Peasants and Land Reforms in Orissa: 1936 - 1976 (An Old and Rare Book)

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The need for deepening our understanding of the Peasant Movement is today widely recognized. This work is a humble presentation of a regional history of Peasants and Their Protest Covering a period from 1936 to 1976. This has discussed different aspects of Peasant History including Imperial impact on rural economy, exploitation of Peasantry and Peasant Reaction, Land Reforms and Social Change.

Prof. Subhash Chandra Padhy is working at Post Graduate Department of History, Berhampur University, Orissa. He is the author of British Relation with chiefs and Rajas of Orissa 1803-1858 (1986); Tribals of Orissa: Their Problems and Prospects (2000) Freedom Movement: Prelude to Sequel (2001); edited Socio-cultural History of Orissa (1998) and Co-editor (with Prof. S.K. Panda) Society, Culture and Polity in Eastern India (1999). He is presently working on 'Placing Tribals in History: A Comparative Study of India and Canada'.

Dr. (Mrs.) A. Sobha Rani completed her Graduation with History Honours in the year 1987. After completing her Post-Graduation in History from Berhampur University in 1991, she undertook her research in Berhampur University and was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy during 1998. She is teaching History of J. K. Talent School, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.

This work has grown out of my interest in Peasant's history over the last one decade or so. The academic debate on the subject which is still on. it is expected it would place this regional history in proper place. The focus of the work is to present the peasants' potentiality to fight with the exploiters. We have stressed this unexplored area of Orissan history providing insight to the instinct of an exploited class. Except a few articles here and there, no work has yet surfaced. Another dimension of this work is to logically justify the different shades of land reforms that are legislated and worked because of peasants protests. This work is based on a variety of sources ranging from conventional archival material to some oral evidence. The period from 1936 to 1976 was picked up because in 1936 Orissa province was created and in 1976 Land Reforms reached a considerable height.

The largest sections of people engaged in productive activities in the country have been peasantry and labour of different denominations. Of these two notable elements in society the peasantry has been the backbone of our nation whose economy till the beginning of the last century had been craft oriented agriculture or agro-industrial. The class was greatly hit by the British rule whose primary concern was to secure the highest possible income from land. Since the last quarter of a century a number of western and Indian scholars have brought out striking peasant studies with nationalistic, pragmatic and Marxian interpretations depicting imperial impact on the rural economy, zamindar-peasant relations, exploitation of peasantry by revenue collectors, agrarian problems emerging from diverse land systems, operation of land laws, fragmentation of holdings, land market, rural credit system, monetization of economy, introduction of cash system of rent, decline of handicrafts, growth of landless peasantry, rural poverty and indebtedness, recurrent famines and pestilence, commercialisation of agriculture, emergence of a very small section of affluent farmers, colonial intrusion in plantations, rising price level and the effects of these on the agrarian life and socio-economic ramifications.

**Contents and Sample Pages**