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Congress Confronts Communism: Thana District, 1945–47

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Leslie J. Calman
Leslie J. Calman
Affiliation:
Barnard College, New York
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Extract

From 1945 to 1947 the Communist Party led the impoverished Warli tribals of Bombay's Thana District in a movement for fair wages and freedom from forced labor and landlord violence. The immediate targets of the action were the local landed interests and moneylenders who dominated the region and held the tribals (known as ‘adivasis’) in virtual slavery. The longer range goal, however, was to build the Communist Party and challenge Congress dominance.

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Articles
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Modern Asian Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , April 1987, pp. 329 - 348
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

1 The Bombay Agricultural Debtor's Relief Act (Bombay Act No. XXVIII of 1939) and the Bombay Tenancy Act (Bombay Act No. XXIX of 1939). According to a government report in the 19705, neither of these bills had much success in protecting tenants. See Government of Maharashtra, Report of the Committee Appointed by the Government of Maharashtra for Evaluation of Land Reforms (Bombay, 1974), pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

2 Quoted in Parulekar, Godavari, Adivasis Revolt (Calcutta: National Book Agency Private, Ltd, 1975), pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

3 Silva, G. V. S. de, Mehta, Niranjan, Rahman, Anisur, and Wignaraja, Ponna, Bhoomi Sena: A Struggle for People's Power (Bombay: National Institute of Bank Management, 1978) (pre-publication draft), p. 16.Google Scholar

4 Quoted in Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, p. 3.Google Scholar

5 Times of India, Jan. 6, 1947, p. 7.Google Scholar

6 The fortnightly reports from the Bombay government to New Delhi frequently discussed Communist activity in other parts of the Province, and the government was plainly concerned with the spread of the movement to other districts. Reports from late 1946 to early 1947 recorded such incidents as the incitement of peasants in Kolaba and Kanara Districts against landlords (Nov. 6, 1946); the expansion of Thana-like tactics into Surat (Dec. 18, 1946) and Ahmednagar (Jan. 4, 1947); propaganda meetings in Kanara in which peasants were urged to withhold rent from their landlords (Jan. 17, 1947); and the forcible removal of standing crops from a landlord's field in Satara (Feb. 3, 1947). The Provincial Fortnightly Reports are Home-Political File Nos 18/1–18/12, 1946 and 18/1–18/12, 1947, National Archives of India.

7 The Congress government that took office in 1937 commissioned Symington, D. to write a Report on the Aboriginal Hill Tribes (Bombay: Government of Bombay, 1939).Google Scholar Symington found the tribals to be ‘degraded, timid and exploited,’ ‘chronically victimized by moneylenders,’ and insufficiently fed and clothed. In Thana, he reported that ‘the bulk of the aboriginal population’ was victimized by the veth system of forced labor, which was ‘hardly distinguishable from slavery,’ and frequently beaten and/or raped. pp. 1, 6, 7, 34.

8 See Silva, de et al. , Bhoomi Sena, pp. 21–2.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., p. 22.

10 See Caiman, Leslie J., Protest in Democratic India: Authority's Response to Challenge (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1985)Google Scholar, part 1 for a critique of the Naxalite movement in Srikakulam District.

11 A note on sources: The following account of the movement has been constructed from several sources, most of which can not be seen as remotely ‘objective.’ Godavari Parulekar's book, Adivasis Revolt and the two articles by her husband, Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Liberation Movement Among Varlis’ and ‘The Struggle of 1946’ both in Peasant Struggles in India, ed. Desai, A. R. (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1979)Google Scholar (reprinted from Revolt of the Varlis [Bombay: People's Publishing House, 1947])Google Scholar are written by the two key Communist activists who led the strikes. Articles in the Bombay Chronicle have a distinctly pro-Congress bias. The Times of India, traditionally conservative and pro-British, seemed to give the most detailed and balanced reporting. G. V. S. de Silva et al., whose bias is plainly on the side of the adivasis and activists who work to assist them, have written a scholarly history of radical politics in Thana in Bhoomi Sena: A Struggle for People's Power.

