PEASANT MOVEMENT 57 reasons. Firstly, the anti-imperialist struggle has ceased to be a rallying point. Secondly, landless labour has emerged as a distinct class with the development of capitalism in agriculture. But despite accentuated economic inequalities among the small and rich farmers, no political differentiation has taken place among the cultivators. The attempt to unite the entire peasantry on slogans like anti-betterment levy in the late fifties and the price question now reflects a hangover of the past. This attempt ignores the most important post-independence development—the emergence of landless labour as a distinct class. In our humble view a revolutionary peasant movement can only be built if landless labour is the vanguard and is united with very large sections of marginal and small peasants and middle peasants. This is a difficult task because no efforts have so far been made to wean away this section of peasantry from the leadership of rich peasants. No attempt has been made to work out a plan of unity between landless labour on the one hand and marginal, small and working middle peasantry on the other. The peasant movement must gear up to new tasks in order to fulfil its revolutionary role in alliance with the working class. 1 One of the most important documents on land reforms is the report of the Congress Agrarian Committee, set up by the All India Congress Committee (AIGG). 2 Inderdeep Sinha, The Changing Agrarian Scene: Problems and Tasks, People's Publishing House, 1980, p 138. 3 Tamil Nadu is a special case. In this state, the very low food output during 1980-81 has tended to suppress the actual growth which has been fairly respectable. 4 APC fixes prices after imputing not only the value of wages of family labour, interest on owned capital, but also rent on owned land. Any Marxist would ideologically object to rent payment on owned land and its inclusion as an element of cost of production. In fact, as Ricardo said a long time back, rent is something which landlords reap where they have not sown.