Poster by the National Tebhaga Movement 50th Anniversary Committee, Bangladesh

Tebhaga movement, a militant campaign initiated in Bengal by the Kisan Sabha (peasants front of Communist Party of India) in 1946. At that time share-cropping peasants had to give half of their harvest to landlords, a feudal institution. The demand of the Tebhaga (sharing by thirds) movement was to reduce the share given to landlords to one third.

In many areas the agitations turned violent, and landlords fled villages leaving parts of the countryside in the hands of Kisan Sabha.

As a response to the agitations, the then Muslim League ministry in the province launched the Bargadar Act, which limited the share of the harvest given to the landlords would be limited to one third of the total. But the law was not fully implemented.

External links

• Tebhaga Sketches and Wood Engravings by Somnath Hore (http://www.indowindow.com/delhimagazine/sanam/shore/contents.htm)
• Chapter on Tebhaga movement in Jyoti Basu's memoirs (http://www.ganashakti.com/jb/part8.htm)