Marwar & the Thar · Arid Northwest
There was no British Indian district in this region — Jodhpur, Bikaner and Jaisalmer were princely states, and the colonial presence was a Residency rather than an administration. Resistance therefore took two forms that had almost nothing to do with each other. In 1857 it was a revolt of jagirdars, fought at Auwa against the Jodhpur durbar and the Company together, and it ended with the estate dismantled. Organised politics arrived eight decades later and was aimed at the durbar itself: praja mandal bodies demanding responsible government, and a peasant movement demanding relief from jagirdari levies. The most serious violence of the second phase, at Dabra in 1947, was between peasants and jagirdars, with the state prosecuting the injured rather than the armed party.
Risings and revolts
After the Jodhpur Legion mutinied at Erinpura on 21 August 1857, Thakur Kushal Singh of Auwa gave the rebels shelter and led the fighting against a Jodhpur state force at Bithoda and then near Chelawas, where the Political Agent Captain Monck Mason was killed.
Outcome: Auwa was besieged and taken in 1858 and the estate confiscated. Kushal Singh remained at large until he surrendered at Neemuch in 1860; he died in 1864.
The Jodhpur Praja Mandal was founded in 1934 by Jai Narayan Vyas and Bhanwarlal Sarraf and banned by 1937; the Marwar Lok Parishad followed in 1938, taking the word lok rather than praja deliberately. Its demands were civil liberties and a representative assembly in the state.
Outcome: Repeatedly banned and its leaders repeatedly jailed. Balmukund Bissa died in Jodhpur jail in June 1942 after a hunger strike.
The Marwar Lok Parishad and the Marwar Kisan Sabha organised cultivators against jagirdari levies and eviction. At a peasant gathering at Dabra, near Didwana, on 13 March 1947, an armed party of jagirdars and their men attacked the meeting; several cultivators were killed.
Outcome: The state prosecuted participants from the meeting rather than the attackers. The episode was widely reported and became the strongest argument for abolishing jagirdari tenure in Marwar.
Bikaner's movement began outside the state: the Bikaner Praja Mandal was formed in Calcutta in October 1936 by migrants from the state, with Magharam Vaidya as its chairman, and the Bikaner Rajya Praja Parishad was established in July 1942 by Raghuvar Dayal Goyal.
Outcome: Demonstrations spread into the canal colonies of the north. Police firing at Raisinghnagar on 1 July 1946 killed Birbal Singh, the movement's best-known casualty in the state.
People
| Name | Years | Movement | Known for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thakur Kushal Singh of AuwaAuwa, Pali district | died 1864 | 1857 | Champawat thakur who sheltered the mutinied Jodhpur Legion and led the fighting at Bithoda and Chelawas against the combined Jodhpur state and Company forces.Auwa fell in 1858 and his estate was confiscated; he surrendered at Neemuch in 1860 and died in 1864. |
| Jai Narayan VyasJodhpur | 1899–1963 | Praja mandal — Jodhpur Praja Mandal and Marwar Lok Parishad | The central organiser of constitutional politics in Marwar. Founded the Marwar Hitkarini Sabha in the early 1920s, the Jodhpur Praja Mandal in 1934 and the Marwar Lok Parishad in 1938.Repeatedly imprisoned by the Jodhpur state; later headed its government after 1947. |
| Balmukund BissaPeelwa, Nagaur; active in Jodhpur | 1908–1942 | Marwar Lok Parishad | Khadi worker and organiser in Jodhpur city who took up spinning and swadeshi work from 1934 and became a leading figure of the Lok Parishad's civil disobedience.Died in Jodhpur jail in June 1942 following a hunger strike. |
| Sagarmal GopaJaisalmer | 1900–1946 | Non-cooperation, then agitation against the Jaisalmer durbar | Took part in the Non-cooperation movement in 1921 and afterwards wrote against the Jaisalmer administration, including the tract Jaisalmer ka Gundaraj.Arrested in May 1941 and died in Jaisalmer jail on 4 April 1946. The state inquiry recorded the death as suicide; his family and later writers disputed that finding, and the circumstances remain contested. |
| Magharam VaidyaBikaner; organised from Calcutta | — | Bikaner Praja Mandal | Chairman of the Bikaner Praja Mandal formed among Bikaner migrants in Calcutta in October 1936, because organising inside the state was not permitted. |
| Raghuvar Dayal GoyalBikaner | — | Bikaner Rajya Praja Parishad | Established the Bikaner Rajya Praja Parishad in July 1942, which carried the demand for responsible government inside the state itself. |
| Birbal SinghRaisinghnagar, Bikaner state | died 1 July 1946 | Bikaner Rajya Praja Parishad | Took part in the flag demonstration at Raisinghnagar on 30 June 1946.Killed in police firing the following day. |
| Bhanwarlal SarrafJodhpur | — | Jodhpur Praja Mandal | Co-founder with Jai Narayan Vyas of the Jodhpur Praja Mandal in 1934, the first body inside Marwar to demand representative government from the durbar. |
People from Marwar & the Thar who resisted colonial rule, and the regional risings and revolts that shaped that resistance. (12)