FERAZEE AND WAHABI MOVEMENTS 49 equally vehement against the indigo planters who were subjecting the rural population to a reign of terror and exploitation. Although at the outset they had no organized programme of rebellion against the company's administration, (the leaders being not particularly keen on a confrontation with the government)54 there was no doubt about a ^deep-laid and extensive conspiracy" against the established government of the day.05 Success and Failure The rebels'successful defiance of the civil authorities at Barasat (15 November) and Nadia( 17 November 1831) inspired added confidence in the strength of the organization. Their proclaimed intention of liquidating British rule in India was a morale-boosting slogan born out of a feeling of despair and urge of self-preservation under depressing conditions. However, once the rebel peasants started storming the indigo factories, matters took a serious turn. As an outcome of the company's militaiy assistance to the zamindars and indigo planters the ryot-zarnindar conflict eventually assumed the proportions of a law-and-order problem. The revolt against the government thus appeared quite logical.56 Initially, the government failed to assess the nature and scope of the rising. It was taken as a communal outburst, and ^a simple case of affray arising out of a quarrel over a cow-slaughter between the Hindu and Muslim inhabitants of a village".57 The zamindars and some of the government representatives acting on their counsel were responsible for this thesis. The early reports hardly indicate that the zamindars' exactions were behind the genuine grievances of the peasants.6" An on-the-spot inquiry under J R Colvin, the officiating joint magistrate of Barasat disclosed that the oppressive and illegal extortions of the zamindars—the main pillars of the company's administration in rural Bengal since 1793—first aroused the ryots to rebellion.59 According to W W Hunter, what took place at Barasat in the 1830s was nothing but a series of agrarian outrages; nothing short of an infuriated peasant rising.60 He pointed out the anti-zamindar bias of the movement, though he was silent about its antagonism to the indigo planters.61 Besides this anti-zamindar and anti-indigo-planter stance, the keynote of the Ferazee as well as the Wahabi movement was revivalist peasant communalism. Herein, therefore, lies a clue to their early success and ultimate failure. Because of its wider regional scope and outlook, the Ferazee movement had a longer life (1818-47) than the Wahabi organization of Titu Mir (1827-31). Both finally shared the same fate. It should be noted, however, that with other dissident groups of the day, the Ferazee-Wahabi movements prompted the government to apply their minds and explore avenues of concessions to the disaffected peasants. The logical outcome was the Rent Act of 1859, followed by