The first change in the political environment of West Bengal took place in 1967 and 1969-70 when the non-Congress parties briefly ruled the state. During the second United Front Ministry some kind of `radical land reform from below' took place where the local peasants recovered more than 5,00,000 acres of benami land and distributed it among the landless. This was a kind of forced land reform, undertaken outside the governmental framework, more or less spontaneous through popular participation with the support of the United Front parties.

This was the background on which the Left Front government came to power in 1977. The major contribution of the Left Front government was to successfully implement the existing laws. For the convenience of the implementation of the laws they have effectively amended some of the existing laws and implement them thoroughly. In the first part of the analysis we first identify the reform measures that Left Front has introduced in rural Bengal. In the second part of the article we observe the impacts of these reforms in West Bengal. In the third part we discuss about the limitation of the achievement and task for the future.

WHAT REFORMS LEFT FRONT INTRODUCED IN RURAL BENGAL

OPERATION BARGA

Operation Barga was the most popular and at the same time most controversial measure. The term `operation barga' was a code name for a movement throughout rural Bengal for recording the names of sharecroppers (bargadars) avoiding the time-consuming method of recording through the settlement machinery. The operation barga was introduced through Bengal Land Holding Revenue Act, 1979 and the Revenue Rules of 1980. The 1979 amendment could be considered as a radical departure in clinching the issue of Bargadari settlement on a juridical basis. Previously it was almost impossible for a tenant to prove his tenancy rights legally owing to the judicial and other administrative red-tapism. But in the new amendments the responsibility of disproving a claim to bagadari rights was squarely put on the landowners. Self-Cultivation was defined as cultivation on the basis of physical participation by members of the landowners' family and resumption of land under self-cultivation were made under many stringent conditions. This movement was launched with the active assistance of not only the bargadars themselves but also of rural workers' organisations and self-governing institutions. The decision of the `operation barga' was taken from the workshop held in June, 1978. The operation was divided into the following five distinct steps:

(i) Identification of the priority pockets with large concentration of bargadars.

(ii) Camping by the Government Officials at the priority pockets.

(iii) Meeting between the bargadars and the government officials.

(iv) The collective participation of the villagers in the reconnaissance and field verification to establish the claims of share croppers.

(v) Issue of temporary certificates called `parchas' to confirm sharecroppers as evidence of their rights enabling them to obtain bank credit.

Operation barga depends heavily on collective action by the sharecroppers and is qualitatively different from the traditional Revenue Court approach biased in favour of the landowners. The effectiveness of this system can also be understood by its record of success. By the end of 1982 about 1.2 million sharecroppers were recorded. By the end of June, 1994 around 14.6 lakhs of bargadars had been recorded over an area more than 451.8 thousand hectares. In 1981 the West Bengal Government passed a law to remove the exemptions given to orchards, plantations, fisheries and religious trusts from the purview of the land reforms. But it took many years for the legislation to recieve the approval the Central Government.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE SURPLUS LAND IN EXCESS OF THE CEILING

The effective acquisition of the surplus land and distribution of the same among the rural poor in general and landless agricultural labourers in particular, is one of the main achievements of the Left Front Government in West Bengal. As a matter of fact around 384 thousand hectares of vested land had been distributed among 20.78 lakhs of poor rural population. According to the official estimate of March 1992, West Bengal's share in national aggregate is the highest in the following spheres - 17.48 percent of land declared surplus, 18.97 percent of land taken into possession, 18.74 percent of the area distributed and 43.36 percent of the number of beneficiaries. 

