SYMPOSIUM 57 eoisie and the contradictions between its various sections, these contradictions, according to Naqvi, do not lead to a long-term conflict relationship . This, in our opinion, is oversimplification. No doubt it is a relationship of conflict and compromise, as Naqvi states, but in this relationship, who dominates, who dictates terms ? Is not this differentiation between different strata of the bourgeoisie manifested almost every day through the greater and greater grip of monopoly capital on the economic policies of the state ? Naqvi does not squarely face this reality, and bypassing it, passes straight over to the essence' of the situation. Easy L it then to superficially conclude, in essence everything is being done to subserve the interests of the bourgeoisie as a class and capitalism as a system of economic and political power (emphais added). Hence the overall assessment can be maintained. But by discounting the emergence and growth to hegemony of the big bourgeoisie in the economy, and hence its leading role in the state, Naqvi fails to understand the need for complete clarity on the role of various classes and sections thereof in the maintenance of the present system, in order to correctly assess the direction of the revolution, against which class, classes or strata of class is the main blow to be struck.1 Agrarian Structure The resort to empiricism, the failure to adopt a consistent Marxist, class approach in determining the composition of the state and the various classes and strata among the peasantry, the consequent failure to identify the essential elements and, in our view, the distortion of reality, are particularly marked in Naqvi's analysis of the agrarian sector, whereby he seeks to substantiate his central theme of the Indian State as a purely bourgeois state. Firstly, it is mixing up interrelationships with empiricism to test as Naqvi does, the validity of his formulation of a purely bourgeois state, by National Income statistics, i. e., the composition of the state is assessed, not by characterising the system as capitalist, and/or feudal, and/or prefeudal, but by comparing the relative shares of the bourgeoisie, feudals and semi-feudals in the national income. Thus the fact that low productivity in agriculture is an indicator of backwardness largely brought about by the backward, i.e, feudal and semi-feudal production relations, the fact that here it is essentially a question of the correlation of class forces, is sought to be concealed by referring to statistical data. In other words, here Naqvi passes over the essence of the problem, leaving the whole question to be defined by just stating that the extent of this process is a phenomenon (!) which needs to be empirically assessed in order to find out the forms and patterns it assumes and the rate at which it is growing and the impact of forces obstructing the process and a measure of their strength.