Formation of Kishan Sabhas

The oppressions and the repressions of the British Government led the farmers and the peasants of India to raise a resistance against the Government. In different parts of India fragmented peasant uprising took place. Gradually these peasants` uprisings came in contacts with the political currents of the nationalist struggle led by the Indians National Congress. In the course of time, a section of Kishan leadership witnessed the inner contradictions in the Congress agrarian policy. The peasant movements launched by the Congress were primarily aimed at seeking relief against excessive land revenue demand by the Government. Thus the Congress solicited for the zamindars and the landed aristocracies. The Congress was virtually indifferent to the condition of the peasants. It was not even interested in the inter agrarians relationship. Under the Permanent Settlement and the Ryotwari system, the inter agrarians relationship was made more critical. The relations between the landowners and the tenants, peasants and the cultivators were deteriorated. The Communists propaganda created the class-consciousness among the peasants. This class-consciousness inculcated by the Leftist Communist provided the ground for the formations of Kishan Sabhas.

In 1920s the Kishan Sabhas were organized in Bengal, the Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. In the year 1928,the Andhra Provincial Riots Association was constituted. The first All India Kishan Sabha was formed at Lucknow on 11th April 1936. The sole motto of the Kishan Sabha was to secure the complete freedom of the economic exploitation and achievements of full economic and political powers for peasants and workers and all other exploited classes. It also demanded a suspension on debts, abolitions of s lands revenue and rent from the uneconomic holdings, reduction of the s lands revenue and rent, licensing of moneylenders, minimum wages for the agricultural workers, fair prices for sugarcane and commercial crops and irrigational facilities. The objective of the Kishan Sabha was also the abolition of the zamindary and investing of land in the tillers of the land. It had been declared that all the objectives envisaged by the Kishan Sabha could be achieved only by the active participation in the nationalist struggle of independence. The All India Kishan Sabha initiated anti settlement agitation against the oppression of the s zamindars or the lands owners in Andhra Pradesh. In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar violent s struggles were launched against the zamindars. In the years 1936 peasant agitations was taking a violent character. The agitation started against the Bakashat movement (self cultivated land) in Bihar. Bakashat was zamindars "khas" or special land, which were cultivated by the tenants. The Zamindars put several conditions before the tenants before setting him the khas land to cultivate. The Zamindar by letting his khas land made its obligatory for the peasants to pay a certain portion of the produce as a rent to the landowner. The zamindars sought to bring more ands more lands under these tenants prior to the plea on 1937. The Kishan Sabha organizes the evicted tenants and they offered Satyagraha, and in this s ways prevented others from cultivated the land. This resulted in the occurrence of several violent crushes. Thus the Kishan Sabha became active all over India. The All India Kishan Sabha organized a Bihar Kishan Day on 18th October 1937 against police repressions on the satyagrahis.

The growth of the Kishan Sabha posed a threat one the Indian National Congress. The Congress struck a radical posture in agrarian Programme at its Karachi and the Faizpur Session. The Faizpur Congress adopted a resolutions on the needs for the reduction of the rent and revenue abolition of unjust feudal dues and levies, fixity of tenure, suspension on debts and needs for statutory provisions for ensuring living s wage and suitable conditions for work for the agricultural laborers. The All India Kishan Sabha became a national body and achieved a widespread success.