The Eka Movement

Peasants dug a small pit, filled it with water, and called it the Ganga. A priest presided as villagers swore an oath over it: pay only the recorded rent, and pay it on time. Nothing more.

Causes and Grievances Need to Know

• The Eka (“Unity”) Movement began in November 1921 in Awadh, in present-day Uttar Pradesh. It spread from Lucknow into Hardoi, Bahraich, Sitapur, and Unnao districts.
• Its core grievance was rent, not government revenue. In many areas landlords and their thekedars (rent contractors) charged 40–50% above the officially recorded rate.
• Peasants also faced nazrana, illegal cesses on top of rent, oppressive share-rent arrangements, and arbitrary ejection from land they tilled as tenants-at-will.
• The movement peaked in early 1922, then ended by March 1922 under heavy government repression.

Leadership and Tactics Good to Know

• Congress and Kisan Sabha leaders were involved early on, but leadership soon passed to Madari Pasi, a low-caste peasant leader unwilling to keep the movement strictly non-violent.
• Eka’s central tactic was a collective oath, sworn at meetings that opened with a symbolic pit of water standing in for the Ganga. Peasants vowed to pay only the recorded rent, pay it on time, refuse forced labour, resist illegal ejection, and obey Panchayat decisions.
• Mobilisation went beyond oaths: mass rallies, picketing of revenue collections, and social boycotts, where village artisans and service castes stopped working for zamindars and thekedars.
• As the movement grew more assertive, violent clashes broke out and some large landlords fled their villages. Madari Pasi began distributing landholding rights to tenants and petty landholders.

Test Yourself

Repression and Legacy Great to Know

• The movement’s radical, sometimes violent turn didn’t fit Congress’s official non-violent stance. Congress leaders, including Nehru and Gandhi, criticised this shift, and Congress withdrew its support.
• The government responded with mounted and armed police, and eventually a cavalry squadron. Facing this crackdown, Madari Pasi and other leaders were forced underground.
• Even so, the movement forced a real concession: the Awadh Rent (Amendment) Act, 1921, which regulated rents and addressed some grievances around bedakhali (ejection) and nazrana.

Eka Compared to the Bardoli Satyagraha

• The Eka Movement is often compared with the same-era Bardoli Satyagraha (1928), since both were major peasant campaigns. The two targeted different opponents.
• Bardoli fought a government land-revenue hike, a tax owed to the state. Eka fought excessive rents charged by private landlords, a very different grievance.

Previous Year Question

Asked as: “Which one of the following statements about the Eka Movement and Bardoli Satyagraha is correct?” (UPSC CSP 2026, GS Paper I).