In spite of the beneficial effects of land reform measures, the Indian record in this respect has been dismal.

The past failures of the land reforms notwithstanding, the Ninth Five-Year Plan renews the call for a proper implementation of land reforms programmes in the future. In this context the impact of tenancy reforms measures in West Bengal initiated by Left Front government in the state worth discussing.

As in other eastern India states, the colonial intervention in Bengal led to the intervention of Zamindari system. Hence, the peasants lost their customary rights over land. During the post independence period, carrying forward the spirit of the Congress Agrarian Reforms Committee, West Bengal went in for several measures including the one for abolishing semi-feudal landlordism. Intermediaries in land were abolished and subletting of land prohibited through various reforms measures. The coming into power of Left Front government in West Bengal in 1977 is to be marked as a significant event in the context of subsequent implementation of land reforms measures. The government came to power with vigorous support of the weaker sections and with the promise of protecting their interests. Consequently, it had no dearth of political will—the most important pre-requisite for successful implementation of any reform measure for the most vulnerable sections of the society. As for tenancy reforms, the government realised that not much legislative work is left undone by the previous governments. They thus concentrated on plugging the loopholes in the existing legislation and strengthen its implementation

The most significant tenancy reform programme has been launching of the programme of Operation Barga. This was done for quick recording of the names of the Bargadars. The programme was implemented through an organised movement of the class of bargadars under the facilitating condition created with the restoration of the panchayti raj system. The government also noted that unless meaningful steps were taken to break the ties of bondage this group of people.

Up to early 1979, about 5.20 lake bargdars had recorded their names in West Bengal. The number increased rapidly to 14.86 lakhs in September 1998. A significant proportion of these Bargadars

Belonged to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. The amount of land per recorded bargadar has not been insignificant particularly when compared with the average size of operated area in the state. As per 1991-92 NSS data, the marginal holdings constitute 80% of all holdings in the state and the average size of such holdings has been 0.74 acre.

The importance of the recent tenancy reforms has got severe other implications. The recorded bargadars could legally exercise their stipulated crop-sharing rights. Due to this phenomenon, there is no more any significant trace of semi-feudal vested interests obstructing the tenants to record their names so as to deprive them of their tenancy rights. Also, the transactions between the landlords and the bargadars have tended to be confined to the land-lease market alone. It also reduces their dependence on the landlords for credit support. Economic performance of the recorded ones has been better than the unrecorded ones. This has also helped in extracting a larger share of total returns compared to the unrecorded ones.