ABSTRACT
Bihar, one of the most backward areas in India, has been the scene of almost continous agrarian unrest since the beginning of the twentieth century. The issues have been many and diverse at different points in time and in different geographical areas of the state. The nature and forms of peasant protest, too, were different at different times. Mostly peasant movements have been sporadic and spontaneous, but the 1930s saw the emergence in Bihar of a massive peasant organisation, the Kisan Sabha. The paper examines the origin and functioning of that peasant organisation. It starts with an examination of the agrarian economy of Bihar at the turn of the century and the peasants’ reaction to economic, social and political forces acting on them. It briefly discusses the famous Champaran Satyagraha as one of the first peasant movements carried out under the leadership of ‘outsiders’ and traces the origins of the Kisan Sabha. It goes on to discuss the leadership and organisational structure of the Kisan Sabha and focuses on the Sabha’s movements and the ideological and programmatic shifts in the content of peasant agitations. Finally, it examines the changing class composition and character of the Kisan Sabha through the 1930s up to the ‘modern’ phase of agrarian discontent brought about after zamindari abolition in Bihar.
