Agrarian struggle

An agrarian society (or

agricultural society) is

any society whose economy is based on

producing and maintaining crops and

farmland.

Another way to define an agrarian

society is by seeing how much of a

nation's total production is in agriculture.

Forceful or violent efforts to get free of

restraint or constriction.

Social movements are a type of group

action. They are large, sometimes

informal, groupings of individuals or

organizations which focus on specific

political or social issues.

In other words, they carry out, resist or

undo a social change.

The society acknowledges other means of

livelihood and work habits but stresses

the importance of agriculture and farming,

and was the most common form of socio-

economic organization for most of

recorded human history.

With the development of agriculture,

came cities. Cities seemed a lot better

than living in a hunter-gatherer world. This

is how it began.

Farming would bring a surplus of food.

People began to settle around the crops

so they can get some food instead of

having to hunt and scavenge.

With the surplus, other professions

appeared. Most people were still farmers,

but jobs like merchants and potters

appeared.

Also, a form of government. People

wanted to feel safe from the outside, but

also inside the city. Some people took to

profession of a soldier. Someone needed

to hold the city together, and so kings and

priests appeared.

These cities would soon become

overpopulated, and a civilization

appeared because the communities

needed to expand which led to the first

civilizations like Sumer or China.

Agrarian societies have existed in various

parts of the world as far back as 10,000

years ago and continue to exist today.

Agrarianism most often refers to a social

philosophy which values agrarian society as

superior to industrial society and stress the

superiority of a simpler rural life as opposed

to the complexity and chaos of urbanized,

industrialized life.

True agrarian movements have arisen

whenever urban interests have encroached,

in fact, or in seeming, upon vital rural

interests. Hence agrarian movements take

place whenever urban penetration occurs in

the rural areas.

It may be also through the influence of

urban values, or through the acquisition of

better lands in the rural area, imposition of

land revenue, land tax and so on.

The trend of Agrarian unrest in India can be

traced to the period of British rule.

After obtaining the diwani of Bihar, Bengal and

Orissa, British introduced different land

revenue policies.

To meet the high demand of revenue, the

peasants perpetually remanded indebted to

the local money-lenders. Further many of them

lost their lands to these greedy moneylenders.

1. Champaran Satyagraha (1917)

Gandhi made the experiment of non-

cooperation by leading the Champaran

(Bihar) and Kheda (Gujarat) peasant

struggles.

The basic idea was to mobilize the peasants

and make them attain their demands.

Some of the important causes: -

1. The land rent was increased enormously.

2. The peasants were compelled by the

European planters to grow indigo, which

restricted their freedom of cultivation.

4. The payment of wages was meager to the

peasants, which was not sufficient to earn

their livelihood.

5. The peasants of Champaran were living

under miserable conditions and were

suffering from abject poverty.

2. Kheda Peasant Struggle

Kheda is situated in the central part of

Gujarat and was quite fertile for the

cultivation of tobacco and cotton crops.

The peasantry of Kheda consisted mainly of

Patidars who were known for their skills in

agriculture

The Patidars were well-educated.

Some of the important causes: -

1. Reassessment of Kheda land was done by

the government based on the cultivation of

crops.

2. There was a severe famine in Kheda, which

resulted in the failure of crops. The

government did not accept the failure of

crops but was insistent on the collection of

land tax, not taking the conditions of

peasants into consideration.

3. The Bardoli Movement in Gujarat

In the year 1925, the taluka of Bardoli

suffered from heavy floods and severe

famine which affected the crops very badly.

This situation led the farmers to face great

financial troubles.

At the same time, the Government of

Bombay Presidency raised the tax rate by 30

per cent. Without taking into consideration

the requests and petitions of the civic groups

3. The Bardoli Movement in Gujarat

Patel along with Parikh, Vyas, and Pandya

took the help of some activists of Gujarat

who were close to the government in order

to know the movements of the government

officials.

The government agreed to restore the

confiscated property and also cancel the

revenue payment for the year and also

cancelled the raise of 30 per cent until next

year.

4. Peasant Revolt in Telangana

The movement started against Nizam ofHyderabad against the unlawful tax system.

