Vol. 4, Issue 1, Part A (2022)

The country was in the grip of an economic and political crisis. Frequent visitations of famine and appalling mortality from bubonic plague during the last years of the nineteenth century had left their indelible marks. The Land Alienation Act of 1901 prevented the transfer of land from agriculturists to non-agriculturists through sale or mortgage. This act adversely affected quite a large section of society, especially the Hindus and the Sikh peasantry. It is said that the Punjabis did not take much interest in exposing this racist injustice of the British.