RURAL UNREST IN INDIA 71 author draws attention to the condition of 'sharecroppers and landless labourers. Some early struggles of the Indian peasantry are referred to$Ae "Operation Barga" and Food for Work Programme administered by the West Bengal government come in for- praise; and the problems of radical change in isolated pockets are discussed in the light of the Chilean experience. It is held that insufficient attention has been given to organising the landless peasantry. Further, the ever-present threats to migrant labourers and to those who seek to organise the landless is dealt with at length. However, in this essay, too, the lack of any systematic treatment of an important subject is a valuable opportunity missed. The next essay which is a social commentary on the plight of scheduled castes is more successful though anecdotal in an all too familiar sense. (Besides, the author might have avoided alliterations such as "the Zamindars have guns and goons at their service" (p 128). Essays 7 and 8 are on the peasant struggle in Telengana and tribal uprisings in Andhra Pradesh (1922-1924) led by the charismatic Alluri Sitarama Raju. Some other movements such as the Eka movement of U P are also discussed. Both these narrations, make interesting reading, though readers familiar with the history of peasant movements may not find much that is new. The charge that Communists, in the early phases of their movement, were unconcerned about the peasantry is effectively rebutted. However, the reasons given for the failure of these movements are some what simplistic. It is argued that the main failure of the Telengana movement was the lack of a simultaneous "intellectual movement" (p 140} and the failure of *the other earlier movements was due to the lack of response from the Gandhi-led movement. True as the&e claims may be they are inadequate explanations of failure. * Towards the end of the latter essay the uprisings in the wake of the Naxalite movement are also discussed. But a dibc»ission of the dacoit phenomenon of the Chambal ravines in the same context is unfortunate, even though the author takes pains to show that people like Vempatapu Sathyam and Kanu Sanyal were actually different fiom Chabi Ram^and Phoolan Devi. Tl^e last essay "Bush-fires before the Conflagration", does not in fact predict a conflagration but comes by way of a conclusion in which some points are picked up from the earlier essays and brought together. It focusses on the centrality of the peasant question and points to some of the problems of combating a "state that is run in the interests of the bourgeoisie in the big cities in collaboration of (Sic) the landed feudal interests in the rural areas", and where "the overarching interests of the class rule is maintained by the bourgeoisie and the rural rich contribute by keeping the democratic facade'9. And also where "(I)ndustrial and financial bourgeoisie at the Centre and the agricultural bourgeoisie as well as the feudal elements in the villages control the