36 SOCIAL SCIENTIST them in their colonial domination of this part of India. These feudal barons and their ^kinsmen' led luxurious., westernised lives, and the burden of their high living fell on the poor peasantry. They heaped numerous indignities on the peasantry to realise their extortionate demands. Na^arana (gift payments), bedhakli (eviction), rasad (compulsory supplies) and begar (forced labour) were not the only weapons in their hands. They would also impose cesses like Hathiana Moturana4' and so on to meet their extravagance. The taluqdars weilded the sword of eviction to pressurize the tenantry into paying higher cesses, as owing to increases in population there was a growing demand for more and more holdings. Na^arana had become such an evil that some peasants were painfully forced to commit the most heinous sin of kanya vikraya (sale of daughters) to raise nawana money.5 Forced labour on a wage ranging between two to eight paise per day was a common practice. Even these wages were generally not paid.6 Further, the peasantry had to provide rasad and begar to the touring government officials, failing which they were exposed to the wrath of their landlords. The outbreak of the First World War resulted in scarcity and high prices, adding to the existing problems of poverty, unemployment and underemployment. In Oudh, the loyal supporters of the Empire—the taluqdars—squeezed the peasantry dry by forcibly raising war loans and recruits to aid their masters, leading to increased discontent. On the national scene, the Rowlatt Bill agitation, the Punjab wrongs, and the Khilafat question had put a severe strain on the patience of the people. These came as an anticlimax soon after the exhilaration and enthusiasm generated by Wilsonian sentiments, the declarations of the Allied leaders and the successful accomplishment of a socialist revolution in Russia . The British Government was well aware of the conditions prevailing in the Oudh areas. But any step taken to improve the peasants^ lot was bound to annoy the taluqdars, which the Government could not afford as they were the upholders of the empire against ^seditious' opposition. J S Meston, the Lieutenant Governor of the United Provinces, wrote in 1916, regarding an amendment to the Tenancy laws, that: The landlord may become a bulwark against the disintegrating forces of swaraj agitation. We should certainly do nothing that will add to or perpetuate any grievance which may tend to throw them into the arms of the advanced and irresponsible politician... At the moment however any radical changes of this nature would only provoke intense controversy and set the landlords as a body against us, which is the last thing we wish.7 This was the sole reason that the amendment of the Oudh Rent Act, which might have averted the agrarian crisis, was kept pending. According to this Act of 1886 the peasants were given seven year leases on land but they had no hereditary rights or even life tenancies.