Supa
Topic: Peasant and Tribal Resistance under Company Rule · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Colonialism and the Countryside"
Meaning
Supa was a large market village in Poona (Pune) district in the Deccan. The Deccan Riots of 1875 began here. Peasants, called ryots, had fallen deep into debt to the sahukars. A sahukar was a moneylender who was also a trader. So the ryots turned against these lenders. Supa matters because the riots that started there show what peasants hated most: the written debt papers that kept them poor, more than the distant government.
Example
On 12 May 1875, ryots from nearby villages gathered at Supa. They demanded the sahukars' bahi khatas (account books) and debt bonds, then burnt them. They also looted grain shops and set fire to sahukars' houses. Within two months the revolt had spread from Poona to Ahmednagar. It covered more than thirty villages, and 951 people were arrested.
Don't confuse with
- Deccan Riots Commission: Supa is where the revolt began. The Commission was the official enquiry held after the revolt. Its report went to the British Parliament in 1878, and it blamed the moneylenders, not the government's revenue demand.