84 SOCIAL SCIENTIST human progress, had education under the imperialist rule bat not all were the ^'by-products of imperial connections". Similarly it is difficult to agree with Kapil Kumar when he equates the "dominant sections" with "the oppressive social forces" while referring to a Speech given by Gandhi at the Gujarat political conference on August 2@, 1420, in which he (Gandhi) said that "a beginning should be made by the classes who have hitherto moulded and represented o^piniot^9. In a colonial country, with an extreme form of feudal oppression the peasant movement has to grow and develop as part of the general democratic movement, at first for the liberation of the country from foreign yoke and then going forward to the solution of its age-old problems of exploitation, poverty and backwardness in the successful consummation of an agrarian revolution through the installation of People's Democracy. It is only the leadership of the working class which can provide the peasant movement with the necessary perspective and direction. But such a leadership was physically absent in the 1920s in Oudh and even in Champaran and it was futile to expect Gandhi or any other militant leader thrown up from even the ranks of the peasantry to rise to the occasion and develop the movement to its full "revolutionary potential". The bourgeois leadership wanted the peasant movement to back its efforts to effect a compromise with imperialist administration in its own class interest and wanted the peasantry to effect a compromise with the taluqdars. But that docs not mean that the bourgeoisie as a class had no contradictions with feudalism or that the Congress as a whole had become identified with the taluqdars or the system of feudal landownership. They did not want these contradictions to come in the way of building an anti-impcrialist-front, including the ^amindars, and therefore told the peasantry: "Wait, we are at present fighting a bigger zemindar, your problems will be solved under Swaraj". The peasantry trusted Gandhi and the Congress leaders. If there had been a working class party it would have advised the peasantry not only to join the anti-imperialist struggle, but also to build its own independent class organisation. While uniting with the national bourgeoisie against imperialisim, the peasantry would have been made to understand that the bourgeoisie was playing a double role of struggle to effect a comporomise with imperialism. Only after the peasantry is finally rid of bourgeois influence and accepts the leadership of the working class, and around the unity of the working class and the peasantry all democratic forces are rallied, can the agrarian revolution be completed and the peasantry finally emancipated from the yoke of landlord exploitation. It was a great achievement of the movement of the Oudh peasantry to have come to the conclusion that a peasant organisation was necessary. But their understanding did not go beyond that and the "urban leaders" representing the bourgeoisie pounced upon their organisation to ensure that this weapon was not used by the peasantry