GUWAHATI: In a bid to commemorate the sacrifice and patriotism of the martyrs of the historic uprising of the peasants at Patharughat in Darrang district would set up a ‘Smriti Kshetra’ at the site where the peasants had sacrificed their lives while protesting against the increased land tax levied by the British. Attending the official ‘Krishak-Swahid Divas’ in Darrang district, the chief minister asked state’s agriculture minister Atul Bora to take necessary steps for opening a branch of Assam Agricultural University at Patharughat so that farmers of the area could gain knowledge on modern agricultural techniques.

Sonowal urged the farmers of the state to adopt scientific practices to increase production and to be economically self-sufficient. He urged the youth to imbibe the values and ideologies of the martyrs of the peasants’ uprising to be good citizens of the country.

The Patharughat uprising of 1894 occupies a special place in the history of India’s struggle. It was one incident in which the British Police had gunned down 140 brave Assamese farmers at Patharughat in Assam’s Darrang district, much before the infamous Jaliwanwala Bagh firing.

The uprising was triggered by a British government decision in 1893 to increase agricultural tax by 70% to 80%.

While peasants across Assam began protests through a series of raij-mels (people’s conventions), it turned violent on January 28, 1894, after the police opened fire to disperse the agitating peasant at Patharughat.

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