PEASANTS AND CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE MOVEMENT IN BfflAR 49 rent demand, they too felt the pressure of the slump. In most cases, however, they had enough savings and credit to tide over the crisis. According to Dhanagare, poor peasants, at least initially, stood to gain since they could supplement their income from labour and wages which rose until 1931 and never fell below the 1921 level.19 It was in fact the rich and middle peasants (small zamindars and upper-caste rent receivers) whom the depression hit the hardest, since these were the groups most closely connected with market and hence most vulnerable to price fluctuations.20 Apart from the debt burden (they were the most heavily indebted groups),21 which caused their lands to pass easily into the hands of creditors, evictions for arrears of rent were an added burden for these tenants. Dhanagare's proposition with regard to the impact of the depression on small landlords and rich peasants is sound. But his theory about its impact on the poor peasants does not bear scrutiny. As was customary in Bihar, high-caste poor peasants could not supplement their income by working on other fields. Even the second category of low-caste poor peasants could not increase their income by labouring for others as the circumstances of their employers were themselves strained. A series of natural calamities which accompanied the depression in Bihai22 also made it difficult for even agricultural labourers to gain employment in villages.23 The burden on poor peasants became all the heavier during a period of depression as they ran out of their cash reserves at the very time when the landlord was most likely to enhance rent because his income from his zirat land, which was normally kept for cash crops, was usually reduced.24 On such occasions the political temper of the countryside could reach flash-point very quickly.25 The distress of the peasantry was naturally far greater in those parts of Bihar where the system of produce-rent was most prevalent, for this system imposed a much heavier burden on the peasants in terms of the quantity of produce they had to surrender to the landlords. It is, however, wrong to suppose, as Walter Hauser did, that the kisan movement was mostly confined to the regions where this system of produce-rent prevailed. The intensity of the distress resulting from the depression varied from region to region but it was severe enough to produce deep discontent among the peasants all over Bihar.26 If south Bihar was hit the hardest due to the prevalence of the produce-rent system, in north Bihar the tenants suffered mostly because of the slump in the prices of cash crops like jute, sugarcane, tobacco and chilly which the peasants of north Bihar ostensibly cultivated extensively to meet their rent demands.27 If the peasants of Purnia district suffered due to a crash in jute prices, and those of some parts of Munger, Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur owing to a slump in the prices of tobacco which was almost 500 per cent and also of chilly, the peasants of Champaran suffered heavily due to the fall in the prices of sugarcane. Our analysis of the agrarian situation shows that almost all sections of the peasantry were affected deeply by the depression but it was the middle peasants (with a surplus to sell) who were hit the hardest and it was to this class of peasant proprietors and small tenants (rather than share-croppers or agricultural labourers) that the Congress looked for support.28 As the price collapse from the autumn of 1930 began to take catastrophic forms and prospects of the winter crop became bleak nearly all over Bihar,29 the miseries of the peasants crossed limits. The bleak economic situation forced them to actively participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement. In some parts of Bihar adjoining U.P. the peasants even called upon Sw^imi Sachidananda