In 1942, Quit India Movement had started across India and agitations were on the rise. Gandhi’s “Do or Die” call had reverberated throughout the nation.

In the princely state of Sirmaur (Sirmur), the people were unhappy with the administration. The state was underdeveloped. Schools, roads were almost non-existent. Begar was practised, and people were overburdened with exorbitant taxes. Dictatorial and unfair regulations were forcibly enforced.

During the second World war, the administration forced people to deposit ten maunds of grain into the State Depot^[2]. The farmers were being forced to sell their produce to the state at prices much below the prevailing market rates.

The state’s Raja was Rajendra Prakash, and multiple aspects of the administration were in the hands of his Revenue and Finance Minister, Ram Gopal “Abhi.” The maladministration of the state was sometimes referred to as “Gopalshahi.”

Pajhota Andolan, an agrarian revolt, was an important freedom movement of the state.

Pajhota is the name of a valley in Tehsil Pacchad of the state. Most of its residents were farmers, and since the valley was particularly fertile, the people were being overburdened with taxes. In 1942, District Collector Jain and the Tehsildar of Pacchad were on tour of this valley. Near the village of Sanora, they were seeking begar labourers and mules to carry their luggage for their onward journey. Along came two people named Devi Singh and Ghanu Miya^[3], who were on their way back from the Solan vegetable market. When ordered to hand over their mules, they refused. The policemen accompanying the bureaucrats tried to take the animals by force, but these two men fought tooth and nail and fled with their animals. The officials were angered and ordered to arrest these two “miscreants,” but they were long gone.

This event has been pointed out as the spark that ignited the uprising that is called “Pajhota Andolan.” Miya Madan Singh, Miya Chunchu Ram, and some other locals called a meeting to discuss the mule snatching and other transgressions of the administration. At the meetings, Chunchu Ram was of the opinion to have a larger public gathering at the nearby village of Taproli. It was also his opinion that someone with experience and wisdom of political matters must be given the duty to lead the agitation. It was then decided to bring Vaid Surat Singh on board.

At the meeting at Taproli, Vaid Surat Singh, who at the time was merely 26 years old, was urged to take the reins of this agitation. Tempers were high, and Vaidji was informed that there was no shortage of ammunition with people, and they were ready for facing an armed resistance from the police forces. Vaid Suraj Singh, who was a staunch Gandhiwadhi, was opposed to violence and wanted to take a peaceful recourse. The assembled people took up the vow of forgetting their mutual differences and supporting each other throughout the revolution. It was decided that people working for the administration will resign.

Being a master strategist, Vaid Surat Singh quickly realised that if the Sirmaur administration were to convince the British that the agitation in Pajhota and the Quit India Movement are somehow related, the army would be used to suppress the uprising quickly. Therefore, it was necessary to give the impression that whatever was happening in Pajhota was merely a separate independent movement by some farmers.

When Ram Gopal “Abhi” came to Pajhota on a tour, Vaid Surat Singh wrote to the Sirmaur’s Raja and urged him to visit Pajhota and hear the woes of the people. The Ruler, unsurprisingly, refused the offer and instead invited the leaders of the Pajhota movement, who were now being called the “Ring Leaders,” to Nahan to discuss their issues. The uprising in Pajhota was not the first in Sirmaur, and Vaid Surat Singh suspected that this invitation was just a ploy by the Raja to arrest or kill the leaders, as had been done in the past.

Miya Madan Singh, who in 1942 was a nambardar – an official who had responsibility of collecting taxes – at Village Dhamla. He was one of the people who had promised to submit a resignation at the meeting at Taproli. Madan Singh’s resignation is a popular story. In one of the popular retellings, it is said that once the Collector of the district was in Dhamla. His commode (chamber pot, which was used for his stool and urine) had to be cleaned. He asked Madan Singh to clean it, who was so appalled at the disrespect that he resigned at the spot from nambardari. Vaid Surat Singh^[3] relates a similar story, but he contends that this event happened before Madan Singh’s resignation after the meeting at Taproli.

The Raja was informed in writing that the people of Pajhota had formed a Kisan Sabha, a Farmers’ Assembly. In their communication, they stressed that they were not against the British or the Raja, but they had some demands. They explicitly wanted their agitation to be called “Kisan Sabha Andolan.” Some of their other demands included:

This Kisan Sabha elected an Elective Committee. Miyan Laxmi Singh was elected as its President, Miya Chunchu Ram as the Vice-President, and Vaid Surat Singh as the Director.

