that there was negligible support from Hindu peasantry. However, the Zamindar community, irrespective of religion, objected to his activities in unison. Confrontation with zamindars In June 1830, Krishnadeva Rai, Zamindar of Purha (var. Talukdar of Sarfarazpur) imposed an annual tax on all Muslim subjects having a beard, to isolate Titumir. On Titu's advice the peasants refused to pay and an enraged Krishnadeva led a bevy of armed men on a spree of arson, after destroying a local mosque. Reciprocal attacks were engaged in but the melee remained inconclusive; complaints were filed at the Baduria Police station by both sides and eventually, the Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Barasat dismissed the issue but only after getting a declaration from the peasants about committing to peace in near-future. Buoyed up by the evident bias in the resolution of Krishnadeva's case, Ramnarayan Nag Chaudhuri (Zamindar of Taragonia) and Guru Prasad Chowdhury (Talukdar of Nagarpur) began implementing an oppressive tax-regime on their subjects, failing to pay which, led to imprisonment. The peasants organised themselves and sued the Zamindars but to little avail. These failures led Titu to convert his socio-religious agitation into an aggressive political-economic class-struggle, wherein it was argued that the time was ripe for an all-out armed resistance against the nexus of Zamindars and British Authority. Confrontations with the British Titumir shifted his base from Chandpur to Narkelberia, and began organising an armed militia. In October 1830, one of his declarations proclaimed him (and his followers) to be the natural sovereign of the country, who (rather than the British Authority) had an unilateral right of remittance on local revenues collected by Zamindars; a Muslim landholder was raided in the same month, upon disobeyal. On 31 October, Titumir set to avenge Krishnadeva along with 300 armed followers; his residence was ransacked, establishments of money-lenders in the local market were set on fire, and a cow was sacrificed in front of a temple. An alliance was soon formed between Zamindars and British Indigo planters to render mutual assistance in case of assaults by Titumir's militia; Kaliprasanna Mukherjee (Zamindar of Habra-Gobardanga) played a key role in the alliance and was soon targeted by Titumir for his illegal tax-regime. Despite being aided by about 200 men of Davies, manager of an Indigo plantation at Mollahati, Kaliprasanna's forces were defeated. Davies escaped narrowly and were sheltered by Debnath Roy (Zamindar of Gobra-Gobindapur); this led to a confrontation between Titumir's