Samipya 1991 Vol 08 Ank 01 02

Author(s): Pravinchandra C Parikh, Bhartiben Shelat
Publisher: Bholabhai Jeshingbhai Adhyayan Sanshodhan Vidyabhavan

Page 78

Peasant's Assertion in Gujarat and Quit India Movement of 1942
Shirin Mehta*
The Quit India Movement was better organized in Gujarat than in other regions. Gujarat was the nerve centre and had become volatile cauldron. The movement was remarkable in a sense it surpassed all the previous movements. Congress led movements in its level of mass participation. The cross-section of the people participated. Large number of urban as well as rural-based peasants took part in the guerilla style of attack on Government property-the symbol of imperial and colonial regime. They uprooted the lines of communications, set on fire the police stations, removed rails and undertook sabotage activities on such a large scale that the Government could not suppress it. The movement was slow initially but once it got momentum, it lasted for months together.
Gujarat was divided into many territorial units. There were five districts (Ahmedabad, Broach, Kheda, Panch Mahals and Surat ) under the Government of Bombay known as British territory, four districts (Amreli, Mehsana, Baroda and Navsari) under Baroda State and some large princely states such as Bhavnagar, Jamnagar, Junagagh and Kutch. The movement was strong only in the British territory and the Baroda State. This paper concentrates mainly on this area.
The agrarian society in Gujarat at that time was well classified and highly politicized. Each strata was conscious of its economic interest as well as was politically aware of its collective well-being. The lower segments of the agrarian structure uptil 1930 furnished supportive system to higher rungs. But now they began to show their independent line of action, became self-assertive and active. They had their own autonomous world and independent nucleus of power. They were no longer the mute participants in the periphery.2
The ryolwari land tenure had made Gujarat the land of small landholder proprietors also called "Khātedars' or occupants. The big landlords, however, were conspicously absent. It was a three-tier agraristic society. The landholders or Khatedars were at apex constituting 35 per cent. The class of the tenants-sub-tenants was compressor class of 47 per ceat always swelling its numbers. At the lowest segment there was a class of ever increasing labourers and bonded-serfs called 'Halis'ploughmen.3
* Professor, Dept. of History, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad
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[Samipya : April, '91-March, 1992