1810 House Tax Hartal

Comprehensive general strike near Varansi, India June 2025 June 2025 thumb|1794 map of the Bengal Presidency, where the hartal took place in The 1810 House Tax Hartal was a hartal (a form of general strike) which took place in the East India Company's Bengal Presidency from 1810 to 1811. It consisted of a nonviolent general strike to protest a house tax Company authorities were attempting to introduce. In 1811 the Company repealed the tax but reintroduced it in three cities in 1812 but the assessment and spending of the tax was placed in the hands of Indian representatives, which resulted in no further protests. Background In 1810 colonial authorities in the East India Company's Bengal Presidency attempted to extend a house tax that was in effect in Calcutta to four other regions of the presidency: Varanasi, Bengal, Bihar and Odisha. Rising inflation, crop failures and widespread poverty made the tax especially difficult to bear.The History of British India Wilson Horace Hayman Mill James 7 1858 1 James Madden424–427 Various non-governmental organisations in Varanasi met to decide on a course of opposition to the tax, and eventually decided on a hartal which included a general strike.June 2025 Hartal The strike was extraordinarily comprehensive. According to one commentator:Mill 334 Everything was at a stand: the dead bodies were cast unceremoniously into the river, because there were none to perform the obsequial rites; and the very thieves refrained from the exercise of their vocation, although the shops and houses were left without protection... The protesters gathered in a mass protest near buildings of the colonial authorities outside of Varanasi, and were joined by people from neighboring towns, in numbers variously estimated at more than 200,000Mill 334 or between 20,000 and 30,000Selections of Papers from the Records of the East India House Relative to Revenue, Police and Civil and Criminal Justice 88 Erskine J.R. people. They presented a petition to the city magistrate asking for the repeal of the tax. Meanwhile, they remained peaceably assembled throughout the days, returning to their homes at night, from dmy 1810-12-26 to dmy 1811-01-08.Mill 334 They explained this tactic in their petition thus:Mill 428–429 The manner and custom in this country, from time immemorial, is this: that, whenever any act affecting everyone generally, is committed by the Government, the poor, the aged, the infirm, the women, all forsake their families and their homes, expose themselves to the inclemency of the seasons and to other kinds of inconveniencies, and make known their affliction and distress, that the Government, which is more considerate than our parents, may observe their condition and extend indulgence to its subjects. thumb|upright|Lord Minto, to whom the protestors unsuccessfully attempted to present their demands The tax collector commented on the nonviolent resistance strategy in this way:Gandhian Non-Violent Protest-Rituals of Avoidance of Rituals of Confrontation Economic and Political Weekly Irschick Eugene F. 21 29 19 July 1986 At present open violence does not seem their aim, they seem rather to vaunt their security in being unarmed in that a military force would not use deadly weapons against such inoffensive foes. And in this confidence they collect and increase, knowing that the civil power cannot disperse them, and thinking that the military will not. The protest began to die down, but was revitalized by intransigence on the part of the colonial authorities, which declared the protest assembly illegal on 13 January 1811. The protesters organized a march to Calcutta to present the Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William Lord Minto with their demands, but this petered out and they instead presented their petition through more ordinary bureaucratic channels.Mill 335 Result The protest was successful in convincing the colonial authorities to repeal the house tax. The following year, a more limited version of the tax was instituted in three cities, but the assessment and spending of the tax was placed in the hands of Indian representatives. That reformed tax did not provoke vigorous protests.Mill 335 References See also Culture and Power in Banaras https://archive.org/details/culturepowerbana00frei limited Freitag Sandria B. University of California Press 1989 215–220 9780585111117 Richard Heitler July 1972 The Varanasi House Tax Hartal of 1810-11 The Indian Economic & Social History Review 9 3 239–257 10.1177/001946467200900301 145385942 Category:Tax resistance Category:Protests in British India Category:India–United Kingdom relations Category:General strikes in India Category:1810 labor disputes and strikes Category:1811 labor disputes and strikes Category:1810 in India Category:1811 in India Category:History of Varanasi Category:History of taxation in India