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Tebhaga Movement sharecroppers' movement demanding two thirds of the produce for themselves and one third for the landlord. Tebhaga
literally means three shares of harvests. Traditionally, sharecroppers used to hold their tenancy on fifty-fifty share of the produce. In land control parlance such crop sharing system was known as barga, adhi, bhagi, etc. The sharecroppers were commonly called bargadars or adhiars, who had seriously challenged the custom of sharing crops between the bargadar and the landlord on fifty-fifty basis in 1946-47. During aman harvest of 1946, sharecroppers of some north and northeastern districts of Bengal and their supporters had gone to fields and cut down crops and thrashed them at their own khalan (harvest processing field). On two counts the action was an insurrection. First, they demanded that the half-sharing system was unjust. Since all the labour and other investment were made by the tenants and since the landowner had least participation in the production process in terms of capital input, labour and infrastructure, the latter should get one-third of the crops, not the traditional one half. Second, the tenants were traditionally required to stack the harvests at the owner's khalan and share the straw and other by-products on half-sharing basis. The tenants refused to obey this. They argued that the harvests would be stacked at the tenant's compound and the landlord would not get any share from the by-products. Tebhaga
movement was organised mainly by the communist cadres of the bengal provincial krishak sabha. Under their leadership the barga (sharecropping) peasants got themselves mobilised against the landlord class. But soon leadership also came from below.
Tebhaga movement hit nineteen districts of Bengal. However, the movement was most intensely felt in the districts of Dinajpur, Rangpur, Jalpaiguri, Khulna, Mymensingh, Jessore and the 24-Parganas. As expected, the landholders had refused to accept the terms dictated by their tenants. They called in police and caused many of the
tebhaga activists arrested and put behind the bar. But the zamindari repression did not abate the struggle. The resisting tenants rather added a new slogan to their agenda, the total abolition of zamindari system. The slogan for reduction of rent rate was also raised by the peasants supporting the
tebhaga struggle. In some places the tebhaga movement made such a headway that the peasants declared their zone as
tebhaga elaka or liberated area and tebhaga committees were set up for the governance of the area locally. Under the
tebhaga pressure many of the landholders withdrew their litigation filed against the
tebhaga activists and came to terms with them. Such tebhaga areas were established in Jessore, Dinajpur and Jalpaiguri. Extensive
tebhaga areas were established later in Midnapur and 24-Parganas. All these developments led the government to initiate a bill in the Legislative Assembly in early 1947. The bill intended to reform the barga system in the country in the light of the latest agrarian unrest. But other political developments handicapped the government to get the Barga Bill enacted into a law. The Partition of Bengal and the promises of the new government led to the suspension of the movement.
The tebhaga struggle was successful in so far as it has
been estimated that about 40% of the sharecropping peasants got tebhaga
right granted willingly by the landholders. The struggle also led to the
abolition or reduction of unjust and illegal exaction in the name of abwabs.
But the movement had limited success in East Bengal districts. There was
another spate of tebhaga movement in these districts in 1948-50. The government
attributed the movement to the Indian agents, an allegation, which the
general people tended to believe and thus refrained themselves from participating
in the movement. But the movement had definitely influenced the passage
of the east
bengal state acquisition and tenancy act of 1950.
[Sirajul Islam]
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