Civil Disobedience in Indian Tradition, with Some Early Nineteenth Century Documents c5.23

c5.23

Things are here getting worse. The people were quiet till within a few days, but the assemblies have been daily increasing in number. Nearly 11,000 persons met yesterday at Yenoor. About an hour ago 300 ryots came here, entered the tahsildar’s cutcherry, and avowed their determination not to give a single pice, and that they would be contented with nothing but a total remission. The tahsildar told them that the jummabundy was light and their crops good. They said they complained of neither of these, but of the Government generally; that they were oppressed by the court, stamp regulation, salt and tobacco monopolies, and that they must be taken off.¹⁷