01311pab a2200145 454500008004000000100001500040245007000055260000900125300001300134362000800147520093500155650003001090650001401120773003101134180718b2000   xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d  aArun Kumar  aBeyond muffled murmurs of dissent? Kisan rumour in Colonial Bihar  c2000  ap.95-125  aOct  aRumour as a language of peasant politics in colonial Bihar has remained unexplored hitherto.  Studies by Ranajit Guha and Shahid Amin are forceful but require further probing.  Peasants deployed rumour as a device to articulate political aspirations and create public opinion when mass politics had yet to become a generalised affair.  Such remours often had religious sources and locations.  Gandhi's idioms were successfully received by the masses owing to a field already prepared by rumour within which these ideas could take root and flourish.  Arguably, the religious overtones and prophetic pronouncements of Gandhian mass politics borrowed heavily from an earlier polity that was based on rumour.  A study of nineteenth century rumour is illuminating not only for the insight it provides into the manner in which politics was conducted then, but also for the indications it gives about politics of the future. - Reproduced  aPeasantry - India - Bihar  aPeasantry  aJournal of Peasant Studies