Protest and control in North Bihar, India, 1917-1942 : a study of conflict and continuity in a colonial agrarian society

Abstract

In the Indian region of north Bihar during the 20th century a great potential for mass agrarian and national protest existed. The Bihar congress, an organization controlled by conservative, locally dominant peasants, harnessed and directed this potential to its own conservative ends. The success of the Bihar congress in doing so resulted from the guarded tolerance its activities received from the British government of the region and from British policies which sought to minimize disruption to the existing social order. Under the direction of the Bihar congress mass protest eroded the externally imposed state structure without affecting the grossly unequal distribution of wealth and power within north Bihar society. early 20th century north Bihar harboured an impoverished, rigidly stratified population dependent for its livelihood on an inefficient system of agrarian production operating within a colonial economic framework. Conflicts within north Bihar society were contained by both formal and informal mechanisms of control. The British spent less on the governance of north Bihar than on any other region in British India and hence the ’formal1 (i.e. police and administrative) control apparatus was weak. Much was left to the 'informal' control of the great landlords, European planters and locally dominant peasants who comprised the landed interest in the region. in north Bihar between 1917 and 1922 mounting population pressure and the economic disruption caused by the first world war increased the potential for popular turbulence. this potential was variously channelled into a landlord/tenant conflict over tenants' rights; into a struggle by peasants against exploitation by European indigo planters ; and into an extensive campaign, led by the Bihar congress of non-cooperation with alien rule. mass protest in the 1917-1922 period strongly tested the formal apparatus of control and revealed its fragility. in the early 1930s the congress drew on nationalist sentiment and on popular antagonism to the police and administration in order to mount an intense, extensive civil disobedience campaign against the British. Despite its public espousal of the doctrine of non-violence, congress made a carefully circumscribed use of violence to rally waverers and to intimidate its opponents. by limiting the use of violence congress ensured that it controlled the direction and character of protest. Ultimately, the British repressed the civil disobedience campaign but during its course congress violence shook the foundations of British rule over north Bihar. The limited use of violence achieved this result by contributing greatly to the impetus of a prohibition campaign which diminished the revenue the government earned from excise duties and by intimidating many village watchmen (who comprised the foundation of the region’s system of formal control) into temporarily abandoning their posts. Later in the 1930s agrarian protest challenged the system of police and administrative control. At this time a recently elected provincial congress government was challenged by a small group of left-wingers who demanded agrarian reform and who had put themselves at the head of a peasant movement motivated by the impact of the great depression on primary produce prices. the conservatives who dominated the congress government and the congress party successfully contained the left-wing challenge. The success of the conservative congressmen in maintaining stable government affected the morale of Indian officials and policemen. Officials and policemen came to regard the congress as the legitimate and soon to be established successor to the British regime. After the congress ministry left office in late 1939 they were reluctant to carry out British orders directed against the congress. in addition, the police lost popularity because of their part in curbing peasant protest. in august 1942, in reaction to harsh British repression of a congress mass civil disobedience campaign, the people of north Bihar erupted into insurrection. The insurrection combined a 'nationalist protest’ by high caste, congress supporting, locally dominant peasants and a 'rebellion of desperation' by poor and landless low caste and harijan villagers. The insurrection temporarily demolished the state structure. In the interim before the British re-established formal control an opportunity existed for the initiation of an anti-landlord movement. However the high prices prevailing in the early 1940s benefited middle peasants and made them disinclined to engage in agrarian protest. The revolt of august 1942 marked the culmination of the interrelated processes whereby in the post-1917 period the Bihar congress effectively harnessed the potential for popular turbulence to its own conservative ends and employed mass protest to erode the formal control apparatus. The British rulers of north Bihar had treated the activities of the Bihar congress with guarded tolerance and had minimized social change, thus protecting the position and interests of the conservative, locally dominant peasants who controlled the congress. Hence the 1942 revolt dissolved the structure of the imperial state but issued no challenge to the social order. Show more