Peasant, Tribal & Working-Class Movements: Birsa Munda's Ulgulan, the Indigo Revolt, Bardoli, the Kisan Sabha & the Left

More Than the Congress: India's Other Rebels

🎯 Exam priority: Important. Tier 2 — recurs regularly in Prelims and Mains; cover fully.

Why this topic matters for UPSC. Eka vs Bardoli was directly tested in Prelims 2026 (distinguishing the two); the Left/Working-Class block (~4/65) is steady. Both reward knowing the specific cause, leader and outcome.

• Eka Movement (UP, 1921 — rent issues), Bardoli Satyagraha (1928 — land-revenue hike, Vallabhbhai Patel), Indigo Revolt (1859-60), Birsa Munda's Ulgulan recur.

• AITUC (1920, Lala Lajpat Rai), the Meerut Conspiracy Case, and left-wing influence on Congress are tested.

• Mains: examine the role of peasant and working-class movements in the Indian freedom struggle.

The freedom struggle was never only the work of lawyers and Congress leaders. Long before — and all through — the national movement, India's tribal people, peasants and factory workers rose in revolt against the new burdens that British rule and its allies (moneylenders, planters, landlords and zamindars) laid upon them. These movements broadened the social base of the struggle from an urban, middle-class affair into a mass movement reaching into the forests, the fields and the mills.

More Than the Congress: India's Other Rebels

• From the very establishment of British power in 1757 there was, in one historian's words, "a series of rebellions and revolts against British authority" — hundreds of uprisings recorded by historians. Most were local, scattered and led by tribal chiefs, peasants or dispossessed zamindars, and most were crushed; but together they showed the depth of popular discontent and kept alive the spirit of resistance.

• These struggles fall into three broad streams: tribal (adivasi) uprisings against land alienation and forest laws; peasant revolts against planters, moneylenders and high rent and revenue; and, in the 20th century, the organised working-class and Left movement. By the 1920s-30s the peasants' kisan sabhas and the workers' trade unions had become a powerful new force the British admitted they did not fully understand.

Tribal Uprisings: India's First Rebels

The earliest and most ferocious resistance came from the adivasis (tribals), whose forests and lands were being seized by outsiders under the protection of British law.

Tribal Uprisings: India's First Rebels

• The Kol Uprising (1831): the Kol tribesmen of Chota Nagpur rose against the British "for imposing on them outsiders as money-lenders and landlords". Their khuntkatti clan lands were being handed to non-tribal dikus (zamindars and traders), and thousands of Kols perished before British authority was reimposed.

• The Santhal Uprising / 'Hool' (1855-56): led by the brothers Sidhu and Kanhu, the Santhals of the Rajmahal hills rose "armed with axes" in their thousands. Its causes were primarily economic — directed against the moneylenders and their protectors, the British authorities — and the rebels proclaimed a government of their own in the country between Bhagalpur and Rajmahal. They were finally suppressed in 1856, but the rising shook British confidence on the eve of the Revolt of 1857.

• The Munda Uprising / 'Ulgulan' (1899-1900): led by Birsa Munda in the Chhotanagpur region, this was the most famous tribal revolt. Ulgulan means "the Great Tumult". Birsa fought against the destruction of the Mundas' khuntkatti land system by outsider landlords and against the forest laws, and sought to set up Munda Raj. Birsa died in jail in 1900; today his birth anniversary, 15 November, is observed as Janjatiya Gaurav Divas (Tribal Pride Day), declared in 2021.

Peasant Revolts: Indigo, Pabna & the Deccan Riots

Alongside the tribals, the settled peasantry rose against the specific agents of their distress — first the European indigo planters, then the moneylenders.

Peasant Revolts: Indigo, Pabna & the Deccan Riots

• The Indigo Revolt (1859-60): indigo, a dye introduced at the end of the 18th century, "flourished in Bengal and Bihar" on European-owned plantations. The planters gained notoriety for their oppression, compelling peasants (ryots) to grow indigo on their best land at a loss. In 1859 the ryots of Bengal refused to sow indigo and resisted the planters' force. Their cause won wide sympathy; the oppression was famously portrayed by Dinabandhu Mitra in his play Nil Darpan (1860). The revolt forced a government commission and the planters largely withdrew.

• The Pabna Agrarian Leagues (1873): in Pabna district of East Bengal, ryots formed an agrarian league to resist the zamindars' illegal rent enhancements and forced evictions, mostly through legal action and rent strikes. It helped lead to the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885.

• The Deccan Riots (1875): in the cotton districts of Maharashtra (Poona, Ahmednagar), ryots crushed by debt rose against the marwari and gujarati moneylenders, attacking their houses and burning the bonds and deeds that bound them. The unrest led to the Deccan Agriculturists' Relief Act of 1879 to protect peasants from losing their land.

