THE peasants have dealt heavy blows to the feudal hege­mony in rural Bihar. In fact, in the areas of struggle certain forms of feudal oppression have already become a matter of the past. The rural poor have asserted as a parallel force in these areas and are throwing up strong challenges to the feudal hegemony through various measures of propaganda, agitation and resistance.

The most common forms of propaganda and agitation are mass meetings and processions, through which various crimes committed by the landlords are exposed and con­demned, and warnings issued to the culprits. Then there are methods like deputations, dharnas, demonstrations, gheraos etc. which are aimed at putting pressure on the administration to take, action against the landlords’ atrocities.

Peasant resistance is also fast becoming a common fea­ture in the areas of struggle. Peasants in hundreds and thousands come out, with or without arms, to fight back any offensive launched by the landed gentry and their musclemen. Where the organisation is strong, and certain armed strength is there, peasants go in for direct action. For instance, they take over village community properties and establish a new management with proper representa­tion from different sections, keeping out the corrupt gentry and officials; they intervene in the distribution of rations and force the officials to carry out reforms under the supervision of the peasant committee. Finally, they themselves deal with different cases of landlords' offences against the people and award wide-ranging punishments depending upon the gravity of the crime. To get a proper idea about the working of this process, let us consider the following popular forms of punishment.

Gherao : Peasants gherao the house of the erring land­lord, call him out and make him promise that neither will he himself commit any further offence nor will he ever side with the offenders.

Mass raid : Peasants en masse raid the house of the landlord, seize grains and distribute the same among them­selves. Guns are also seized. In many cases, armed groups of people would appear all on a sudden and ask landlords to surrender their guns. In such cases they do not intend to kill anybody. Some landlords readily comply with these orders, while others make protests. In latter cases, the peasants/armed groups concerned conduct a thorough search and seize the things asked for. They do not touch anything else and do not misbehave with anybody either.

Levy : Peasants (numbering 50 to 1,000) approach land­lords and ask them to pay levy. In case of drought or famine, the levy so obtained is distributed among the peasants. Otherwise, a portion of it is preserved for meeting future requirements (helping peasants in case of acute illness/death/marriage etc. in their families), another portion is spent on purchasing arms for self-defence, while yet another portion is earmarked for organisational expenditures. Levy can also be looked upon as a kind of penalty somewhat less harsh than fines.

Let us cite some examples. During the 1981 drought, 200 peasants assembled before the granary of ex-Chief Minister of Bihar, Sardar Harihar Singb, at Bagengola (Bhojpur district) and collected 400 maunds of grains as levy. But another landlord, Baijnath Pandey fired upon the peasants when approached for levy. The peasants retaliated with stones and bricks. He managed to flee away, but his son died in the melee. The peasants then seized his gun and confiscated 100 maunds of grains.

Fines : In some cases, peasants impose fines on the land­lords for committing such offences as setting fire to peasants' houses and looting their property, defying the orders of the peasant committee, misbehaving with women, physically torturing some peasant, collaborating with the police to suppress the organisation and so on. According to the gravity of the offence, the amount of the fine is fixed any­where between Rs. 100 to Rs. 10,000. Some landlords bow down and pray for mercy. In the case of others, peasants realise the same by seizing a part of their crops or by taking some other measures.

Banishment : It is a kind of self-imposed punishment for those landlords who flee to nearby district headquarters to save themselves from the wrath of the peasants, without being issued any decree to that effect by the peasant organisation.

Execution : It is the extreme and ultimate form of punish­ment awarded by the peasants to only those landlords who refuse to mend their ways, carry on unabated their criminal offences against the people, and try to unleash a veritable reign of terror in the entire region. Such killings serve as a warning to all such potential tyrants, put a check on all landlord-sponsored atrocities, rouse the peasants in general and generate confidence among the backward and vacillating elements in particular. However, this ultimate form of punishment is awarded rather sparingly, subject to the consideration of the development of people’s movement, and is generally carried out by armed squads.

Let us take the example of Mahendra Singh of village Amat (under Hilsa P. S. in Nalanda district). A landlord owning more than 100 bighas of land, he was a veritable terror in the entire region, beating labourers at will, forcing them to work and ransacking their houses. At times he even used to run his horse over these poor labourers, injuring and killing them. A ‘veteran hero’ of many an attack on the rural poor’s hamlets, he was ultimately punished by death.