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE MINIMUM WAGE AND TRADE UNION MOVEMENT OF THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS

The main contribution of the Left Front Government relating to the minimum wages for the agricultural labourers has been the declaration of a minimum wage and its annual revision depending on the cost of living. The actual implementation of minimum wage is arrived at by a tripartite arrangement between the labourer's organisation, the Panchayat and the landlords. In the beginning of the main cropping season every year the agricultural labourers in West Bengal start a movement for the wage rate which they feel as just. A token strike is observed as a ritual. Generally an agreement is reached after the meeting of the three parties - labourers, Panchayat and the classes who hire the labourers. If no agreement is reached the strike continues. Generally an agreement is reached peacefully if the labourers have monopoly power to dictate their terms. The wage rate is not identical everywhere. The upper limit of the wage rate is generally determined by the land productivity of the land of a particular region. The wage rate arrived at through bargaining may not prevail throughout the year. Generally in the busy season, when the demand for the labourers is high enough this rate is strictly maintained and is mandatorily imposed on the employers. For the rest of the year when the demand for labour is not so high the labour force sells their labour power at a much lower wage rate. In this sense though the wage rate of the agricultural labourers is by and large institutionally fixed, at least a part of that is also determined by the market forces.

THE PANCHAYATS AS INSTRUMENTS OF LOCAL SELF GOVERNMENT

One of the main contribution of the Left Front Government is in respect of the revival of village institutions and their effective functioning. Before 1977 Block Level Administration was the main structure of the village administration. It was a purely bureaucratic institution, where the Block Development Officers used to have little idea of the local conditions. But in West Bengal along with the Block Level Administration, the system of elected Panchayat was introduced in 1978. The bureaucratic Block Level Administration is now subordinated to the elected Panchayat. Since 1978 there has been regular elections at five years interval. The Panchayat system has three levels - Zilla Parishad at the district level, Panchayat Samiti at the block level and Gram Sabha at the grass root level covering on an average 10 villages. About 70 percent of the Panchayat members belonging to the poor strata (mainly poor peasantry) and another 25 percent or so belong to the middle strata and the remaining 5 percent belong to the rich strata of the village population (Dasgupta, 1995). Recently 30 percent of the total Panchayat seats has been reserved for the female candidates. About half of the rural development budget and the amount allocated to various poverty alleviation schemes of the state are spent through the Panchayats at various levels. The Panchayats not only organise villagers for infrastructural developments, but also deals with most of the village level disputes apart from the disputes relating to wage rate and crop sharing. Constitutionally the Panchayat has no judicial power, but people find it more convenient to settle their disputes through the Panchayat.

The whole process of agrarian reform started from late seventies and gathered a momentum in early eighties. When it first started there were much confusions even among the protagonists of this reform. It was thought that, agrarian reform was very good thing from the point of social justice. But generally there was a scepticism about the effectiveness of reform on economic growth.

WHAT ARE THE IMPACTS OF THE REFORM

AGRICULTURAL GROWTH IN WEST BENGAL SINCE 1980S

Some studies showed a high growth performance of West Bengal's agriculture since eighties which had overwhelmed the theorists and policy makers and added a new dimension for controversy. Saha and Swaminathan (1994) using an index number series on aggregate agricultural production, claimed that, `the exponential growth rate for all West Bengal for the period 1981-82 to 1990-91 was an impressive 6.4 percent per annum. The growth performance is striking in comparison to the past, the annual growth rate of agricultural output for the period 1965-80 was 2.2 percent'. The agricultural growth rate in West Bengal is the highest among all other Indian states. Though some doubt had been cast regarding the validity of the official data, (Datta Ray, 1994a, 1994b) based on which such a conclusion was derived, no effective challange was made against the findings showing high growth performance of West Bengal. On the contrary, Sen and Sengupta (1995) using an alternative source of data (Comprehensive Cost of Production Studies, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India) reaffirmed `a significant trend-break in the growth rate during the eighties'.

The trend-break in the growth rate during the eighties in West Bengal was associated with the opening up of the horizon of diversified rural activities. As a result, some positive structural changes may be observed in recent years in West Bengal. The changes may be described in terms of the following trends.

DECLINE IN LANDLESSNESS AND LAND CONCENTRATION

The real success of the Left Front rule in West Bengal is that the share landless household to total rural household has gone down to a significant extent. According to NSS estimate at the all India level the percentage of the same has remained stagnant at 11.3 during 1982-1992 but for West Bengal it has significantly come down from 16.2 per cent in 1982 to 11 per cent in 1992. The prediction of the several economists is that the process is still going on and by 2001 the landlessness of West Bengal will decline in a large scale.

