32 SOCIAL SCIENTIST This, then, was the general level of perception at the initial stage, shared by the aggrieved peasants during the formative period of both the Fakir-Sannyasi and the Rangpur risings. At the next stage of perception when the insurgents sought to articulate the causal factor for their recent sufferings, they inducted a sort of moral overtone. The functioning of the East India Company, was, by and large, transmitted to them through the ruthless operations of a new group of zamindars or intermediaries who initially replaced the traditional zamindars. To the ryots and the traditional zamindars alike, the unjust method of revenue extraction by the alien intermediaries appeared as a sharp deviation from rajdharma or the traditional behaviour pattern which had so long been morally expected from the ruling class. The following passages of Jager Can bring this out clearly: When the country was perishing in famine, Debi Singh, the arch villain, was busy plundering the people. . . .Sivchandra (the traditional zamindar), the pride of the Baidyas, could not bear the oppression any longer. He convened all zamindars of Rangpur and invited the cultivators as well. Sivchandra stood up to speak with folded hands, as he spoke he wept in anger. He pointed out the tillers to the zamindars, and said: 'how could you take food without caring for these starving subjects? Too often there were floods from the north, and the paddy fields were inundated. I had spent time, labour and money to dyke the bend of river Caroah. But, now, the subjects perish for the sins of the new king. There is no water fo^ irrigation, paddy field is scorched down and nothing is left at home. ... I went down to reason with the vicious Raja Debi Singh, but his hoodlums put me in fetters. Look at the condition of the cultivators, dear zamindars, and do, whatever you deem proper. Sivchandra lost his temper and spoke again: 'Since the Rajput robber is a scoundrel, you should all drive him out'.