EM S NAMBOODTR1PAD Once Again on Castes and Classes READERS of the Social Scientist will recall my article on "Castes, Classes and Parlies in Modern iP./'iical Development".3 Ramakrishna Mukherjcc, in a recent amide,-i assumed that I based myself on Beteille's book, Caste, C^ass and Po\ver. In a short letter to the editor n I tried to show th'^l . i.' coiiclusions drawn in my paper were independent of BeteilL; in Fie., I b iscd myself on what I learnt in the coi^se of my own priciical activity, supplemented by what humble th.ovilc work I lin/^bccn able to do. A f^w weeks e.u.i?^ I hid come across a booklet, Class-Caste Struggle:Emerging Thsrd Force, by V T Rajasekhara Shetty, published by the D.Jit Action Committee of KLaraataki. In the author s introduction to the booklet it was claimed, "Even EMS for the fiirst time w^as forcjd to admit thu the CP1 (M) had committed a fundamental blunder". The "blunder" apparently was that 1 have been carrying on my practical and theoretical work on the basis of the Mraxist theory of class struggle; the alleged "admission of my blunder" consisted in the abandonment of the Marxist theory of class struggle in favour of Slietty's own theory of "Class-Caste Struggle" which is "superior" to Marxism! In another booklet. How Marx Failed in Hindu India, Shetty has propounded his view on the superiority of his own to Marx's theory! I am supposed to have given up Marx and become a disciple of