Unclaimed Harvest: An Oral History of the Tebhaga Women’s Movement

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.