^ SOCIAL SCIENTIST familiar territory to students of Indian economic history, though this territory does abound in disputes as well. The article discussing the ryot-wari settlement in Madras Presidency is of interest not because its conclusions are startlingly new but because it makes use of a substantial amount of source material to support its conclusions thus giving them a surer foundation. The other article which compares the experiences of the Bhils and the Worii tribesmen in Maharashtra, begins by locating each group within its specific geographical environment, investigates the impact of British subjugation in each case, and emphasises the different routes via which the two groups come to share, each in its own specific form, the common fate of degradation that engulfs them in the new system. The notes in this number deal with divergent themes. Gautam Navlakha examines the speeches made by ruling party members during the recent parliamentary debate on the Muslim Women's Bill, and detects a clear trace of a "Hindus-are-superior'9 view in some of these speeches ; a subtle appeal is thus made to one type of communalism even while appeasing the fundamentalists and communal elements of another type. This, he argues, constitutes an important element of the new ruling class strategy that has been evolving : a subtle but deliberate promotion cf communal consciousness as a means of political "management". G.V. Ramana argues that an important reason why inflation has been comparatively modest despite huge budget deficits in recent years, has been quite apart from the succession of good harvests, a diversion of speculative activity away from the commodity markets to the stock markets ; this diversion has been stimulated by the new measures of economic "liberalisation" introduced in the eighties. The fact that such diversions to and fro do occur in the Indian economy with significant consequences for price behaviour is a noteworthy feature of its functioning.