Deccan Agriculturists Relief Act 1879
Also called: Deccan Agriculturists' Relief Act · Topic: Peasant and Tribal Resistance under Company Rule · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Colonialism and the Countryside"
Meaning
The Deccan Agriculturists' Relief Act was passed in 1879, after the Deccan Riots of 1875 and the Deccan Riots Commission's report. Its aim was to protect peasants in debt from sahukars (moneylenders). It made it harder for a peasant's land to be sold to pay off debts. It also limited jailing peasants for debt and let courts look into the full history of a loan. It shows how the government answered the riots: it blamed the moneylenders and passed a law to restrain them, while leaving its own revenue demand alone.
Example
Under the Act, a court in Poona or Ahmednagar district could look back over years of a sahukar's loan bonds. This could expose cases where unpaid interest had been quietly added into a new principal, as had happened under the Limitation Law of 1859.
Don't confuse with
- Limitation Law of 1859: an earlier law that made loan bonds valid for only three years. Moneylenders got around it by making peasants sign a fresh bond every three years.