Peasant Struggles and Nationalism in Colonial Assam: History of Ryot Sabha (1900-1947)

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The significance of peasant movements began to interest historians in India from the sixties of the last century particularly after works like those of D.N. Dhangare opened up a whole new arena of research and analysis. The attempts to understand peasants and their negotiations with the colonial state in India provided historians a new window into the workings of the Indian society vis-à-vis the foreign state and its policies and administrations. In different parts of the country the peasants, in their various differentiated categories, had responded to the policies of the colonial state in ways which sought to protect their own interests. Although peasant studies as such had taken off late but the importance of the participation of peasants in various movements including the national movement has been an integral part of historical analysis for a long time. In fact even in the 1940s R.P.Dutt had drawn the attention of social scientists to the emerging role of peasants in social movements. It is in this context that focusing on peasants in different parts of the country, their organizations, their interface with the authorities, assumes great importance. In the light of this perspective, the present book on the peasantry of the Brahmaputra Valley of Assam who formed a popular organization called Ryot Sabha which stood for the interest of the presents in the preindependence period, have not received the attention that it should have received.

Anjan Saikia (b.1975) presently serving as Principal, Cinnamara College, Cinnamara, Jorhat, Assam. He did his Master Degree in History from Gauhati University, Guwahati. Obtaining Junior Research fellowship from ICHR, New Delhi, he completed Ph.D. Degree from North-Eastern Hill University from the Department of History. He has more than 17 years of teaching and research experience and published several research papers in reputed national and international Journals. He is a life member of the All India History Congress, North-East India History Association and editor of the 'The Mirror', a bilingual Annual Journal of history.

The significance of peasant movements began to interest historians in India from the sixties of the last century particularly after works like those of D.N.Dhangare opened up a whole new arena of research and analysis. The attempts to understand peasants and their negotiations with the colonial state in India provided historians a new window into the workings of the Indian society vis-à-vis the foreign state and its policies and administrations. In different parts of the country the peasants, in their various differentiated categories, had responded to the policies of the colonial state in ways which sought to protect their own interests. Although peasant studies as such had taken off late but the importance of the participation of peasants in various movements including the national movement has been an integral part of historical analysis for a long time. In fact even in the 1940s R.P. Dutt had drawn the attention of social scientists to the emerging role of peasants in social movements. It is in this context that focusing on peasants in different parts of the country, their organizations, their interface with the authorities, assumes great importance.

The history of the evolution of British rule in Assam shows though at the initial stage there was an impression that the British intervention and the establishment of a new order post-Burmese atrocities would bring some relief to the masses yet, gradually all illusions that the people, particularly the peasantry, might have had about the benevolent nature of British policies were dispelled. By the 1890s not even a trace was left of the enthusiasm with which the Assamese had welcomed the British in 1826 to save them from Burmese atrocities and their own internal conflicts. In half a century of British rule the Assamese peasants had learnt, through bitter experience, that what mattered to the British were the profits that could be accrued from the land. These profits were annually increasing, as the annual demand of land revenue began to increase but in relation to this increase, the economic condition of the peasantry had not improved to enable them to pay the increased rates. For a peasantry that had no experience of handling a monetized economy, because the pre- British economy of Assam under the Ahom rulers was not a monetized one, this constant demand to pay increased rates of revenue in cash was a harbinger of misfortunes and they responded to it by protesting against the injustice of the colonial state. This protest was organized initially by the traditional rural institution of the Assamese called the raj mel and later, from the end of the nineteenth century, by the Ryot Sabha. The latter's composition and leadership differed greatly from that of the former because by the end of the nineteenth century new social forces had begun to emerge in the Assamese society and so these forces began to play significant roles in the engagement with the colonial state. The newly emerging western educated elite of Assam was one of the most important and in a way a hegemonic force in the society and the more progressive sections of this group began to involve itself in peasant issues and it was partly under the leadership of this group that the Ryot Sabha were formed. This phase of development in peasant activities in Assam closely follows the spread of the National movement as well and therefore it was not a uniform phenomenon in all parts of the colonial province of Assam. The history of the emergence and growth of the Ryot Sabha in the different areas of Assam therefore is important for understanding not only the nature of peasant activities and their involvement with the nationalist struggle but also the role of the new social forces in the socio-political life of Assam.

The present work by Anjan Saikia delves into this aspect of the history of Assam. By zeroing in on one area, the Sibsagar district of British Assam, where the Ryot Sabha was an important element of rural organization he has highlighted the point that peasant consciousness or activities were not a homogenous phenomenon in Assam. The author has tried to use the Middle Peasant thesis as developed by D.N.Dhanagare for the Indian context, to understand the character of peasant of organization and peasant consciousness in Assam in general but, more particularly in the Sibsagar district. Though this point may raise debates but it goes to the author's credit that he has tried to establish his conceptual position with the help of the empirical data in his possession. The more significant point however is the nature of analysis that Saikia has done regarding the character of the Ryot Sabha in Sibsagar and the very in depth research that he has done to highlight the nature of composition and leadership of the institution.

**Contents and Sample Pages**