The Pabna Agrarian Crisis

During the 1870s and early 1880s, agrarian unrest swept across much of East Bengal. The zamindars' efforts to increase rent beyond legal limits and prevent tenants from acquiring occupancy rights under Act of 1859 caused the unrest. They attempted to achieve this by using illegal coercive methods such as forced eviction and the seizure of crops and cattle, as well as dragging tenants into expensive court battles.The peasants were no longer willing to put up with oppression. To resist the demands of the zamindars, an agrarian league or combination was formed in Yusufshahi Parganah in Pabna district in May 1873. Peasant mass meetings were held by the league.

• Large groups of peasants would assemble and march through villages, frightening zamindars and enticing other peasants to join them. The league organised a rent strike, with the ryots refusing to pay the increased rents, and took the zamindars to court.
  
  
• To cover the costs, funds were raised from the ryots. The struggle eventually spread throughout Pabna and East Bengal's other districts. Agrarian leagues were formed all over the country, rents were withheld, and zamindars fought in the courts. Legal resistance was the most common form of struggle.
  
  
• There was very little violence; it only happened when the zamindars tried to force the ryots to accept their terms. There were only a few instances of zamindars' houses being looted. There were a few attacks on police stations, and the peasants also resisted attempts to carry out court orders.
  
  
• However, such instances were uncommon. Few zamindars or their agents were killed or seriously injured. The ryots developed a strong awareness of the law and their legal rights during the movement, as well as the ability to combine and form associations for peaceful agitation.
  
  
• Despite the fact that peasant discontent raged until 1885, many of the disputes were settled partly due to official pressure and persuasion and partly due to the zamindar's fear of being dragged into lengthy and costly litigation by the united peasantry. Many peasants were successful in obtaining occupancy rights and resisting increased rents.
  
  

• Wherever there was violence, the government stepped in to defend the zamindars. Following that, peasants were arrested during a large sale. When it came to legal battles or peaceful agitations, however, it took a neutral stance.
  
  
• The government also promised to pass legislation to protect tenants from the worst aspects of zamindari oppression, which it did, albeit imperfectly, in 1885 with the passage of the Bengal Tenancy Act.
  
  
• The fact that the movement's goals were limited to redressing peasant grievances and enforcing existing legal rights and norms persuaded the zamindars and the colonial regime to accept it. It wasn't meant to be directed at the zamindari system. It also lacked any anti-colonial political overtones at any point.
  
  
• The agrarian leagues stayed within the law's bounds, fighting the zamindars through the legal system, and making no anti-British demands. The leaders frequently claimed that they were fighting the zamindars rather than the British.
  
  
• In fact, the peasants' leaders chanted, "We want to be the ryots of Her Majesty the Queen and Her only." As a result, official action was based on the enforcement of the Indian Penal Code, rather than armed repression, as was the case during the Santhal and Munda uprisings.
  
  
• Even though the majority of the ryots were Muslim and the majority of the zamindars were Hindu, the Bengal peasant’s once again demonstrated complete Hindu-Muslim solidarity. There was also no attempt to foster peasant unity based on religion or caste.
  
  
• A number of young Indian intellectuals backed the peasants' cause in this case as well. Bankim Chandra Chatterjea and R.C. Dutt were among them. Later, during the debate over the Bengal Tenancy Bill in the early 1880s, the Indian Association, led by Surendranath Banerjee, Anand Mohan Bose, and Dwarkanath Ganguli, campaigned for tenant rights, assisted in the formation of ryot' unions, and organised massive meetings of up to 20,000 peasants in the districts in support of the Rent Bill. Many nationalist newspapers and the Indian Association went further than the Bill.
  
  
• They requested that the tenant's rent be fixed indefinitely. They warned that because the Bill would give non-cultivators occupancy rights, it would encourage the growth of middlemen — the jotedars — who would be just as oppressive as the zamindars in terms of the actual cultivators. As a result, they demanded that the right of occupancy be tied to actual soil cultivation, i.e., in most cases, to under ryots and tenants-at-will.