12 Bombay Chronicle, Oct. 24, 1945, p. 2.Google Scholar

13 Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Liberation Movement Among Varlis,’ p. 2.Google Scholar

14 Bombay Chronicle, Oct. 24, 1945, p. 2.Google Scholar

15 Parulekar, Godavari, interview, Feb. 23, 1980; and Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Liberation Movement Among Varlis,’ p. 571.Google Scholar

16 Parulekar, G., interview, Feb 23, 1980; and Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Liberation Movement Among Varlis,’ p. 572.Google Scholar

17 Parulekar, G., interview, Feb. 23, 1980.Google Scholar

18 Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar In a Feb. 23, 1980 interview, Parulekar said that she would attend the weekly bazaars at which both landlords and adivasis would congregrate. She would gather a group around her and begin to speak. The landlords would stand close by, holding their lathis, or large sticks. ‘I used to carry on and abuse them.’ She would say that their insistence on forced labour was illegal, and that they deserved to be hanged for their raping of adivasi women. Parulekar says that the adivasis could scarcely believe that an unarmed woman could say such things to the landlords' faces, and that this defiance gave them courage.

19 Silva, De et al. , Bhoomi Sena, p. 19.Google ScholarParulekar, Godavari writes, p. 84Google Scholar, that 5,000 adivasis attended this first conference.

20 Under this system, those tenants who payed a fixed rent in kind were liable to be called upon by their landlord to work his fields or to do forest work. ‘Thus at the critical period of the agricultural season … cultivators are forced to be present on their landlords’ fields. Work on their own rented fields is postponed and their crops suffer substantial damage.’ The usual wage for a day's veth labour was rice ‘barely sufficient for one man for one meal.’ Yet if the adivasis were to ‘refuse or procrastinate, they are liable to assaults and beatings. These are of common occurrence.’ Symington, , Aboriginal Hill Tribes, p. 36.Google Scholar

21 Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, p. 86Google Scholar; Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Liberation Movement Among Varlis,’ p. 573.Google Scholar

22 Silva, De et al. , p. 19Google Scholar; Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, pp. 85–6.Google Scholar

23 Symington, , Aboriginal Hill Tribes, p. 49Google ScholarParulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, pp. 89–91.Google Scholar

24 Silva, De et al. , Bhoomi Sena, p. 19Google Scholar; Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, p. 93Google Scholar; Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Liberation Movement Among Varlis’, p. 576.Google Scholar

25 Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, p. 98.Google Scholar Parulekar calculated the profit that the landlords would continue to make from a bale of grass after deducting all expenses as Rs 10 to Rs 11, and judged this to be a reasonable sum.

26 Ibid., p. 102.

27 Bombay Chronicle, Oct. 17, 1945, p. 5.Google Scholar Statement by Adivasi Seva Mandal.

28 Bombay Chronicle, Oct. 10, 1945, p. 4.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., p. 2; Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, p. 99Google Scholar; Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Liberation Movement Among Varlis,’ p. 577.Google Scholar

30 Bombay Chronicle, Oct. 10, 1945, p. 4Google Scholar; Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, p. 100Google Scholar; Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Liberation Movement Among Varlis,’ p. 578.Google Scholar

31 Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, p. 100Google Scholar; Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Liberation Movement Among Varlis,’ p. 578.Google Scholar

32 Ibid. See also Bombay Chronicle, Oct. 25, 1945, p. 4.Google Scholar

33 Bombay Chronicle, Oct. 25, 1945, p. 4.Google Scholar

34 Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, p. 102Google Scholar; and Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Liberation Movement Among Varlis,’ p. 580.Google Scholar

35 Bombay Chronicle, Oct. 25, 1945, p. 4.Google Scholar

36 Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, pp. 104–5.Google Scholar

37 Ibid., pp. 104, 107; Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Liberation Movement Among Varlis,’ p. 580Google Scholar; Silva, de et al. , Bhoomi Sena, p. 20.Google Scholar

38 Indeed, the similarity between the Congress policies and British policies is personified in the figure of Mr Almoula, District Collector. This is the same man who had worked strenuously against the Congress-led Bardoli Satyagraha of 1928 in his then capacity of Deputy Collector of Surat. Mr Almoula's presence is noted by Godavari Parulekar p. 111.

