Nagar revolt
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The Nagar Revolt, also known as the Nagara peasant rebellion, was an uprising in the Nagar region (present day Shimoga district) of the Mysore kingdom, which began in August and September 1830. Primarily comprising farmers and minor officials, the rebels were bolstered by the support of some local rulers and mercenaries. The revolt continued for nearly one year, but was ultimately put down by the kingdom with the help of the British East India Company. On 9 October 1831, the administration of the kingdom was taken over by the British East India Company - a state of affairs that lasted for 50 years before the Wodeyars were re-instated as rulers under the aegis of the Crown.
After the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, the British East India Company assumed indirect control of the Kingdom of Mysore through a subsidiary alliance with the Wodeyar dynasty. Krishnaraja Wodeyar III became the king of Mysore.[1] Wasteful expenditure, ill-considered grants of land to undeserving courtiers and courtly intrigue between the royal family and Maratha Brahmin advisors led to declining revenue and rising costs in the kingdom, ultimately resulting in a recession in the 1820s.
Nagar was part of the Malnad or highland regions of Mysore. Prior to its integration with the Mysore kingdom, it was part of the Keladi kingdom, a state that declared independence from the Vijayanagar empire in 1639.[2] Nagar was the capital of Keladi in 1763 when Haider Ali annexed Keladi into the Mysore kingdom. Haider and his successor Tipu Sultan considered Keladi strategic in its geographic location as a buffer region between the kingdom and the Maratha state, but their efforts to integrate it into Mysore economically and culturally were resisted by the local population.
The land revenue system implemented by Shivappa Nayaka in Keladi, called shist, allowed land to be private property, and taxation of land was based on whether it was fallow or cultivated, soil quality and fertility. The system was prevalent for more than a century and highly popular.[1] When Keladi was conquered by Haider, taxation policies underwent changes, and by the early 19th century, the Shurtee and Sayar system was adopted under Krishnaraja Wodeyar III. The Shurtee system involved many middlemen between the land cultivator and the king, with each committing to a minimum amount of tax revenue from the land under his jurisdiction, obtained through a bidding process. The system lent itself to corruption, with land administrators levying illegal taxes on the cultivators, contractors keeping any surplus income to themselves and competitors constantly out-bidding each other for tax collection contracts. The Sayar was a toll levied on goods being transported by cultivators. The population in Nagar resented the pressures they were subjected to by the new tax regime.
Descendants of the erstwhile rulers of Keladi, called the Palegars, continued to enjoy an influence across the region, and they, led by Rangappa Naik, encouraged the retention of a distinct political identity in Nagar. The emergence of a pretender to the Keladi royal lineage, Boodi Basavappa, complicated the situation across Keladi. Basavappa, in reality Sadara Mulla the son of a farmer, had obtained the signet rings of the last Keladi ruler from the latter's spiritual advisor and exploited his possession of them to stake a claim to the kingdom of Nagar. He also carried a falsified document that elicited support for his claim from the British East India Company. Basavappa exploited the rising opposition to the taxation system amongst the farmers of the region, and rose to lead the uprising that began in 1830.
A significant part of the Nagar population was Lingayat, and the dominance of Deshastha Brahmin in the kingdom's administration could also have played a role in inciting the rebellion.[3]
Due to declining revenue from Nagar, the king deputed two of his advisors, Ram Rao and Venkata Kistniah, to visit the region in 1827. The farmers complaints of taxation of uncultivated land and excessive pressure by administrators including torture, resulted in Ram Rao remitting the collection of some rent. Political opponents of Ram Rao attributed this remission to his receiving bribes and personal ambitions of influence over the geography. The king appointed his relative, Veera Raj Urs as the Nagar administrator in the place of Kishen Rao, and Urs revoked the remissions.