Peasant Satyagrahas: Champaran, Kheda, Moplah & Bardoli

When Gandhi entered Indian politics, he chose the peasant as the ground of his first experiments in satyagraha — fusing peasant grievance with the national movement.

Peasant Satyagrahas: Champaran, Kheda, Moplah & Bardoli

• Champaran (1917): Gandhi's first satyagraha in India, on behalf of the indigo ryots of Champaran (Bihar) who were forced under the tinkathia system to grow indigo. Its great significance was the joining of peasant unrest to India's national movement (the subject of the 2018 PYQ below).

• Kheda (1918): in Gujarat, with Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel, the peasants ran a no-revenue campaign when crops failed but the government refused to remit land revenue.

• The Moplah / Mappila Rebellion (1921): in the Malabar region of Kerala, the Muslim Moplah (Mappila) tenants rose against the (largely Hindu) jenmi landlords and the colonial authority. It began as an agrarian and anti-government revolt linked to the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation movements but later took on communal colour, and was suppressed with great severity by 1922.

• The Bardoli Satyagraha (1928): in Gujarat, when the government tried to raise the land revenue, the peasants under Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel organised a No-Tax Campaign "and in the end won their demand". It was here that Patel earned the title "Sardar". The Bardoli triumph greatly raised the prestige of the Congress and of organised peasant action.

The Organised Kisan Movement: the All India Kisan Sabha

The scattered revolts of the 19th century gave way, in the 1930s, to an all-India, organised peasant movement with its own ideology and leaders.

The Organised Kisan Movement: the All India Kisan Sabha

• The Great Depression (after 1929) hit the peasants hard — agricultural prices dropped by over 50 per cent by the end of 1932 — and "peasants all over the country began to demand land reforms, abolition of zamindari, reduction of land revenue and rent, and relief from indebtedness". This produced a rapid growth of kisan sabhas (peasants' unions) in U.P., Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Kerala and Punjab.

• The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) — the first all-India peasant organisation — was formed in 1936 (at the Lucknow session of the Congress). Its first president was Swami Sahajanand Saraswati; it issued a Kisan Manifesto demanding the abolition of zamindari and occupancy rights for tenants. The Left wing within the Congress grew in these years, with Jawaharlal Nehru (president 1936, 1937) urging the Congress to "accept socialism as its goal and to bring itself closer to the peasantry and the working class".

• Two great post-war peasant struggles followed: the Tebhaga movement (1946) in Bengal, in which sharecroppers (bargadars) demanded that the landlord's share be cut from one-half to one-third (tebhaga) of the crop; and the Telangana movement (1946-51) against the Nizam of Hyderabad and his jagirdars, the largest armed peasant uprising in modern Indian history.

The Working Class & the Left: AITUC, the Communists & the Socialists

The modern factory and plantation created a new class — the industrial worker — whose organisation, allied with the Left, opened another front against the Raj.

The Working Class & the Left: AITUC, the Communists & the Socialists

• The Indian working class, "extremely low paid" and working "under extremely harsh conditions for very long hours", began to organise after the First World War. The All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) — India's first national labour federation — was founded in 1920 with Lala Lajpat Rai as its first president (N.M. Joshi was a key founder).

• Marxist and socialist ideas spread fast. After the Kanpur (Cawnpore) Conspiracy Case (1924), in which Muzaffar Ahmad and S.A. Dange were tried, the Communist Party of India came into existence in 1925. The years 1928 saw a wave of strikes — the Bombay textile strike (about 150,000 workers for over five months, led by the Communists), the Kharagpur railway workshop, and the Tata Iron & Steel Works at Jamshedpur (where Subhas Chandra Bose helped settle the strike) — with over five lakh workers on strike in 1928 alone.

• Alarmed, the Government struck back: in March 1929 it arrested thirty-one prominent trade-union and communist leaders (including three Englishmen) and tried them in the Meerut Conspiracy Case (1929), a trial "lasting four years" that ended in long prison terms. Within the Congress, the socialist current was channelled into the Congress Socialist Party (CSP), formed in 1934, led by Jayaprakash Narayan and Acharya Narendra Dev.

Why This Matters for UPSC

• Prelims: the tribal trio — Kol (1831), Santhal 'Hool' (1855-56, Sidhu & Kanhu), Munda 'Ulgulan' (1899-1900, Birsa; 15 Nov Janjatiya Gaurav Divas); peasant revolts — Indigo (1859-60, Nil Darpan), Pabna (1873), Deccan Riots (1875), Moplah (1921), Bardoli (1928, Sardar Patel); AIKS (1936, Sahajanand), Tebhaga (1946), Telangana (1946-51); the Left — AITUC (1920, Lajpat Rai), CPI (1925), Meerut Conspiracy Case (1929), CSP (1934). Two real PYQs below (CSE 2020 & CSE 2018).

