegemony and autonomy display a dialectical process in which experience (both lived and perceived), the mediation of human agency in the form of the local, ad hoc leadership at the ground level and the past folk traditions (as happened in the creation of a legend around underground political activity in Satara) play a crucial role. A third set of concluding remarks concern the identification of the participants in the Quit India Movement. We cannot conflate crowd behaviour with destructiveness. We also cannot assume congruence between a few specific peasant castes and a particular social class. Epstein (1988) associates nationalism in the Bombay Province with a class of rising commercial farmers by assuming such a coincidence between a few peasant communities and a class of rich, commercial farmers. The study of mass behaviour during the Quit India agitation also refutes the a priori theory of associating a particular class with a distinct political orientation. Except for the Mahars and Muslims, people from other communities

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such as the patidar, bania, brahmin, koli, kanbi, Dharla, Ramoshi, Bhil, Katkari, Lingayat, Maratha, and Nadore, all participated in the Quit India Movement in the rural areas of the Bombay Province. The movement was, therefore, both a multi-class and multi-community one. Finally, the emergence of the Prati Sarkar as a parallel administration in Satara requires re-examination. Gail Omvedt has attempted a bold venture to use oral history interviews to reveal the “hidden script” of the Prati Sarkar but it does not necessarily mean the “real story” but the villagers’ or the participants’ interpretations of events in Satara in 1942 and its aftermath. A comparative analysis of events in Satara and other parts of the province reveals resemblance in methods and forms of attacks on the local organs of colonial state and its symbols. The only difference is the protracted nature of the struggle in Satara—a feature, which contributed to the creation of a legend around the underground political activity in Satara. The attacks of underground agitators in Satara focused on the immediate oppressors of the peasants. Such attacks also became possible due to the diminution of the active phase of the Quit India Movement and the consequent dwindling of the nationalist identity. The glorious Maratha traditions, which centred around the popular imagination of Shivaji’s kingdom as a kind of “paternalistic and protective rule” in the region also contributed to the creation of this legend.

Conclusion

The present study has examined the various facets of the popular movements and mobilizations that occurred in the Bombay countryside from 1934 to 1947. An attempt has been made to examine the tribal, peasant and lower-caste mobilizations in terms of the social relations, class imprints, historical conjunctures and the cultural milieu. With the exception of the Quit India Movement, the nature of popular mobilization reveals an interesting spatial pattern. A clearcut distinction is seen between the nature of mobilization in the areas where the traditional tenurial systems such as inamdari, taluqdari and khoti had been retained and the areas under ryotwari settlement. The former areas were spread throughout the Presidency but constituted a bigger geographical part in Ahmedabad, Kolaba, Ratnagiri and Kanara districts. In these areas, where the remnants of semi-feudal conditions were more prominent, there were open tenant–landlord conflicts, leading to localized agitation and sometimes clashes and riots between tenants and landlords. There were other such geographical areas, which were more prone to this type of protests. They were in south Gujarat, especially in Panch Mahals and Thana District, where the outside Marwari or other moneylenders had reduced tribals to the condition of bonded labourers after appropriating their lands and resources. Such was the case of Mandavi taluqa’s kaliparaj cultivators and Pardi Mahal’s Dharala cultivators in Surat District, who launched an agitation against sahukars (landlords) in 1938–39, and the Warli tribals of Thana District, who revolted against forced labour under the vethi system in 1945. In the other ryotwari settled areas, the mobilization

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tended to be more on the line of organizing meetings, ryot conferences, etc., to air the grievances of the peasants. This was despite the fact that the problem of tenancy, arrears of rent and debt were also equally acute in these ryotwari areas. Therefore, it seems that whether the social contradiction will burst into the open or not depends not so much on the intensity of exploitation. It appears to be functionally related to the nature of oppression. The areas, which had practices like vethi and other semi-feudal exactions responded in a different manner compared to areas where these practices were non-existent. On the basis of this regional variability in the popular response to exploitation, some social historians have associated a “revolutionary” label with the poor tenant-cultivators and a “reformist” tendency with the “rich prosperous” cultivators such as the Patidars of Gujarat and the Lingayats in the Southern Division of Bombay. This is not a tenable proposition because it fails to explain why the poor tenants and labourers in all the regions did not behave in a similar fashion and why they also adopted the so-called reformist modalities of political behaviour in areas where the semi-feudal network was not strong. The tendency of militancy expressed by movements in certain regions also seems to have been a function of the nature of political leadership. The Congress Socialists and the Communists preached uncompromising, relentless class struggle to be conducted in a militant fashion. Radical Kisan Sabha leaders like Indulal Yagnik and D.M. Pangarkar encouraged cultivators to carry lathis to meetings, processions and kisan marches. The Independent Labour Party agitators, including their main organizer, Dr B.R. Ambedkar, played a key role in fomenting the tenant–khot clashes during 1938–39 in many areas of Kolaba and Ratnagiri districts. Militant Red Flag union leaders led the agitation of the so-called “criminal tribes” at the Sholapur Settlement in which the “settlers” clashed with the police. In the Warli Adivasi areas of Thana, in 1946, the Communist leaders deliberately encouraged the tribals to use violent methods to counter the violence of the moneylenders. The Congress leadership, on the other hand, believing in the primacy of the national issue, favoured the method of settling class disputes peacefully and amicably after putting some pressure on the moneylenders landlords in order to gain some substantial immediate benefits for the oppressed people. Again no correspondence

