Deccan riots

Also called: Deccan riots of 1875, Deccan peasant uprising · Topic: Peasant and Tribal Resistance under Company Rule · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Colonialism and the Countryside"

Meaning

The Deccan riots were a peasant revolt that began at Supa, a market village in Poona district of the Bombay Presidency, on 12 May 1875. Ryots (peasants who paid land revenue straight to the government) attacked sahukars (moneylenders who were also traders) and burnt their account books and debt bonds. Over two months the revolt spread into Ahmednagar district.

The revolt shows that the peasants' anger was aimed at the written record of their debt. The government's enquiry afterwards also shows how colonial officials blamed moneylenders and would not admit that state policy had any part in the unrest.

Explanation

Background: how the ryot became a debtor

• The Deccan was a ryotwari area. Ryotwari meant revenue was collected directly from each cultivator, with no zamindar in between.
• The system was devised by Captain Alexander Read and Thomas (later Sir Thomas) Munro at the end of the 18th century. It became the standard system of the Madras Presidency and most of southern India. [2]

• The word ryot comes from the Arabic raʿiyyah, which means a peasant or cultivator. [2]

• Under ryotwari, ryots were often loaded with high taxes and ill-treated by lower officials. This pushed cultivators into poverty. [2]

• The debt trap worked like this:
• Revenue had to be paid in cash, on a fixed date, even when the harvest was bad.
• With no harvest and the revenue still due, the ryot borrowed from the sahukar.

• He signed a debt bond (a paper that recorded the loan), and the cycle of debt began.

• The sahukar was moneylender and trader in one person. He lent money at interest and also bought the ryot's crop. So the ryot owed him money and also had to sell to him.

The outbreak at Supa (12 May 1875)

• Supa was a large market village in Poona (Pune) district. It had shops, grain dealers and moneylenders.
• On 12 May 1875, ryots from nearby villages came in and attacked the shopkeepers.
• Their first demand was not money. They asked for the bahi khatas (the moneylenders' account books) and the debt bonds.
• They:
• burnt the khatas;
• looted the grain shops;

• set fire to the houses of the sahukars.

• Why burn the books and not steal the cash?

• The book was the debt.
• Once the written record was gone, the moneylender would find it hard to prove his claim in court.

Spread and pattern

• The revolt moved from Poona to Ahmednagar district.
• In two months it covered 6,500 sq km and more than thirty villages.
• The pattern was the same everywhere:
• sahukars were attacked;
• account books were burnt;
• debt bonds were destroyed;

• frightened sahukars ran away and left their property behind.

• Using the same method in village after village shows these were not random riots. The ryots knew exactly what they wanted to destroy.

Suppression and the Deccan Riots Commission

• British officials "saw the spectre of 1857". They feared that another revolt like the one in 1857 was starting.
• Steps taken:
• village police posts were set up;
• troops were called in;

• 951 people were arrested, and many of them were convicted.

• Even so, it took months to bring the countryside back under control.

• The enquiry:
• The Government of Bombay at first dismissed the revolt as unimportant.
• The Government of India, still worried by the memory of 1857, pressured Bombay into setting up a commission of enquiry.

• The commission's report was presented to the British Parliament in 1878.

• The commission's verdict: the commission had to answer whether the government's revenue demand had caused the revolt. It said no. It put the blame on the moneylenders.

• This verdict shows that officials kept refusing to admit that people's anger could come from government action.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: British (Company-era) revenue system in western India. The revolt began on 12 May 1875, and the commission's report reached Parliament in 1878.
• Region: the Deccan, Bombay Presidency.
• Named sites: Supa (a market village in Poona district), then Ahmednagar district.
• Groups involved: ryots (peasant cultivators), sahukars (moneylenders who were also traders), the Government of Bombay, the Government of India and the Deccan Riots Commission.
• How we know: the District Magistrate's report of 16 May 1875. It recorded:
• one moneylender's house burnt down;
• about a dozen more houses gutted (burnt out on the inside);
• about 50 people arrested in the first round;

• losses of over Rs 25,000 by the official count. The moneylenders claimed over a lakh (Rs 1,00,000), so the two sides were also arguing about how big the damage was.

• How we know: the Deccan Riots Commission report. The commission:

• held enquiries in the riot districts;
• recorded statements of ryots, sahukars and eyewitnesses;
• collected statistics on revenue rates, prices and interest rates;

• brought together the reports of district collectors.

• Reading the source: the report is rich but biased. It keeps the ryots' own words, but its conclusion was written to protect the government. Read the evidence inside the report separately from the verdict at the top.

Don't confuse with

• Revolt of 1857: the British feared the Deccan riots were a second 1857. But the ryots attacked moneylenders and their account books, not British rule.
• Indigo Commission (1860): this was set up after the Bengal indigo disturbances, where the target was the planter. [3] The Deccan Riots Commission came after the 1875 revolt, where the target was the sahukar, and its report went to Parliament in 1878.
• Permanent Settlement / zamindari areas: there a zamindar collected revenue between the state and the peasant. The Deccan was ryotwari, where revenue was taken directly from each cultivator. [2]
• Government of Bombay vs Government of India: Bombay ignored the revolt. It was the Government of India that forced Bombay to set up the commission.

Prelims Hooks

• The Deccan riots began at Supa, a market village in Poona district, on 12 May 1875, and spread to Ahmednagar.
• Ryots demanded and burnt the bahi khatas (the moneylenders' account books) and debt bonds, not cash or government revenue records.
• The revolt covered 6,500 sq km and more than thirty villages in two months, and 951 people were arrested.
• The Government of India, not the Government of Bombay, forced the setting up of the Deccan Riots Commission. Its report was presented to the British Parliament in 1878.
• The commission said the revenue demand was not the cause and blamed the moneylenders.
• The ryotwari system was devised by Alexander Read and Thomas Munro, and ryot comes from the Arabic raʿiyyah. [2]

Mains Points

• The visible enemy and the real cause were different.
• The ryots burnt account books and debt bonds. Their fight was against the written contract that turned one bad harvest into lasting debt.
• But the debt itself came from the state's cash revenue demand, payable on a fixed date, and from high tax pressure under ryotwari. [2]

• So the sahukar was the enemy the ryots could see, while the revenue system was the cause behind him.

• Colonial commissions were used for damage control, not to find the truth.

• The Government of India, still shaken by 1857, wanted an official record of the revolt.
• The 1878 report to Parliament collected ryots' statements, prices and interest rates. It then cleared the government and blamed moneylenders.

• The same pattern appears after the indigo unrest, with the Indigo Commission (1860) [3]. In both cases the official enquiry blamed a middleman (the planter or the sahukar) and not state policy.

• Lasting importance. The Deccan pattern was an indebted peasant, a moneylender who was also a trader, and an attack on debt records. It showed why land revenue and rural credit became central issues for later peasant movements and for nationalist criticism of colonial rule.

Related concepts

• Supa
• Deccan Riots Commission
• Deccan Agriculturists Relief Act 1879

Read more

• The Deccan Riots: event and aftermath