• Mains: how peasant, tribal and working-class movements broadened the social base of the freedom struggle; the nature of tribal resistance; and the role of the Left in radicalising the national movement.

Further Reading

• Standard NCERT-level texts and reference books on modern Indian history (any UPSC reading list).

Test Yourself: Practice Questions & PYQs

Test how well you can explain the peasant, tribal and working-class movements — the tribal uprisings, the peasant revolts and satyagrahas, the organised Kisan movement and the Left. Decide your answer, then open Show answer.

Practice Questions

Q1. The Santhal rebellion (the 'Hool', 1855-56) in the Rajmahal hills was led by:

• (a) Sidhu and Kanhu

• (b) Birsa Munda

• (c) Tantia Bhil

• (d) Tilka Manjhi only

Q2. 'Ulgulan' (the Great Tumult) refers to the rebellion of:

• (a) the Santhals

• (b) the Bhils

• (c) the Kols

• (d) Birsa Munda (1899-1900)

Q3. Birsa Munda's birth anniversary, observed as Janjatiya Gaurav Divas (Tribal Pride Day), falls on:

• (a) 2 October

• (b) 23 March

• (c) 15 November

• (d) 26 January

Q4. The Kol Uprising of 1831 broke out among the tribesmen of:

• (a) the Rajmahal hills

• (b) Chota Nagpur

• (c) Malabar

• (d) Bastar

Q5. The oppression of peasants by indigo planters was famously portrayed in the play 'Nil Darpan' (1860) by:

• (a) Dinabandhu Mitra

• (b) Bankim Chandra Chatterjee

• (c) Michael Madhusudan Dutt

• (d) Rabindranath Tagore

Q6. The Deccan Riots of 1875 in Maharashtra were directed mainly against:

• (a) the British police

• (b) the railway companies

• (c) the moneylenders (sahukars)

• (d) European indigo planters

Q7. The Bardoli Satyagraha (1928), a No-Tax Campaign against an increase in land revenue, was led by:

• (a) Baba Ramchandra

• (b) Jawaharlal Nehru

• (c) Swami Sahajanand

• (d) Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

Q8. The first president of the All India Kisan Sabha (founded 1936) was:

• (a) N.G. Ranga

• (b) Swami Sahajanand Saraswati

• (c) Jawaharlal Nehru

• (d) Baba Ramchandra

Q9. The first president of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC, 1920) was:

• (a) Lala Lajpat Rai

• (b) S.A. Dange

• (c) N.M. Joshi

• (d) M.N. Roy

Q10. The Congress Socialist Party (1934) was associated with:

• (a) C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru

• (b) Tilak and Pal

• (c) Jayaprakash Narayan and Acharya Narendra Dev

• (d) Savarkar and Hedgewar

UPSC Previous Year Questions (PYQs)

Tribal and peasant movements are a recurring Prelims theme (the questions below are real UPSC PYQs, CSE 2020 and CSE 2018) and are highly topical — Birsa Munda's legacy is marked every 15 November as Janjatiya Gaurav Divas.

Q1. With reference to the history of India, 'Ulgulan' or the Great Tumult is the description of which of the following events? (UPSC CSE 2020)

• (a) The Revolt of 1857

• (b) The Indigo Revolt of 1859-1860

• (c) The Mappila Rebellion of 1921

• (d) Birsa Munda's Revolt of 1899-1900

Q2. Which one of the following is a very significant aspect of the Champaran Satyagraha? (UPSC CSE 2018)

• (a) Active all-India participation of lawyers, students and women in the National Movement

• (b) Drastic decrease in the cultivation of plantation crops and commercial crops

• (c) Joining of peasant unrest to India's National Movement

• (d) Active involvement of Dalit and Tribal communities of India in the National Movement

Mains Practice Questions

Use these to frame full-length answers. You don't have to answer one exactly — they show the angles UPSC tests, so let them guide which points you cover.

• How did the tribal, peasant and working-class movements broaden the social base of the freedom struggle?

• Discuss the causes and character of the major tribal uprisings (Kol, Santhal, Munda) against British rule.

• Trace the evolution of the peasant movement from the Indigo Revolt (1859-60) to the All India Kisan Sabha (1936).

• Examine the rise of the working class and the Left (AITUC, CPI, CSP) and their impact on the national movement.