Jagdish Mahto
Jagdish Mahto Master Saheb | |
---|---|
Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) | |
In office 1970–1972 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Ekwari, Bhojpur, India |
Died | 1972 |
Cause of death | Murder |
Political party | Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) |
Occupation | Teacher |
Jagdish Mahto was an Indian communist activist. He was a naxal leader who led the 1970 Bhojpur uprising in the landlord-dominated Bhojpur region of Bihar. He was a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist), an organisation which was leading the Naxalite insurgency against the Government of India. He also fought against the upper-caste landlords for the cause of lower-caste people.[1][2] Mahto, also called Master Saheb, was a member of the Bihar State Committee of CPI(M–L) and one of the founding leaders of the party in Bhojpur.[3]
Life
Jagdish Mahto was born in Ekwari, Bihar. He was a member of Koeri community. Mahto established a newspaper called Harijanistan ("Land of Dalits") in order to voice support for the rights of the Dalits.[4][5] Shri Bhagwan Singh Kushwaha, a former Minister in the Government of Bihar, is Mahto's son-in-law.[6]
Prior to his involvement in the Naxalite movement, Mahto taught science at
Communist upsurge under Mahto
In the 1967 election, Mahto was supporting his friend
Mahto formed an alliance with other like-minded youths, including Ram Naresh Ram and Rameswar Ahir. They assembled their supporters under the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation.[10] They began organising murders of landlords and their henchmen.[11] According to author Bernard D'Mello:
Reportedly, the Master would prevail upon his Dalit followers to go forth to "force [their] acceptability as human beings." His practical lesson was: "This is a gun, the weapon of subjugation. Hold it straight, [and] go and deliver justice."[2]
By the end of the 1970s, a large number of landlords were killed. The movement pushed for economic reforms (e.g., eliminating unpaid labour of the Dalits for their masters) as well as increased respect for the Dalits. Prior to the movement, there were virtually no consequences for landlords who engaged in unwanted sexual contact with Dalit women. The Dalits were mostly landless labourers who were fighting under Jagdish Mahto for their honour.[4]
Associates
One of the most notable associates of Mahto was Ganeshi Dusadh, who is described as an outstanding guerrilla fighter. He was the son of a landless bonded peasant from the Chauri village of the Sahar block. Under the leadership of Dusadh, the CPI-ML guerrilla fighters made several attacks on the regional landlords. They killed landlords as well as moneylenders, which was followed by the confiscation of their lands and the organisation of peasants to sow those lands. In addition, the grains of large trading companies were seized and distributed by the guerrillas. For at least six months in 1973, the Chauri village remained under the control of the Naxalites' revolutionary committee. On 6 May 1973, the armed police force entered the village along with the henchmen of the local landlords. The battle that ensued saw the villagers and CPI-ML guerrillas under Ganeshi Dusadh fighting the police and henchmen of the landlords. After a twelve-hour-long conflict, Ganeshi Dusadh was killed.[2]
Participation in revolutionary uprisings across Bhojpur
Ayar Rebellion of 1972
The Ayar village of Jagdishpur was a stronghold of Rajput landlords and Thana Singh, one such landlord, had committed several offenses against the Musahars and Chamars of the village. Two-thirds of the land in the village was controlled by these landlords, including Charichan Singh and Madho Singh. A sentiment against the poor condition of the lower caste in the village began brewing in 1957 but was suppressed by the landlords through the use of brute force.[12]
In 1962, the ongoing skirmishes between the lower castes and the landlords led to the deaths of peasant leaders Shivratan Yadav and Bhikhari Yadav and the offenses against lower-caste women continued. According to Kalyan Mukherjee, the village was so unpopular among the Dalits that no Dalit family of another village would want to have a family member married to a resident of the village. The tipping point to revolt was the sexual harassment of the wife of Ramayan Chamar, who used to work as an agricultural labourer in the fields of Charichan Singh, by the sons of her landlord. Chamar's complaint to Charichan Singh led to his physical assault by the men of Charichan Singh. The disgruntled Chamar joined the "Jagdish Mahto group", also called as Ekwari ke Master Saheb ka group. In the retaliation by Mahto and his armed group, who were invited to the village by Chamar, Thana Singh was assassinaed; another landlord, Hari Singh, was injured and killed later by the rebels.[12]
Activism and anti-landlord activities in Bhojpur
On 14 April 1970, Mahto, along with Rameswar Ahir and Latafat Hussain, organised a massive rally and candle march in support of
The village of Ekwari was known for its fertile land and the feudal dominance of the upper-caste who exploited the lower-caste. The women of the lower caste were raped with impunity to such an extent that it was accepted as a social norm. The
Rameswar Ahir, who joined Mahto in the struggle against the landlords, started his career as a communist rebel by leaving all of his land claims and joining the underground society of communists along with Mahto. On 23 February 1971, a landlord named Shivpujan Singh, who was accused of raping a
Death
Mahto was killed after being beaten by a
In an interview with the media outlets in Delhi, Ram Naresh Ram, an associate of Mahto, discussed the conflict that had taken place for decades in Bhojpur between landed gentry and the subordinate tenants.[10] The caste strife came to an end years later owing to the killings of the core Naxal leaders and retirement of their subordinates.[7]
In popular culture
Jagdish Mahto became a notable figure among people of Ekwari and several books were written to commemorate his struggle against the landlords for the cause of poor and the deprived. Some of the biographical accounts of Mahto are Bhojpur Mein Naxalvadi Andolan (Kalyan Mukherjee and Rajendra Yadav), Master Saab (
See also
References
- ISBN 978-9351865131. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
- ^ ISBN 978-1583677087. Retrieved 16 July 2022.