39 Ibid., p. 112.

40 Ibid., pp. 112–13; Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Struggle of 1946,’ pp. 585–6Google Scholar reports that prior to Mr Almoula's declaration, a number of landlords were already paying the higher wages of the previous year.

41 Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, pp. 113–14Google Scholar; Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Struggle of 1946,’ p. 588.Google Scholar

42 Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, p. 114Google Scholar; Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Struggle of 1946,’ pp. 586–7.Google Scholar

43 Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, p. 114Google Scholar; Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Struggle of 1946,’ pp. 587–8.Google Scholar

44 Symington, , Aboriginal Hill Tribes, p. 36.Google Scholar

45 NAI, Home/Political File No. 18/1–18/12, 1946. Emphasis added.

46 Ibid.

47 Times of India, Nov. 2, 1946, p. 1 and Nov. 9, 1946, p. 11Google Scholar; Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Struggle of 1946,’ p. 589.Google Scholar

48 Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, p. 115Google Scholar; Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Struggle of 1946,’ p. 589.Google Scholar

49 NAI, Home/Political File No. 18/1–18/12, Nov. 18, 1946; Times of India, Nov. 9, 1946, p. n.Google Scholar

50 This position had been created by the previous Congress government. Bombay Chronicle, Jan. 1947, p. 6.Google Scholar

51 Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, p. 116Google Scholar; Parulekar, S. V., ‘The Struggle of 1946,’ p. 591.Google Scholar

52 NAI, Home/Political File No. 18/1–18/12, Nov. 18, 1946.

53 Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, p. 117.Google Scholar

54 Ibid, pp. 117, 119.

55 Bombay Chronicle, Dec. 16, 1946, p. 6.Google Scholar

56 NAI. Home/Political File No. 18/1–18/12, Nov. 18, 1946; Bombay Chronicle, Jan. 21, 1947. p. 6Google Scholar

57 Times of India, Jan. 21, 1947, p. 7.Google Scholar

58 Press conference reported in Times of India, Jan. 21, 1947, p. 7Google Scholar; also in Free Press Journal, Jan. 22, 1947Google Scholar, quoted in Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, p. 119.Google Scholar

59 Bombay Chronicle, Jan. 21, 1947, p. 6.Google Scholar

60 NAI, Home/Political Files No. 18/1–18/12, Oct. 18, 1946.

61 Ibid., Oct. 3, 1946.

62 Bombay Chronicle, Dec. 16, 1946, p. 6.Google Scholar

63 Ibid. The present author has come across no evidence, such as newspaper reports or accounts in the government's fortnightly reports, to indicate that the Warlis killed a single landlord or police officer during the 1944–47 series of strikes.

64 Ibid.

65 Bombay Chronicle, Nov. 22, 1946.Google Scholar

66 Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, p. 127Google Scholar; Silva, de et al. , Bhoomi Sena, p. 20.Google Scholar The newspapers reported a steady stream of police and military moving into the area. See Times of India, Dec. 30, 1946, p. 7Google Scholar; Jan. 3, 1947, p. 1; Jan. 7, 1947, pp. 1, 6; Jan. 11, 1947, p. 7; Jan. 14 1947 and Feb. 12, 1947, p. 5.

