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[p. 1] THE TEBHAGA MOVEMENT OF 1946-47 WAS THE MOST important and extensive movement of the peasantry of Bengal before independence and the partition of the province. It was fought under the leadership of the Bengal Provincial Kisan Sabha which was the Bengal branch of the All India Kisan Sabha. It was a struggle against the worst form of feudal exploitation in which peasants belonging to various categories had no rights whatsoever, and landlords dictated the terms.
Before proceeding with an account of the struggle, it is necessary to give an idea of the agrarian system of the province at the time.
As early as 1793, when Bengal was under the rule of the East India Company, the Permanent Settlement and zamindari systems were introduced in the province. The zamindari system was a system of statutory landlordism directly under the provincial government. The system stipulated that the zamindars (landlords) would pay the government an annual amount of land revenue, fixed permanently for each of them, without fail by the prescribed date. They would collect rent from their respective estates, the rates of which they were free to enhance.
The zamindari estates gradually underwent a process of sub-infeudation and several strata of landlordism came into existence under them.
In course of time a class of big landholders was born with [p. 2] the rights of a tenant (ryot). They were called Jotedars. Their holdings were generally big and they could not cultivate their entire land themselves. So they leased out most of it to small farmers who were their sub-tenants and who cultivated their land usually on a share-cropping basis, called Bhagidars (or Bhag Chasis), Adhiars or Bargadars in different parts of the province, the last term being at present used in law. These cultivators were either landless or land-poor with no rights in the barga land, no written contract for their lease, no security of cultivation, and no permanent and hereditary right to cultivate. They could be evicted at the sweet will of the owners. The bargadars were among the most exploited and harassed peasants. Many of them could not maintain themselves with their miserable incomes from jotedars' land and had to work as wage-earners on others' land in order to supplement their meagre incomes.
[…] Rasul traces Kisan Sabha tebhaga demands from 1928 through the war years.
The Krishak Praja Ministry had been installed in 1937. In 1938 it constituted the Bengal Land Revenue Commission. The whole agrarian situation including the Permanent Settlement and the zamindari system were brought within its scope. The Commission submitted its report to the Government of Bengal in 1940. It recommended, among other things, the abolition of the Permanent Settlement and the zamindari system. It also recommended the abolition of the barga system, pending which the bargadar would get two-third share of his produce and make over the other third to the owner. This provided a very important argument in favour of the Tebhaga demand.
The World War II ended in Europe in May 1945. By that time the Pakistan slogan of the Muslim League had gained wide and increasing popularity among the Muslims of Bengal who were in a majority of the population. The majority was even in the case of the peasant population. A Muslim League Ministry had already replaced the Krishak Praja Ministry of A.K. Fazlul-Haq during the war period.
The election to the Legislative Assembly was in the offing. It came about in February 1946 when the Muslim League with its Pakistan demand swept the polls, as far the Muslim constituencies were concerned.
Communal tension was growing among Hindus and Muslims. Riots broke out in Calcutta on August 16, 1946, on a horrendous scale. Mass killings were perpetrated on both sides. The life of the city was totally paralysed for five days, after which the public transport system resumed in the day time only. Restoration of normal condition was possible after quite some time.
This was followed by large-scale riots in various parts of the country. In October 1946 riots broke-out in Noakhali [p. 4] district in East Bengal, where the Muslims were in a large majority of the population.
In its desperate bid to save itself from being swept away by the tempestuous march of events in India in wake of the Second World War, British imperialism was communalising politics and instigating communal riots in different parts of the country. The Tebhaga movement which united the peasants of all communities in their common struggle against their feudal exploiters was at the same time, a powerful rebuff to the divisive policies of imperialism. It represented general post-war mass upsurge of the enslaved peoples against their imperialist masters and their local allies and collaborators.
[…] Hasnabad villages shelter Noakhali refugees; a 1939 anti-usury campaign in Dinajpur.
When the kisan leaders found that large sections of bargadars were eagerly awaiting a call for struggle for their Tebhaga demand and that their mass militancy was at a high pitch, the Bengal Provincial Kisan Council decided, in September 1946, to launch the movement in the ensuing harvesting season—November 1946. An announcement was made to that effect.
The decision was taken in a situation when memories of communal riots in the country had not yet completely erased. The bargadars and agricultural labourers, who were the main force of the struggle, displayed remarkable unity, courage and discipline as soon as the signal for the start was given. The movement began in 13 districts on a large or small scale, particularly in areas where class exploitation and oppression of [p. 7] bargadars was most pronounced and large scale landowning resulted in sharp polarisation between jotedars and bargadars.
