6 ^ SOCIAL SCIENTIST in building an all-in peasant unity. The dramatic evidence of growing peasant consciousness and organization had its reaction. Most of the big landlords stubbornly refused to make concessions and the class as a whole began to launch counterattacks. In many places in north Malabar, the landlords denied peasants the traditional use of the forests for gathering firewood and green leaves. Goondas were employed to harass the women engaged in this work. In some areas evictions were threatened and in others actually took place, as in the case of a tenant in Alakkad and another under Poomulli Namboodiripad.18 Landlords refused to accept the standard measure rent without the accompanying levies, and then on the plea of non-receipt began eviction proceedings. When the sangham countered this with bigger mass meetings, demonstrations, social boycott, and threats of a no-rent campaign, the state machinery moved into action. In many places, the landlords found it impossible to hire agricultural labour owing to the boycott. Hundreds? of cases were registered at the instance of the landlords against sangham leaders and workers. Keraleeyan, Vishnu Bharateeyan and A K Gopalan were arrested and sentenced for making inflammatory speeches/4 According to an estimate made by A K Gopalan, 151 workers were arrested upto January 1939, most of them in the areas of the two most oppressive landlords, the Kalliat jenmi and the Karakathidathil Nayanar.15 The district authorities were alarmed by the peasant activities and this concern was reflected in the district collector's reports to the Madras government. In August 1938, the collector reported that agitation and propaganda was going on among the tenants not to pay dues to the jenmis and that ^generally speaking, the tenants are not paying."16 By November, he reported that the no-rent campaign (among lease-holding tenants in respect of dues payable to the ryotwari pattadars) which has been carried on for some time in the district is achieving considerable success, and in the absence of any organized opposition, is in some parts undermining the authority of the government ... if the jenmis are unable to collect their rents, it will have a serious effect on the land revenue collection which starts next month.17 According to the collector, ^This agitation is based on village karshaka sanghams and sub-sanghams composed largely of tenants and labourers in which some teachers of the district board and aided schools are reported to have taken part.5'18 The district magistrate toured the affected areas and it was decided to open temporary police stations and outposts in the Irikkur and Payannoor firkas of Chirakkal taluk.19 It was also decided to impose punitive fines on villages where peasant activities necessitated new police outposts. But the dynamism of the movement was not lost even after a show of force and arrests of sangham workers. The collector's reports complained of difficulty in getting evidence against those