Bengal on the Eve of the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movement (9 9-20)

I

In many ways the First World War was a harbinger of change in Indian politics. Economic dislocation, inflated prices and government control on trade increased the hardships of the people, making them increasingly conscious of the oppressive nature of the rule of their imperial government. In Bengal the intellectual element pondered over the cause-and-effect relationship between the political situation and the economic condition.

The Bengali popular press was particularly vocal against colonial indifference to the economic plight of the people. The Viswamitra thought that 'subjugation was the real cause of famine because the commercial policy of the government enabled the foreigners to exploit the land'. The Hitabadi too was of the opinion that the establishment of mills and factories had not benefited India and the artisan class was growing poorer. Dainik Bharatmitra argued that prospect of British capitalists opening more factories would mean further systematic exploitation. Samyavadi felt that to eliminate India's poverty it was necessary to ensure not only that the raw materials for manufacture came from India, but also that the manufacturers should themselves be Indians. British policy was held responsible for encouraging foreign exploiters and the Marwaris. The Bengali pointed out that the monopoly enjoyed by the Railways and the Steamer Company was the cause of high prices. The most insistent cry was against the export of rice. When the restrictions against interprovincial movements of rice crops were removed, it created a great stir. Demand for prohibition of exportation from Bengal was constantly reiterated. The middlemen were deplored for their avaricious attitudes, especially regarding the high prices of coal for which their activities were believed to be responsible.

The demographic curve in Bengal was shifting. The Census Report of 1921 showed that the population in Bengal had risen by 28.6 per cent since 1881. The annual rate of increase was 0.7 per cent. The rural population itself had increased by 27.6 per cent and by 1921 it stood at 44.38 million. But interestingly this trend of population growth was not noticeable in West Bengal, where the growth had been constrained due to malaria epidemics. In a span of 50 years until 1921, the population of rural Central and West Bengal had remained stagnant or even declined by 10 per cent as it had in Nadia and Jessore districts. Frequent attacks of malaria and other tropical diseases had sapped the vigour of the agricultural population. Agricultural production had also been adversely affected by 'the exhaustion of land of the moribund delta and by the mortality and morbidity of labour as a consequence of malarial infection'. In East Bengal the trend was towards a natural increase in population levels. By 1921 Dacca, Tippera, Noakhali and Faridpur had become very densely populated areas, with Bakarganj, Pabna, Bogra and Mymensingh closely following. The Muslim and the Namasudra peasants of the region had enterprisingly resorted to extensive cultivation. Labour intensive cash-crop production, especially of jute, had proved a lucrative source of income since 1870. However, this meant that by the 1920s nearly all cultivable land had been exhausted.

Between 1919 and 1921 annual agricultural surveys showed that the general condition of the people was not satisfactory. In 1920 excessive rain caused water-logging damage to low-land paddy in Northern and Eastern Bengal while a spell of dryness clamped over Western Bengal. The continuing high prices of basic necessities materially affected all classes of the population. The situation remained unchanged throughout 1921, as essential goods such as cloth and salt became more and more expensive. The depression in the jute trade meant little financial benefit for its cultivators. Moreover, there was considerable falling off in the area and outrun of the jute crop yielding less income to the farmers. The peasantry, ridden with misfortune, thus became very open to promises of change and better living standards in the days of Swaraj which, the leaders pledged, would come within a year.

While rural Bengal was facing the normal problems of natural hazards, demographic ups and downs, rising prices and above all an exceptional temporary crisis created by the war, their industrial compatriots were faring no better. The Bengal delta received the mass of its labouring population from the upper Gangetic plains. These men did not sever their connections with their native homeland. The Indian Factory Labour Commission of 1908 reported that 'the habits of the Indian Factory operatives are determined by the fact that he is primarily an agriculturist or labour on land. His home is in the village from which he comes and not in the city in which he labours.'

It is therefore natural that the labourers would be affected by the political and social upheavals in their villages. The recruits to the mills came from varied regions such as the Telegu speaking districts of Madras, Bihar, Central Provinces, the Uttar Pradesh and Orissa. There was only a small number of Bengali mill workers. Down the river from Calcutta, in the neighbourhood of Budge Budge and Uluberia, local men from the surrounding villages often came to work in the mills. In the mountainous tea estates the work force was mainly of Nepali extraction. In the Dooars tea gardens the labour force was made up of local aboriginals and coolies recruited from the Santhal Pargana. The labour force in the colliery region, especially in the Raniganj area, were aboriginal tribes mainly Santhals, or Kols or Hindus of inferior castes like the Baurias, Bhuias and Dushads. They cultivated their own lands and came to the coal fields in search of work only when their own fields did not require their attention and proved less remunerative.

From the middle of 1920 this labouring population of Bengal, simmering with discontent, which had hitherto been expressed in occasional outbursts, began systematic and planned opposition to the authorities. According to the Director of Industries, with a few exceptions, 'the strikes arose from demands for higher wages but the general origin of the demand was the rise in the cost of living which resulted from the Great War. The popular hope that the Armistice would be followed by a substantial fall in prices was grievously disappointed.' The causes of the strikes had been identified as economic. In the context of the pressure of high prices, the increase in wages in the preceding year had been neither sufficient nor uniform. Added to this was the...