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can be established between a specific class background and revolutionary potential. The militant forms, which were almost universal in the traditional societies ruled more on the basis of naked force and coercion, without any outlet for grievances, now in the twentieth century became a conscious design of an ideologicallymotivated middle-class leadership. The realization that the colonial state provided open avenues of protest, albeit limited, led the Congress leadership to utilize them for mass protests and mobilization. As such, this was not specifically linked to any particular class politics. In fact, the same “reformist” instruments of struggle appealed even to the poor tenant-cultivators, the lowercaste oppressed Mahars and Mangs, as well as the Adivasi cultivators. As we will point out later, the Congress Socialists and the Communists assumed the ideologically-motivated mantle of “revolutionary orientation’ as a part of their effort to acquire a mass base and in their attempt to dislodge the dominant wing of the Congress. The same tendency of the movement splitting into two distinct trends is more pronounced in the mobilization of the Mahars and the other “Untouchables”. The attempt to explain this in terms of “reformist–revolutionary” dichotomy and class–nature is also baffling. These communities faced common disabilities due to caste oppression, lived a common social experience, and yet the political response was diverse in nature depending on the nature of political hegemony under whose influence they came. B.R. Ambedkar’s attempt to mobilize the Mahars, though successful in the limited sense of making them aware of their social position and rights and the focusing of the attention of political leaders on their miserable condition, also led to his own isolation from the nationalist mainstream of politics. He succeeded in mobilizing the Mahars using instruments such as the death ceremonies of the local leaders. This appealed to the lower castes because the cult of Mari-Ai or the mother goddess of death was very popular among them. But, as there were many intermediate castes, the numerical strength of the “Untouchables” in a village community was never higher than the combined strength of the caste Hindus. This factor, along with the persistent problem of “Untouchability” among the lower castes themselves, made the solidarity of these castes rather ephemeral and constrained the scope for militant forms of struggle. Despite this weakness,

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the Untouchable youth preferred a militant confrontationist course of action. In this historically given situation, a prolonged ideological struggle against the practice of Untouchability was necessary, because, unless the majority of caste Hindus could be convinced of the irrationality of this inhumanity perpetrated by this outdated institution, the struggle of the minority of the “Untouchables” could not win the battle for social equality and justice. Gandhi realized this basic problem and adopted a more practical, though “reformist” course of action, one which he pressed quite relentlessly. Ambedkar also realized the futility of his isolated struggle. But instead of adopting the line of a prolonged ideological struggle, he switched over to another militant agitation against the khoti tenurial system in the Konkan region in 1938–39. During the Quit India Movement, he tried to gain some concessions from the colonial state for the men of his caste by showing his loyalty to the colonial state in a difficult situation. The Congress Socialists and the Communists did not even try to intervene in the problem, believing that industrialization and the abolition of class exploitation would automatically eradicate the problem. The social base of the Congress as a whole, the Congres Socialists, and the Communists was more or less the same with some regional variations. In fact, in terms of its geographical and social location, the Congress enjoyed an advantage over the other two major political associations in the Presidency. This social base comprised the tenant-cultivators, owner-cultivators, tribalcultivators, and to a very limited extent the agricultural labourers. Despite the movements of the hali labourers in Surat in 1938–39 and the Warli tribal labourers in 1945–46, the agricultural labourers remained the most neglected section of rural society. As all the three political associations were competing for a common social base, at times conflicts arose among them for acquiring the loyalty of the popular masses. In south Gujarat, especially in some taluqas of Surat and Panch Mahal districts, this conflict was quite intense during 1937–40. In Ahmednagar and Khandesh, there was a triangular contest between the Congress, the Congress Socialists— to the extent they functioned separately—and the Communists for gaining the support of the cultivators, which surfaced in 1939 and again in 1946–47, during the organization of peasant conferences and associations. The wider social base of the Congress organization and its capacity for popular mobilization was revealed during

