This 173 page book, an English translation of the memoirs of Abani Lahiri, a dedicated communist activist of a rare, vanishing breed who was one of the foremost leaders of the 1946-47 Tebhaga agrarian uprising, a movement of sharecroppers and the rural poor in undivided Bengal. As historian Sumit Sarkar emphasises, the book "comes as a much needed voice from a past in serious danger of oblivion." This well produced book provides a vivid account of the political setting of the Tebhaga movement, a chronology of the struggle against the then sharecropping system whichm as an offshoot of the Permanent Settlement was the most widespread of the numerous exploitative agrarian systems in the country. One of the strengths of the book is its English translation done with feeling and depth by Subrata Banerjee, a contemporary of Abani babu's Communist politics, which makes it a very valuable source on the history of the movement.

For Lahiri the transition to Marxism came after years of active participation in the national movement. The book's brilliant narration tells how a 15-year-old boy hurled himself into the whirlpool of the independence movement, how the days of his incarceration changed the course of his life and how he stole his mother's and sisters' entire jewellery for the "sacred cause - freedom of motherland." He joined the Bengal Communist Party around the time (1937-38) ex-terrorists and legendary heroes and heroines of the Chittagong Armoury Raid became whole time cadres of the party enabling the first real extension of the communist movement into Bengal's countryside. Abani babu led a squad of students to villages with magic lantern slides on a literacy mission.

Soon after began the most memorable years of his life. On orders from the party he began living underground among north Bengal peasants including Muslims and tribal Rajbangshis and eventually mobilised six million of them in 19 districts for the Tebhaga upsurge whose war cry nija khamare dhaan tolo (take the harvested paddy to your own threshing floor) led to a widespread and massive attacks on jotedar granaries mostly in Dinajpur, Rangpur and Jalpaiguri.

Unlike Calcutta and Midnapore rural north Bengal was not affected either by the Quit India movement or the backlash of the INA trial. The Bengal famine of 1943 in a way had triggered the Tebhaga struggle, admits Abani babu. Millions fled from villages to starve and die on Calcutta's streets while the rural gentry, who appropriated the labour of bargadars, prospered more than ever before by profiteering in grain. Mobilising peasants of north Bengal under the banner of undivided Communist Party's Kisan Sabha did not prove to be a problem. Abani babu says that the anger bred by the famine experience had much to do with the class hatred that exploded in the Tebhaga movement. For large numbers joined in that upsurge who were not sharecroppers and had no chance of benefiting from Tebhaga - landless labourers, artisans, poor village folk in general. They had memories of seeing their near and dear ones die of starvation while the local gentry profited from their distress.

Abani babu says that a revolutionary potential was inherent in the very demand of Tebhaga for increasing the sharecroppers share of the grain. It also had the potential of the seizure of not only the grain but also the lands of the big landlords and their distribution among the peasants. The presence of poor militant peasants in the movement provided a new dimension to the Tebhaga strugge. Once the party even toyed with the idea of setting up a secret training camp under Ananta Singh of the Chittagong Armoury Raid fame. But the rifles that the militant peasants of Dinajpur and Jalpaiguri had snatched from the armed police were either thrown into the river or handed back to the police.

Actually the militant peasants could have taken up arms and created a few liberated zones. In fact Tebhaga could have developed into an important component of anti-British struggle. The possibility of united struggles of workers and peasants could also have prevented the partition of the country.

But this did not happen because coordination between urban and rural upsurge would have been difficult. Famine experiences had also been different. Workers and city dwellers were beneficiaries of food rationing while the villagers died of starvation on Calcutta's roads. There were other problems too. The reason why Tebhaga could make much headway in north Bengal was because of its different agrarian class structure dominated by very big jotedars. But in south Bengal districts like Burdwan the party leaders were hesitant to launch an all out struggle because of the presence of a "broad middle peasant stratum" which, many feared, would get alienated by militancy.

The struggle, which overcame communal riot and state terror, left behind for the peasants of Bengal the far reaching experience of a transition to a higher level of consciousness and organisation. Abani babu cites instances of how powerful and widespread the Tebhaga ideals had become which enthused Muslim peasants of Comilla to organise succour for thousands of Hindus fleeing from the Noakhali riots, preventing Muslim rioters from entering Comilla. The Tebhaga struggle also raised its head in Kakdwip resulting in the abolition of landlordism.

The veteran Communist peasant leader is absolutely right when he says that Tebhaga has contributed to the victory of the Left Front in West Bengal. In fact the LF's land reforms programme is a product of Tebhaga. While he compliments the LF for stopping the eviction of the sharecroppers from land he wants the LF to give tenancy rights to the sharecroppers and the landless.

But Abani babu doesn't sound very hopeful about the realisation of his dream because the standard of awareness of the landless has not changed very significantly since the pre-independence days. Recently when he visited a Left Front run panchayat in south Dinajpur he was told that the Santhals there did not get more than 60 per cent of the statutory daily wages due to them. And the Santhal women got even less. Abani Babu also wonders whether the poor peasants and agricultural labourers have been able to establish their own rightful place in the panchayat.

Abani babu gave up party work in 1952 largely because of disillusionment with its style of functioning. His reminiscences have passages in bold conveying his personal disillusionment with the quality of party life, the bitterness evoked by wholesale denunciation of erstwhile comrades, and dictatorial and bureaucratic styles of leadership

Abani babu recalls that a transparent and simple way of life and deep commitment to their ideology that had once attracted the people to the Communists. Much of that is gone. "Many claim that the strength of the idealism and the way of life of the Communists of the thirties and forties are out of date and no longer relevant. But for me they have not lost their relevance.

The book cites valuable historical facts such as the landmark recommendations of the Bengal Government appointed Flood Commission (1939), according to which share croppers who have all expenses of cultivation, including those for the supply of ploughs and bullocks should get two thirds of the gross produce and those who paid a fixed rent in cash or kind should be given tenancy rights. Sumit Sarkar in his introduction refers to the memorandum of the Bengal Provincial Kisan Sabha submitted to the Floud Commission. It said nothing about enhancing the sharecropper's share of the crop to two thirds although the reforms it proposed mainly related to the abolition of zamindari system.

-Manash Ghosh
-The Telegraph (8.7.2001)