These characteristics were most notable in three northern districts, Dinajpur, Rangpur and Jalpaiguri, and two western districts, 24-Parganas and Midnapur. Rajbanshis were concentrated in the northern districts and were most militant fighters, both men and women.
Harvesting began with cutting of the paddy crop and gathering and stacking it at the bargadars' khamars.
When the Kisan Sabha announced that the Tebhaga movement would be launched in the harvesting season, the jotedars apparently did not take it seriously. They could hardly believe that the illiterate and backward peasants would be able to unify themselves into a cohesive force and start such a mighty struggle. They also banked on the atmosphere so widely surcharged with communal tension. Hence they were not much prepared for a confrontation with their bargadars.
The first stage of the movement—cutting the crop and stocking it at their khamars instead of at the jotedars' as they had generally done so long—passed off smoothly and peacefully, without any organised opposition from the jotedars as a class. The Muslim League Ministry, headed by H.S. Suhrawardy, felt that the main demands of the movement were not unjustified. It therefore prepared a Bill, called the Bengal Bargadars Temporary Regulation Bill, and published it in the official Calcutta Gazette of 22nd January, 1947.
The provisions of the Bill stipulated that the bargadar would retain two-thirds of the produce, if he bore all the expenses of cultivation himself, and that eviction of a bargadar would be stopped (of course with loopholes left in the Bill). Thus in principle the two main demands of the bargadar movement were embodied in the Bill.
After the first stage of the struggle was more or less over, the jotedars as a class began to feel that it was the time they asserted their rights against the interests of the bargadars which were conflicting. They tried to rally their forces, all jotedars big and small. It was not very difficult for the big jotedars to draw most of the small jotedars to their side, since the latter also felt that their interests suffered equally adversely by the movement.
[p. 8] When the Bargadars Bill was published in the official Gazette, they felt alarmed. They were sure it would soon be adopted by the Assembly and jeopardise their interests.
The jotedars put powerful pressure on the government and wanted the Bill to be withdrawn and scrapped.
The jotedars, especially Muslim jotedars, were the main social base of the Muslim League Ministry. Hence it was not possible for the Ministry to turn down their demand and proceed with the Bill. It did not, however, withdraw the Bill, but, instead, simply kept silent over it, without introducing it in the Assembly.
When, later, Comrade Jyoti Basu, a Communist MLA, asked Prime Minister Suhrawardy in a private talk as to why the Bill had not been introduced, he replied frankly that before publishing it he had no idea that the jotedars were such a powerful force to reckon with.
There is no doubt that the Jotedars scored their point and that the government had to yield to them. Within a few days the government issued a secret circular instructing the district administrators to resort to all sorts of repressive measures and violent action to scotch the Tebhaga movement. Jotedars also began their offensive against the bargadars equally ferociously with the help of their goondas and the police.
Large numbers of police camps were set up in the strongholds of the movement, with armed forces moving about.
The jotedar offensive was to carry away the crop stacks from the bargadars' khamars to those of the jotedars for which they engaged gangsters and took police help. In many cases policemen themselves did the job for them. Whenever the bargadars resisted, as they did in most places, they were attacked and beaten up without mercy and even fired upon. The government was now bent upon crushing the movement only to protect jotedar interests.
The peasants, however, put up a determined and heroic defence of their interests in a number of places. The Tebhaga demand was so deeply entrenched in their minds that they were [p. 9] prepared to pass through any ordeal while pushing back the offensive of the jotedars and the police.
In one of the villages in Nilphamari sub-division of Rangpur district, armed jotedars went to a bargadar's khamar to carry away the gathered crop. A large number of peasants, led by Bachcha Munshi and Tatnarayan Barman, local kisan leaders, collected to resist the offensive. The jotedars fired upon the gathering, killing Tatnarayan.
[…] Further protests and police killings in Rangpur and Dinajpur.
The most tragic and atrocious incident of the Tebhaga struggle of 1946-47 occurred at Khanpur village in Dinajpur district. It accounted for 22 kisans lives, who were killed in [p. 11] police firing at one place and at one time. Of them 14 died on the spot, and eight others in Balurghat hospital where the wounded were removed.
This happened on 20 February, 1947. Early in the morning three truckloads of armed police were sent to the village to arrest some kisan leaders who had taken shelter in the village. The villagers led by an agricultural worker, Chiarsai Shaikh, prevented them from entering the village. They dug a trench across the road and placed the trunk of a tree lying nearby across the road. While some of them resisted the police with their crude arms, the alarm that was sounded brought in large number of people from the neighbouring villages, and they joined the fray. There were men and women, Hindu, Muslim and Adivasi kisans participating in it.
