Vasudeo Balwant Phadake was the clerk in the British government office. Once he had attended the speech of Mahadeo Govind Ranade. This helped him to understand the exploitative nature of the British government. This provoked him to raise arms against the British government in 1875 and continued up to 1879.
The arms rebellion of 1875 against the British government is known in Indian history as the Deccan riots which was led by Vasudev B. Phadke. The rioters’ specific purpose was to obtain and destroy bonds, decrees, and other documents in the possession of the moneylenders. They socially boycotted the moneylenders. Within a few days, the disturbances spread to the other villages of the Poona and Ahmednagar districts. The peasants failed to realise that the root cause of their distress was the British administration and not the moneylenders.
To understand the causes of the Deccan riot of 1875, we have to go 20 years back. Before the 1860s, 3/4 of the raw cotton imports of England came from America. British cotton manufacturers established the Manchester cotton company in 1859 to encourage cotton cloth export. When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, the import from America fell miserably. The British government started importing and securing cotton from India to maintain cotton cloth export. This led to an increase in the prices of cotton in the international market. So, the farmers in the Deccan region started to borrow money from moneylenders to invest in cotton cultivation in the early 1860s.
The American Civil War which started in 1861, ended in 1865. As the American Civil War ended in 1865, the supply of cotton from America to England was re-established in the latter part of the 1860s. This led to a decline in the prices of raw cotton in the international market. This had adversely affected the cotton-growing farmers of the Deccan region. They could not get remunerative prices for their cotton cultivation. So, they were not able to repay the loan of the moneylender which was taken to grow the cotton cultivation. So, when the moneylenders started to demand their loans be repaid, the distressed farmers resorted to riots. These rioters were provided leadership by Vasudev Balwant Phadke
To conclude, the event showed us how our Indian economy was globally connected.
