Peasant and tribal movements in Rajasthan

At a glance

1. 1Rajasthan Seva Sangh: Pathik's body, founded at Wardha in 1919 and moved to Ajmer in 1920, took up the Bijolia, Begun and Bundi (Barad) movements.
2. 2Gandhi: he sent Mahadev Desai to Bijolia in 1918, and wrote of the Neemuchana firing that, if the reports were true, it was "Dyerism double distilled" (Dyer: the officer of the Jallianwala Bagh firing).
3. 3Haripura Congress (1938): the Congress left the princely states' struggles to the people's own organisations.

Peasant movements

• BijoliaDhakad farmers of UparmalYears1897–1941WhereBijolia thikana, Mewar (Bhilwara district)Led by / causeSadhu Sitaram Das, Vijay Singh Pathik, Manikya Lal Verma; about 84 levies and begarWhat happenedThree phases; the 1922 agreement was not kept; settled in 1941Full notes →
• Begun'Bolshevik' settlementYears1921–23WhereBegun thikana, MewarLed by / causeRamnarayan Chaudhary, then Pathik; lag-bag and begarWhat happenedMeeting at Bherukund near Menal (1921); the Thakur's agreement with the Rajasthan Seva Sangh was rejected; during the Trench commission, troops fired at Govindpura on 13 July 1923, killing Rupaji and Kripaji Dhakad (the Bhilwara gazetteer names one man killed, Rupa Dhakar); in the end many levies were dropped and begar was banned
• Bundi (Barad)Nanak Bhil, martyrYears1922–23; again from 1936WhereBarad area of Bundi stateLed by / causeNayanuram Sharma of the Rajasthan Seva Sangh; about 25 levies, begar and high revenueWhat happenedFiring at Dabi on 2 April 1923 killed Nanak Bhil and Devlal Gurjar (the Bundi gazetteer dates Nanak Bhil's death to 1926)
• Shekhawati (Sikar)Katrathal and KudanYears1922–47WhereSikar thikana and Shekhawati, Jaipur stateLed by / causeJat farmers, after Rao Raja Kalyan Singh of Sikar raised land revenue by 25–50% in 1922; Ramnarayan Chaudhary of the Seva SanghWhat happenedWomen's conference at Katrathal under Kishori Devi (25 April 1934); four farmers killed in the Kudan firing (25 April 1935), which was raised in the British House of Commons; ended with Jaipur's popular government of March 1947
• Alwar: NeemuchanaMachine-gun firingYears1925WhereNeemuchana village, Alwar stateLed by / causeFarmers against the rent rise of 1923–24 under Maharaja Jai SinghWhat happened14 May 1925: troops fired on about 800 farmers gathered there; hundreds were killed
• Alwar: wild boarsBan on killing boarsYears1921WhereAlwar stateLed by / causeFarmers whose crops the state's protected wild boars ruinedWhat happenedThe ruler agreed to let them kill the boars
• Mev (Meo)Martial law in MewatYears1932–33WhereAlwar and BharatpurLed by / causeMeo farmers against high revenue, led by Chaudhary Yasin Khan of GurgaonWhat happenedThey stopped paying the kharif revenue; after a clash at Govindgarh, Government of India troops took over Alwar's four Meo nizamats under martial law
• Bikaner: Dudhwa KharaBikaner kisan struggleYears1940sWhereDudhwa Khara village near Churu, Bikaner stateLed by / causeHanuman Singh, against the local thakur's oppressionWhat happenedHanuman Singh was jailed in June 1945; the Raisinghnagar firing followed in 1946
• MarwarDabra incidentYearsto 1947WhereMarwar (Jodhpur state)Led by / causeMarwar Hitkarini Sabha, then the Marwar Lok Parishad (1938), against the jagirdars' leviesWhat happenedIts peak was the Dabra incident of 1947 (see Praja Mandal movements)

Tribal movements

• Bhil movement of Govind GuruBhagat movementYearsto 1913WhereDungarpur, Banswara, Sunth and Idar; Mangarh hillLed by / causeGovind Guru; Samp Sabha and the Bhagat sectWhat happened17 November 1913: British and state forces fired on the Bhils gathered at Mangarh (Banswara)Full notes →
• Eki movementBhomat BhilsYears1921–29 (1921–22 in some accounts)WhereMewar, the Bhomat area, Sirohi and IdarLed by / causeMotilal Tejawat; no-tax pledge and the 21 demands of Mewar ki PukarWhat happenedFiring at Pal-Chitariya (Idar) on 7 March 1922; Tejawat was arrested in 1929Full notes →
• Meena movementBranded a criminal tribeYears1924–52WhereJaipur stateLed by / causeAgainst the Criminal Tribes Act (1924) and Jaipur's Jarayam Pesha law (1930), which made Meenas report daily at police stationsWhat happenedMeena Kshetriya Mahasabha (1933); conference at Neem ka Thana (April 1944) under the Jain monk Magan Sagar; about 26,000 Meenas gave up the chowkidar's post at Bagawas on 28 October 1946, kept as Mukti Diwas; the law was repealed in 1952

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