Write the importance of peasant revolt of Rangia?
Answers
Rangiya
Rangia or Rangiya
Town
Rangiya
Location in Assam, India
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Coordinates: 26.47°N 91.63°ECountry IndiaStateAssamRegionWestern AssamDistrictKamrupGovernment
• BodyRangiya Municipality BoardElevation
39 m (128 ft)Population
(2011)
• Total26,389Languages
• OfficialAssamese • NativeKamrupiTime zoneUTC+5:30 (IST)PIN
Assam has always contributed in different manners to the socio-cultural and political life of the Indian nation, but all these contributions have most often remained unobserved, unnoticed by the national intelligentsia. It is the same with the freedom movement also. Assam had her due share in the freedom movement, where the country fought to a man in order to oust the two-century old British rule from the country. In fact Assam acted as the prime mover in some respect. One such important episode in the annals of freedom movement, where Assam acted as the prime mover, was the uprising in the Phulaguri area of middle Assam in October 1861 AD. It was the first ever peasant movement in the context of Indian freedom movement, which took place much before the Champaran movement took place under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. The Bengal farmers had revolted in the previous year, that is 1860 AD. But their ire was against the indigo planters, not against the British administration. So the Phulaguri uprising was a historic event. It was also the first ever non-cooperation movement of Indian freedom movement because the farmers of Phulaguri region had stopped payment of taxes to the British administration and thus openly defied the rulers. This had not happened anywhere in India before Phulaguri.
The immediate cause of the Phulaguri uprising of 1861 AD was the exorbitant taxes imposed by the British administration on the farmers of Assam. The British administration always acted in the interests of the British tea planters, not the common masses. These tea planters had been suffering from dearth of labourers. They had to bring labourers from other states at high costs. Moreover a large number of such labourers died of unhygienic conditions in the tea estates as malaria was rampant in those areas. So the tea planters thought that it would be better to engage the local people as labourers in their estates. But the indigenous Assamese people were always independent minded. Even the erstwhile Ahom kings could not uproot a farmer from the latter’s homestead as the right of the farmer on his land was considered to be supreme.
The land in the Brahmaputra valley being very fertile, the farmers did not need to look for extra vocation too. So none of them took employment with the British tea planters. These tea planters therefore decided to pauperise the local farmers of Assam by increasing the incidence of taxes so that they take up employment in the tea estates. The tea planters placed their design with their brethren in the administration, who readily co-operated in the conspiracy and enhanced the tax rates on the indigenous people. The enhanced tax rates were like these in 1852-53 AD : Tax on cultivable land : 1 rupee and 6 annas per Pura Tax on other land : 1 rupee per Pura Tax on lakheraj rupeet land : 10 annas per Pura Tax on other rupeet land : 8 annas per Pura Tax on each spade : 1 rupee and 8 annas Tax on each fisherman : 5 rupees Such a tax structure was not in keeping with the income level of the people as well as the economic situation of that time. It can be proved by a simple comparison. The prevailing price of cultivable land was 1 rupee and 6 annas per Pura at that time. Ironically this was also the annual tax rate imposed by the British regime. Thus the taxation rate was equal to the value of the asset itself, whereas the taxation rate should have been only a fraction of the productive capacity of the land. Clearly the idea of the oppressive taxation system was to pauperize the people at large. The government were really fleeching the people. They had even imposed tax on each plough in 1833-34 AD. This tax was at the rate of 3 rupees on the first plough and 2 rupees on the second plough. Every able bodied man had to pay tax in that system. But it was more than impossible and it had to be withdrawn in 1850-51 AD.