Resentment against Company Rule

● People’s Resistance Against British Before 1857

● The Revolt of 1857

Chapter 6

People’s Resistance Against British Before 1857

Most of us think of the 1857 Revolt as the first major show of resentment against the British who were represented by the rule of the East India Company. However, there were many incidents before the 1857 revolt that indicated all was not well and that there was a building resentment against the alien rule. This resentment manifested itself in several bouts of resistance by different groups of people in different regions of India.

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People’s Resistance: Meaning

In the context of people’s resistance against the British rule, the word ‘people’ encompasses several sections of the Indian society who were affected by the alien rule. The peasants, artisans, tribals, ruling classes (active or dispossessed), military personnel (those under the Company as well as the demobilised soldiers of ex-rulers), religious leaders (Hindu and Muslim), etc., fought for the protection of their interests, at times separately and at times together. The agitation in Benares in 1810 against a house tax imposed by the colonial government, the Surat riots in 1814 against the salt duty, the rising in Bareilly in 1816 against police tax and municipal taxes, are some examples of urban movements in which people from lower strata like artisans, petty shopkeepers, and the urban poor fought together with the prosperous urban gentry. The interests of these resistances differed in the sense that each section had different grievances, but converged on a common objective—to end the British rule.

According to Bipan Chandra, people’s resistance took

three broad forms: civil rebellions, tribal uprisings and peasant movements. We have also considered military revolts as a form of people’s resistance, which involved Indians employed in the Company’s forces, to make the study of people’s resistance more comprehensive.