Zamindar Resistance and the Contested Landscape of Colonial Punjab (1900-1907)

• ALI AHMAD

  Independent Scholar.

  Author

This research paper investigates the multifaceted resistance of the landed elite, or zamindars, against the pivotal Punjab Land Alienation Act of 1900. The thesis posits that this opposition was not merely a defense of localized financial privilege but constituted a wider, coordinated anti-colonial struggle aimed at safeguarding the traditional agrarian structures that defined their authority. The colonial administration framed the Act as a benign protective measure for the agricultural masses against urban moneylenders, yet in practice, it fundamentally redefined land ownership, restricting the zamindar's economic agency and asserting state control over the region's primary asset. This legislation created deep fault lines by codifying a rigid division between 'agriculturalist' and 'non-agriculturalist' communities, thereby threatening the social, cultural, and political hegemony of numerous landed families. The resistance, spanning from sophisticated legal challenges and intense political lobbying within the Legislative Council to widespread grassroots mobilization and acts of civil disobedience, demonstrated the inherent contradictions in colonial policies that sought simultaneously to 'modernize' and 'control. By employing a framework derived from subaltern and agrarian resistance theories, this analysis traces the immediate impacts of this contestation on policy adjustment-most notably the Pogri Sambhal O Jatta movement and highlights its profound legacy in shaping subsequent peasant movements and the trajectory of anti-colonial politics in North India.

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