The National Movement and Bihar's Peasant Movement
The National Movement and Bihar's Peasant Movement
This topic gives 3 questions and is where the Part-III paper goes beyond the General Studies treatment. Alongside the national story it asks about the peasant movement, which began in Bihar and became a national organisation — a fact most candidates do not know.
The National Movement in Outline
| Phase | Years | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Moderate | 1885 to 1905 | Petitions and constitutional appeals |
| Extremist and Swadeshi | 1905 to 1917 | Boycott, swadeshi, passive resistance |
| Gandhian mass phase | 1917 to 1947 | Satyagraha on a mass scale |
- Champaran, 1917 — Gandhi's first satyagraha in India, against forced indigo under the tinkathia system, at Raj Kumar Shukla's persuasion.
- Non-Cooperation, 1920 to 1922 — withdrawn after Chauri Chaura.
- Civil Disobedience, 1930 — begun with the Dandi March.
- Quit India, 1942 — the resolution on 8 August, arrests on 9 August, and the Patna Secretariat firing on 11 August in which seven students died.
Those Bihar dates — 1917 and 11 August 1942 — are the state's two best-known contributions and are covered in the General Studies chapter as well. What follows is the part that is not.
The Kisan Sabha: A Movement That Began in Bihar
The peasant movement of twentieth-century India began in Bihar, under Swami Sahajanand Saraswati.
- He founded the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha in 1929, to organise peasants against zamindari attacks on their occupancy rights.
- The movement grew out of the conditions the Permanent Settlement of 1793 had created — layers of intermediaries, rising rents and no security of tenure.
- It spread from Bihar across the country.
- The All India Kisan Sabha was formed at the Lucknow session in April 1936, with Sahajanand Saraswati as its first president.
- Its demands were the abolition of zamindari, security of tenure and relief from illegal cesses.
This is the strongest under-used fact in Bihar's modern history: a national peasant organisation with its origin and its first president from Bihar. It also completes the chain that began with the Permanent Settlement, ran through forced indigo to Champaran, and ended with an organised demand for the abolition of zamindari.
✗ The All India Kisan Sabha was founded in Bihar in 1936 | ✓ It was founded at Lucknow in April 1936, but its origin was the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha of 1929, and its first president was from Bihar
Other Strands of the Movement
- The revolutionary strand — Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad; and Khudiram Bose, linked to the 1908 action at Muzaffarpur in Bihar.
- The Indian National Army under Subhas Chandra Bose, and the Provisional Government at Singapore in October 1943.
- The working-class movement, with trade unions from the 1920s.
- The movement for the rights of the depressed classes, led by Ambedkar.
A Part-III paper asks about these strands because the school syllabus presents the freedom struggle as several movements at once rather than one. Peasants, workers, revolutionaries and the depressed classes each had their own demands, and the Congress did not speak for all of them.
Bihar's Place in the Whole
Put together, Bihar supplied Gandhi's first Indian satyagraha, the origin of the national peasant movement, the seven martyrs of 1942, Khudiram Bose at Muzaffarpur, and Rajendra Prasad, who presided over the Constituent Assembly — an unusually complete list for one state, and the reason a Bihar paper can draw five separate questions from this ground.
किसान सभा आंदोलन बिहार से शुरू हुआ — स्वामी सहजानंद सरस्वती, 1929।
TRE pointer: The Kisan Sabha is the item that separates a Bihar-prepared candidate from one revising a national textbook: Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha 1929, All India Kisan Sabha at Lucknow in April 1936, and Sahajanand Saraswati as first president. Note the trap in the founding place — the origin was Bihar, but the all-India body was formed at Lucknow. Both halves of that sentence are examinable.
60-Second Recap
- Moderate, Extremist and Gandhian phases divide the national movement.
- Champaran 1917 was Gandhi's first satyagraha in India.
- Swami Sahajanand Saraswati founded the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha in 1929.
- The All India Kisan Sabha was formed at Lucknow in April 1936, with him as first president.
- Its demands grew out of the Permanent Settlement of 1793.
- Bihar supplied Champaran, the Kisan Sabha, the 1942 martyrs, Khudiram Bose and Rajendra Prasad.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where did the Kisan Sabha movement begin?
In Bihar. Swami Sahajanand Saraswati founded the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha in 1929 to organise peasants against zamindari attacks on their occupancy rights, and the movement spread from there across the country during the following years.
When and where was the All India Kisan Sabha founded?
At the Lucknow session in April 1936, with Swami Sahajanand Saraswati as its first president. Note the distinction: the organisation was formed at Lucknow, but its origin lay in the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha founded seven years earlier.
Why did the peasant movement begin in Bihar?
Because Bihar lay within the Permanent Settlement area, where the zamindari structure had produced layers of intermediaries, rising rents and no security of tenure for cultivators. The grievances the Kisan Sabha organised had been building since 1793.
What were the Kisan Sabha's main demands?
The abolition of zamindari, security of tenure for cultivators, and relief from illegal cesses and arbitrary rent increases. These demands shaped agrarian policy after independence, when zamindari abolition became one of the earliest legislative priorities.