The Coolie-Begar or Coolie- Utar movement was a non-violent movement by the general public of Kumaun in the Bageshwar town of United Provinces in 1921. This movement was led by Hargovind Pant and Badri Datt Pandey, who were awarded the titles of 'Jannayak' and 'Kumaon Kesari' respectively after the success of this movement. The aim of this movement was to put pressure on the British to end the practice of Coolie-Begar. Mahatma Gandhi, while praising the movement, named it 'Bloodless Revolution'. Introduction and reasons ‘Coolie Begar’ or ' Coolie-Utar' referred to the law requiring locals of the hill regions of Kumaun to provide free transportation for the luggage of travelling British officials. It was the responsibility of the 'Village Head' of different villages, to make available a certain number of coolies for a certain period. For this work, there was a regular register, in which the names of all the villagers were written and everyone was forced to do this work alternately. The dissatisfaction between the public, due to the collusion of the Village Heads, the landlords and the patwaris, and the discrimination between the people increased as the head and patwari of the village started promoting this virtue to get rid of their personal interests. Sometimes, people were also forced to do extremely disgusting things. Such as picking up garbage or washing clothes for the British etc. The locals were being exploited by the British physically and mentally. Eventually, people started to unite to protest against this. History The Chand rulers, during their reign, initiated a tax related to horses in the state. It was possibly the earliest form of the 'Coolie Begar' exploitation. This practice took a widespread form of governance under the rule of Gorkhas. Though the British ended it initially, they gradually not only re-enforced this system, but brought it to its formidable form. Earlier this was not on the general public, but on those salaried farmers who used to collect tax from the landowners or collectors. Hence, this practice directly influenced those tenants who owned land. But the reality was that these rich landlords and jurists had imposed their parts of slavery on landless farmers, laborers and weak sections of society who accepted it as conditional remuneration. Thus, this practice continued, despite the opposition of local people. Background During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Haldwani, that was the gateway to the Kumaon area, was seized