Shere-Bangla : His role in addressing peasant uprising

Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque :
Throughout his life Ak Fazlul Haque fought for upholding human rights of the poor farmers. He relentleesly struggled for the protection of their rights in and ourside the house. Needless to mention peasants in Bengal were smouldering to take fire to upset the oppressive regimes and Fazlul Haque rose to the occasion several times. Peasant uprising was a resistance movement by the peasants as ryots against the lords of the lands. Some lords forcefully collected rents and land taxes, often enhanced for the poor peasants and also prevented the tenants from acquiring ‘Occupancy Right under Act X of 1859’. ‘The peasants were often evicted from the land due to non payment. The lords who gained parts of the Natore Raj frequently conducted violent act in order to gain more money. Due to the decline in the production of Jute in the 1870s, the peasants were struggling with famine. Some of the lords declared an enhancement of land taxes and that triggered the rebellion. Some peasants declared their parganas independent of zamindari control and tried to setting up a local government with an “army” to fight the zamindari “lathials” or police. Deputies were placed in charge of the rebel army and were stationed at different parts of the district.’ (Encyclopedia)
‘When the Pabna Raiyats’ League (created in May 1873) activities threatened public peace, the government intervened to restore peace. In a proclamation of 4 July 1873 Sir George Campbell the then Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, guaranteed British government support of peasants against excessive zamindar demands, and advised the zamindars to assert their claims by legal means only. In the face of police action and additional famine that broke out in 1873-74, the rebellion subsided.'(ibid)
Wikipedia referring to a host of studies (RC Mozumdr, Social Scientist and Calcutta Review) epitomize peasant’s revolt reveals that:
“The Peasants’ Revolt has been widely studied by academics. Late 19th-century historians used a range of sources from contemporary chroniclers to assemble an account of the uprising, and these were supplemented in the 20th century by research using court records and local archives. Interpretations of the revolt have shifted over the years. It was once seen as a defining moment in English history, but modern academics are less certain of its impact on subsequent social and economic history. The revolt heavily influenced the course of the Hundred Years’ War, by deterring later Parliaments from raising additional taxes to pay for military campaigns in France. The revolt has been widely used in socialist literature, including by the author William Morris, and remains a potent political symbol for the political left, informing the arguments surrounding the introduction of the Community Charge in the United Kingdom during the 1980s.”(Wikipedia)
Indigo planting in Bengal dated back to 1777. Louis Bonard was probably the first indigo planter. With expansion of British power in the Nawabate of Bengal, indigo planting became more and more commercially profitable because of the demand for blue dye in Europe. It was introduced in large parts of Burdwan, Bankura, Birbhum, Murshidabad, etc. The indigo planters left no stones unturned to make money. They mercilessly pursued the peasants to plant indigo instead of food crops. They provided loans, called dadon at a very high interest. Once a farmer took such loans he remained in debt for whole of his life before passing it to his successors. The price paid by the planters was meagre,only 2.5% of the market price. The farmers could make no profit growing indigo. The farmers were totally unprotected from the brutal indigo planters, who resorted to mortgages or destruction of their property if they were unwilling to obey them. Government rules favoured the planters. By an act in 1833, the planters were granted a free hand in oppression. Even the zamindars, money lenders and other influential persons sided with the planters. Out of the severe oppression unleashed on them the farmers resorted to revolt.
“The Bengali middle class supported the peasants whole-heartedly. Harish Chandra Mukherjee thoroughly described the plight of the poor peasants in his newspaper The Hindu Patriot. However, the articles were overshadowed by Dinabandhu Mitra, who gave an accurate account of the situation in his play “Neel darpan”. The play created a huge controversy.”(Wikipedia)
“The revolt started from Nadia where Bishnucharan Biswas and Digambar Biswas first led the rebellion against the planters. It spread rapidly in Murshidabad, Birbhum, Burdwan, Pabna, Khulna, Narail, etc. Some indigo planters were given a public trial and executed. The indigo depots were burned down. Many planters fled to avoid being caught. The zamindars were also targets of the rebellious peasants.