5. The Telangana movement

The Communist Party of India initiated theTelangana Peasant struggle.

Severe famine struck the Telangana regionin the year 1946. All the crops failed andthere was shortage of the availability of foodand fodder. The prices of food and othercommodities increased.

There was a revolutionary turn to the

Telangana peasant struggle, and the

peasants turned into an army and on a few

occasions also fought guerilla wars.

Apart from the peasant agitation, a parallel

para-military voluntary force was organized

by Kasim Rizvi. The members of this

organization were called Razakars.

The Indian army marched into the state of

Hyderabad on 13 September 1948. The

army was successful enough in suppressing

the Nizam’s army and the Razakars.

The term new social movements (NSMs) is a

theory of social movements that attempts to

explain the plethora of new movements that

have come up in various western societies

roughly since the mid-1960s (i.e. in a post

industrial economy) which are claimed to

depart significantly from the conventional

social movement paradigm.

Unlike traditional social movements the newsocial movements are highly participativeand have strong programme of actions. Thisphenomenon of new social movement canbe traced back to the post world war IIperiod. The end of World War 11 witnessedthe emergence of a number of new states inthe Third World. These states were formedwith high expectations and thus there was alarger demand for political participation andpower distribution .However many of thesestates failed to meet the demands of thecitizen. This can be understood as a majorcause for the emergence of new socialmovements.

New social movements emerge around new

scopes and range of politics. The

environment, the rights, and role of women,

health, food and nutrition, education, shelter

and housing, the dispensation of justice,

communications and the dissemination of

information, culture and lifestyle, the

achievement of peace and disarmament

none of which were considered to be subject

matter for politics in which ordinary people

were involved, are major concerns for the

new movements

These popular movements have some

middle-class leadership of middleclass

intelligentsia, professionals, teachers,

priests, etc. who offer their services as

leaders, organizers or advisers to these

community and other.

The assertion of new social movements in

the contemporary world is clearly linked with

the concept of civil society.

Urbanization: Urbanization led to larger

settlements, where people of similar goals

could find each other, gather and

organize. This facilitated social interaction

between scores of people, and it was in

urban areas that those early social

movements first appeared.

Industrialization: The process of

industrialization which gathered large

masses of workers in the same region

explains why many of those early social

movements addresses matters such as

economic wellbeing, important to worker

class.

Mass education: It is a major reason behind

social movements. Many social movements

were created at universities, where the

process of mass education brought many

people together

Communication Technologies: The

development of communication technologies

accelerated the social movements. With the

development of communication

technologies, creation and activities of social

movements became easier - from printed

pamphlets circulating in the 18th century

coffeehouses to newspapers and Internet, all

those tools became important factors in the

growth of the social movements.

Democracy: The spread of democracy and

political rights like the freedom of speech

made the creation and functioning of social

movements much easier. It permitted people

to organize freely without governmental

restrictions. People can freely discuss

matters and forums of free expression slowly

developed.

Globalization & Social Movements

Globalization promotes an agenda of economicliberalization in trade, investment and finance.

It makes states increasingly powerless tocontrol their own economies, and that statesadopt rhetoric of powerlessness to divestthemselves of broader social responsibility.

The new social movements view globalizationas representing forces that disrupt communities,cultures and livelihood patterns of the poorwithout offering any viable and dignifiedalternative.

New Social movements in India

In recent years in India, a number of social

movements emerged. These movements are

varying in nature and methods. However,

they do have a substantial shared ideology.

The following are some shared

characteristics.

1. They claim to represent the people –the

downtrodden Indian masses.

2. Most of these movements are against the

demerits of globalization

3. They claim to be fighting for oppressed groupssuch as Dalits and Adivasis.

4. They oppose the state as well as largecorporations and large funding agencies suchas the World Bank. They also oppose large-scale projects. They claim to be fighting for theprotection of the environment.

5. They criticize the mainstream industrialized,corporate West.

6. The new movements reject universal indices ofmeasuring development and progress such asGDP, life expectancy, child mortality, literacyrate, etc. Rather, they argue in favor ofsubjective and local yardsticks.