ANALYSIS OF INDIAN SOCIETY 33 had not grown to establish political hegemony, and therefore to develop the class as a "class for itself", he pointed to the fact that as recently as the 1980's, outside West Bengal, no industrial centre had elected the representatives of the Communist left. In this connection, Bipan Chandra stated that, by 1947, the Indian bourgeoisie had, by becoming a "class for stself" acquired such a hegemony over all sections of the Indian people that the British, taking heed of this development, decided in favour of the transfer of power. Indian bourgeoisie, by maintaining the form of parliamentary democracy-that is, by not resorting to naked class rule as in many other Third World countries-had contributed towards blunting the edge of working class consciousness. Even the colonial state, by carrying out some reforms rather than relying on naked repression, had acquired a hegemony which constrained revolutionary class consciousness. Bipan Chandra located the inability of the working class to become a "class for itself" in the historical inability of the Communist Party to play the necessary leading role in the anti-colonial struggle and its failure to develop the working class ideology in the proletariat. Prof Sabyasachi Bhattacharya's (JNU) paper on "The Outsider: A Historical Note", started by contrasting Lenin's and Rosa Luxemburg's view on the leadership of proletarian movement, and went on to a brief consideration of the importance of the "outside55 middle-class leader in the Indian working class movement. ITe argued that despite recognition of the importance of training leaders from among the workers themselves, this goal was, by and large, not achieved; the formation of Mill Committees from workers and the leadership they provided in the 1928 strike in Bombay, could not be sustained subsequently. Discussion on these papers was severely restricted by the lack of time. Thomas Isaac disagreed with Bhattacharya's contention that the working class leadership was only drawn from outside. Thomas took as his example the working class movement in Alleppey, K-erala, where, from pre-independence days, the working class masses had played a very important role in the leadership of the movement; more than half the leadership was drawn from the ranks of the working class. Prof Irfan Habib, on behalf of the convenors of the seminar, thanked all the participants and regretted the fact that discussion could not be prolonged. Altogether, in the range of issues covered, in the number of questions thrown up, in the seriousness invested on the discussions, the seminar was a highly productive exercise, which demonstrated yet again (he richness of the Marxist problematic. s c (This general report has been compiled on the basis of the individual reports prepared by the following who acted as rapporteurs/or particular sessions: V Meera, K Kumar, S Selvani, R Ramanna, Jayoti Gupta, Rajni Palriwal, Mandira Joshi, Balbir Satola, Maitreyi Chaiidhwy and D Raghunandan.)