67 NAI, Home/Political File Nos. 18/1–18/12, 1946. Dec. 18, 1946.

68 Times of India, Dec. 30, 1946, p. 7.Google Scholar In mid-December, with the renewal of the externment order against certain Communists, two sympathetic lawyers, a Mr Neemuchwala and Mr Godiwalla, were also externed from the district. After press publicity they were allowed to return to the area to represent Warli clients. Times of India, Dec. 18, 1946, p. 7Google Scholar; Bombay Chronicle, Jan. 10, 1947, p. 2Google Scholar; and Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, pp. 123–4.Google Scholar

69 Times of India, Dec. 30, 1946, p. 7.Google Scholar

70 Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, pp. 122–5Google Scholar

71 Bombay Chronicle, Oct. 25, 1945, p. 4.Google Scholar

72 Times of India, Dec. 31, 1946, p. 3.Google Scholar

73 Bombay Chronicle, Dec. 16, 1946, p. 6. Emphasis added.Google Scholar

74 NAI, Home/Political File No. 18/1–18/12, 1946; Jan. 4, 1947. See also Bombay Chronicle, Jan. 7, 1947, p. 7.Google Scholar

75 Times of India, Dec. 31, 1946, p. 3Google Scholar; Bombay Chronicle, Jan. 3, 1947, p. 5.Google Scholar

76 Times of India, Dec. 31, 1946, p. 3.Google Scholar

77 Bombay Chronicle, Jan. 3, 1947, p. 5.Google Scholar

78 Times of India, Jan. 6, 1947, p. 1 and Jan. 7, 1947, p. 6.Google Scholar

79 Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, pp. 130–2.Google Scholar

80 Ibid., pp. 130–5; Times of India, Jan. 2, 1947, p. 1; Jan. 4, 1947, p. 1; Jan. 6, 1947, p. 1Google Scholar; and Bombay Chronicle, Jan. 7, 1947, p. 7.Google Scholar

81 See Bombay Chronicle, Jan. 7, 1947, p. 7Google Scholar and Times of India, Jan. 6, 1947, p. 1.Google Scholar

82 Times of India, Jan. 7, 1947Google Scholar reported a number of ‘lawless acts’ committed by Warlis.

83 Parulekar, G., Adivasis Revolt, p. 138.Google ScholarSilva, de et al. , Bhoomi Sena, p. 20Google Scholar, also argue that public opinion in the cities and newspaper coverage, ‘helped to create a climate against the use of excessive force.’ The Times of India, Jan. 10, 1947, p. 1Google Scholar suggested that the military was withdrawn because ‘the use of troops might have led to scaring away the already nervous Warlis from their places of work for a longer period.’

84 The speech was recorded in Times of India, Jan. 6, 1947, p. 7.Google Scholar

85 Quoted in Bombay Chronicle, Jan. 4, 1947, p. 7.Google Scholar

86 Bombay Chronicle, Jan. 9, 1947, p. 5Google Scholar; Jan. 10, 1947, p. 1; Jan. n, 1947, p. 7; Jan. 21, 1947, p. 4.

87 Times of India, Jan. 31, 1947, p. 1.Google Scholar

88 Silva, De et al. , Bhoomi Sena, pp. 22–3.Google Scholar

89 Times of India, Jan. 10, 1947, p. 1.Google Scholar

90 Bombay Chronicle, Jan. 11, 1947, p. 7 and Jan. 21, 1947, p. 6Google Scholar; Times of India, Jan. 11, p. 7.Google Scholar

91 Times of India, Jan. 21, 1947, p. 7.Google Scholar

92 Times of India, Jan. 14, 1947, p. 1.Google Scholar

93 Times of India, Jan. 16, 1947, p. 5.Google Scholar

94 Bombay Chronicle, Jan. 21, 1947, pp. 4, 6.Google Scholar

95 NAI, Home/Political File No. 18/1–18/12, 1947; Feb. 18, 1947 and Mar. 3, 1947.

96 Bombay Chronicle, Mar. 3, 1947, p. 1Google Scholar

97 NAI, Home/Political File No. 18/1–18/12, 1947; Mar. 18, 1947, Apr. 3, 1947, Apr. 18, 1947 and May 2, 1947.

98 Silva, De et al. , Bhoomi Sena, p. 21.Google Scholar The authors relate that the Communist movement did succeed in frightening away many of the largest landowners, but that their lands were purchased in smaller parcels by other non-tribals who proceeded to replicate the exploitative relations the former landholders had had with the adivasis. For and account of contemporary movements in Maharashtra see Calman, Protest in Democratic India, pt 2.