But few tenants registered, faced as they were with potential intimidation from their landlords, the removal of other forms of support such as consumption credit, and the prospect of a long and arduous legal battle if they truly wanted to dispute an eviction.
[3] Previously operation barga was known as Land Reform and India's first legally and practically successful land reform was also done in West Bengal on year 1967 after United Front came into power and that movement was led by two CPI(M) leader Hare Krishna Konar and Benoy Choudhury but soon United Front loss its power on year 1970, then for 7 years Land Reform was abolished and after the Left Front came into power in West Bengal on 1977 as the ruling state government.
In June 1978, based on discussions held during a workshop on Land Reforms, the West Bengal government launched Operation Barga.
Operation Barga aimed to record the names of the sharecroppers (Bargadars), who formed a major part of the agrarian population in West Bengal and to educate them about their cultivation rights.
Operation Barga depended heavily on collective action by the sharecroppers and was qualitatively different from the traditional Revenue Court approach, which was biased in favour of the richer and more influential landowners.
[1] While Operation Barga did not directly attempt to turn the bargadars into landowners, the legislation included two provisions intended to facilitate that conversion.
Firstly, the legislation gave bargadars priority rights to purchase the barga land if the landlord decided to sell it.
[1] To implement Operation Barga, the government adopted the principle of people's participation in land reforms, and collective action by the stakeholders.
Wide publicity would be given for these camps by the beating of drums, distribution of leaflets, and personal advertising by the officials and local farmer groups.
[5] There was initially some violence during the first year of the programme, where landowners manhandled some officials and harassed bargadars who came forward to record their names.
[6] The launch of Operation Barga and the legal amendments introduced changed the landlord-bargadar relationship in two fundamental ways.
Distributing homestead plots An empirical analysis of the impact of Operation Barga on agricultural production, productivity, employment, income including its distribution and on the qualitative improvement in the utilization of barga land was conducted during the period 1986–88 in the three districts of Birbhum, Burdwan and Jalpaiguri in West Bengal.
A sample survey by Banerjee and Ghatak [1996] estimated that Operation Barga accounted for about 36% of total growth in agricultural production during this period, a significant fraction.
[7] The change in the tenancy condition in the state through Operation Barga has brought some degree of economic stability among farmers.
Unlike in other Indian states, West Bengal has hardly seen any farmer suicides or starvation deaths arising from crop failure.
Operation Barga and the distribution of surplus land among the marginal, poor and backward castes have created a cushion against farmers committing suicide because of the fear of money lenders or landlords taking away all the produce.
[8] Operation Barga (and West Bengal's land reforms in general) have been criticized for their small scope and inability to solve all the major problems.
Furthermore, entrepreneurship continue to remain low because of the inherent conflict of interest in crop sharing mechanism coupled with the fact that the bargadars were not adequately trained in this area.
The National Sample Survey (NSS) data of 1999 has reported that only 30.6 per cent of all sharecroppers were registered, and that there was a "distinct class bias".
Land Reforms Minister Abdul Rezzak Molla admitted in the state assembly that about 20-27% of bargadars had lost their recorded rights as sharecroppers.