A Century of Protests: Peasant Politics in Assam Since 1900

501 Pages·2014·4.602 MB·English

by  Arupjyoti Saikia

A Century of Protests
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A Century of Protests
Peasant Politics in Assam Since 1900
Arupjyoti Saikia
First published 2014 in India
by Routledge
912 Tolstoy House, 15–17 Tolstoy Marg, Connaught Place,
New Delhi 110 001
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 Arupjyoti Saikia
Typeset by
Solution Graphics
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Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh 201 102
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage
and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-415-81194-1
Contents
List of Tables, Plates and Maps vi
List of Abbreviations viii
Glossary ix
Acknowledgements xiv
Introduction 1
1. An Agrarian Setting: 1900–50 21
2. Rural Society, Rural Politics and Nationalist
Peasants 73
3. Tenants, Sharecroppers and Communists 122
4. Peasants, Nationalists and Political Possibilities
(1920–48) 170
5. Rural World Upside Down: The Valley during 1948–52 207
6. Rural Mobilization, Social Dynamics
and Rural Politics 249
7. Peasants, Law and Nationalist Identity:
An Unfulfilled Dream 288
Conclusion 327
Notes 333
Bibliography 439
About the Author 468
Index 469
List of Tables, Plates and Maps
Tables
1 Categories of Land in Acres (1951) 14
1.1 Area under Sharecropping (1900–30) 23
1.2 Number of Adhiars in Raiyatwari districts 26
1.3 Number of Former Tea Garden Labour Tenants 40
1.4 Numbers of Property Sold at Auction (1925–46) 64
1.5 Khiraj Land Held by the Marwari Traders 69
A Percentage of Agricultural Categories to Total
Cultivating Population 339
B Landholding of Indigenous Cultivators 340
C Percentage of Absentee Landowners Owning Land 340
D Estimated Area under Jute Cultivation in Assam 352
E Pattern of Credit Flow 354
F Percentage of Land Owned by the Peasant
Proprietors 360
G Percentage of Peasant Families Renting Land 360
Plates
4.1 Panchayat, mouthpiece of the RCPI in 1950
commenting on Zamindari Abolition Bill 192
5.1 Pamphlet on peasant question issued by Krishak Sabha
of CPI, 1950 211
5.2 A 1949 issue of Swadhinata, the mouthpiece
of RCPI 229
5.3 Pamphlet issued by the Communist Party of
India (CPI) asking the Assam government to
withdraw its ban on the CPI 244
5.4 RCPI mouthpiece Lal Nichan, April 1952 247
List of Tables, Plates and Maps (cid:14) vii
6.1 Letter from Bishnuprasad Rabha to his communist
colleagues, 1953 expressing concern about the
ideological stand of RCPI 286
6.2 News of political violence in Naliapool, Dibrugarh,
July 1949 287
Maps
1 The Present State of Assam xvii
2 Brahmaputra Valley (At India’s Independence) xviii
3 Eastern Bengal and the Plains of Brahmaputra Valley xix
1.1 Raiyatwari Districts of Brahmaputra Valley 46–47
List of Abbreviations
ASP Assam Secretariat Proceedings
ASA Assam State Archives
OIOC Oriental and India Office Collection
NAI National Archives of India
NDRR Nowgaon District Record Room
ALCP Assam Legislative Council Proceedings
APBECR Assam Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee
Report
APIRR Assam Police Intelligence Record Room
APWR Abstract of the Assam Police Intelligence Weekly
Report
PHA Political History of Assam
NMML Nehru Memorial Museum and Library
Glossary
adhi bhagi tenancy arrangement between landowner
and tenant or sharecropper wherein land-
owner’s share amounts to half of the
produce.
adhiar sharecropper
agdhan credit given against the security of produce
of peasants
amlah revenue agent, officials
anna unit of currency, equivalent to one-sixteenth
of a rupee (no longer in use)
atmarakha bahini self-defence militia
bandha bonded labour
bar saheb popular term for district magistrate
barga sharecropping in Bengal
basti homestead land
bharga/bhag share
bhakat a devotee or a tenant-peasant attached to
the lands owned by a satra (Vaishnava
monastery)
beel marshy land
bepari petty merchant-cum-moneylenders
bhog offering of food and flowers made to a deity
in a temple
bigha a traditional unit of measurement of an area
of land, equivalent to 0.33 acres
bhagania migrant
bhatia migrant
bhumihin landless
bidhi babystha rules and rituals of social customs
brahmottar grant of rent-free land to Brahmins
chamua exempted from manual labour, in practice
during the Ahom rule
chapori fertile riverine island tract along
Brahmaputra.