5. Peasants Revolts

The peasants were overburdened with taxation. Whenever the farmers could not pay tax, they had to borrow from moneylenders at a high-interest rate by mortgaging their agricultural land. The agricultural lands of the farmers were seized by the money lenders when they were not able to pay back their loans.

The British also understood that the villages could not only yield revenue, it could also cultivate the crops that Europe required. By the late 18th century, the Company expanded the cultivation of opium and indigo. In the next 150 years, the British convinced or forced cultivators in different parts of India to produce these commercial crops:

 

 

Peasant Movements are a part of social movements in the 19th and 20th centuries against British revenue systems and other breakdowns of the British Colonial Period. These movements had the purpose of restoring the earlier forms of practice and social relations.