Unclaimed harvest : an oral history of the Tebhaga women's movement

Product Description 1943: As the British Empire draws to a close, the state of Bengal is just emerging from the grip of famine. Exploited mercilessly by feudal landlords, landless peasants rise in protest and launch a movement to retain two-thirds of the grain they harvest - Tebhaga. About the Author Kavita Panjabi is Professor of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. She has long been active in the women's and civil liberties movements and is an independent scholar who has worked on a range of subjects.

1943: As the British Empire draws to a close, the state of Bengal is just emerging from the grip of famine. Exploited mercilessly by feudal landlords, landless peasants rise in protest and launch a movement in 1946 to retain two-thirds of the grain they harvest – Tebhaga.More than 50, 000 women participated in this movement: one whose history and tragic end – in the crossfire between state violence and revolutionary armed struggle – became a legend in its time. Yet in the written history of Tebhaga, the full-fledged women's movement that they forged has never featured.In this authoritative study, based on interviews and women's memories, Kavita Panjabi sets the balance right with rare sensitivity and grace. Using critical insights garnered from oral history and memory studies, Panjabi raises questions that neither social history nor left historiography ask. In doing so, she claims the past for a feminist vision of radical social change. This account of the transformation of the struggle is unique in feminist scholarship movements.

About the Book About the Author Title Page Copyright Note to the Reader Foreword: Histories of Our Own :: V. Geetha Thanksgiving Introduction 'Sholte Pakano'-The Rolling of the Wick: The Mahila Atmaraksha Samiti and the Women's Movement in Tebhaga The 'Retroactive Force of Interiority': The Conscience of Oral History 'Ektu Phyan De Ma'-Mother Give Me Some Rice Water: The 'Man-Made' Famine and Women's Responses to Hunger 'Meyera Andolane Antarikata Aanlo'-Women Brought an Inwardness to the Movement: Redefining Political Agency, Forging Affective Comradeships 'Atiter Jed'-The Persistence of the Past: The Santals and the Times of Revolution 'Premer Jomir Khoje'-In Search of the Terrain of Love: Alienation in a Politics of Violence 'Bhije Matir Gandhe Naach Kori Anande'-In the Fragrance of the Wet Earth We Dance in Joy: From the Aesthetics of Liberation to the Wreckage of History Interviews Conducted Appendix: Literary Representations of Tebhaga Bibliography 1943: As the British Empire draws to a close, the state of Bengal is just emerging from the grip of famine. Exploited mercilessly by feudal landlords, landless peasants rise in protest and launch a movement to retain two-thirds of the grain they harvest - Tebhaga. More than 50,000 women participated in this one whose history and tragic end - in the crossfire between state violence and revolutionary armed struggle - became a legend in its time. Yet in the written history of Tebhaga, its women barely feature.