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the Quit India Movement and again during the election campaign of 1946–47. The tendancy to correlate directly the so-called “richer” strata of cultivators like Patidar, Lingayats and Nadoores with the “reformist” politics of the Congress, and the poor labourers tenants and small farmers with “revolutionary activism” is, we believe, based on erroneous assumptions. One assumption treats some communities as homogenous groups. Although, in the case of the lower castes, the assumption that class and caste is coterminous has some validity, in the case of higher castes, especially the intermediate communities like the Patidars and Lingayats; the caste and class components of social reality are not co-terminous. The differentiation along class lines among these communities strikes at the very root of such a hypothesis. Second, the Congress politics also influenced the poor Bhils, kolis, Dharalas, Ramoshis, the lowercaste people belonging to the Mang, Chambar, and Mahar communities, and groups of bonded labourers like the halis of Dubla tribal origin in Surat District. The social character of leadership was also the same for the Congress, the Congress Socialist, and the Communist-inspired movements. This leadership came from an educated, ideologicallyoriented, middle-class background. Even the leaders with a peasant background generally came from rich and middle peasant families. But they were not striving to gain “social leverage” over the people and resources of their localities for the social groups from which they came; they were ideologically-dedicated persons, dedicated either to the idea of a class, caste, or nation. The location of a movement in a specific class also tends to neglect the role played by kinship, ethnic, communal, and national identities in historical development. The idea of nationalism, often reinforced by religious and popular symbols taken from the local cultural milieu, played a significant role in the popular mobilizations of the people. The mediation of ideology resulted in an interaction of the leadership and the led that cut across the narrow boundaries of caste, class, and ethnic identities. But this does not mean that these earlier “primordial” identities disappeared completely. They not only persisted, even the political organizations used them sometimes for their own purposes. The Ganpati Festival and the Asadhi Fair of Pandharpur appealed to the Maratha peasants and were frequency used by the Congress

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leaders. The Congress Socialists and the kisan leaders such as Indulal Yagnik also used local fairs for developing their organizations. The Communists used the cult of the mother-goddess, which centred round Maha Laxmi Hills in Thana District for the mobilization of the Warlis. The interaction of these “primordial” identities with the newly-emergent identities of class and nation created what can be termed as interpenetration of social identities. The various identities created through psychosocial development of the individuals never existed in pure or crystallized forms in the popular mentality. They tended to intermingle and overlap with each other, each tending to become salient according to the given socio-political context. The nature of popular movements and mobilization exhibited a wide range of forms, depending upon the context. The tribal people, acting spontaneously, under economic compulsions, protested against the exploitative social relations through property crimes, stealing from the fields of rich cultivators, and committing gang dacoities in which the village moneylenders became the primary targets. Gulia Maharaj, a religious preacher in the Khandesh region, easily influenced the Bhil tribals. The other tribals, such as the Choudhras and Dharalas, organized a no-rent campaign in the Pardi Mahal and Mandavi taluqas of Surat District. The popular response to the conditions of scarcity also led to food riots as happened at Chalisgaon in East Khandesh in 1936 and at Dhulia and Bhiwandi in West Khandesh and Thana districts respectively in 1942, and at Nasik in 1942. In short, the popular response to the same basic structure exhibited a polymorphic form. This also confirms our basic belief that the fixed, absolute attributes given to a historical phenomenon, the notion of recurrent patterns, and teleological explanations are untenable for the craft of a historian. History’s path of development is more akin to the “zig-zag path of phylogenesis”, governed not by the mechanical laws of motion, but by chances, accidental occurrences, and the context as it develops. The political leadership of various organizations employed a number of symbolic and cultural means for the purpose of mobilization. Songs and ballads, kirtans and fairs played a significant role in mobilizing the people. Besides the flags and banners, which served a symbolic purpose, the cultural and historical traditions of the past, in the form of the Ganpati Festival, local religious fairs,

