The roots of unrest and discontent in rural India may be traced to the agrarian structure. If we analyse the Indian agrarian structure we find that differences have always been there in the areas of land ownership, land control, income, and standard of living. Though the social and economic inequalities always persisted yet in earlier times these were contained through traditional values and religious beliefs and practices. The doctrine of karma and dharma functioned as safety valve along with bhagya or fate: The divine decree was all pervasive. People including the deprived and exploited, were reconciled to their fate. Inequalities were accepted as normal and natural.
Over a period of time the working class attained a level of awareness, which proved instrumental in radicalizing their analysis about their life and society. Political movements made the poor peasants and agricultural labour aware of their exploitation, mechanism and dynamics of exploitation and gave them strength and voice.
Agrarian unrest is primarily related with the material conditions of the people living within agrarian structure. With every decline in material conditions unrest increases. If we look at the pre-independence scenario we find that it was after 1918 that the peasants began to develop political consciousness, took part in the organized national struggles and subsequently built up their own organizations. The Moplah Rebellion of 1922, formation of agricultural and labour unions in Andhra Pradesh in 1923, in Punjab, Bengal and Uttar Pradesh in 1926-27, irruptions of peasant struggles of Bardoli (Gujarat) in 1928-31, and similar other events gave voice to agrarian unrest.
The Congress Socialist Party, Communist Party and various communist groups along with left to the centre nationalist leaders like Nehru contributed significantly to the formation of kisan (peasant) organizations. When the First All India Kisan Congress met at Lucknow in 1935, it was for the first time in the history of India that an all India Organisation of Indian peasantry was formed with a programme of common demands giving expression to the aspirations of the Indian peasantry. Unfortunately the congress governments formed in different provinces before independence failed to take any radical steps to fulfil the aspirations of the peasantry. This gave rise to cynicism and disillusionment among the poor peasants suffering under the existing agrarian systems. After this , At the heightened levels of political awareness some of the biggest organized peasant struggles were waged between 1946- 50. The struggles of Warli in Maharashtra, the Tehbaga Movement in East Bengal and the Telengane movement in Hyderabad State ( now Telangana) represent the most revolutionary phase of peasant struggles waged against the backdrop of simmering agrarian unrest. In these struggles communists provided the leadership and played the key role. In the post independence period the Naxalbari (Naxalite) Movement represents the most vocal and radical face of agrarian unrests.
The agrarian unrest is not distributed uniformly throughout the country. It has been and still is more vocal in the paddy growing regions of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Kerala. Incidentally, these regions have a comparatively higher density of population and higher ratio of poor peasants and agricultural labour. The Left Front governments of West Bengal and Kerala have been able to carry land reforms and taken steps to protect the interest of tenants and sharecroppers.
If we wish to summarise the main causes of agrarian unrest , these may be as follows:
(a) uneven and unjust distribution of sources of income in the rural areas and the widening gap in this sphere.
(b) high incidence of unemployment and under employment coupled with low wages.
(c) increasing indebtedness and land alienation specially among the tribal peasantry.
(d) displacement and lack of rehabilitation measures
(e) increasing awareness among the depressed and deprived sections about their miserable material conditions and socio-economic disabilities. The majority of the poor peasants and landless agricultural labour comes from the Scheduled Castes, tribal communities and the Other Backward Classes·(OBCs) led to political mobilization of dalits and backwards.
Andre Beitelle (1974) holds the agarian structure of India with the following features were responsible for the prevailing agrarian unrest:
- (a) presence of two opposite poles of social and economic inequalities.
- (b) strengthening belief, especially after independence, that these inequalities can be reduced if not totally removed.
- (c) failure of administrative and political efforts to change the prevailing patterns of inequalities especially at its lower rungs.
For centuries the subaltern population was thriving in India without whispering anything about their ‘felt needs’ and real conditions. Now the widespread discontent and unrest get itself manifested in violent as ‘Yell as non-violent means”.