All India Kisan Sabha

History glossary

Also called: AIKS · Topic: The National Movement: Gandhian Era · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) was the first all-India organisation of peasants. It was founded at Lucknow in April 1936, with Swami Sahajanand Saraswati as president and N.G. Ranga as general secretary. It demanded the abolition of zamindari (the system in which landlords stood between the peasant and the state and collected rent), lower rent and revenue, and cancellation of rural debts.

It matters because poor peasants now had a voice of their own. Congress had left out their main demand for rent relief, so they organised outside Congress. This pushed Congress to take up agrarian (land and farming) issues in the late 1930s.

Explanation

Background: why the peasants needed their own body

  • The Depression hit the countryside hard (from 1930).
  • Crop prices crashed, so peasants earned much less cash.

  • The government still asked for the same land revenue (the tax a landholder pays the state).

  • Poor peasants were mostly tenants.

  • A tenant farms land owned by someone else and pays rent to that landlord.

  • In the Depression they could not pay. They wanted rent remission (unpaid rent cancelled).

  • Congress stayed silent on rent.

  • It avoided a "no rent" campaign. Such a call would anger the landlords and rich peasants, whose money and numbers Congress needed.

  • So poor peasants turned to Socialists and Communists, who did take up the rent demand.

  • Regional peasant bodies came first.

  • Swami Sahajanand had already built a Kisan Sabha in Bihar (c. 1929).
  • N.G. Ranga had organised peasants in Andhra.
  • Left-wing groups inside Congress, such as the Congress Socialist Party (1934), wanted these local bodies joined into one national body.

Founding and leadership (1936)

  • Place and time: Lucknow, April 1936. This was the same time as the Lucknow session of Congress, presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru.
  • Name: according to standard accounts, it first met as the All India Kisan Congress. Soon after, it took the name All India Kisan Sabha.
  • Leaders:
  • Swami Sahajanand Saraswati: president.

  • N.G. Ranga: general secretary.

  • Membership: it was a separate body, but many members were also in Congress. Socialists and Communists worked closely inside it.

Main demands: the Kisan Manifesto

  • In 1936 the AIKS adopted a Kisan Manifesto (a written list of peasant demands). Its main points were:
  • abolition of zamindari;
  • a large cut in land revenue and rent;
  • cancellation of rural debts owed to moneylenders;
  • minimum wages for agricultural labourers;

  • recognition of peasant unions.

  • These demands were aimed at tenants, small peasants and landless labourers. They were not aimed at the rich peasants who had backed the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM).

How it worked and what it achieved

  • It pushed Congress to the left on land.
  • The Faizpur session of Congress (1936) adopted an agrarian programme (a plan for land and farming reform) that reflected several peasant demands.

  • Congress ministries formed after the 1937 elections passed some tenancy and debt-relief laws. Many peasants felt these laws did not go far enough.

  • Struggles on the ground.

  • In Bihar, the Kisan Sabha led the bakasht struggles (c. 1937–39). Tenants resisted being thrown off land that zamindars claimed as their own.

  • Peasant meetings, marches and rent protests spread in several provinces.

  • Split in the 1940s.

  • During the Second World War, Communists gained control of the AIKS.
  • They took a different line from Congress on the Quit India Movement (1942).

  • This split the leadership, and several non-Communist leaders drifted away.

  • Later legacy.

  • Kisan Sabha units led big peasant struggles, such as the Tebhaga movement in Bengal (1946). In Tebhaga, sharecroppers demanded two-thirds of the crop instead of half.
  • The demand for abolition of zamindari was carried out by state laws soon after independence.

Time, place and evidence

  • Period: the Gandhian era, between Civil Disobedience (1930–34) and Quit India (1942). It was founded in 1936, during the run-up to the 1937 provincial elections.
  • Place: founded at Lucknow (United Provinces). Strongest bases were in Bihar, Andhra, Bengal and parts of the United Provinces and Punjab.
  • Key people:
  • Swami Sahajanand Saraswati: president; the leading kisan (peasant) leader of Bihar.
  • N.G. Ranga: general secretary; peasant leader from Andhra.

  • Socialist and Communist workers who organised local branches.

  • How we know:

  • the AIKS's own Kisan Manifesto and the records of its sessions;
  • Congress session resolutions, such as the Faizpur agrarian programme;

  • the memoirs and writings of peasant leaders like Sahajanand.

  • Link to the study note: the note does not name the AIKS. It explains the gap the AIKS filled: poor peasants wanted rent remission, Congress avoided the "no rent" campaign, and so the peasants joined movements led by Socialists and Communists.

Don't confuse with

  • U.P. Kisan Sabha (1918) / Oudh Kisan Sabha (1920): these were provincial bodies of the Non-Cooperation years, and the Oudh body was linked to Baba Ramchandra. The AIKS was the first all-India peasant body, formed in 1936.
  • Bardoli Satyagraha (1928): this was a no-revenue campaign by landholding Patidars of Gujarat, led by Vallabhbhai Patel. It was about revenue paid to the state. The AIKS spoke mainly for tenants and labourers against rent and zamindari.
  • Congress Socialist Party (1934): a left-wing group inside Congress, made up of political workers. The AIKS was a mass peasant organisation, though socialists worked within it.
  • Tebhaga movement (1946): a later sharecroppers' struggle in Bengal, led by the Bengal Kisan Sabha. It was not the founding of the AIKS.

Prelims Hooks

  • AIKS was founded in April 1936 at Lucknow, at the same time as the Lucknow session of Congress under Nehru.
  • First president: Swami Sahajanand Saraswati. General secretary: N.G. Ranga. Expect a person–post matching question.
  • The Kisan Manifesto (1936) demanded abolition of zamindari, cuts in rent and revenue, cancellation of rural debts and minimum wages for farm labourers.
  • Chronology: U.P. Kisan Sabha (1918) → Bardoli (1928) → Congress Socialist Party (1934) → AIKS (1936) → Faizpur agrarian programme (1936) → Tebhaga (1946).
  • Trap: the AIKS was not the same as Congress and not founded by Gandhi. It was an independent body led by peasant leaders with strong Socialist and Communist ties.
  • Context: in the Depression, Congress avoided a "no rent" campaign to keep landlords and rich peasants on its side. That left room for a separate peasant body.

Mains Points

  • The limit of the "united front". Congress held many classes together by dropping any demand that would split them, such as no-rent. The AIKS was the poor peasant's answer to that limit. It shows that the gap between hope and result led to new organisations, not just people stepping back. It is a useful example for any GS-I question on class in the national movement.
  • From the margins to the agenda. The AIKS pushed abolition of zamindari, rent cuts and debt relief into Congress's own programme at Faizpur (1936) and into the laws of the 1937 ministries. After 1947, zamindari abolition laws carried this forward. This is a clear case of continuity from the freedom struggle into the land reforms of independent India.
  • Swaraj meant different things to different people. Rich peasants wanted lower revenue. Tenants wanted cancelled rent and the end of zamindari. The AIKS made this difference open and organised. This supports the view of historians who see the national movement as a meeting of many class interests, not one single will.

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