The Kisan Sabha movement started in Bihar under the leadership of Swami Sahajanand Saraswati who had formed in 1929 the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha (BPKS) in order to mobilise peasant grievances against the zamindari attacks on their occupancy rights. Gradually the peasant movement intensified and spread across the rest of India. All these radical developments on the peasant front culminated in t
he formation of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) at the Lucknow session of the Indian National Congress in April 1936 with Swami Sahajanand Saraswati elected as its first President. The other prominent members of this Sabha were N.G. Ranga, Ram Manohar Lohia, Jayaprakash Narayan, Acharya Narendra Dev and Bankim Mukerji. The Kisan Sabha started agitations against the landlords. In the 1937-38, they started a movement for the ownership of the lands by the peasants who worked on it and to bring about the end of forced labour. The farmers revolted against the Jagirdars who did not give them any rights on the land.As a result, the conflict between the peasants and the landlords became more intense. The government arrested 600 Kisan demonstrators and suppressed the movement. In 1939,when the second world war began, the Government enforced the Defence of India Rules strictly to crush the peasant movement. But the Kisan union continued struggle forcefully.
