Volume-X, Issue-IV, July 2024 |
The First Peasant Uprising in Colonial Assam: Phulaguri Dhawa Dr Kashmiree Gogoi Baruah, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Karmashree Hiteswar Saikia College, Guwahati, Assam, India Miss Sudipta Talukdar, Research Scholar, Department of History, Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam, India |
Received: 24.07.2024 | Accepted: 30.07.2024 | Published Online: 31.07.2024 | Page No: 191-197 | ||||
DOI: 10.29032/ijhsss.vol.10.issue.04W.020 | |||||||
ABSTRACT | ||
The establishment of British rule in India and their political and economic policy impoverished the economic condition of the common people and the peasantry which greatly agitated them against Colonial rule. So as protest, people in different parts of India rose in revolt against the British policies. The agrarian uprisings became an important feature of the Colonial India during the 19thCentury C.E. Although the Revolt of 1857 proved to be a failure in the upcoming years it inspired the people and gradually they became conscious about the exploiting nature of the British Government. In Assam also the peasantry was concerned about the constant increase of land revenue and the number of taxes which were imposed on them. So in the later part of the 19th century a series of agrarian uprisings took place in various parts of Assam. Local peasants under the leadership of Raijmels (people’s assembly) assembled to discuss about their grievances due to the British economic policy. With the growing popularity of the Raijmels number of the participants increased and later on these peasants revolted against the unjust economic policy of the British. In 1861 the peasants of the Phulaguri area, Nowgaon resorted to revolt against the British taxation system. This was the first peasant uprising in the Colonial Assam against the British and became popularly known as Phulaguri Dhawa. An attempt has been made in this paper to analyses how the new revenue policy of the British paved the way for the Phulaguri peasant uprising of 1861. Keywords: Revenue, agrarian, raijmel, colonial, economic exploitation. |