62 SOCIAL SCIENTIST classes in society has borne fruit and Shahid Amin's article, "Small Peasant Commodity Production and Rural Indebtedness: The Culture of Sugar Cane in Eastern UP, 1880-1920", is a case in point. Contrary to the facile theory put forward by bourgeois economists and historiographers that any growth of cash cropping represented the development of capitalism in agriculture, he shows how both the process and relations of production precluded such a development for the cane farmers of Eastern U. P. The sugar mills, whose economic predominance could dictate terms, in order to reduce overhead costs and increase recovery, required a long cane-crushing season, from mid-November to the end of April, as a result of which "the peasants...were caught up in three agricultural activities. The standing cane crop had to be harvested, the fields had to be ploughed for the next year's sugar cane and inferior winter grains had to be gathered. Unable to take time off from these pressing engagements, and incapable of using his meagre livestock both for carting cane to the mills and ploughing his fields, the small peasant sold his standing cane crop to the itinerant dealer. More often than not, he received a price much below the prevailing market rate. In most cases these itinerant dealers were rich peasants" (pp 41-42). However, this was only one side of the picture. The other side, which represents a conflicting set of exploiters, should not be underestimated; nor should the conflict between these two sets of exploiters be blanketed under the same 'elite' category as has been done by the 'subaltern historians'. First, there was the revenue demand by which "occupancy tenants had to pay their rents 21 days and non-occupancy tenants 30 days before the revenue qists (instalments). This was no doubt meant to give the Zamindars sufficient time to realize their rent, but it also showed that the government was in collusion with the landlords in asking for cash payments from the weaker sections of the peasantry at a time when peasant agriculture was incapable of generating a cash surplus. This was a case of private property in land •impinging through the mechanism of rent on the very basis of peasant agriculture: rents in cash were demanded when there were no agricultural commodities at hand; crops were consequently hypothecated as the qist had to be paid whatever the cost" (p 83). This was irksome for the peasantry as a whole. Moreover, in 1922, when an attempt was made by a liberal barrister of Gorakhpur to get the November and December qists amalgamated into one in January, it failed because it was thought to affect the zamindar interest and also the government collection and expenditure process which was geared to the former as well. And in effect "the financial expediency of the Government and the power the early Kharifqist allowed the landlords to exercise over their tenants, had combined once again to provide... an additional factor to the