Patna, February 17
Champaran is known as the “karambhoomi” of Mahatma Gandhi. It was from here that he led a
peasants movement against the British indigo planters in 1917 in what is believed to be a turning point in the freedom struggle against the British.
But, even 60 years after
Independence, tillers continue to be bonded labourers in Champaran. The only change that has taken place: the local landlords have replaced the former colonial masters. Official sources say the chairman of the recently-set up Bihar land reforms commission Debabrata Bandopadhyay has suggested that the government should
immediately take over the vast areas of land and estates in “benami” possession in both East and West Champaran districts bordering Nepal and give these to the tillers.
The commission is believed to have found that influential people have cornered three to four thousand acres of land in the
area." Despite abolition of the Zamindari system many years ago, such people control the land because of political patronage’’, the commission has said.
It has also revealed a shameful statistic: despite the sharecropping system in force, only five cases of disputes have been registered so far. Sixty years after independence, that is.
The commission has surmised that the sharecroppers had no choice but to live under the harsh and iniquitous system simply because they had no choice. “The situation is similar to the one that Gandhi fought against in 1917”, the commission has observed.
iniquitous land distribution, the commission has said, is helping only one group of people: the Maoists.
No surprise, then, that the Maoists now have a sizeable presence in East Champaran. They are present elsewhere too: in 23 of Bihar’s 38 districts. A matter as serious as any for Nitish Kumar to mull over before red fully dots the state...
