The peasant leader N. G. Ranga is associated with which organisation, of which he was the first General Secretary?

• G. Ranga (Professor Nayakulu Gogineni Ranga) was the first General Secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha (originally called the All India Kisan Congress), formed in 1936.

About the All India Kisan Sabha:

It was formed in April 1936 at the Lucknow session of the Congress, as an all-India organisation of peasants.

Its first President was Swami Sahajanand Saraswati, and its first General Secretary was N. G. Ranga.

It demanded the abolition of zamindari, a reduction of land revenue and rent, the cancellation of debts, and the recognition of peasant unions.

It brought together peasant leaders from different provinces, as well as Congress Socialists and Communists.

The Kisan Manifesto (1936) set out its demands, which influenced the Congress's agrarian programme.

About N. G. Ranga:

• He was born in 1900 at Nidubrolu, in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh.
• He studied economics at Oxford, and became a professor of economics at Pachaiyappa's College, Madras.
• He organised peasant movements in Andhra in the 1920s and 1930s, and founded the Indian Peasants' Institute at Nidubrolu (1933) to train peasant leaders.
• He was a member of the Constituent Assembly.
• He later broke with the Congress and joined other parties.
• He was one of the longest-serving members of Parliament in India, serving for about 60 years.
• He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 1991.

Peasant movements of the 1930s:

• The Depression of the 1930s caused a sharp fall in agricultural prices, which made the condition of peasants very bad.
• Peasant organisations were formed in many provinces, such as Bihar, Andhra and Punjab.

Why not the other options?

• ✗The AITUC was a trade union body; the Swatantra Party was formed later; the HSRA was a revolutionary group.