Agrarian Policies of Left Front Government in West Bengal

Agrarian Policies of Left Front Government in West Bengal Ashok Rudra BIPLAB DASGUPTA, in a series of three extremely interesting articles (EPW, Reviews of Agriculture, March, June and September, 1984), has covered a huge ground in Indian agricultural economics, focusing attention on agricultural labourers and tenancy relations in their proper historical perspectives. While the historical part of the papers is highly informative and valuable, it is unfortunate that he has messed up matters by trying to take up in the same papers a defence of the agrarian policies of the Left Front Government of West Bengal of which he is an important office-holder and a leading spokesman. Historical narration and their analytical treatment go ill with the polemical style of rebutting all criticisms that might have been made of the West Bengal government's policies. It is in this latter part of his papers that he has made plentiful references to me, many of them critical. Though, curiously, he has made more references to me for presenting evidence in terms of facts and figures for making positive propositions, or refuting views held by some others, I shall try in the following to defend positions held by me against some of his criticisms.