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the tradition of Shivaji, the tradition of the cult of the mothergoddess, were some of the important means employed. In the mobilization of tribals, the traditional large tribal assemblies for taking decisions democratically also played an important role. The traditional instruments of social ostracism, excommunications, used to forge caste and ethnic solidarities, also played a supplementary or reinforcing role in popular mobilization. The Agri tenants in Chari village in a strike in 1934–36, the Mansa State’s kheduts or cultivators in 1939 in south Gujarat, the Bhil labourers of some villages in Panch Mahal in 1939, the Kanara (Bhatkal Peta) tenants in 1946, the Warli labourers in 1946, and the koli tenants in 1947 in some villages of Ahmednagar, successfully used the instrument of social boycott to isolate their class enemies. These symbolic and cultural means of mobilization served a number of important functions. They were not only marks of expression of group solidarity in times of urgent need but also served as a way of differentiating the participants in the popular protests from their enemies. These cultural means were also a sort of shorthand language, the public mode of transmission, which appealed to the popular imagination because it was the part of their social memories. Our analysis of popular mobilization also reveals that violent and destructive modes of behavior are used only selectively in terms of time, space, and targets. The hypothesis that conflates the destructiveness of the mass behaviour and popular mobilization ignores the fact that people prefer peaceful, legal, and extra-legal open channels of protests to the so-called “revolutionary modes” of protest when the former are readily available to them. Only in the case of the closing off of the avenues of protest, or due to the intransigence of landlords and sahukars, or the state machinery, do the masses use violent methods against the most tyrannical and oppressive elements of the ruling classes. Even in such cases, violence is directed not so much against the persons as against their property. Therefore, during 1937–40, many cases of landlord– tenant disputes were settled peacefully with the intervention of the political activists. There was large-scale, peaceful, legal and extra-legal open mobilization of peasants, tenants, labourers, and lower-caste people through mass meetings, conferences, etc. Their associations were organized and the political associations raised their grievances. Whenever the radical leaders of the Kisan Sabha and the Communist Party tried to impose a “revolutionary spirit”

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on the agitations launched for the resolution of the immediate grievances of tenants, such struggles failed to spread horizontally, remained localized, and finally fizzled out. The factor that a popular Congress ministry was in power during these agitations also contributed to the same result. The failure of the anti-khoti agitation (1938–39), the Mandavi taluqa and the Pardi Mahal tenants’ agitation in Surat District (1938–39), the Bhatkal Peta tenant agitation in North Kanara (1946), and the Warli Adivasi labourers’ struggle (1946) has to be seen in the light of these circumstances discussed here. In 1942, the colonial state attempted to suppress the movement ruthlessly with naked force, thereby closing off all the open, legal and extra-legal peaceful channels of popular mobilization, thereby creating a situation where the bottled up grievances of the people found expression in attacks on the local symbols of colonial rule— the railways and other communication channels, the local police stations, village revenue records and officials, etc. The powerful identity of nationhood ensured that the movement would cut across narrow kinship, caste, ethnic, and class identities, and spread horizontally. But even during this movement, the use of violence against persons manning the colonial administration was minimal, the property of the colonial state and loyalist local officials being the main target of the attacks. Finally, it was to a very limited extent that peasant, Adivasis, and other oppressed groups created their own history through their own “subjectivity”. There were, of course, a number of instances where the tenant cultivators, the Adivasi labourers, and the depressed castemen appeared to have acted “spontaneously”. Many of the village-level tenants’ strikes, the khot–tenant clashes in the Konkan region (1938–39), the spread of the Warli Adivasis’ struggle to the Dahanu taluqa of Thana are some such examples. But even in these localized agitations, tenants often invited the political intervention of “outsiders” or the so-called élite leadership so that an amicable settlement could be reached with their class enemies after securing urgently needed concessions from them. The Quit India Movement was also not entirely “spontaneous”. Despite the absence of the top leadership, the ad hoc and local organizations to lead the people were often available. Moreover, what appears as the “consciousness of the subjugated people”, expressed in terms of the kinship relations, caste affiliations, ethnic identity,

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and traditional ideology tainted with religious symbolism, was itself an internalization of these “externally-imposed institutions” and their ideologies at an earlier stage in the history of these people. Just as the people had made them their own in the course of the historical process and clung to them tenaciously, so also in time they gradually internalized the idioms and symbols of twentieth-century politics based on the secular considerations of class and nation. The diction of two-fold political divisions expressed in the “subaltern–élite” domains fails to understand that these realms occur together, alternate and transform into each other. The subordinate groups do not resist at all times and places in a similar fashion. Their forms of organization reflect a determination to transform rather than simply cope or resign to the status quo. The modalities of resistance vary according to regional culture and structures of domination. The anarchist-inspired critiques of organized protests, which emphasize covert and unorganized everyday forms of protests as the only viable forms available to the exploited and the oppressed, establish a kind of absolute identity between social class and social consciousness and disallow counter-hegemonic rebellious gestures by the subordinate classes. This results in a description of society as if it was populated by neat cultural isolates. National identity is now perceived as a product of social engineering, invented projects and hence sensitive to conflict, contestation, and alternative interpretations. In such internalization of nationhood, national identity does not simply replace traditional loyalties. National identity is often moulded in terms of older symbols, myths, and rituals. There are also strains between national identity and the multitude of other coexisting identities— local, regional, religious, gender, caste and class, etc. A fascinating aspect of national identity is its ability to represent both the nation and simultaneously a host of other identities that exist in it. Conflicts are ingrained in the meanings of national identity but there is also a certain commonality that holds the nation together. The boundaries of the “imagined community” are not arbitrary and indeterminate. In the construction of the Indian nation, we may find powerful resonance of “old Maratha patriotism” in the Maharashtra region, which may be traced to active social and ideological movements in the pre-colonial times and a

