Peasants' and workers' movement in India 1905-1929

This volume deals with the ideologi cal and social trends that gave an impetus to the exploited classes of pea sants and workers in their struggle against foreign imperialists and native exploiters in the first three decades of the twentieth century, Vivid and vigor ous is the description of growth of political consciousness that inspired peasants and workers and the militant battles they fought.

In the nineteenth century Indian in tellectuals were under the spell of British liberalism of Bentham, John Stuart Mill and John Morley. But before the turn of the century the rise of the Labour Party in England, the writings of such thinkers as Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Sydney Webb and the writings of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and the news of the European working class movements broke the spell. However, as the twentieth cen tury advanced and especially as a result of the first world war which ushered in the great October Revolution in Russia the change acquired speed.

One of the factors which contributed powerfully to this process was the advent of Gandhiji in India who roused the Indian peasantry. But his vacillation, his withdrawal of cooperation movement after non Chauri Chaura incidents created a sense of frustration among the radical and socia list-minded leaders of the peasant and worker movement. For a pretty long time they were groping for a path for complete independence, for justice to the toiling people. The disillusioned leaders began to embrace communi and organise peasant and worker move ment on new lines.