74 , SOCIAL SCIENTIST -
sleep and eat on pavements and are at the mercy^ of local toughs and bullying policemen? Were the urban poor of the national capital treated to greater doses of democracy when their shanties were bulldozed and their belongings dumped virtually outside city limits? And, what is the plight qf the unemployed migrant worker in our industrial metropolises?
Presumably what the author wishes to argue is that the 'rule of law5 is flouted more easily and therefore more often in the rural areas, and that there is a gang-up between the landed and the authorities in this disregard for law. Unbearable oppression there certainly is, but facism, decentralised or otherwise, there is not. If ,the author wishes to convince his readers about his views on the state and on decentralised fascism then he must argue his case better. To say this is not to deny that there have been instances of severe (or even near-fascist) suppression of politics in this country. The emergency of 1975-1977 is one such instance, but all that the author has to say about it is the following:
"The experience in Andhra Pradesh during the Emergency when the Twenty point programme was ushered in proved that unhidered by the 'democratic9 politicians the bureaucrats were able to provide land and other amenities to harijans'5 (p 129).
It is perhaps necessary to take our point further but that is not possible even in this rather lengthy review.
In the preface to his book the author says that he has avoided the use of statistics because they are mere figure and as such they do not mean much. Besides, the manner in which they are acquired makes them misleading. He may be correct on both these points, but the problem with his book does not lie in the omission of statistics. The discipline of political science is not particularly well developed in India. Marxist interventions into the area of political science have been even more infirm. It would certainly help a great deal if well intentioned scholars like Professor Seshadri were to take greater care with their argumentation and bring to bear greater vigour on their subject, which, surely with their experience, they are capable of doing.
ASHIS BANERJEE
Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.