4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST who participated actively in the processes of political mobilisation, is a better guide to the characterisation of spontaneity. According to him, "it must be stressed that pure spontaneity does not exist in history: it ? would be the same thing as 'pure' mechanicity. In the most spontaneous movement it is simply the case that the elements of conscious leadership cannot be checked, these have not achieved any consciousness of the class for itself.... The fact that every spontaneous movement contains rudimentary elements of conscious leadership, of discipline, is indirectly demonstrated by the fact that there exist tendencies and groups who extol spontaneity as a method. .. They are not the result of any systematic educational activity on the part of an already conscious leading group, but have been formed through everyday experience Hluminated by commonsense, i e, by the traditional popular conception of the world.'52 According to Guha, spontaneity is synonymous with reflexive action, so that in order to rescue the peasants from "spontaneity', rebellion is posited as "a motivated and conscious undertaking on the part of the rural masses" (p2). At the empirical level the assertion is true—all praxis is motivated and conscious goal-oriented activity. But at the level of historical analysis this truism is meaningless simply because it is universal and cannot be used to analyse specific situations. Spontaneity is action on the basis of traditional consciousness. Guha is very clear that rebellions occurred on the basis of traditional consciousness. Thus although he apparently rejects characterisation of peasant rebellions as spontaneous, the whole piece is an attempt to rehabilitate spontaneity as a political method. This emphasis on the spontaneous context of peasant movements is inherent in the linguistic methodology employed by Guha. This linguistic analysis moves in the grooves of phenomenological methodology which recognises just experience and existence^riegitnnate categories. This will be taken up in detail later on. Guha's idealism can be seen most clearly in his attempt to criticise the analysis of the social and economic conditions which generate rebellion. According to him, "factors* of economic and political deprivation do not relate at all to the peasants' consciousness or do so negatively'9 (p 3). The acceptance of the primacy of social existence over consciousness does not mean economic determinism in the least. Even Levi-Strauss, who has devoted himself to the study of modes of thought and consciousness of cultures the world over, concedes the primacy of the economic infrastructure.3 According to him, consciousness is not just the reflection of the economic base of a society but is constituted as a result of the interaction of several institutions and structures. Guha however does not even recognise these mediations. He thus accepts the basic premises of idealism; peasant consciousness is rendered supra-historical as it is not determined by any objective historical forces. It is at a par with the Hegelian 'geist' which is not determined by history, while the development of history is the march towards the self-realisation