PEASANT, TRIBAL UPRISING and SOCIAL REFORMS

• PEASENT& TRIBEL MOVEMENTS AND SOCIAL REFORMS
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• Soon after the establishment of the Company’s rule over Bengal, Bihar and Orissa as a result of the Treaty of Allahabad signed  in 1765 after the Battle of Buxar and till the end of the Company rule in 1857, there were many revolts of the peasants in different parts of the country.
  
• PEASANT REVOLTS
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• It was led by the peasants accompanied by the Sanyasis and fakirs who organised themselves into armed groups, sometimes upto 50,000 and greatly harassed the British troops.
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• Pabna Peasant Uprising (1873-76) was a resistance movement by the peasants ("Ryots") against the lords of the lands in Bengal ("zamindars") in the Yusufshahi pargana (now the Sirajganj District, Bangladesh) in Pabna.It was led by Keshab Chandra Roy.
• Due to the decline in the production of Jute in the 1870s, the peasants were struggling with famine.
• Some peasants declared their parganasindependent of zamindari control and tried setting up a local government with an "army" to fight the zamindari "lathials" or police.
• guaranteed British government support of peasants against excessive zamindar demands, and advised the zamindars to assert their claims by legal means only. In the face of police action and additional famine that broke out in 1873-74, the rebellion subsided

• INDIGO RIOTS
• For thousands of years, Indigo plant has been an important source of blue dye. This plant grows in tropics. The Indigo is a natural dye, compatible with most fibres such wool, cotton, silk, linen etc. Prior to Indigo, a plant of mustard family was used to dy
• The qualitative superiority of Indigo led to its huge demand in Europe at a time when the textile industry was booming due to Industrial revolution
• indigo planting became more and more commercially profitable because of the demand for blue dye in Europe.
• The indigo planters persuaded the peasants to plant indigo instead of food crops. They provided loans, called dadon, at a very high interest. Once a farmer took such loans he remained in debt for his whole life before passing it to his successors.
• Government rules favoured the planters. By an act in 1833, the planters were granted a free hand in oppression.
• The Indigo revolt (or Nil vidroha) was a peasant movement and subsequent uprising of indigo farmers against the indigo planters that arose in Bengal in 1859.
• The Kader Molla of Pabna, Biswas brothers of Nadia, and Rafique Mondal of Malda were popular leaders
• Bengali intellectual Harish Chandra Mukherjee described the plight of the poor farmer in his newspaper The Hindu Patriot. However the articles were overshadowed by Dinabandhu Mitra, who depicted the situation in his play Nil Darpan.
• Dinabandhu Mitra's 1859 play Nil Darpan is based on the revolution.
• His play created a huge controversy which was later banned by the East India Company to control the agitation among the Indians.
• The revolt started from the Nadia district,
• Some indigo planters were given a public trial and executed. The indigo depots were burned down. Many planters fled to avoid being caught. The zamindars were also targets of the rebellious peasants.The revolt was ruthlessly suppressed. Large forces of police and military, backed by the British Government and the zamindars, mercilessly slaughtered a number of peasants. British police mercilessly hanged great leader of indigo rebels Biswanath Sardar
• a forerunner of the non-violent passive resistance later successfully adopted by Gandhi. The revolt had a strong effect on the government, which immediately appointed the "Indigo Commission" in 1860. In the commission report, E. W. L. Tower noted that "not a chest of Indigo reached England without being stained with human blood".
• Women joined the revolt and fought with pots, pans etc.
• Some cultivators, like the Lathials, armed themselves to resist the cultivation of indigo.  
• There was a strong demonstration against the cultivation of indigo in Champaran (Bihar) in 1866-68.
  
• SOCIAL REFORMS
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• Raja Rammohan Roy did laudable work in the field of improving the lot of women.  First of all he focussed his attention towards removing the evil practice of Sati.  It was because of his cooperation that in 1829 AD Lord William Bentick could declare Sati as unlawful.  He himself saved several widows from being burnt alive.
• Sir Sayed Ahmed Khan demanded a ban on the purdah system and ploygamy among the Muslims.
  
• Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar opened a number of schools for girls in Bengal and was closely associated with the Hindu Kanya Vidyalaya founded by J. E. D. Bethune.
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• Swami Vivekananda was an active social reformer and contributor to the Renaissance of the 19th century Bengal.
  
• Vivekananda inspired sister Nivedita to settle in Calcutta and work for the enlightenment of poor, downtrodden girls.  
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• The Arya Samaj was founded in 1875 in Bombay, for the general awakening of the Indian people by another outstanding personality named Swami Dayananda  Saraswati.
  

As he was a Vedic scholar who believed that the Vedas were infallible and that the wisdom inherent in the Vedas could solve the social problems of the country.