- Times of India. Archivedfrom the original on 21 July 2022. Retrieved 21 July 2022.
- ^ ISBN 0765631768. Retrieved 16 June 2020. The Naxalite challenge developed in the central districts where some agricultural development was producing an objective base to challenge the bonds of ex ploitation they called "semifeudalism." Its first mass leader was Jagdish Mahto, a koeri teacher who had read Ambedkar before he discovered Marx and started a paper in the town of Arrah called "Harijanistan" (dalit land), even leading a march of dalits on this demand. This was similar to innumerable assertions throughout India at the time, but Bihar contradictions drove Mahto in a more violent direction. Beaten up after supporting the CPI in the 1967 elections, he turned to Naxalism and began to organize murders of landlords and their gang ster henchmen in the area around his native village. The issues on which dalits were stirring were not only those of their abominably low wages, but also izzat, social honor, and especially honor defined in terms of the unrestricted and arro gant access of the upper castes to dalit women. In 1971, before he was killed, Mahto told a fellow teacher, "Brother, I know that I am going to die one of these days. But I will die partly satisfied. For one change that our movement has brought about is that landlords now do not dare to touch the women of the poor."
- ISBN 978-1351381819. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
Jagdish Mahto, for instance, a teacher in his village, was hated by the local upper-caste Bhumihar landlords because he refused to get up from his cot in his courtyard when they passed his house.
- Times of India. 13 April 2014. Archived from the originalon 16 November 2020. Retrieved 16 November 2020.
- ^ ISBN 978-9385436420. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
- ^ a b Mukul, Akshay (31 March 2004). "Barricade to ballot". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 7 April 2021. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
- JSTOR 4366261.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-367-13466-2. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
- JSTOR 4416471.Initially, the focus was on annihilation of oppressive andlords and their henchmen, and a fight against the state. The struggle against the landlords was not only about land, but also against their samanti (feudal) attitudes and behaviour. Jagdish Mahato is said to have described this hangover from the past in the following words: "the landlord's moustache has got burnt but the twirl still remains".
- ^ a b Kalyan Mukherjee; Rajendra Singh Yadav (1980). Bhojpur: Naxalism in the Plains of Bihar. Rādhā Krishna. p. 48,49. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
[48]..The litigation that followed did not diminish the brutality of Thana Singh . Innumerable cases of rape and molestation were attributed to him . " Things came to such a pass that Ayar became a word of fear in the Harijan of even distant villages.....[48].. In Ayar, a person called Ramayan Chamar responded to the call of Jagdish Mahto. So did his nephew ... The villagers heard the explosion of bombs : Thana Singh, who was revelling in the company of women, was killed. [49]... On the other hand the kinsmen of Thana Singh suspected a fellow Rajput, Dinanath Singh, and killed him in an act of reprisal two months later.
- ^ a b c Kalyan Mukherjee; Rajendra Singh Yadav (1980). Bhojpur: Naxalism in the Plains of Bihar. Rādhā Krishna. pp. 53–56. Retrieved 29 March 2021.
- ^ Sahar, Santosh. "Revolutionary lives". Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist)liberation. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
Further reading
- Akshayakumar Ramanlal Desai (1986). Agrarian Struggles in India After Independence. ISBN 0195616812.