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Small spark in Naxalbari village on trijunction of India ,Nepal and
Bangladesh spread like the prairie fire with in few years to distant
parts of the country.Naxalite movement very rapidly grew in two years
from formation of the party CPI(ML) in May 1969 till the end of June
1971.The infrastructure was taken from Chinese Revolution with Mao
Tse-tung as its leaders. Dominant ideology of the movement was
annihilation of class enemies. It was a higher form of class struggle
and beginning of guerilla war.
The operation ``spring thunder’’ of Naxalbari was brief but it changed
the social and political context of Bengal in particular and India in
general. The employment of political violence as a strategy by
Naxalites to bring about radical social changes set the tone of many
latter struggles against the state.
Charu Mazumdar felt that there is the possibility of tremendous
upsurge in India and in first party congress in May 1970 he called
upon his cadres to ``Expand anywhere and everywhere’’.Such expansion
was noticed in Srikakulam in AP, Debra, Gopiballavpur in West Bengal,
Mushahari in Bihar and Pali –Lakimpur district in UP.
Naxal violence peaked in middle of 1970 to middle of 1971,there were
about 4000 incidents in the country. The bulk of these were from West
Bengal (3000) followed by Bihar (220) and Andhra Pradesh (70).Mrs.
Indira Gandhi the than the Prime Minister of India took a tough stand
and announced in Parliament in 1971 that the Naxalite elements will be
fought to finish. The operation Steeplechase was undertaken from July
to August 1971 which comprised of Army ,Police and Para- military
personnel and area of operation were districts of West Bengal and
bordering districts of Bihar and Orrisa.By first quarter of 1972
almost all the top leaders were arrested by police. There were about
1400 arrests in all in Andhra Pradesh, 2000 in Bihar, 4000 in West
Bengal and 1000 in Kerala.
Charu Mazumdar was arrested on 16 July 1972 and died in police custody
on 28july1972.Post Charu Mazumdar period witnessed subdivision and
fragmentations in the Naxalite movements. State of Emergency was
imposed in year 1975 and all major Naxalite parties were banned and
large numbers of party worker were arrested and put behind bars.
Though after defeat of Mrs. Gandhi all state government released
Naxalites but by that time Naxal movement has practically ended in
West Bengal.
Broad reason for failure of Naxal movement in West Bengal can be
summarized as : though the Maoist strategy was accepted but the CPI
(ML) in West Bengal had not trained their cadres for protracted
struggle, Urban insurgency failed as Charu Mazumdar had no tactic to
offer in the changed circumstances as his only slogan was annihilation
of class enemy, lumpen elements infiltration was also reason of
people’s disenchantment.
Land reforms implemented since 1967 on wards in West Bengal especially
during the Left Front Government, improved the overall position of
bargardars(tenant labourer) and landless poor. Though in past few
decades land reforms has made little headway in most of India, West
Bengal and Kerala has achieved notable land reform progress. The
progress has occurred in three areas : redistributing agricultural
land ownership, regulating sharecropping relationship, and
distributing homestead plots.
The West Bengal Government enforcing ceiling act had declared 1.37
million acres of land as surplus for redistribution and has
reallocated 1.04 million acres to 2.54 million relatively poor
households.( 34% of agri. Household )
West Bengal Govt regulated the landlord-sharecropper relationship
through a programmed called operation Barga .The main component were
security protection for bargadars and control over the share amount to
bargadar.As on 1999,about 1.49 million bargadars have been benefited
and land covered by the tenancy reform was 1.1 million acres,
representing about 20% of agri households and 8% of net area
cultivated.
In addition to redistribution of land and protecting bargadars West
Bengal Govt has transferred ownership to 296,000 homestead land to
landless agricultural labours, bargadars, and artisans.
Total beneficiaries under all land reforms were 4,316,000 (58.6% of
agricultral households)
More important than agricultural growth itself ,land reforms and
subsequent growth have also contributed to the well–being of West
Bengal’s rural population ,including the poorest sections of the
population. According to the data published by Indian’s Planning
Commission, the proportion of West Bengal ‘s population below poverty
line declined from 60.5% in 1977 to 31.85 in 1999, a drop of about
29%. In comparison during the same period, the corresponding all-India
figure dropped 22 percentage point.
Kerala has made substantial progress in reducing the incidence of both
rural and urban poverty in past decades. Till 1972-73 the incidence of
poverty in Kerala both in rural and urban was higher compared to the
national average ( Kerala was 59.79 against national average of 54.88
).1983-84 onwards the Kerala poverty dropped below the Indian average
and there after there has been steady decline. According to the
Planning Commission’s estimate the rural poverty ratio in Kerala went
down from 25.73 % in1993-94 to a mere 9.4% in1999-2000.
Land reforms was an essential long term measures taken by Kerala
government to improve the living conditions of its poor masses.Kerala
Land Reforms Act 1963 was included in the ninth schedule of the
constitution( to get protection under provisions of article 31B ) as
during the course of implementation State Government faced serious
difficulties as some of the provisions were challenged by High Court
of Kerala and the Supreme Court.
Study of Naxal violence from 1980 to 1990 show that maximum incidence
of violence were reported from Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. Formation of
PWG in Andhra Pradesh in 1980 ushered new phase of heightened
militancy. With Andhra Pradesh as epicenter the movement spilled over
to adjoining states of Maharashtra, West Bengal Madhya Pradesh and
Orissa. In both the states the land reforms were not effectively
implemented as a result percentage of people living below poverty
level in rural was very high.
Despite adoption of a large number of laws including Andhra Pradesh
Land Reforms (Ceiling and Agricultural Holdings) Act, 1973, land
reforms has never been adequately implemented in Andhra Pradesh. It
took nearly 10 years to acquire the surplus land from land owning
farmers, owing to prolonged litigation. Yet, in the year 1995, the
non-tribal were in possession of 7,51,435.66 acres of lands in
Scheduled Areas in clear violation of the Ninth Schedule of the
Constitution of India. As on 31march 2004 ceiling land declared
surplus by the Government was 799663 acres out of which 582319 acres
has been distributed to 540344 benificiaries.Most of the land
distributed was dry and of inferior quality. This clearly shows
ineffective implementation of land reforms.
Every ill that plagues India cannot be attributed to the failure of
land reforms, but poverty and much of the violence and extremism in
the country are even today correlated with lack of access to land.
Officials in the government though have acknowledged the failure to
implement land reforms it appears that it has taken a back seat and
nothing significant is being done in this direction.
Under the Indian constitution, land reforms is the responsibility of
individual states while the central government provides broad
guidelines the nature of land reforms legislation, the level of
political will and the degree of success in implementing land reforms
have varied from state to state.
Land reforms alone will not rid India of its vast number of the abject
poor. West Bengal and Kerala have already shown the way ,what is
required is implementation of land reforms in right earnestness and
right selection and implementation of programmes and schemes to
benefit poor and tribal living in the state to alleviate poverty and
to stop exploitati
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