The Non-Cooperation Movement marked the first time the Indian national movement integrated agrarian grievances with the mainstream political demand for Swaraj. While Mahatma Gandhi conceptualized non-cooperation as a peaceful campaign centered on the boycott of British institutions, the peasantry often interpreted it through the lens of their immediate material oppression by landlords (talukdars and zamindars) and the colonial state.
Regional Agrarian Upheavals and Leadership
Agrarian resistance broke out across various provinces, with localized grievances merging into the broader anti-imperialist struggle:
- Awadh Kisan Movement (United Provinces): Led by Baba Ramchandra—a sanyasi who had previously been an indentured laborer in Fiji—the peasants organized against exorbitant rents, illegal cesses (nazrana), and the system of forced labor (begar). In October 1920, the Oudh Kisan Sabha was formed, setting up hundreds of branches across the region.
- The Eka Movement (United Provinces): Emerging towards the end of 1921 in districts like Hardoi, Bahraich, and Sitapur, the Eka (Unity) Movement was led by Madari Pasi, a leader from a depressed caste. The movement’s primary objective was to resist paying rents that exceeded official recorded rates by up to 50 percent.
- The Moplah Rebellion (Malabar, Kerala): Muslim tenants, known as Moplahs, rose against their predominantly Hindu landlords (Janmis) and British administrative officials. Spurred by Khilafat propaganda, the movement initially enjoyed Congress support but grew increasingly violent and assumed a communal character, leading to its eventual suppression by the British military.
- Rampa Rebellion (Andhra Pradesh): Led by Alluri Sitarama Raju in the tribal tracts of the Godavari agency, this rebellion was a reaction against the British Forest Acts of 1882, which restricted the traditional Podu (shifting) cultivation and forest access. Raju, inspired by Gandhi, preached temperance and the use of Khadi but asserted that India could be liberated only through force.
Agrarian Protest Mechanisms and Shifting Tactics
| Region | Primary Oppressors | Specific Protest Methods Utilized |
| Awadh (UP) | Talukdars and Landlords | Social boycott of landlords (Nai-Dhobi Bandhs), looting of granaries, refusal to pay arbitrary cesses. |
| Malabar (Kerala) | Janmis (Landlords) & British Raj | Attacks on police stations, destruction of land records, extraction of forced surrenders. |
| Andhra Tribal Tracts | British Forest Department | Guerilla warfare, attacks on police stations (e.g., Chintapalli, Rampachodavaram) to capture firearms. |
| Bardoli & Anand (Gujarat) | Colonial Revenue Officials | No-tax campaigns, total refusal to pay inflated land revenue assessments. |
The Working Class and Industrial Labour under Non-Cooperation
The post-World War I period witnessed a massive surge in working-class consciousness, fueled by high inflation, stagnant wages, and the successful establishment of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) in October 1920, presided over by Lala Lajpat Rai.
Industrial Strikes and Nationalist Convergence
The labor force utilized strikes as a dual weapon for economic relief and political solidarity with the Non-Cooperation Movement:
- The Assam-Bengal Railway Strike: Led by nationalist leader J.M. Sengupta, railway and river steamer workers went on strike in solidarity with tea plantation laborers who had been brutally suppressed by British authorities at Chandpur while trying to flee exploitative plantations. This crippled transportation network across eastern India for months.
- Widespread Industrial Action: Between 1920 and 1922, major strikes erupted across the country, notably in the cotton mills of Bombay and Ahmedabad, the jute mills of Calcutta, and the Tata Iron and Steel works at Jamshedpur.
- Worker-Student Alliances: Industrial laborers frequently joined hands with boycotting students to enforce the closure of shops selling foreign textiles and liquor, turning urban centers into hotspots of political friction.
Impact of the Suspension of Non-Cooperation (February 1922)
Following the Chauri Chaura incident on February 4, 1922—where an angry crowd of peasants set fire to a police station, killing 22 policemen—Mahatma Gandhi passed the Bardoli Resolution on February 12, 1922, suspending the entire movement.
Consequences for Subaltern Groups
- The Bardoli Injunctions: The Bardoli Resolution explicitly directed peasants to pay their land revenues to the government and rents to their landlords, strictly forbidding any rent-strike campaigns.
- Disillusionment and Suppressions: Both peasants and industrial workers felt abandoned by the abrupt halt. Left without the protective umbrella of the national movement, localized uprisings were systematically and harshly put down by colonial police and military forces.
Peasants and Workers during the Swarajist Phase (1923–1926)
The entry of the Swaraj Party, led by C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru, into the Central Legislative Assembly and Provincial Councils marked a transition from street-level mass mobilization to institutional constitutionalism.
The Swarajist Legislative Dilemma
The Swarajists, being primarily composed of urban lawyers, intelligentsia, and wealthy zamindars, faced an inherent class contradiction when addressing agrarian and labor issues:
- The Bengal Tenancy Debate: In the Bengal Legislative Council, the Swarajists failed to fully support tenant-pro peasant amendments to the Bengal Tenancy Act out of fear of alienating the powerful jotedar and zamindar classes who financed the party. This compromised stance began to erode their support base among Muslim and lower-caste peasants in rural Bengal.
- Legislative Advocacy for Labor: Despite their class limitations, the Swarajists within the Central Assembly occasionally blocked anti-labor legislations and exposed the harsh working conditions of Indian workers under British capitalism. C.R. Das himself served as the president of the AITUC sessions in 1921 and 1922, showcasing an individual commitment to integrating labor rights with national demands.
Grassroots Divergence and the Rise of Radical Organizations
As the Swarajists focused on assembly gridlocks, a political vacuum emerged at the grassroots level, leading to independent organizing by peasants and workers:
- Formation of Workers and Peasants Parties (WPP): Disillusioned by the parliamentary focus of the Swarajists, radical youths and early socialist leaders began forming regional organizations. By the mid-1920s, groups like the Labour Swaraj Party of the Indian National Congress (founded in Bengal by Muzaffar Ahmed and Kazi Nazrul Islam) emerged to exclusively champion subaltern rights.
- Growth of Kisan Sabhas: Autonomous peasant unions grew outside the Congress fold, laying the groundwork for more radical, structured agrarian movements in the late 1920s and 1930s, such as the All India Kisan Sabha.