On the other hand according to the NSS survey large farmers (above 10 acres of land) as a category had been dissolved in West Bengal between 1982 and 1992. But in all India the proportion of a meagre large farming households (0.88 per cent) still occupies 13.83 per cent of area owned in 1992. In West Bengal in the same period about 95 per cent of landless, marginal and small farmers households holding around 70 per cent of area owned which is about double than that of in India. The percentage of agricultural labour households with land increased from 48.5 in 1977-78 to 54.7 in 1987-88 in all India, while the same had increased from 43.3 to 59.0 in West Bengal during the same period.

DECLINING RATIO OF RURAL WORKFORCE

The proportion of total rural workers in India depending on the primary sector has declined quite marginally and at a slow pace, from 83.35 per cent to 82.26 per cent between 1981 and 1991. Compared to the all India figures the proportion of total rural workers depending on the primary sector declined from 77 per cent to 73 per cent in West Bengal between 1981 and 1991. Accordingly, both the secondary and the tertiary sector employment has increased. The percentage increase in the total rural workforce engaged in primary sector in West Bengal during the same period was 26.98 per cent while the secondary and tertiary sectors recorded a growth rates of 51.79 per cent and 67.28 per cent respectively. Further the growth rates of rural female employment in West Bengal were higher in all the sectors during the same period. Particularly in the secondary sector it was the highest. `Thus, rural West Bengal is in the expected path of the transition' (Arun Kumar et.al., 1995).

DECLINING INCIDENCE OF POVERTY

Abhijit Sen (1996) based on the studies of the Expert Group on the Estimation of Proportion and the Number of Poor (EGEPNP), Planning Commission, showed that the head count incidence of poverty in West Bengal declined by over 31 percentage points between 1977-78 and 1989-90, as against a decline of 18.7 percentage points in all India and this was among the largest decline in poverty in any Indian state. Tendulkar and Jain (1995) also reached the same conclusion from NSS data of different rounds. According to another estimate (Report of the National Commission of Rural Labour, Ministry of Labour, Government of India, 1991) the percentage of rural population in poverty declined from 64 in 1972-73 to 30.3 in 1987-88 in West Bengal, whereas in all India level the decline was from 54.0 to 33.4. The rate of decline was (-) 2.25 percent per annum for West Bengal against (-) 1.37 percent per annum for all India. Bhattacharyya, Chattopadhyay and Rudra ( 1987 & 1988) resurveyed some households and villages in 1985 where NSS survey on consumption pattern was done in 1972-73. A comparison between the two survey results showed an improvement in the level of consumption of private goods and therefore an improvement in `level of living? between this period. Segupta and Gazdar (1997) showed from NSS data on consumption expenditure that the inequality declined steadily between 1977-78 and 1989-90.

POSTIVE TRANSFORMATION OF RURAL EMPLOYMENT

The percentage of male and female agricultural labour population to the main workers marked an increase for India, but experienced a decline for West Bengal during 1981-91 (Census of India 1991). C. P. Chandrasekhar (1993) shows that casualisation of rural workers increased steadily for all India from 1972-73 to 1987-88. But for West Bengal after an initial rise from 1972-73 to 1983, it marked a fall in 1987-88. It is evident from NSSO Surveys, that between 1983 and 1987-88, unemployment rate of all kind for male workers declined in West Bengal, while it marked a general rise for all India. Also it is evident from Chandrasekhar?s study that the employment in non-agricultural activities under Left Front rule increased as a result of growth and development of agricultural sector.

