2 SOCIAL SCIENTIST what Kishore Theckedath tries to do in the lead article of the current number. A whole range of idealist views, allegedly based on Einstein's theory of relativity, are being propagated today; his birth centenary was used indeed as an occasion for letting loose a flood-tide of-idealist outpourings. Theckedath surveys these in detail and of course critically. His contribution is important and should arouse interest. The article by S. K. Mittal and Irfan Habib on "Congress and the Revolutionaries in the 1920s" highlights the complex relationship between the two major streams of the national movement. With a host of documentary evidence, they show that while the revolutionaries commanded considerable respect and support within the Congress rank and file and even among a section of the Congress leadership, notably Nehru and Bose, they consistently faced implacable opposition from Gandhi. The article, among other things, gives an interesting insight into the crucial role of Gandhi in ensuring bourgeois hegemony in the national movement; he of all the Congress leaders saw with the greatest clarity the necessity for combating the revolutionaries, being aware that any concession to the revolutionary position would imply that the movement would "get out of hand". This awareness led him to take a stand which was morally repugnant, though couched in high moral tone, but politically astute from the bourgeois point of view. Manoj Joshi'b study of Carter's foreign policy, particularly in its first phase when it adopted the hoity-toity language of "human rights", shows clearly how underneath the moral packaging it was essentially a continuation of the old foreign policy framework in a post-Vietnam, post-Watcrgate world. Indeed, the very change brought about by Vietnam and Watergate entailed that the old foreign policy could not be sold in its old packaging. A new "human rights" cover was necessary, though it was bound to wear thin pretty soon, as in fact it did. Lastly, the note by Girija Rani and Sudershan Reddy draws upon the findings of a field study to show the arduous nature of female labour in rural India. Rural women, according to their findings, work many more hours per day than men (inclusive of housework) so that the number of "standard" work days that women put in during a year is much larger than the corresponding number put in by men. Given the miserable lot of the male agricultural labourer, the wretchedness of the female worker can be well imagined. The merit of the note lies above all in the figures it provides, which should be of interest to all, and especially those fighting the oppression of women.