Around December 1942, the Sabha decided to send a contingent led by President Laxmi Singh to the Raja of Sirmaur. Post the meeting, Laxmi Singh stopped participating in the meetings of the Sabha, probably because he got scared of the repercussions. He left Pajhota, and Miya Madan Singh was then elected to the post of the President.

The administration of Sirmaur accused the Kisan Sabha of running a parallel government. This accusation was supported with baseless claims of the leaders of the Sabha amassing weapons. A tribunal was set up to investigate their activities.

Minister “Abhi” visited Pajhota and his camp was set up near Village Sanora. When Lala Badhava Mal, a resident of the village, refused to supply the minister’s camp with groceries without explicit permission of the Kisan Sabha, he was badly beaten. The villagers got together and drove the policemen away.

The Sabha was undecided whether it should meet with the minister or not. Vaid Surat Singh wrote a letter informing the minister that due to the beating of the grocer, the Sabha will only meet the Raja and not the minister. The members of the Sabha went to Dhamla, a place near the Sanora, where the minister was seated. Miya Madan Singh gave the letter to the minister, who was furious at the disrespect shown to him.

A few days later, a police party led by DSP Thakur Jagat Singh, a man notorious for his mistreatment of freedom fighters, raided the village of Koti-Mawga. Vaid Singh rushed to the village, carrying a gun given to him by Miya Madan Singh. On reaching the village he discovered that DSP Jagat Singh was surrounded by villagers who were beating him, while some members of Sabha were trying to shield him from the blows. The DSP was informed that if he were to free the two members of Sabha, whom he had arrested, he would be allowed to leave. Jagat Singh refused, and it was decided to take him and some other policemen to Village Taproli. Finally, the arrested Sabha members were released, and the Sabha members set the policemen free.

It was at this point that Vaid Surat Singh realised that he must get someone more experienced to lead the agitation, because he suspected that things were going to get much worse.

Vaid Surat Singh went to meet a Sessions Judge, who had been banished from Sirmaur state because of his decision to set freedom fighters free. “Bhandariji” was working in Lahore at the time as a contractor, and Vaid Surat Singh decided to meet him and urge him to take the reins of the freedom struggle in the state. This meeting was a pivotal moment in the freedom movement in Himachal, and this person would later go on to be known as Dr Yashwant Singh Parmar. On meeting with Vaid Singh, Parmar translated letters written by the Kisan Sabhan into English and advised sending them to the Political Agent and other officials of the British Government.

On May 05, 1943^[3], the Sabha met military officials and raised the demand of meeting the Raja. The military officials agreed to the request, and the Sabha members set up camps on hills across Rajgarh. Section 144 and military rule was imposed in Pajhota, possibly, on May 14 or 15, 1943^[3]. On May 21, 1943, the army raided Vaid Surat Singh’s village Katogra and blew up his home. Thankfully, everyone had evacuated, and no one was hurt.

The army offered a way out for the agitators. They were given an option to deposit a fine at the army base and they will be forgiven. Some members of the Sabha did take up the offer.

To further terrorise the people, the army charged and raided Village Koti. The Sabha members were fired upon, and a member, Kamna Ram, was shot dead. Some members were hurt. Many were arrested. Vaid Surat Singh managed to evade arrest during this raid, but later voluntarily surrendered to the police.

A single-member tribunal sentenced around 50 freedom fighters to life imprisonment^{[2, 1]}. Most of them were set free in 1945-1946, at the time of arrival of the Cripps Mission^[1].

Pajhota Andolan is one of the most important uprisings that happened in the Sirmaur state. Though somewhat inspired by the Quit India Movement, it was, in many ways, a grass root movement. This revolt was agrarian in nature, but it also reflected multiple socio-economic aspirations and wants of the society in Sirmaur at the time. It demonstrated that people, even in places well separated from the heart of the Indian freedom movement, were politically conscious and that the message of freedom was being well received in every nook and corner of the country.

Heroes like Vaid Surat Singh, Miya Chunchu Ram, Miya Madan Singh, and many others from Pajhota risked their lives and gave up their freedoms because they believed that India had the right and the capability to rule itself.

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