Previous Year Question

Under Bengal’s traditional sharecropping arrangement, half of the produce went to the sharecropper and the other half to the landholder or jotedar. This was known as the barga or adhi system.

The principal demand of the Tebhaga Movement was that the produce should be divided into three shares—two-thirds for the sharecropper who actually cultivated the land and one-third for the landholder. Therefore, option (a), reducing the landlord’s share from one-half to one-third, is correct.

It was a movement of Bengal’s sharecroppers—also called bargadars or adhiars—in 1946–47. It was organised mainly by cadres of the Bengal Provincial Krishak Sabha and spread across 19 districts of Bengal.

The Bengal Land Revenue Commission, also known as the Floud Commission, had recommended that sharecroppers should receive two-thirds instead of one-half of the produce. Another practical demand of the protesters was that the harvest should be stored and divided at the sharecropper’s own threshing floor rather than at the jotedar’s threshing floor.

Option (b) is incorrect because the central demand was a larger share of the produce, not ownership of the land. Option (c) was also not the principal demand, although the slogan of abolishing zamindari was added later during the movement. Writing off all peasant debts, as stated in option (d), was not the central demand of the Tebhaga Movement.