The second stage of the movement began when in order to counter the oppression let loose by the aristocracy the peasantry launched the armed struggle. Thus, with this, the movement entered into its revolutionary phase. It entered the revolutionary phase when over 2,000 villages set up their own ‘Peoples Committees’; these ‘Committees’ took over land, maintained their own army and own administration (Mehta, 1979). This rule of the peasants in a large part of the region and the armed resistance continued until 1950 and was finally crushed by the Indian army. It was ultimately called off in 1951. It was an agrarian struggle in which many peasants were killed
by the army of the landed gentry and later by the Indian army after the takeover of the Hyderabad state by the Indian army. The demands raised were broad ones and the nature of the struggle itself makes this movement one of the most revolutionary agrarian struggles of India unmatched so far in the Indian history.

The Naxalbari Peasant Uprising

The Naxalbari peasant uprising that occurred in the northern part of West Bengal is the last of the major uprisings India has witnessed. It took place in post-colonial India and was led by a faction of the CPI (M). The two most prominent leaders of the CPI (M) who disagreed with the official position of the party and led the movement were Kanu Sanyal and Charu Mazumdar. It erupted in the foothills of the eastern Himalayas in West Bengal, in a place called Naxalbari falling within the subdivision of Siliguri in Darjeeling district. It is in Naxalbari, Kharibari and Phansidewa, the three police station areas where the movement took a militant turn. The region is different from that of the whole of West Bengal because within it, there exists numerous tea plantations and a large proportion of tribal population. Tea plantations have developed along the lines of a plantation economy whereas the tribal population in thisregion include the Santhals,  Rajbansis, Oraons, Mundas and a small number of Terrai Gurkhas. It is because of the combination of these two factors that the whole region has a history of land disputes in West Bengal. The landless peasants in this region had since long claimed that their land were being encroached by the tea estates and also by the rich peasants. Thus it is because of this peculiarity, the Naxalbari area had witnessed a number of peasant disputes led mainly by an indigenous peasant leadership and not by the outside middle class leaders. The agrarian revolt arose in the month of April 1967 after the formation of the new government in West Bengal in which the CPI (M) was a major partner. The movement continued till June in full swing in the whole Siliguri subdivision. Kanu Sanyal, the leader of the movement specified ten great tasks, which included inter alia, land which was not owned and tilled by peasant themselves was to be redistributed, peasants were to burn all legal deeds and documents, unequal agreements between the moneylenders and the peasants were to be declared null and void, hoarded rice were to be confiscated by the peasants and distributed among the peasants, all jotedars to be tried and sentenced to death etc. He urged the peasants to arm themselves with traditional weapons.

The high point of the movement was reached in the month of May. Forcible occupations by the peasants took place and according to government sources there were around 60 cases of forcible occupations, looting of rice and paddy and intimidation and assaults. The leaders of the movement claimed that around 90 percent of the peasants in the Siliguri subdivision supported the movement. The movement came to a halt, when, under central government pressure, the West Bengal police entered the region and swept the area. Cases of killing of landlords were carried on later as a part of the annihilation strategy. The movement spread to other areas of the state and elsewhere in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh later in the form of the Naxalite movement .Thus, the Naxalbari peasant uprising had far reaching consequences in the Independent India.

The Movements of the Rural Rich: Farmers’ Movements in Contemporary India

In this part of the section, we shall focus on two of the prominent movements of the rural rich, one led by the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) in western Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and the Shetkari Sangathan (SS) which represents primarily the interests of the sugarcane, cotton, tobacco, grape and onion growers in south-west Maharashtra though it also has its base in Gujarat. There are other organisations and movements in the country as well like the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha movement led by Nanjundaswamy in Karnataka and Vivasayigal Sangam movement led by Narayanswamy Naidu in Tamil Nadu, the Khedut movement in south of Gujarat; but in recent years, the BKU movement led by Mahendra Singh Tikait and the movement by the SS led by Sharad Joshi has drawn more national attention because of their militancy and spread. We would begin with the BKU and then come to a discussion of the SS and end up with a comparison of the two movements. Before we look at the BKU, let us look at the nature of the rural economy in the west Uttar Pradesh and in the states of Punjab and Haryana that forms the backbone of the movement.