Page 24 - SST Class 08
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q A major revolt occurred in Ganjam in 1835. It                F ind Outind Out
               was put down by a large military campaign.
                                                                     Find out more about Champaran Movement.
            q A peasant revolt occurred
               in Bundelkhand in 1842
               under the leadership of                                       REVOLTS BY INDIGO CULTIVATORS
               Madhukar   . The Gonds too                           The indigo cultivators were those who grew
               joined them. The British                             indigo on their land, but indigo planters were
               took about a year before                             those landlords and British officials who forced
               the revolt was pacified.          Gond Tribals       indigo   cultivators  to  grow    indigo.   As   the
                                                                    cultivation of indigo destroyed the fertility of land
            Activity
                                                                    and rendered it useless for other crops, the indigo
            Imagine, and draw your imagination on paper to          cultivators rose in revolt. The movement of indigo
            show the peasant revolt of British India.               cultivators occurred in 1858-60 and covered a
                                                                    vast area in Bengal and Bihar. They resisted to
                Quiz Time                                           grow indigo. They even attacked and plundered
            Write True or False :                                   the British companies of the indigo planters. Some

            1. The British too got a regular income                 groups of peasants, such as Lathials   and Raiyats ,
               from land revenue.                     _______       armed themselves to resist this.
            2. The first major peasant revolt occurred              However, the peasants were rendered helpless
               in Bengal.                             _______       before the brute British force. Their revolt was put
                                                                    down violently, but the resistance continued well
            3. All people were not troubled by the                  into the twentieth century.
               British.                               _______

            4. A major revolt occurred in Ganjam                          Info Bits
                                                                          Info Bits
               in 1845.                               _______
            5. A cultivator was recognised as the                    The writers too shared the plight of indigo
               owner of the land.                     _______        cultivators, as we can see from numerous stories.
                                                                     One of the famous drama is Neel Darpan written by
            In addition to the above, there were widespread          Dinabandhu Mitra.
            revolts in the Punjab and other provinces, such as
            the Chuar revolt in Bihar and the Moplah revolt in
            Malabar.






            v The British ruled impacted Indian people, both rural and urban, socially, politically, economically and
               culturally.
            v The British agrarian policy destroyed Indian agriculture and impoverished the rural people completely.

            v The four systems of land revenue were ijardari, permanent settlement, ryotwari and mahalwari systems.
            v The land was made a saleable commodity as the peasants could be evicted from land on non-payment of
               revenue.
            v The cultivation of crops was commercialised, often by force.
            v The peasants rose in revolt in the whole of India in order to protest the wrong policies of land revenue.
            v The indigo cultivators were the worst placed, so they too rose in revolt, but it did not help them much.


                     Contemporary Social Science-8
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