A JUMP IN THE REAL WAGE RATE OF THE POOR

According to the EGEPNP, agricultural wages tripled in West Bengal during 1977-78 to 1987-88, and the real wage increase in West Bengal was also among the highest in India. A study by Jeemol Unni (1988) also revealed the fact that the real wage of agricultural labourers - for both male and female, was much above the national level in West Bengal for the year 1987-88. The real agricultural wage earnings in rural labour households at 1960-61 prices increased in all India level from 1.2 in 1977-78 to 1.4 in 1987-88 for the adult male, whereas the same increase was much higher for West Bengal from 1.3 in 1977-78 to 1.8. For the adult female this increase in West Bengal was from 1.2 to 1.6 against 0.8 to 1.1 in all India during the same period. Sengupta and Gazdar?s (1997) study showed that between 1980 and 1991 the trend annual growth rate of real wages was 5.7 per cent in West Bengal compared to 4.8 per cent for India as a whole. They also observed no differential in wage rate between male and female labourers.

POSITIVE DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSFORMATION

West Bengal follows the same national trend in the demographic front in the sense that birth rate, death rate and the infant mortality rate - all declined between 1980-81 and 1990-91. However the ranks of West Bengal for these three rates improved among all other Indian states from 8 to 5 (birth rate), 7 to 5 (death rate) and 6 to 4 (infant mortality rate) between 1980-81 and 1990-91 (Dasgupta, 1995).

A POSITIVE TREND IN THE RATE OF INFANT MORTALITY AND CHILD NUTRITION

Sunil Sengupta and Haris Gazdar (1997) showed on the basis of Sample Registration surveys (SRS) that infant mortality rate (IMR) in rural West Bengal declined from 95 to 75 per thousand live births between 1981 and 1990. Both in 1981 and in 1990 IMR of West Bengal was about 19 points below the Indian average. Of the 15 major states for which SRS data are reported West Bengal?s rank rose from the sixth lowest one IMR in 1981 to the fourth lowest one in 1990. Sengupta and Gazdar (1997) compared their study in a few sample village in 1988 with that conducted by Sen and Sengupta (1983) in the same village and among the same sample households. According to Sengupta and Gazdar `for these villages there were a clear signs of improvement in the neutritional status of children in the intervening five years. Particularly, the incidence of `disastrous? undernourishment , which affected 8 per cent of children in 1983, was almost non-existent in 1988. The incidence of severe undernourishment also recorded a major decline.

A STEADY INCREASE IN THE RATE OF LITERACY

Litracy rates increased between the 1981 and 1991 census in rural West Bengal from 48.6 per cent to 57.7 per cent for the 5+ population overall, and from 36.1 per cent to 47.2 per cent for females (Table 11). According to 1991 census, West Bengal literacy rate for 7+ male population was 68 per cent compared to the Indian average of 64 per cent and the corresponding literacy rate for females was 47 per cent compared to the Indian average of 39 per cent. However West Bengal?s change in literacy is not as successful as in other fields and there is no room of complacence compared to the achievements done by many other states.

3. HOWEVER NO FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE IS POSSIBLE WITHIN THIS STRUCTURE

One must explain these changes in West Bengal vis a vis national level in proper theoretical perspective. It should be mentioned in clear terms that no radical redistributive land reform has taken place in West Bengal, without which no fundamental changes can be possible. The land reform which has been carried out in West Bengal is a limited one, defined by adherence to the fundamental right to property in the Constitution. In this sense the Left Front has successfully implemented the bourgeois programme of land reform and not its own programme. The latter is concerned with the radical redistribution of cultivated land by revolutionary means and a destruction of the rentier class, the jotedars. Such a radical redistribution continues to remain a declared task of the Left in India. Such a radical redistribution did take place, in Russia after the 1917 October Revolution. But in Lenin's analysis this simply laid the basis for a democratic and wide-based process of peasant differentiation, rather than the narrowly-based process of landlord opression (Lenin, 1970; pp. 486-87). Particularly in a situation like that in West Bengal even when the percentage of hired workers might be declining, in Leninist concept, the differentiation might still be going on in terms of increasing command over assets, output, labour and marketed product in the hands of a minority developing into capitalist farmers. (Lenin, 1960; pp. 97-99, Kautsky, 1988; pp. 165-166) Therefore the national trend of the peasant class differentiation cannot be stopped in West Bengal, as long as West Bengal continued to be operated under the same national economy and the same Constitution.