Chiarsai continued his fierce fight like a wounded tiger, as the police were reported to have remarked later, even when he was injured in the firing. At last he succumbed. Some of the fighters cut the tyres of the trucks. Altogether 22 were killed, one of them by a jotedar who fired his gun from his house.
[…] Rasul's attempt to reach Khanpur, its aftermath, and police firings in Jalpaiguri and 24-Parganas.
The combined offensive of the government and the jotedars, equipped with firearms, made it impossible for the poor and practically unarmed kisans to withstand their attack for a long time despite their unsurpassed militancy, bravery and spirit of self-sacrifice. The political situation with the division of the country becoming a certainty, made it difficult to continue the struggle.
When the provincial leadership reviewed the struggle, it also spotted its other defects and shortcomings. They realised that a kisan struggle of the dimension of the Tebhaga struggle should have been planned with greater care, circumspection and better preparation before it was launched. An organisation of trained volunteers was most essential for the defence of the fighting peasants against the enemy offensive.
The most important factor which should have been taken into account was the possible role of the numerous small jotedars who might be drawn into a compromise with some concessions and thus neutralised. For this purpose, of course, their bargadars ought to have been given political education and convinced that this step was vital for the weakening of the big jotedars and their offensive as well as for the success of the struggle.
[…] Rasul gives figures for those killed, wounded and arrested.
The fighting kisans, both men and women, displayed magnificent courage and heroism. They did not flinch because of firing and killing by the police. Bhandani Barmani, a young Rajbanshi peasant woman, snatched away a rifle from a police official who was then kept confined in a room which was guarded the whole night by Bhandani herself. The official was let out only when an important kisan leader came the next morning and asked her to do so.
There were cases of policemen patrolling village roads in the struggle areas when kisan women threw chilli powder or even dust into their eyes. Then they had to be dragged away by others.
The Tebhaga struggle had left an abiding impact upon the life of the bargadars. When one of the peasants, mortally injured at Khanpur while fighting against the police, was about to die in hospital and asked by the attending doctor if he wanted anything, he raised his feeble voice : Tebhaga Chai (I want Tebhaga). A little later, he breathed his last, leaving his words to ring in the ears of his fellow kisans and to inspire them to carry on the struggle against exploitation and for a better life till victory was achieved.
The Tebhaga movement of 1946-47 thus came to a close. Although there was no acceptance of the demands, the sacrifices of the peasants who bravely fought for their cherished demands, many of them even laying down their lives, did not go in vain. The movement had a galvanising effect on raising the consciousness of the peasants. The peasants became conscious of their rights. The atmosphere in rural Bengal was not the same as it was before the struggle was launched. The Tebhaga struggle instilled confidence into the kisans and a sense of better organisation for future struggles.
[…] Rasul traces bargadar laws in West Bengal from 1949 to 1953.
But more significant than the immediate gains of the Tebhaga movement was the lasting and far-reaching impact it had on the future struggles of the peasantry in India. It made the peasantry aware of its united strength. Describing the transformation brought about in the peasant masses of the region by the Tebhaga movement, the special correspondent of Statesman wrote, in its March 19, 1947 issue:
“Dumb through past centuries, he is today transformed by the start of slogans. It is inspiring to see him marching across a field with his fellows, each man shouldering a lathi like a rifle, with a red flag at the head of procession. It is sinister to hear them greet each other in silence of the bamboo groves with clinched left fists raised to foreheads and a whispered Inqilab [p. 16] comrade.”
The strong peasant movement in West Bengal today, has its base in the Tebhaga movement and it has truly inherited the militancy of the Tebhaga heroes.
The Tebhaga movement was the true precursor of the Telengana movement, which added a glowing chapter to the annals of peasant struggles in India.
The Tebhaga movement taught the peasants in U.P., Bihar, Punjab and other parts of the country to fight for their tenancy rights. Like Telangana, and before it, it was a movement which had a countrywide impact. The Tebhaga movement and its peasant fighters and martyrs will continue to inspire the Indian peasantry in all its struggles against its oppressors and for its rights and for a better future.
M. Abdullah Rasul, Tebhaga Struggle of Bengal, All India Kisan Sabha Golden Jubilee Series no. 2 (New Delhi: All India Kisan Sabha, March 1986), pp. 1–16. The foreword by Harkishan Singh Surjeet is omitted.