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sense of regional identity fostered by the regional élites and reinforced by a series of conflicts with outsider others. Yet, the twentieth-century notion of nation differs substantially from these earlier forms of identifications. The process of political mobilization plays a significant role in the creation of this new collective subjectivity. It is the public sphere where the elements of culture and politics mingle together, in a sort of daily plebiscite, to create the powerful sense of national identity.

Glossary abhavani adholi annewari ardhel arti artiwallas aval karkun bagaitdar bagayat baluta balutedars bandobust batai bettaland bhagdari

bhagia bhaubandas bigha

bighoti chakar chalgenidars chawdi

annual assessment of standing crops for the purpose of its division between khot and his tenant a local measure of weight in western India determination of the anna valuation of the crops in a village by the revenue officials division of produce on a 50–50 basis between the landholder and his tenant worship of an idol by moving a lamp before it followers of Ramdas, the younger brother of a religious reformer of the Bhils, Gulia Maharaj member of the clerical staff in the revenue office large landowners in the canal-irrigated zones garden crop lands payment usually in kind to the members of service castes the hereditary village servants who rendered services and received balutas from the village community arrangement rent taken by division of produce on the threshing floor lands out of the forest area system of tenure in which land was farmed in severalty, but in which, the revenue demand on the estate was apportioned by the kin group on the basis of ancestral shares a system of labour employment of over 6–12 months with a lump sum payment of grain persons belonging to the same kin group a measure of land, which varied from locality to locality. The British Indian Government attempted to standardize it on the basis of 5/8 of an acre per bigha land assessment a long-term form of labour employment in Gujarat with a lump sum payment in money tenants-at-will in Kanara region same as chora

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chora darshan deshmukh despande dhaniama dharekari dharia didhi diksha dindiwallas eksali ganot garkhed geni-kolga guntha hali hazeri himayat inam inamdar jalpa

jama jamabandi japtidar jirayat judi kabuliyat kaliparaj khand khandi khatedar khawti khedut khot khoti kulkarni kutcheri

the village hall where the village officials did their work sight of a deity, a sacred place or person hereditary local headman or petty notable of a district hereditary revenue accountant of a locality master, one who gave loan to a dubla and secured his services as a bonded labour hereditary permanent tenant paying fixed rent in a khoti region scythe 50 per cent rate of interest a sacrament same as artiwallas yearly rent-in-cash personal holding of a taluqdar or inamdar (also known as garkhedni) a measure of receiving rents in north Kanara a small measure of land, equal to one-fourth of an acre bonded labourer, also called halpati sometimes roll-call water cess lands and rights thereon granted in alienation for a specific purpose or service owner of inam lands system of loans in Khandesh in which the cultivator agreed to pay a fixed amount of produce to the moneylender at harvest time aggregate revenue payable by a cultivator or estate detailed rent roll or revenue statement of a village or estate a court official sent to implement a rent decree dry crop land government charge on watan lands or quit rent charged on watan lands a written agreement a collective term used to denote the lower castes and tribal people in south Gujarat rent, share of a khot in the produce a measure used to measure rent, one khandi is equal to 20 maunds landowner system of grain loans prevalent in the Warli tracts of Thana District cultivator originally a farmer of revenue and village headman a tenurial system which recognized the proprietary rights of khots in the Konkan region village accountant court

Glossary kyari lathi lota mahal mahalkari mamlatdar matadar mehvasi mirasdar mirasi moksh-bhag mulgenidar narvadari patel

patidar

peta peta-bhagdars phalwani prant officer raiyat, ryot raniparaj sahukar salami saldar sanadi sarjela sathi shanbhog sheri land shetkari sikke-kolga svai tagavi, takavi talathi taluqa taluqdar

