Agrarian Tensions in Oudh and Its Counterforces (1920-22 and 1930-32): A Study of Nehru’s Leadership-paradoxes of A Complex Reality

Abstract

The paper under consideration intends to make a survey on the issues involved in the agrarian movements in Oudh in the 20s and 30s of the last century. Since both the movements were synchronized with non-cooperation and civil disobedience movement, the prospect of the movement were directly connected with the political progress of the Indian National Congress. It has been focused in the article that Congress support vis-à-vis Nehru’s sympathy for the peasants from the very beginning suffered from utter vacillation. This situation virtually leads us to look into the leadership of Nehru and the contradiction of the Congress party on the question of healing the wounds and sufferings of the peasantry. From this standpoint the article is mainly designed to explore how the peasant radicalism from below was suppressed by the dominant social groups and at a time when Nehru was a leading personality in Indian politics. Infact Nehru was suffering from a contradiction and inconsistencies and had to compromise with anti-forces against the peasantry on India. In this respect the paper ends with the view that Nehru’s policy failed to minimize the dominance of the monopolists and at the same time could not resolve India’s most acute social contradictions.