BHILS' PARTICIPATION IN POLITICS 33 ment. Mptilal (originally a spice merchant belonging to Kolyari village of Phalasia p. s. ofMewar) mobilised the peasants ofMagra district among whom the Bhils were preponderant. After organising the Bhils, he assembled them at the temple ofEklingji (Shiva) in Udaipurand formed an organisation christened as 'Eka'. The 'Eka' was not restricted to the Bhils alone; it was a common forum fortribalsand non-tribals. It provided an opportunity for greater interaction between the two. Through this organisation, Motilal initiated social reforms among the Bhils. He asked them to abhor drinks, abstain from meat-eating, abandon dapa (bride price) and lead a pious life.') Motilal identified himself with Gandhi to a degree where he was treated by his Bhil disciples as a "holy emissary of Gandhi", a fact that caused panic among the British authorities. They too considered Motilal a 'disciple' of Gandhi. Motilal gradually acquired for die masses a messianic personality. The Bhils in thousands would worship him and offer coconuts as a mark of respect to liim. He would issue instruc lions to tlie Bhils under a sogan or oath and any one defying him was coi)sidered,to be a sinner against religion. Punishment was inflicted on them by outcasting the individuals or by imposing penalities on the villages."' First Charter of Demands The Bijolia movement spread all over Mewar. The Bhils' response everywhere was considerable. Among the several thousand peasants who started pouring into Udaipur to seek audience with the Maharana, Bhils were "fully represented" according to an official report. A meeting of these representatives was held at Barapal;.a Bhil hamlet, under the leadership of Motilal and a memorandum was drafted un 1. The British monopoly on the opium cultivation should be abolished and the rights restored to itie Kisans wno were suffering the loss ot Rs. lakhs, annually on that account. 2. The revenue officials should stop excesses on the peasants in the collection of revenue. 3. Begar should be abolished. 4. The cultivators should not be pressurised to sell their produce below value to the state agencies and the state officials should be prevented from grabbing the grains and livestocks of the peasants. 5 Police excesses should be checked. 6. Restriction on transit of grains should be withdrawn as the producers were robbed of their grains if they Were stored. 7. There should be no restriction on the minor forest products and no rakhat on the forest. Thus the memorandum contained both land and forest-based grievances. The land problems affected both the Dhakars of Bijolia and the Bhils. But the problems relating to the minor forest products affected mainly the Bhils as the forest provided them a subsidiary means of livelihood even after the Bhils settled as an agrarian community, particularly during famine and scarcity years which were by no means rare. The memorandum enabled both the communities to wrest some concessions, although minor in nature, such as exemption from lagats, rasud and begar.^ The officials, through the grant of these concessions, tried (on their own admission) to dissociate the BhUs from other complaints in order to break the solidarity between the