259

wet land for rice cultivation stick drinking pot a portion of taluqa placed in charge of a mahalkari an officer in charge of a mahal revenue officer in charge of a taluqa a person who assists the village patel in the execution of his duties a system of land tenure in some koli dominated areas similar to the taluqdari tenure a person having hereditary ownership of land single or joint village landlord right main divisions of narvadari or bhagdari lands a hereditary permanent tenant especially in the garden lands of the Kanara region a land tenure system similar to bhagdari hereditary village headman, also entrusted with revenue, administrative and policy functions, known as revenue patel in the former and as police patel in the latter case one who holds land on which the payment of revenue demand is apportioned by the proprietary kin group according to ancestral shares; also a caste in Gujarat a portion of a taluqa co-sharers of an estate register showing sub-shares of the peta-bhagdars an assistant or deputy collector in charge of one or more taluqas; a sub-divisional officer cultivator a word coined by Gandhi to describe the kaliparaj people moneylender quit rent charged on lands which were formerly free from taxation a labourer employed for a year on payment of a lump sum in money, prevalent in the Khandesh region an assistant of the village patel Adivasi who believed in the old way of life and continued drinking, etc. same as chakar village accountant land in an inam village the occupancy of which rest with the inamdar peasant standard measure of weight in Kanara 25 per cent rate of interest a loan given by the state for agricultural purposes a stipendary village accountant administrative sub-division of a district owner of an estate

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Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

todi toolwari udhad-jamabandhi ujliparaj upri varjela varna system veth warkari watan watandar

rate of timber cutting traditional one-third share of produce taken by the state taluqdaris where land assessment was fixed in perpetuity respectable or high-caste people of south Gujarat tenant-at-will reformed Adivasis who stopped drinking and other bad habits traditional division of Hindu society into four major castes forced labour a sect which originated as the medieval Bhakti cult and centres round the cult of Vithoba at Pandharpur grant of land and certain rights and perquisites for remunerating the local village officials and servants a person having a hereditary interest in a watan

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Index Abhavani, 54, 109 Abolition of khoti, 99 Adholi, 124, 128 Adi-dharma, 187 Adorno, 29 Agricultural indebtedness, 70, 105 All-India Anti-Untouchability League, 191 All-India Congress Committee, 95 All-India Kisan Sabha, 116, 117, 185 All-India Matang Sewa Samaj, 197 All-India Scheduled Caste Federation, 208 Ambedkar, B.R., 113, 183, 185, 200–08 Anarya Dosh Parihar Mandali, 190 Anavils, 74 Annales Tradition/School, 33 Annewari, 50, 95, 100, 104, 126, 171 Ardhel, 79, 116 Artiwallas, 168 Aryan Race Theory, 189 Bagaitdars, 84, 86 Bagayat, 49 Baharvatias, 146 Bahiskrit Hitkarni Sabha, 199–200 Balutas, 197 Bandhela halis, 83 Bandkaris, 146 Bapat, Senapati Pandurang Mahadev, 103, 105, 218 Batai, 79 Baudrillard, 19 Bavan mahals, 146

Bellapur Sugar Company, 86, 107 Benjamin, Walter, 26, 29 Bettas, 86 Bhagdari, 52–53 Bhajan mandalis, 47 Bhanagre, Raghu, 146 Bhanagre, Rama, 146 Bharat Sant Samaj, 201 Bhambands, 114 Bhil Sewa Mandal, 169–70 Bhuskute, V.M., 107 Boas, 26 Bombay Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee, 65, 70, 115 Bombay Pubic Security Measures Act, 134 Brown, Radcliffe, 26 Burke, Peter, 25, 33 Calwin, Willian H., 21 Chakar, 84 Chalgenidar, 81 Chari Peasant Day, 99 Chattopadhya, Kamala Devi, 97, 101–02 Chavdi, 221 Chirographic culture, 24 Chokhamela, 201, 218 Chora, 221 Chutta-halis, 83 Civil Disobedience Movement, 94–95 Congress Socialists, 96–97, 116, 125, 127, 133, 167, 170, 173, 184 Criminal Tribes Act (1871), 142–43, 159

