THIS problem is most acute in case of land struggle. True, the immediate conditions do not permit any thoroughgoing land reform, but there does exist plenty of scope for partial land reforms. Struggles on questions of land disputed on account of tenancy, math land, land illegally occupied by landlords (benami or gair mazarua land, i.e., vested land being held by landlords despite the fact that parchas for such lands have been issued against landless and poor peasants), government land, forest land, land used for storing water, garden land, etc. have been an important component of the peasant struggle in Bihar. In the process, peasants have laid their claim to thousands of acres of land, and have indeed been able to occupy hundreds of acres in the main arena of struggle. However, the distribution and management of this land, and ultimately its retention, are the most complex problems the movement faces today.

In the first place, a great majority of disputes found their way to the courts, with even minor cases lingering indefinitely for years together. But the judicial system has managed to keep alive the illusion of a favourable judgement among a large section of the peasants, drawing them away from the path of struggle. And this has also considerably damaged the peasants’ collective will as they face the state as individuals. In the typical instance of Kathrai village in Bhojpur (where 350 bighas of land lie locked in bataidari disputes), the case has been going on for 7 years, being moved from lower courts to higher ones, and there too, from one bench to another. Meanwhile the whole stretch of land lies uncultivated and the bataidars keep on hoping that after another five years, the land would automatically become theirs.

Secondly, distribution itself generates new contradictions among different sections of the people, particularly if it is not done according to appropriate policies, giving in the process opportunist elements a scope to create all sorts of troubles in connivance with landlords.

Let us consider the typical example of Deora Math in Ghosi block of Gaya. Here the peasants had succeeded in occupying a good amount of land through what must be reckoned as one of the bloodiest struggles in the early 80s. According to the distribution policy formulated by the Party, the poorest people of neighbouring villages who had extended active help in the struggle and suffered a lot, were also to get a share for the purpose of dwelling, apart from the cultivators who were originally tilling the land under the Mahant. This was essential for maintaining unity among the broad peasant masses. But at the instigation of the landlords, certain opportunist elements of the village declined to part with any share of the seized land and they managed to dupe the masses as well. Subsequently, the Mahant regrouped his forces, launched a series of bloody assaults on the people and drove them out of the village. And as was only to be expected, this time there was no support from any of the neighbouring villages, whereas earlier thousands would have come rushing to the spot. While those opportunist elements are still languishing in the jail, the Mahant has reestablished his control over the land.

Thirdly, the administration is always there to disrupt the militant unity of the peasants and to spread illusions. In a typical instance at Mathila village in Dumraon block of Bhojpur, government officials refused to give parchas for the gair mazarua land seized by the peasants from landlords of their own village and served encroachment notices on 40 peasants, while simultaneously allotting land to those very peasants in a neighbouring village, clearly with a view to causing conflicts among the people of these two villages, for the people in the other village were also preparing to seize the same land. This example typically reveals the essence of the oft-repeated government proclamation of ‘speeding up land reforms to tackle the Naxalite problem on the political plane’.

Fourthly, even where the land is ultimately distributed by the revolutionary peasant organisation, many recipients who get better off in the process, often become the least interested in struggle, instead concentrating on securing government parchas in order to legalise their hold over the land. Often some cunning elements begin to prosper at the cost of others, particularly in case of common properties like water reservoirs for irrigation and fishing and gardens. People’s control becomes a hollow phrase with all major benefits being grabbed by only a handful of persons.

In the final analysis, this problem reflects a serious gap in the thinking of many cadres of the Party and the peasant association. Basing on an ultra-left premise, they negate the importance of taking up economic work in real earnest, for they consider it to be a wastage of time and energy in the period of sharp class war when guns are roaring all around. This ideological gap prevents the Party and the peasant organisation from formulating a well-defined land policy and consistently implementing the same, from taking up deep-going political work to raise the people’s conscious­ness and organising a strong leading core of revolutionary vanguards in the villages. However, following a comprehensive political education campaign in recent months, comrades have begun laying greater emphasis on this score.