DECCAN RIOTS (1875)
So far, it has been seen that outbreaks aimed at something like a total change, often with strong
religious and millenarian overtones (natural in change, the absence of any secular modern ideology
of social transformation), and rooted in the lowest depths of Indian society- tribals and poor
peasantry. But there was also a tradition of another type of rural protest, sparked off by particular
grievances and with specific and limited objectives, and deriving its leadership and much of its
support from relatively better-off sections of the peasantry. In the Maharashtra Deccan, for instance,
the rich peasant development brought about by the cotton boom of the 1860s had been abruptly cut
short by the fall in prices in the next decade-a fall which coincided with sharp upward hikes in land
revenue from 1867 onwards. The riots were direct outcome of the exploitative nature of Ryotivari
System and over assessment associated with it. Cotton boom of 1860's was abruptly cut short by fall
in prices due to end of American Civil War (I861-65). This widened with the sharp rise in revenue by
government. In 1867, government raised revenue by 50 percent. The result was widespread
indebtedness, and the immigrant Marwari money- lender became an obvious target of popular
anger. The anti-sowkar Deccan riots of May-September 1875 affected 33 places in 6 talukas of Poona
and Ahmednagar districts, and took the form of forcible seizure of debt bonds by enraged villagers
led by their traditional headmen (patels). Riots were Significantly uncommon in areas where the
moneylenders were not outsiders but local petty-landholders or rich peasant elements turning to
usury and trade (like the khots in Ratnagiri).