276

Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

Criminal Tribes Act (1911), 164 Criminal Tribes Act Enquiry Committee, 164 Criminal Tribes Settlement Act (1908), 160 Criminal Tribes Settlements, 159 Criminogenic Theory, 148, 150 Cultural materialism, 27 Cultural relativism, 26 Dalit Radicals, 185–86 Danga, 42 Debt Relief Bill, 121–22 De-construction, 19, 181 De-constructionist, 18 De-industrialization, 67 Deo, Shankar Rao, 101, 104, 106 Depressed Classes Mission (1906), 190 Derrida, 21, 23 Desai, Bhullabhai, 96, 102 Desai, Dadubhai, 99–100 Desmukhs, 48, 54 Despandes, 48, 54 Dhaniamas, 74, 88, 118–19 Dharekari, 56, 110, 112 Dharmaghat, 42 Dharmik Protest, 42 Dharna, 42 Dheds, 88–89 Dhodias, 74, 88, 118–19 Didhi, 73 Dindi, 131 Dindiwallas, 168 Dnyan Prasarak Mandali, 188 Dublas, 74, 88–89, 120 Ethno-methodology, 37 Episodic history (or event oriented history), 33 Every day form of resistance, 34 Exchange rate of rupee, 65 Faizpur Congress Session, 131 Foucault, Michel, 35, 147, 152 Frankfurt School, 26 Gadge Maharaj, 131 Gadgil, N.V., 96, 109, 111, 218

Gandhi, Mahatma, 120, 166, 190–98, 215–16 Gandhian Ideology, 190 Ganot, 117 Geni-kolga, 81 Gestalt-perception, 22 Ghar-khedni, 52 Gramsci, Antonio, 123 Great Depression, 63–65, 69, 77, 115 Gulia Maharaj, 167–68 Halis, 82–83, 85, 119–20 Hali agitation, 119–21 Haria, 54 Harijan Sewak Sangh, 191, 192, 196 Harijan Temple Worship (Removal of Disabilities Act), 197 Haripura Congress Session, 105, 119 Hegemony, 34, 142, 169 Hindu Mahasabha, 131, 218 Human Artifice, 26 Imagined Community, 36–37, 465 Imaginary Social Constructs, 36 Implosion, 28 Inams, 48, 54, 188 Inamdari, 100, 106, 126–27 Inamdars, 108, 112, 122, 127 Independent Labour party, 112–13, 171, 197, 206, 218 Infra-politics, 36 Inter-regional Specialization of Cropping, 51, 59 Izafat, 54 Jakobson, 23 Jalpa, 73 Jamabandhi, 48, 52 Japtidar, 114 Jedhe, K.M., 101, 104, 106, 111, 140 Jirayat, 49 Joshi, S.M., 101, 105 Judi, 54, 207 Junnar Campaign (1884), 189 Kabirpanth, 200 Kabuliyat, 55, 110 Kalaram Temple Satyagraha, 200–01

Index

277

Kaliparaj, 74–75, 87–88, 105, 115–16 Kalyan Shetkari Sangh, 129 Karadhar, R.C., 161–62 Kardak, Bhimrao, 203 Karnataka pattern, 230 Kasbati, 57 Katkaris, 154–55, 157 Khandadia, 166–67 Khandi, 81, 126, 128–29 Khatedars, 51, 77 Kher, B.G., 162, 170, 176 Khoti, 54, 55, 56–57, 69, 87, 207 Khoti, 49, 51, 54, 56, 109–14 Khoi Act, 55 Khoti Leases Act (1865), 56 Khoti Settlement Act (1880), 56, 110 Khwati, 175 Kirtankars, 131 Kisan Day, 97, 103 Kisan March Committee, 106 Kisan Sabha, 94, 103, 105–08, 118–19, 125, 127, 177 Kolaba Zila Shetkari Parishad, 206 Kolis, 74, 145, 148, 157 Kulkarni, 188, 219, 221 Kunbi, 55, 88, 188 Kutchri, 104, 126, 132, 220, 222, 227–28 Kyari, 49

Marriage servants, 176–77 Marwaris, 60, 69, 74, 134, 157–58 Marxist social theory, 31 Maslow, 29 Mechanical Solidarity, 156 Mehta, Dinkar, 97, 102, 122 Mehwasi, 53–54 Meta-narratives, 28, 40 Mirasdars, 48 Morphenes, 22 Muksh-bhag, 52 Mulgenidar, 81

Langue, 18–19 Locale, 38 Lorenz, Konra, 31

Pandya, Kamala Shankar, 97–102, 116, 122, 169 Pangarkar, D.M., 105–06, 116–17, 119, 126 Parallel government, 139, 235–36 Parulekar, Godavari, 178, 180 Parulekar, S.V., 107, 113, 180 Parvati temple entry Satyagraha, 199 Pasaita, 54 Patel, 48, 53, 57, 110, 160, 219, 223 Patel, Nana Ramji, 135, 139, 236, 242–44 Patel, Thakor Bhai K., 116, 119, 172 Patidars, 53, 88, 219, 232 Peasant Conferences, 99–101 Peasant Enquiry Committee Report (MPCC, 1936), 47, 63–64, 95, 111. Peasant proprietorship, 50

