ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Articles by Suhas ChattopadhyaySubscribe to Suhas Chattopadhyay

A Rejoinder to 'Rent-a-Womb Economics'

AM has raised, in his commentary entitled ‘Rent-a-Womb Economics’ (EPW, Vol, XL, No 36), serious objections against the proposed investment of Rs 44,000 crore in West Bengal by the Salim group of Indonesia on the ground that the state government will hand over to it contiguous land to the extent of 5,100 acres for developing a number of service projects, including a technology park, a knowledge park, a hotel complex, a health park and a golf course.

Operation Barga-A Comment

Operation Barga A Comment Suhas Chattopadhyay ASIM MUKHOPADHYAY has drawn a gloomy picture of the West Bengal government's Operation Barga (OB) or the programme of rapid recording of sharecroppers.1 But what he has written is hardly convincing to those who have some knowledge about the barga- recording under the OB. Mukho- padhyay says that the OB had raised high hopes among the peasantry because, unlike earlier land reform measures, it seemed to be a better thought out and determined attack on agrarian problems and seemed to have the sincere support of the parties in the Left Front in the state. He further adds that during his first visit to different parts of the state at the beginning of the OB he had noted extraordinary jubilation among the peasantry but a second visit after a few months revealed a sharp fall in the people's morale. This statement seems to be an exaggeration.

Authoritarianism and Democracy-A Comment

of bourgeois rule. Therefore, the bourgeoisie had to resolve the contradiction by bringing about certain changes in the system of land tenure and cultivation, which resulted in the co-existence of capitalist and semi-feudal land relations. The bourgeoisie had done away with some of the feudal characteristics of agrarian relations and simultaneously allowed big land-owners to go on with other forms of semi- feudal exploitation and keep their land- holdings more or less in tact through various allowances and purposely permitted gaps in the land reforms legislations; at the same time the big landowners were induced to transform their estates into capitalist farms.

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