তেভাগা আন্দোলন ও নন্দীগ্রাম : কৃষক-প্রতিরোধ, ভূমি-সম্পর্ক ও ঐতিহাসিক উত্তরাধিকার/ The Tebhaga Movement and Nandigram: Peasant Resistance, Land Relations, and Historical Legacy

Abstract

The Tebhaga Movement of 1946–47 marked a significant turning point in the history of peasant movements in Bengal. The principal demand of the movement was that sharecroppers should retain two-thirds of the crops they produced and give one-third to the landowner or jotedar. They also demanded that, after harvesting, the crops should be stored in the sharecropper’s own granary rather than being taken to the jotedar’s threshing floor. Thus, the Tebhaga Movement was not merely a dispute over the distribution of agricultural produce; it represented a broader struggle over rural power, control over production, and the social dignity and rights of peasants. Historical studies indicate that although North Bengal was one of the major centres of the movement, it also assumed a strong form in Mahishadal, Sutahata and Nandigram in Midnapore. The significance of Tebhaga in Nandigram is particularly noteworthy because the region already possessed a tradition of peasant resistance against zamindari exploitation and illegal exactions such as abwab. The Tebhaga Movement of 1946–47 gave a new political and class-oriented expression to these earlier forms of agrarian resistance. The roles of local activists and leaders such as Bhupal Panda, Ananta Maji and Bimala Maji, particularly in mobilising women, demonstrate the social depth and wider participation of the movement in Nandigram. Although the Nandigram movement of 2007 emerged in an entirely different political and economic context, issues of land, agrarian livelihood, the fear of displacement, and the deep social relationship between people and land remained central to the resistance. Therefore, rather than treating Tebhaga and the 2007 Nandigram movement as identical or directly continuous movements, they may be understood as two distinct historical phases reflecting the enduring memory of land rights, peasant identity and resistance in rural society.