56 SOCIAL SCIENTIST unification in the historical activity of these groups, but this tendency is continually interrupted by the activity of the ruling groups9, it therefore can only be demonstrated -when an historical cycle is completed and this cycle culminates in success. Subaltern Groups are always subject to the activity of ruling groups, even when they rebel and rise up: only permanent victory breaks their subordination, and that too not immediately. In reality, even when they appear triumphant, the subaltern groups are merely anxious to defend themselves. ...Every trace of independent action on the part of subaltern groups should therefore be of incalculable value for the integral historian.'^2 So far, we have only partially achieved this object. While Indian bourgeois historians, as opposed to those who suffer from the colonial hangover and see Indian independence as a 'gift' from Britain, have stressed the independence and anti-imperialism of the Indian bourgeoisie but have ignored their disruptive role in the face of peasants' and workers' mass unsurges, a similar approach to the study of pre-independence workers' and peasants' movements has yet to develop in the academic sphere. And those who wish to develop it must be careful of yet another pitfall, that of equating the Indian national bourgeoisie with its imperialist counterpart, resulting in "a total underestimation of the extent to which differentiations was taking place, and was bound to take place, between the monopolists of the imperialist countries and the young bourgeoisie."3 Such a blindspot would totally prevent an understanding of why, as the national movement became more and more militant, the colonial power intensified its attack on money-lenders and Indian merchant capital, nor would it explain the prestige these elements had among the peasantry, which constantly sought out such leaders to advance its struggles. We may say that this leadership was historically incapable of accomplishing the agrarian revolution, but we cannot ignore the fact that it was their opposition to the colonial power, however moderate and vacillating, that drew the p<^&a^N to t\M^ vn Vhe first place. OraYnsci was well aware of the problem of studying such social transformations; that is why he felt that a precise programme of study was necessary. He outlined this as follows: "The subaltern classes, by definition, are not unified and cannot unite until they are able to become a 'State': their history, therefore, is intertwined with that of civil society, and thereby with the history of Slates and groups of States. Hence it is necessary to study: 1. the objective formation of the subaltern social groups, by the developments and transformation occurring in the sphere of economic production; their quantitative diffusion and their origins in pre-existing social groups, whose mentality, ideology and aims they conserve for a time; 2. their active or passive affiliation to the dominant political formations^ their attempts to influence the programmes of these formations in order to press claims of their own, and the consequences of these attempts in determining processes