Mahad Satyagraha, 200 Maharashtra Provincial Kisan Conference, 136 Maharbi, 197 Mahar Dnyati Panchayat Samiti (1942), 200 Mahar Samaj Sewa Sangh, 200 Makta, 129 Mamlatdar, 98, 104, 129, 171–72, 175, 220, 223 Mangs, 154 Manggaruddis, 154 Mangki, 197 Mariai, 202

Nachani, 56 Nagar-gahan, 75 Nakra, 54 Narvadar/narvadari, 52–53 Nasik District Untouchable Youth League, 202–03 Natural artifice, 25 Nimkar, R.S., 128 Non-Brahmins Leaders Committee, 60 Non-payment of revenue movement, 95 Oeidipal Feelings, 26 Orality-based cultures, 24 Organic solidarity, 150

278

Political Mobilization and Identity in Western India, 1934–47

Peta-bhags, 52 Phenomenology, 37 Phonemes, 22–23 Phule, Jotiba, 183, 188–89 Poona Pact, 197 Post-history, 28 Post-industrial society, 29 Post-modernity, 28, 29 Post-modernism, 18, 46 Post-structuralist, 18 Prati Sarkar, 40, 133, 157, 227, 235–44 Property Crimes, 155 Provincial Gujarat Kisan Conference, 107 Psycho-analysis, 26, 37, 212 Rajbhog, P.N., 199–202, 204 Ramanath Panth, 200 Ramdas, 168–69 Ramgarh Session of Congress, 172 Ramoshis, 145–46, 149, 157 Ranadive, B.T., 161 Rashtriya Swayam Sewak sangh, 218 Rayat Committees, 97 Red Flag Union, 161 Repressive law, 150 Restitutive law, 150 Revenue code of Bombay (Act V of 1879), 144 Rituals of rebellion, 144 Ryots, 55 Ryotwari, 48–51 Sahukars, 51, 59, 65, 70, 115, 118 Salami (Salamia), 54 Saldars, 84–85 Samata Sainik Dal, 200 Sanadis, 154 Sane Guruji, 106 Sanskritization, 186 Saraswati, Swami Sahjanand, 105, 170 Sardar patel, 96, 119, 127, 130, 134, 166 Sardesai, S.G., 162 Sarjela, 167

Sarkati, 57 Satyagraha, 108–09, 171, 199–200, 215 Sathi, 84 Satyasodhaks, 189 Saundankars, 140 Shanbhog, 219, 221 Shetkari Sangh, 106, 114, 128–29 Shinde, Vithal Ramiji Maharishi, 190 Sholapur Criminal Tribes Settlement Agitation, 159–64 Signified/Signifier, 18, 20, 23 Simulacrum, 19 Small Holders Relief Bill, 107, 121 Social-Darwinism, 30 Somvanshiya Mitra Samaj (1910), 190 Subaltern, 35, 38–40, 91–92, 99, 211–13, 224 Sub-culture theory, 36 Swaraj Ashram (Bardali), 120–21, 134 Tabe-gahan, 75 Talathi, 140, 175, 180, 219, 232 Taluqdari, 49, 51–52, 100, 122, 124, 126 Taluqdars, 57, 112, 122–23, 172 Tenants-at-will, 51 Tenant Struggles in Konkan, 109–14 Tenant Struggles in South Gujarat, 115–19 Tenancy legislation, 99, 121 Thakkar Bapa, 96 Tillori Kumbi Shetkari Parishad, 207 Toolwari, 50 Typographic Culture, 24 Udhad Jamabandi, 52 Ujaliparaj, 83, 87–88, 116 Uneconomic dwarf holdings, 67–68 Untouchability, 89, 185–86, 193–94 Upri, 48 Vankur, Muldas Vaisya, 197 Vanta, 57 Varjela, 167 Varnashramdharma, 185

Index Vethi, 55, 110, 119, 136, 175–76, 178 Vishwanath Maharaj, 165 Voices of fragments, 45 Warkari, 47, 186, 200 Warli peasant struggle, 174–81 Watan, 188

279

Watandar, 122, 207 Wazifa, 54 White, Hayden, 20 Wingate, 50 Yagnik, Indulal, 100, 103, 106–07, 116–17, 119–20, 122, 130, 171–72

About the Author Shri Krishan is a Reader in History at the Post Graduate Regional Centre of the M.D. University at Rewari, Haryana. Dr Krishan’s research interest include social movements and various dimensions of popular culture. He is also actively involved in the preparation of teaching materials for undergraduate and postgraduate courses of the Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi. Dr Krishan has published widely in major journals.