Tippera Krishak Samiti

Tippera Krishak Samiti peasant association in Tippera district (now greater Comilla) in the 1930s. Maulvi Emdadul Huq who was then a member of the Bengal Legislative Council formed the Tippera Krishak Samiti in 1919. Though originally established as a forum for strengthening rural co-operatives, it turned out eventually a radical organization led by the local left wingers of the bengal provincial congress. During the days of the Great depression (1929-35), the period of acute distress for the peasantry, the Samiti was reorganised under the leadership of Mukhlesur Rahman, kaminikumar datta and Abdul Malek, all of whom had records of involvement in anti-British activities. Kamini Kumar Dutta, a leftist and a prominent lawyer at the Comilla bar was the main organiser, financier and theorist of the Samiti.

In 1936 the Samiti was renamed as 'Krishak O Sramik Samiti' with the intention of broadening its political and territorial base. But in spite of the changed title, its supporters always knew the Samiti as Tippera Krishak Samiti. The modification of the name of the party did not, however, make it a trans-disrict party. But Tippera remained such a stronghold of the party that in the general elections of 1937 the Samiti put up its own candidates in all the seven seats allotted to Tippera district. The Samiti bagged five out of the seven seats. They defeated most miserably the elitist candidates put up by the indian national congress, muslim league and krishak praja party.

The communist hold on the Samiti, however, declined in the midst of the communal politics of the time. Gradually the Samiti got fragmented between the radicals and moderates within the party. All the major parties including the Muslim League had been trying to tilt the Samiti to their side. Yakub Ali and the moderates by Ashrafuddin Chaudhury led the radical elements.

In the 1940s, when communalism and Muslim nationalism were getting ascendancy, the Tippera Krishak Samiti steeply declined and became moribund. In the general elections of 1946 the Muslim League candidates captured all the constituencies, once considered as strongholds of the Samiti. It became a phantom body and in the great tebhaga movement (1946-47), the Tippera Krishak Samiti had virtually no participation. [Sirajul Islam]