An Eclectic Demystification of Operation Barga.

Abstract

Professed by the Left Front government as one of the cornerstones of their erstwhile regime in West Bengal, their ostentatiously pro-poor objectives have over the years elicited a fair share of attention, both positive and negative, from different sections of the Indian polity. One of the major vehicles which the Left Front employed extensively so as to ensure that the aforementioned objectives reach fruition was a slew of land reforms wherein they targeted the rural poor, especially the marginalized peasants, by distributing vested land and establishing ‘graam panchayats’ (local village/rural bodies) so as to empower one and all. In this regard, Operation Barga was one of the most prominent land reform movements to emerge from the stables of the Left government, with the core ethos of the movement being the introduction of a paradigm shift to the tenancy norms in rural West Bengal and abetting in the pecuniary emancipation of the bargadars (cultivators). The project was extremely successful and achieved an increase in the fraction of registered sharecroppers from 23% to 65% (1978 – 1990), which in turn synchronized perfectly with the proverbial renaissance in agricultural practices witnessed by that period to enhance the state’s agricultural productivity immensely. These changes translated ultimately into improved human development indices for the population sample under consideration, with West Bengal bearing witness to a very minimal number of peasant starvation or suicide instances, quite unlike the other states of India. This article intends to adopt a rather discursive approach in analyzing the movement so as to eventually extract relevant policy directives that could prove to be beneficial for key decision-makers.