| Tebhaga movement | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theCold War and peasant revolution againstBritain | |||
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| Belligerents | |||
 British Raj |
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| Commanders and leaders | |||
 Bengal Presidency |  Charu MajumdarKansari HalderIla MitraMoni SinghBishnu ChattopadhyayM.A. RasulMoni GuhaHaji Mohammad DaneshSushil SenSubodh RoyGanesh DasAbani LahiriGurudas TalukdarSamar GangulyBimola MandalSudher MukherjeeSudipa SenMoni Krishna SenBudi MaNiyamat Ali | ||
| Units involved | |||
| Police Service | Bengal group | ||
TheTebhaga movement (1946–1947) was significant peasant agitation, initiated inBengal by theAll India Kisan Sabha of peasant front of theCommunist Party of India.
At that time, landlords required tenant farmers and sharecroppers to provide half of the crops to the landlords.[1]: 119 The demand of theTebhaga (sharing by thirds) movement was to reduce the landlord share to one third.[2] In many areas the agitations turned violent, and landlords fled, leaving parts of the countryside in the hands of Kisan Sabha. In 1946 sharecroppers began to assert that they would pay only one-third and that before division the crop would stay in theirgodowns and not that of theJotedars. The sharecroppers were encouraged by the fact that the Bengal Land Revenue Commission had already made this recommendation in its report to the government. The movement resulted in clashes between Jotedars andBargadars (sharecroppers). As a response to the agitation, theMuslim League ministry in the province launched the Bargadari Act, which provided that the share of the harvest given to the landlords would be limited to one third of the total. However, the law was not fully implemented. The Bengal Land Revenue Commission popularly known as Floud Commission had made recommendation in favour of the share-croppers.
Communists supported the peasants.[3]: 119 During theBengal Famine of 1943 theCommunist Party of India provided relief to the peasantry of the Sundarbans area. In September 1946 Bangiya Pradeshik Kisan Sabha decided to launch the Tebhaga movement. The peasant movement broke out inKakdwip,Sonarpur,Bhangar andCanning. Kakdwip andNamkhana were the storm centres of the movement. The movement aimed at improving the share of the peasant engaged as sharecroppers. The movement continued till 1950, when the Bargadari Act was enacted. The act recognised the right of the sharecropper to two-thirds of the produce when he provided the inputs.[4] During 1946-1950 the Tebhaga movement in several parts of the24 Parganas district led to the enactment of the Bargadari Act. Although the Bargadari Act of 1950 recognised the rights ofbargadars to a higher share of crops from the land that they tilled, it was not implemented. Large tracts, beyond the prescribed limit of land ceiling, remained with the rich landlords. In 1967,West Bengal witnessed peasant uprising, against non-implementation of land reforms legislation, starting fromKheadaha gram panchayat inSonarpur CD block. From 1977 onwards major land reforms took place in West Bengal under theLeft Front government. Land in excess of land ceiling was acquired and distributed amongst the peasants. Subsequently, “Operation Barga” was aimed at securing tenancy rights for the peasants.[5]
Hindus and Muslims alike participated in this peasant movement, avoiding the riots and communal hatred of forty-six years. The principle of Indian Communist Party was peasant unity on the basis of which the Tebhaga movement spread from district to district leaving aside all fratricidal feuds. Peasant struggles in East and West Bengal were united through the formation of associations, the formation of women workers, struggle funds and political education classes. Farmers from the remote areas of Sundarbans to various parts of North Bengal raised their demand for Tevaga. The main leaders of this movement includeKansari Halder, Ganesh Das,Ajit Bose,Bishnu Chattopadhyay,Ila Mitra,Haji Mohammad Danesh, Debaprasad Ghosh (Patal Ghosh),Sushil Sen,Noor Jalal, Krishnavinod Roy, Bimal Dasgupta, Bhupal Panda,Rupnarayan Roy, Dr. Ganendranath Sarkar, Kali Sarkar. Wide participation of women was one of the characteristics of Tevaga.[6] The first martyrs of Tevaga movement were Samir Uddin and Shivram Majhi of Talpukur village of Chirirbandar upazila of Dinajpur district. Samir Uddin was a Muslim and Shivram Majhi belonged to the tribal Hasda community.
Hare Krishna Konar played a leading role in getting surplus land held by big land owners in excess of land ceiling laws and kept ‘benami’ (or false names) vested with the state. The quantum of land thus vested was around one million acres (4,000 km²) of good agricultural land. Subsequently, under the leadership ofBenoy Choudhury, this land was distributed amongst 2.4 million landless and poor farmers.[7]
Acting on the request of the local gentry, police suppressed the movement, jailing peasants and their communist supporters.[1]: 119