Agrarian movement in Rajasthan

Hitherto many historical studies of Rajasthan have taken as their nucleus the various kings of the erstwhile Rajput kingdoms. However well-informed and elaborate such studies may be, their approach has always been partial and one-dimen sional, the reason being that the perspective is entirely of a different mileu.

The present work has a definitely distinct approach in that it concentrates on the agrarian movements that have taken place in these princedoms prior to Independence. It attempts to narrate the detailed accounts of the history of the common man.

The conditions of an ordinary villager in pre-Independence India is not hidden from anybody. Financially he was con trolled by the village merchant known as baniya who had in his hands virtually the entire economy of the village. Again, the villager was under the direct and cruel control of the Jagirdar or, the Zamindar, a subordinate of a Raja (Prince) who was in turn himself under the hegemony of the British Empire. Despite all this the villager had great regard for the Panchayat, an institution of justice established by local tradition. The tiller of the land gladly shared what he produced morally, shared with those in the village who rendered a variety of services to the village. For example the carpanter who assisted the kisan in making agricultural implements, the sweeper who kept the village neat and clean, the cobbler who made shoes and charas (leather bucket for drawing water from the well for agricultural purposes), and the barber who besides his essential function went round the village conveying the news about marriages, engagements, deaths or some feasts, arranged in the village, etc. They all were entitled to have a share in the pro duce of the kisan. This system of sharing in Rajasthan was known as Kanwariah in the western part of Rajasthan and as lag in the eastern part.

However, some modern writers also say that a Jat and a Rajput cannot pull on well in the same village because of their perpetual rivalries. This is based on the fact that in Marwar and Bikaner States and in some parts of Jaipur, Jats were the original owners of land before the Rajputs came and forcibly dispossessed them of the land, and became its masters. It is therefore logical that they may be at daggers drawn but except for one reference of Waqa-i-Sarkar Ajmer-Wa Ranthambhore we do not find any mention of this type of relationship between the Jats and the Rajputs. Besides, the Jats and the Rajputs lived in the same village under the same arrangements. The most significant thing was that the villagers had a firm faith in the democratic institutions like the local panchayat which had successfully provided effective local leadership for any move ment to fight injustice as we have found in the course of our study.