Suri: The battered and bruised CPM unit in Birbhum has decided to go back to the basics and launch movements on land issues in an attempt to claw back in a district that was once a red citadel.
On Saturday, the Birbhum CPM organised a farmers' rally at Faridpur village to ensure land rights for farmers that they had got during Operation Barga.
"We supported the farmers of Faridpur village, who are fighting a battle for their land. The success in terms of participation of the land losers and the support that we got from poor people have given us the impetus to carry forward the movement on land-related issues," Sanjib Barman, a district secretariat member and the man behind the movement, told The Telegraph.
"Around 152 families had been cultivating for years on 30 acres of land, which their families got on lease during the Operation Barga. They have lost rights because of legal tangles. It is our duty to stand by the beneficiaries of the most important reform carried out by the Left Front government," he explained.
As part of Operation Barga, a land reform movement introduced by the Left Front government in 1978, names of share-croppers (bargadars) were recorded, following which they were given legal protection against eviction and entitlement of a share of the produce. It was made an inheritable right and surplus land was redistributed as part of the process.
The change in the land ownership pattern in rural Bengal benefited the poor, especially the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Muslims, which created a Left hegemony in rural Bengal till Mamata Banerjee challenged it with her anti-land acquisition movement.
Several farmers in Faridpur, who lost their land rights, told this correspondent that the names of the elders in their families did not get recorded as share-croppers after they got the land rights (patta), which gave the land owners a chance to move court and get a favourable order.
"But we didn't allow the landowners to get back their land. We even resisted police when they tried to implement the order some land owners got from the Supreme Court," said Shyamapada Let, a sharecropper for three decades.
Some leaders from the CPM's peasants' wing Krishak Sabha said the share-croppers were being victimised for technical errors made four decades back. "Our government gave them the land rights and hence, we are standing by them in the movement," said veteran Krishak Sabha leader Nripen Chowdhury.
Besides backing the sharecroppers' movement at Faridpur, the CPM is lending its weight behind hundreds of farmers in Khoirasole, where the Bengal government planned to plant trees on land parcels that were being cultivated by farmers for 40 years.
"We have started a movement in Khoriasole and as a result, the forest department is yet to launch the project," Manasa Hansda, the Birbhum CPM secretary, said.
Several CPM leaders in the district said standing by the farmers was the best way to regain support.
Leaders at Alimuddin Street in Calcutta said the Birbhum unit of the CPM was making right moves. "Land had always been an important issue in Bengal politics. Our land reform movements during the 1950s, 60s and 70s had contributed to our historical win in 1977. We want to get back to land reform movements across Bengal once again," said CPM central committee member and Left legislature party leader Sujan Chakraborty.
