A peasant movement is a

social movement A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and ma ...

involved with the agricultural policy, which claims peasants rights. Peasant movements have a long history that can be traced to the numerous peasant uprisings that occurred in various regions of the world throughout human history. Early peasant movements were usually the

feudal Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...

and semi-feudal societies, and resulted in violent uprisings. More recent movements, fitting the definitions of social movements, are usually much less violent, and their demands are centered on better prices for agricultural produce, better wages and working conditions for the agricultural laborers, and increasing the agricultural production. In

Colonial India Colonial India was the part of the Indian subcontinent that was occupied by European colonial powers during the Age of Discovery. European power was exerted both by conquest and trade, especially in spices. The search for the wealth and prospe ...

, the economic policies of European merchants and planters during the period Company rule adversely affected the peasant class, protecting the landlords and money lenders while they exploited the peasants. The peasants rose in revolt against economic on many occasions. The peasants in Bengal formed a

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

and revolted against the compulsion of cultivating indigo. Anthony Pereira, a political scientist, has defined a peasant movement as a "social movement made up of peasants (small landholders or farm workers on large farms), usually inspired by the goal of improving the situation of peasants in a nation or territory".

Peasant movements by country or region

India

Several peasant movement in India arose during the colonial era, when economic policies by various British colonial administrations led to the decline of traditional handicraft industries. These policies lead to change of ownership in lands, land overcrowding, increased debt among the peasant classes of India. This led to peasant uprisings during the colonial period, and development of peasant movements in the post-colonial period.Social movements types
at Sociology Guide The Kisan (farmer) Sabha movement started in

Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West ...

under the leadership of

Swami Sahajanand Saraswati Sahajanand Saraswati( real name Navrang Rai ) (22 February 1889 – 26 June 1950) was an ascetic, a nationalist and a peasant leader of India. Although born in United Province ( present-day Uttar Pradesh), his social and political activities ...

, who formed the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha (BPKS) in 1929 to mobilise peasant grievances against the zamindari attacks on their occupancy rights. In 1938,the crops in Eastern Khandesh were destroyed due to heavy rains. The peasants were ruined. In order to get the land revenue waived, Sane Guruji organized meetings and processions in many places and took out marches to the Collector's office. The peasants joined the revolutionary movement of 1942 in great numbers. Gradually the peasant movement intensified and spread across the rest of

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

. All these radical developments on the peasant front culminated in the formation of the

All India Kisan Sabha All India Kisan Sabha ( AIKS; lit. ''All India Farmers Union'', also known as the Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha), is the peasant or farmers' wing of the Communist Party of India, an important peasant movement formed by Sahajanand Saraswati in 1 ...

(AIKS) at the

Lucknow Lucknow (, ) is the capital and the largest city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is also the second largest urban agglomeration in Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and divis ...

session of the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British E ...

in April 1936 with

elected as its first President. In the subsequent years, the movement was increasingly dominated by Socialists and Communists as it moved away from the Congress, by 1938 Haripura session of the Congress, under the presidency of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the rift became evident, and by May 1942, the

Communist Party of India Communist Party of India (CPI) is the oldest Marxist–Leninist communist party in India and one of the nine national parties in the country. The CPI was founded in modern-day Kanpur (formerly known as Cawnpore) on 26 December 1925. H ...

, which was finally legalised by the then government in July 1942, had taken over AIKS, all across India including Bengal where its membership grew considerably.''States, Parties, and Social Movements'', by Jack A. Goldstone. Cambridge University Press, 2003. . Page 192. D. D. Kosambi and R.S. Sharma, together with

Daniel Thorner Daniel Thorner (1915–1974) was an American-born economist known for his work on agricultural economics and Indian economic history.Easterlin, RA. 2004 ''The Reluctant Economist: Perspectives on Economics, Economic History and Demography'' Cambr ...

, brought peasants into the study of Indian history for the first time.

Korea

Poland

Polish peasant movement focused on improvements in the life of Polish peasants, and empowering them in politics. It was strong from mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. Despite relatively low support on national level,

Polish People's Party The Polish People's Party ( pl, Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, PSL) is an agrarian political party in Poland. It is currently led by Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. Its history traces back to 1895, when it held the name People's Party, although i ...

maintains somewhat strong position in many local parliaments.

United States

Zimbabwe

The struggle for the Liberation of Zimbabwe is a theme that has been accorded fair autobiographical attention in Zimbabwe. Scholarly attention on the war was predicated on the need to understand how the "underdog" freedom fighters managed to paralyse the state-funded Rhodesian armed forces. In this light, the widely accepted view came to be that the "guerrillas" / freedom fighters established rapport with the peasants during the course of the war. Nevertheless, there is an anti-thesis between nationalist and revisionist scholarly interpretation on the matter. The nationalist historians advance a glorious interpretation of the role of peasants by arguing that there was a correlation between the guerrillas' Maoist ideology of relying on mass support to win a war and the peasants' grievances in the white colonial state. They justify this claim by rationalizing that the peasants had long developed a spirit of resentment prior to guerrilla infiltration in their areas, thus, when the guerrillas came, their ideas fell on fertile ground. Contrary to the glorious interpretation, revisionist historians have reasoned that it is misleading to suggest that the peasants ''always'' supported the guerrillas out of ''will'' since such a position ignores other critical issues such as guerrilla indiscipline, local struggles in the communities and guerrilla coercion as a means for mobilizing the masses. It is a fact to argue that the guerrilla war thrived on the masses’ co-operation.

Peasant movements by country or region

India

Korea

Poland

United States

Zimbabwe

See also

References

Further reading