Discuss the nature of peasant movements under the Kisan Sabhas during 1920-1940.

Answer:

The Kisan Sabhas of the inter-war years transformed scattered agrarian discontent into organised peasant politics. Their movements were largely non-violent and constitutional in method, economic in demand, and increasingly linked both to nationalism and to socialist ideas.

Growth and organisation

• The UP Kisan Sabha was founded in 1918 and the Awadh Kisan Sabha in 1920.
• Baba Ramchandra led the Awadh peasants against talukdari oppression.
• The Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha under Swami Sahajanand Saraswati was formed in 1929.
• The All India Kisan Sabha was founded at Lucknow in 1936 under Sahajanand's presidency.
• N.G. Ranga, Indulal Yagnik and E.M.S. Namboodiripad were prominent leaders.

Nature of their demands and methods

• Demands centred on reduction of rent, security of tenure and abolition of illegal exactions (begar).
• Occupancy rights and the abolition of zamindari became central objectives.
• Methods were mainly non-violent: meetings, marches, no-rent campaigns and petitions.
• The Kisan Manifesto of 1936 demanded abolition of landlordism outright.
• Movements often ran alongside Congress campaigns but retained separate class demands.

Character and significance

• They introduced class organisation into the countryside for the first time.
• Socialist and communist influence grew steadily within them.
• The Congress's ambivalence, given its zamindar support, produced recurring tension.
• They pressed the Congress towards the land reform commitments of 1947.

Major campaigns

• The Eka movement in Awadh resisted eviction and illegal levies.
• The Bardoli satyagraha of 1928 under Patel resisted a revenue enhancement.
• The Bakasht movement in Bihar fought for restoration of tenant lands.
• The Tebhaga and Telangana movements followed in the 1940s.

The Kisan Sabha movements were therefore reformist in method but increasingly radical in aim, giving the peasantry an organised voice for the first time. As historians of agrarian India note, they linked the anti-colonial struggle to the demand for social justice, and their pressure shaped the land reform programme of independent India.