ABSTRACT
The Bihar Kisan Sabha was strongly influenced after 1934 by the Congress Socialists who had officially joined the movement in that year. Swami Sahajanand, who was already moving away from a position of agrarian compromise, was confirmed in that view through this period, and by 1936 the program of the Kisan Sabha was formulated in a manifesto couched in terms of clear class demands. The development of political leadership in modern Bihar resulted from the movement for provincial separation from Bengal and the Gandhian nationalism of Champaran and non-cooperation. Economically, the Kisan Sabha leaders were primarily from landholdings families, in some cases of considerable means, more generally of moderate holdings, and in a few cases from small holding families. The ideology of the Kisan Sabha was expressed as the program of the movement which essentially sought an amelioration of the peasant’s condition.
