ABSTRACT
An important first step in the direction of a better understanding of the situation would be to stop describing the major section of the state’s agricultural proletariat as ‘downtrodden harijans’. Agricultural labourers in various villages of Bihar had started organising themselves shortly after Independence under the socialists, the communists or independently. Since March 1977, Bihar has earned the dubious distinction of accounting for the largest number of cases of ‘atrocities against harijans’ among all the states of India. Indebtedness of the agricultural proletariat has existed for centuries but the Bihar Scheduled Castes, Schedules Tribes, Backward Classes and Denotified Tribes Debt Relief Act as well as the Bihar Moneylender’s Act were passed only in 1974. In the 19 months of the Emergency, 68,000 agricultural labourers were helped to get arrears of wages totalling Rs. 1 crore from the landlords.
