User:Gnanapiti/Sandbox/Kagodu Agitation

Kagodu Agitation was the socialist agrarian movement which originated in Kagodu village of Shimoga district in the Karnataka state. The movement which saw it's peak in the year of 1951 was the first agrarian movement in India since indepence. The movement involved the participation of major socialist leaders of India like Ram Manohar Lohia and successfully culminated by abolishing the land tenancy practice and announcing tiller as the land owner in Karnataka.

Land tenancy in pre-independent India
India prior independence had a feudal agrarian structure. Land rights were mainly owned by a small group of land owners including absentee landlords. Tenants or sub-tenants which formed the vast majority of cultivators did not have any right over the land. The practice was to lease land for subsistence. If the tenants had increased produce they had to share half their produce with landlords. The system was highly exploitative since rich people owned all the land and poor people grew more poorer. After the independence policy makers were of the opinion that system of cultivation by tenants had to be overhauled. This resulted in the tenancy reforms which aimed at either abolishing the tenancy or regulating the tenancy to ensure fixed tenure, fair rent etc. According the constitution of India land reforms are the responsibility of individual states while the federal government provides broad policy guidelines.

Causes for the agitation
Kagodu village in Shimoga district had only one landlord in the entire village. Rest of the villagers were either tenants or hired peasants of the landlord with deplorable economic and social conditions. They were denied of education and were made to work in landlord's house without any payment. Men had to wear dhoti above the ankle and the women had to wear saree such that it won't cover the leg below knee. However after the independence of India, the peasantry formed unions in order to fight against landlords. But they were soon evicted by the landlords from the land they were cultivating. In 1951 the farmers union and the socialist party of Karnataka launched an agitation against the landlords. But the Government of Karnataka at that time took the side of landlords. Socialist activists and farmers were put into jails all across Karnataka. Soon Ram Manohar Lohia who was at Delhi got to know about the agitation and decided to join the agitation. He went to the village of Kagodu and on July 12 1951 he launched Satyagraha. Lohia was arrested and put into jail. He was taken to Bangalore later where he was kept under confinement in the Government house. He was released after an appeal was made to the Karnataka high court.

Effects of the agitation
it is very succesful