52 SOCIAL SCIENTIST slowly displacing the ^amindars as the leading group in the country-side."5 In 1953, the Revenue Minister of West Bengal reported that the area under cultivation was approximately 11,700,000 acres. Of these 'intermediaries' (^amindars) held about 400,000 acres, raiyats (jotedar} 10,500,000 acres and under- raiyats (occupancy tenants enjoying both transferable and heritable rights) 800,000 acres.6 At Land Reform Acts after Independence The agrarian struggles waged by the share-croppers since 1939 against such practices, culminated in the Tebhaga movement in 1946, when the Bengal Provincial Kisan Sabha led a movement on the basis of the demand for tebhaga^ that is, two-thirds share for the share-cropper. This movement covered the entire period of harvesting from November 1946 to February 1947. The movement was brutally suppressed but the struggles of the share-croppers repeatedly occurred first in 1948, 9.nd again in 1952. It was under such pressures that the Bargadar Act of 1950 was enacted. This act, with certain modifications, was finally incorporated in the West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955, [hereafter referred to as WBLR Act, 1955]. The other important Act, the West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act, 1953 (WBEA Act, 1953) provided for the "State acquisition of estates, of rights of intermediaries therein wd of certain rights of raiyats and under'raiyafs^ The objective of this Act was stated to be ^to reform the law relating to land tenure cbnsequent on vesting of all estates and of certain rights therein in the state." Subsequently, it (WBLR Aet, 1955) went through a series, of amendments ^ih 1167, i860, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1969,. 1970, 1971, 1974 anti 1976). As mentioned before we shall deal only with the important features of these acts and try to evaluate them In terms of two objectives, namely, the imposition of ceilings and the distribution of surplus land and the regulation of rent and security of tenancy. The WBEA Act, 1953 provided for the payment of a compensation prescribed in the Act. The intermediaries were permitted to retain in