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Odisha Review ISSN 0970-8669 The term ‘Subaltern’ literally means ‘subordinate,’ parts) and labour in plantation, mines and ‘of lower rank', 'an officer, below the rank of industries (along with urban casual labour). As a Captain in the British army’. In modern result of growing emphasis on history from below historiography the term has been used as a and more and more research on peasants and synonym for the non-elite sections of the society. tribal’s and publication of a dozen of volumes of Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), the Italian Subaltern Studies the Subaltern school has Marxist wove ideas about subaltern identity into carved out a place for itself in modern Indian the theories of class struggle. In course of time historiography. The theory of Subaltern autonomy Gramsci’s ideas got widely circulated. In modern has been affirmed by some scholars who studied Indian historiography Ranajit Guha introduced the agrarian movements in UP during Gandhian Era, concept of ‘subaltern’, and the theory of such as D.N. Dhanagare (Agrarian Movement ‘subaltern autonomy’, when he brought out an and Gandhian Politics Agra, 1975), Gyanendra edited volume, called Subaltern Studies, vol.1 Pandey (The Ascendancy of the Congress in (Oxford, 1982) and published his own work, Uttar Pradesh, 1962-1934: A study in The Role of Subalterns in the Indian Freedom Struggle: A Case Study of the Undivided Balasore District Dr. Atul Chandra Pradhan entitled Elementary Aspects of Peasant Imperfect Mobilisation. Oxford, 1978) and Insurgency in Colonial India (Oxford, 1983). Majid Hayat Siddiqi, (Agrarian Unrest in North Guha has used the term ‘subaltern’ in the context India: The United Provinces, 1918-1922. New of colonial India, and defined ‘subaltern’ in an un- Marxist and negative way; he has represented the Delhi, 1978). But the Subaltern theory has also demography difference between the total Indian been challenged. Some have hinted at the population and the elite ( foreign and Indian) as necessity of non-Subaltern mediation in the Subaltern classes. Sumit Sarkar who initially Subaltern movement. Sumit Sarkar has suggested subscribed to subaltern theory has tried to give a that the concept of Subaltern autonomy might be more specific enumeration of the subaltern classes valid in a relative sense. In fact the character of in the context of Bengal; he has identified three freedom movement in a particular locality was social groups under the subaltern head- tribal and determined not merely by direction from top but low caste agricultural labour and share-croppers, also by the initiative, drives, perception and land holding peasants generally of intermediate character of the people who carried on the caste status (together with their Muslim counter movement at the grass-root level. Therefore it is AUGUST - 2018 27 ISSN 0970-8669 Odisha Review necessary to study the social base of freedom phenomenon.” He further holds that Mahatma struggle in different localities. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru recognized “that the Awadh peasant movement was anterior to and Freedom struggle in India is broadly independent of the Non- cooperation movement, divided into two phases–the pre-nationalist and though there is evidence too of the interaction nationalist. In the eighteenth and nineteenth between the two and the strength one lent to the centuries there were many peasant insurrections, other”. Regarding the role of the peasants in the based on the agrarian discontent. With the Gandhian movement Sumit Sarkar holds that formation of Indian National Congress the although popular initiative unleashed many of educated middle classes started their movement Gandhi’s movements, and his movements got in which the masses hardly played any role. With radicalized in the process of descending to the the emergence of Mahatma Gandhi as the leader lower levels, he repeatedly used breaks to check of the Indian National Congress masses entered the elemental insurgency of the masses. Sarkar into the nationalist movement, being attracted by holds that Gandhi used such brakes not in the his charisma. In Odisha, during the pre-Gandhian interest of overall anti-imperialist unity but in favour nationalist era the public life was mostly dominated of the propertied interests both urban and rural. by the elitist movement of Odia intelligentsia, Rajas According to Partha Chatterji Gandhi made the and Zamindars, aiming at the merger of Odia- peasants willing participants in a struggle wholly speaking tracts. Two questions may be asked as conceived and directed by others. Chatterji holds to the relationship between Gandhian nationalist that Gandhi firmly refused to involve himself in movement and the peasants – What was the masses’ struggle against exploitation and influence of the Gandhian movement upon the oppression and failed to go beyond the limits of peasants and their movement and what was the the class interests of bourgeoise. role of peasants in the Gandhian movements. As regards the