The revolt was ruthlessly suppressed. Large forces of police and military, backed by the British Government and the zamindars, mercilessly slaughtered a number of peasants. In spite of this, the revolt was fairly popular, involving almost the whole of Bengal. The Biswas brothers of Nadia, Kader Molla of Pabna, Rafique Mondal of Malda were popular leaders. Even some of the zamindars supported the revolt, the most important of whom was Ramratan Mullick of Narail”(Wikipedia)
Tajul Hashim threw a fllod of light on the scenarion of peasant uprisings during colonialm period.:
Fazlul Huq and fellow Muslim politicians representing the lower middle and budding middle classes, mostly emanating from the upper peasantry (jotedars), joined hands with the Urdu-speaking ashraf leaders like Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Khwaja Nazimuddin with a view to installing themselves in power by side-tracking the dominant Hindu classes. Consequently Fazlul Huq and other leaders belonging to the Krishak Praja Party had to join the Muslim League by discarding their ‘praja identity’ in the wake of the Legislative Assembly elections of 1937. The most fascinating part of the story up to the Partition of 1947 is the successful mobilisation of the under-raiyats and bargadars (sharecroppers) by the ashraf through the machination of the praja against the Hindu zamindar-bhadralok-mahajan triumvirate. It is equally interesting how the nationalists, socialists and communists failed to make much headway on the peasant front during the period.
Fazlul Huq and his Krishak Praja Party (KPP) who had commitments to an anti-zamindari anti-mahajan economic programme, as reflected in the Election Manifesto of the KPP, soon joined hands with avowedly communal Muslim League leaders to form a coalition government in Bengal in April 1937. It is noteworthy that several Muslim zamindars, including Nawabzada Hasan Ali Khan of Dhanbari (Tangail), espoused a pro-peasant and anti-zamindar programme prior to the 1937 elections and afterwards.
Meanwhile, some class-based and anti-British movements took place alongside the communally motivated movements. The class-based tonk movement of tribal (Hajong) peasants of northern Mymensingh under the leadership of Moni Singh and a few communist leaders did not attract non-tribal Muslim or Namashudra. Some movements remained confined to a middle-peasant-dominated sub-region of Noakhali, Comilla and Chittagong during the 1930s and 1940s. The absence of Hindu zamindars as principal agents of exploitation in the sub-region facilitated the mobilisation of Muslim peasants on non-communal class or nationalist lines, especially in parts of Noakhali and Comilla districts. Some leading Congress and communist leaders of the sub-region, again, belonged to the Muslim community, such as Ashrafuddin Ahmad Chowdhury and Asimuddin Ahmed of Comilla and Abdul Malek, Muklesur Rahman, Moqbul Mia and others belonging to the radical Krishak Samity of the Noakhali-Comilla sub-region.
However, vicious communal riots in Dhaka in 1941 and the mass mobilisation of Muslims in the name of Pakistan by the ashra’ f-ulama-jotedar triumvirate in the wake of the Lahore Resolution of 1940, thoroughly communalised the Muslim masses throughout Bengal, including the Muslim jotedar-dominated northern districts of Rangpur and Dinajpur and Muslim middle-peasant dominated Noakhali and Comilla districts of Bengal.
In view of the above, the praja-ashraf alliance was inevitable. Fortunately for the ashraf and the praja (especially the jotedars), by 1941 the bulk of the Muslim peasantry had been totally disenchanted with the Congress and other organisations under Hindu leadership due to the pervading influence of Muslim separatism. By then the ‘anti-feudal’ struggle of the peasants had been channelled into a ‘religious stream’ and ‘the religious aspect of bourgeois nationalism’ in Bengal. The marriage of convenience between the ashraf and praja, which was essential for mutual succour in the post-1937 Elections period for the formation of a viable Muslim ministry to contain Hindu dominance in Bengal, in fact, signalled the capitulation of the praja to the rising ashraf.
By December 1941, Fazlul Huq further alienated himself from the bulk of the Bengali Muslims, including peasants, by forming a coalition ministry with the Hindu Mahasabha leader, Shyama Prasad Mukherji. Eventually ashraf leaders like Khwaja Nazimuddin and HS Suhrawardy replaced Fazlul Huq as the Chief Minister of Bengal up to 1947, and henceforth quite for sometime, ashraf leaders, in collaboration with some loyal praja leaders like Nurul Amin, Tamizuddin Khan, Hamidul Huq Chowdhury, Fazlul Quader chaudhury, abdus sabur khan, Wahiduzzaman (Thanda Mia), Yusuf Ali Chowdhury (Mohon Mia), Fazlur Rahman and others, remained dominant in Muslim politics in Bengal.
