Kisan Sabhas and Eka movement in UP Some of the major grievances of the peasantry reflecting their pathetic conditio

ns were: a. Lack of occupancy rights in many regions on land tilled by them. b. Exaction by the landlords of tribute cesses, gifts and even forced labou r, over and above the regular or even excessive rent. c. Periodic revision of land revenue in ryotwari areas by the government, w hich was usually steep. d. Heavy indebtedness to the village land lords or money-lenders, leading t o generational debt traps. Some active members of Home rule league in UP like GauriShankar Mishra and Indra Narayan Dwivedi with the support of Madan Mohan Malaviya began organizing peasa nts of UP on modern lines into Kisan Sabhas in 1918. Towards the end of 1919, the first-signs of grass-roots peasant activity were ev ident in the reports of a nai-dhobi band (a form of social boycott) on an estate in Pratapgarh district. But it was Baba Ramachandra who took initiative to organise the peasants of Oudh against landlords. It was Baba Ramachandra who persuaded Gauri Shankar Mishra a nd Jawaharlal Nehru to visit the villages to see themselves the misery of peasan ts. In 1920 peasant movement got associated with Non-Cooperation movement. Differenc es between non cooperators and those who opposed non-cooperation like Malaviya l ed to non cooperators setup an alternative Awadh Kisan Sabha by at Pratapgarh in October 1920. This Sabha united all 330 Kisan Sabhas of Awadh under its wings. The Awadh Kisan Sabha asked the Kisans to refuse to till bedakhli land, not to o ffer unpaid labour, boycott those who did not to accept these conditions and to solve their disputes through panchayats. The marked feature of the Kisan Sabha m ovement was that the Kisan belonging to the high as well as low castes were to b e found in its ranks. In 1921, the peasant movement became militant and spread to Rae Bareli, Faizabad and Sultanpur. The congress tried to restrain the violent edge of the movement and the amendmen t to the Awadh rent act in 1921 also acted as break. Eka movements: the main grievance of the movement was extraction of rent, which was generally 50 % higher than the recorded rent. The grass root leadership came from Pasi and Ahir low caste leaders unprepared to accept the nonviolent limits set by main stream nationalists. For this reason it got isolated by March 1922 and the repressive policy of the government brought Eka movement to an end.