first question three points of view II have been held-(1) the nationalist movement helped the peasant movement to stand on its feet The Non-cooperation movement partially and spread, (2) the nationalist movement removed the traditional fear of government from exercised restrictive influence over the peasants; the people’s minds. Emboldened by the spirit of it had no programme of radical agrarian reform, the movement and at the call of local Congress as it was basically a multi-class movement against the people of the Balasore district boycotted the the imperialist rule, (3) The Subaltern historians land settlement ordered by Government in 1922. hold that the peasant movement remained an Since the settlement operation was started at a “autonomous domain”, clearly marked off from time when the people were busy in harvesting, the ‘domain of elite politics”. While studying the they were not in a position to co-operate with the peasant movement of Oudh during 1919-22, operation. The zamindar association of the Gyanendra Pandey holds that “many of the most Balasore district, led by Narendra Nath Sarkar important peasant insurrections in the country supported the tenants’s move in the face of threats were largely autonomous, and that the intervention from government. Finally at the suggestion of of outside leaders was a marginal and often a late Chaudhury Bhagabat Prasad Samantaray 28 AUGUST - 2018 Odisha Review ISSN 0970-8669 Mahapatra in the Bihar and Odisha Legislative The Kanika Sarkar thinking that he Council the settlement operation was postponed will obstruct the waves of the Non- for one year. According to H.K. Mahtab the post- cooperation movement by stretching Non-Cooperation situation was congenial for out his hand. But be it remembered lunching an agitation against the land revenue policy the awakening of the people, caused of Government and securing some concessions by the Non-cooperation movement for the tenants. But only in one zamindari i.e. will lower the head not only of the Kanika a part of which (panchmuka) was situated Kanika Sarkar but also of the Delhi in Bhadrak sub-division there was a serious Sarkar. Now we are awakened. Let tenants’ agitation. Towards the end of 1921 the the faint light of the awakening be tenants started mobilizing themselves in Raj kept up in our hearts. Eventually it Kanika the headquarters of the zamindari. Soon will spread like wild fire, grow thereafter village committees of tenants were furious and serve as a guide to many formed in Kanika for the withdrawal of countries. enhancement of rent made by the zamindar in 1916, and implementation of Congress The Board of Revenue records show that programme. The village committees discharged the adamant stand of the Raja of Kanika to raise the following functions-enrolment of Congressmen, rent at will and obstruct transfer of occupancy promotion of Khadar, settlement of disputes holdings without his consent was the basic cause through arbitration, persuading the people not to of the unrest in Kanika. Well aware of this, the pay enhanced rent and chowkidari tax and social British authorities were supporting the Raja of boycott of the loyalists. The movement within Kanika only for political reasons. When the High Kanika was supported by Congressmen like Court acquitted Chakradhar Behera and other Ramdas Babaji and Madausudan Pattanayak tenant leaders who had been arrested under from outside. Gopabandhu Das, the President of section 107, it held that the Kanika agitation was UPCC sympathized with the tenants’ movement only tenants’ agitation having no taint of treason. in Kanika. The Raja of Kanika filed a number of That is why, as pointed out by H.K. Mahtab, defamation cases against Gopabandhu Das for Congressmen withdrew from Kanika affairs after the latter’s statements in Samaj about oppression the withdrawal of Non-cooperation movement, in Kanika. Finally he was sentenced to two years’ as in 1920’s the tenants’ movement was not a simple imprisonment. Whether the Kanika tenants' part of the Congress programme. In 1930’s after agitation was an agrarian movement or a the withdrawal of Civil Disobedience Movement movement engineered by the Congressmen by the the Congress Socialists tried to integrate the opponents of the Raja of Kanika who was tenants’ question into the programme of struggle opposed to the Non-cooperation movement? for freedom. At that time Gokulananda Mohanty Perhaps there was a fusion of agrarian discontent emerged as a peasant leader in Bhadrak. There and Congress movement in Kanika, as it borne were other Congress socialists in Balasore district out by the following statement made by H.K. such as Gourachandra Das and Rabindra Mohan Mahatab in a pamphlet circulated in February, Das. Though not a socialist H.K. Mahtab became 1922: the President of Orissa Kisan Sabha in 1935-36. AUGUST - 2018 29 ISSN 0970-8669 Odisha Review In 1937 election for the Odisha Legislative shore of the Balasore district salt satyagrha took Assembly in the eastern Bhadrak constituency place.

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