INTRODUCTION 5 government, with a stridently clear mandate from the people, has been installed in a particular corner of the country* It has come to its heritage against the background of a major development in the polity, namely, the collapse of the Congress hegemony at the Centre as well as in the States. The Centre is for the present incapable of flexing its organically authoritarian muscles. Not that the substitution of the Congress govern* ment by a Janata one has meant a substantive shift in the alignment of class forces. If one leaves out its contribution towards the restoration of democratic rights, and focuses, for instance, attention on its class corn* position, the Janata party can hardly be differentiated from the Congress. The drift of economic policy of the new government at the Centre over the past few months has already provided ample confirmation of this fact. Even so, there is one Striking qualitative change. Unlike during the halcyon days of Congress misrule, a certain heterogeneity of attitudes and attachments marks the political scene. The ruling party at the Centre is not exactly a cohesive phenomenon; the Congress, bereft of its dynastic coordinates, continues to split and split again, it is no longer a monolithic universe, and the State governments are flaunting their several, separate colours. It is thus not altogether easy for the Centre either to look askance at specific social experiments that might be preferred by individual State governments, or to get rid of them summarily. This opportunity has to be converted into a challenge. The challenge facing West Bengal is^ the challenge of making the most effective use of the transitional time, which need not last long. The historical circumstance has made the State a legatee of a situation. The situation has to be—one should not flinch from using the expression— exploited to the hilt. Realigning Land Relations What should be the priorities? How should the Left Front administration go about making use of whatever opportunities that have come its way? It is in the sphere of land relations that the State government, one feels, can make its greatest contribution. We&t Bengal has a-long tradition of radical thought and militant acfivism; much of this has been for the establishment of the rights of the toiling peasant over the land he tills. It is the tract of the dispossessed peasantry? ^ clea? one-third of the agrarian population do not own any land at all; close to another 20 percent have so»fte land, but tire average Site of their holdings does not exceed even half an acre. A beginning has been made m the matter by the State government through an amendment to thc^Land Reforms Act, to accord Presidential assent to which the Centre pf^rast" inated through four excruciatingly long months. This beginning is in a sense a continuation of the tasks the United Front governments had initiated in 1967 and 1969-70, and which got rudely interrupted. The-