Meanwhile, the Bengal famine, 1943 and communal riots in Calcutta in August 1946 had further vitiated the environment. To the average Muslim in Bengal Hindu traders, hoarders and black marketeers, along with zamindars and mahajans, emerged as the main ‘culprits’, responsible for the famine. Hindu leaders in general, and zamindars and bhadralok in particulars lost their credibility with the Muslim masses. For the bulk of the Bengali Muslims, including peasants, the concept of Pakistan emerged as the only choice. The Calcutta Riot, 1946 precipitated by the direct action day of the Muslim League, made Pakistan inevitable.
By early 1946 the Muslim League was well entrenched almost in every East Bengal district. This was reflected in the elections of 1946. Muslims voted for the Muslim League with full commitment to Pakistan. It is, however, altogether a different matter what the peasants – both voters and others who were not enfranchised – understood about the implications of the ‘promised land’ called Pakistan.
During the hey-days of communalism (1946-47) the Communist Party of India (CPI) in its bid to revolutionise the Indian peasantry organised class-based peasant movements in various parts of the Subcontinent. The legendary Tebhaga Movement in undivided Bengal was one such movement, mainly confined to tribals, rajbangshis, santals and garos of Rangpur, Dinajpur, Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts in the north. Under the CPI leadership, mainly high-caste Hindu bhadralok, the movement turned violent as bargadars forcibly took their share, two-thirds of the crops, from the fields. Many landless peasants and others having no direct involvement with the sharecropping system took part in the movement.
It is interesting that both Hindu and Muslim bhadralok opposed the movement, as they were apprehensive of a class war beyond the parameters of the village community. Muslim League leaders dissuaded Muslim peasants by telling them that after the attainment of Pakistan all land would belong to them as the Hindu landlords would be kicked out of Pakistan or ‘the land of the pure (Muslim)’. Some Muslim leaders promised Choubhaga (literally four shares) or all the shares of the crop to the Muslim peasants in their promised ‘Sonar Pakistan’. Consequently to the average East Bengali Muslim peasant the ‘communal’ concept of Pakistan was much more persuasive than any appeal in the name of class solidarity or nationalism. The utopia of Pakistan was so devouring among the peasantry that even Hindu communist leaders of the Tebhaga movement adopted Muslim names (Barin Datta, for example, became Abdus Salam), attended public prayer (namaz) sessions with Muslim peasants to show their support for Islam and hoisted both the Red Flag of communists and the Green Flag of the Muslim League at the same venues. Muslim peasants chanted slogans both in favour of Tebhaga and Pakistan in meetings organised by CPI leaders.
Gradually the demand for Pakistan emerged as the main slogan of Muslim peasants throughout the region while the demand for tebhaga, being confined to much smaller section of the peasantry, mainly the tribals, fizzled out in no time. Peasants, on the other hand, have been firm believers in private ownership of land. Hence the vacillation and withdrawal of peasant support from the communist movement. Peasant support for tebhaga does not indicate their support for communism. Firstly, peasants themselves first raised the demand, not the CPI; and secondly, the movement did not question the concept of private ownership of land.
By 1947, false promises, communalism and above all, the economic dependence of the average poor peasant on the upper peasantry, blurred the sub-regional differences in the nature of peasants’ political behaviour in East Bengal. The relatively independent middle peasants of Tippera-Noakhali sub-regions (the vanguards of the anti-British Congress movements in the 1930s and 1940s), along with the Muslim lower peasants of the Muslim jotedar-dominated Rangpur-Dinajpur and Jessore-Khulna sub-regions (who took part in CPI-led class movements) succumbed to the appeals made in the name of ‘Islam in Danger’ and radical economic reforms under ‘Islamic’ and ‘golden’ Pakistan by the Muslim League. Meanwhile, the bulk of the Namasudra peasants had been won over by the high-caste Hindu Congress leaders. (Taj I Hashmi Banglapedia)
It does seem that Shere Bangla championed the rights of the peasants. In fact he was a peasant leader opening political front of the peasant by introducing Krishak Praja Party. He is really unforgettable because of his contribution to the economic emancipation and politicization of the peasantry.