Some Aspects of Agrarian Change in North Bengal: A Case Study of Two Villages from Naxalbari (original) (raw)

To understand the evolving tenancy arrangement and land holding structure in two villages in the frontier region of Terai, against the backdrop of large scale peasant mobilization and revolts, is one of the major concerns of this study. The incidence of peasant uprising in the late sixties were high in the villages. Because of the difference in other socio-economic variables, the micro level impact of peasant movement and institutional reforms differ markedly in some respects. But both the villages experienced a shift from sharecropping to self cultivation during the last fifteen years. In the first village a few cases of fixed rent tenancy are recorded, where the small plots of lands are being leased out. The lessors are basically petty traders. No case of sharecropping is recorded in the whole village. All the cases of sharecropping, recorded in the second village, are the mere continuation of old contracts. All the major agrarian markets in these two villages are found to be inadequately developed. Since the majority of the landholding communities are of small and middle size category, there is a tendency to cultivate with family labour. Hence the demand for wage labour is rather slack. The non-institutional credit with high interest rate, has come up to fulfill the demand of poor people with high interest rate. The study reveals that the output market is also inadequately developed. Only the people from the upper class have a better bargaining power in the market. The markets are not interlinked except in a few cases. The entire agrarian economy in this region is running at a low equilibrium level, where the markets did not develop well for want of an adequate infrastructure. The residual problems of the rural poor in this area are of conglomerate nature and not of distinct categories like the sharecroppers, small peasants or hired agricultural labourers. The categories are overlapping and inter-penetrating. The study also observes an upward movement among the rural poor during the last fifteen years. However, one does not find a significant success either in terms of redistribution of vested land or recording of bargadari rights.