PEASANT struggles are by no means a twentieth century phenomenon in the history of Bihar. In the nineteenth century itself Bihar had witnessed scores of heroic struggles of the peasantry, the Santhal Insurrection of 1855-56, the Munda Uprising of 1899-1901 and the Indigo Revolts in the latter half of the nineteenth century being the most notable among them. However, these were all isolated instances of peasant uprising with the leadership being provided by the local peasant leaders themselves without any national perspective and modern ideas. In contrast, peasant struggles in the present century are marked by outside intervention right from the days of the Champaran Satyagraha of 1917 when Gandhi first began his experiments with the peasantry.