REVOLT AND RELIGION : PETTY BOURGEOIS R(^NTlCtSATlON 6i a racist one, "meaning the black people."* In this, he is no different from the early twentieth century Congressmen whb coined alternative terms like Raniparaj or Girijan relieve them of a term that was thought to be offensive. In fact, the term has quite different origins, as Fukazawa explains "The villages as a rule took the collective form of habitation. There, the village site was called pandhari (literally 'white') and was usually surrounded by earthern walls. Outside the village sites there were agricultural lands called Kali (literally 'black'). It is said that people originally inhabited the white soil unfit for cultivation and turned the black soil widely found in the Deccan in-to their agricultural fields."5 Thus, the term he loads with racist connotations merely reflects the existence of adivasis away from the villages in the fields. In fact, he hiai-self notes how "the adivasis lived in small clusters of houses known as faliyas" and that "the houses were dispersed in clusters throughout the village lands."8 And that is why they are the Kaliparaj\ people living in their agricultural lands. In the same way, he fails to identify concretely who the Adivasis are. He states he prefers to use the term Adivasi (aborigine) instead of 'Tribal' whose^ "strong evolutionist connotation" he does not like as he puts it down to "Social Darwinism,"7 quite ignoring the perfectly valid concept of successive modes of production and their inter-articulation in different socio-economic formations in history. On other hand, he chooses the term Adivasi, being fully aware that the term was rejected as it was "question-begging" for not all so-called adivasis were aborginals, but also as it was "full of mischief" according to G.S. Ghurye the anthropologist, who felt it was "divisive, undermining the unity of the Indian nation."8 He, however, feels that in spite of being an unscientific nomenclature that is precisely why it should be used. He asserts that the term 'adivasF "relates to a particular historical development: that of the subjugation during the nineteenth century of a wide variety of communities which before the colonial period had remained free, or at least relatively free, from the control of outside states. This process was accompanied by an influx of traders, moneylenders, and landlords who established themselves under the protection of the colonial authorities and took advantage of the new judicial system to deprive the adivasis of large tracts of their land. In this way outsiders who had dealt previously with the adivasis on terms of relative equality became their exploiters and masters. This experience generated a spirit of resistance which incorporated a consciousness of 'the adivasi' against the outsiders. Gradually an awareness grew that other communities in different parts of India were sharing the same fate, which gave rise to a wider sense of adivasihood."9 It is, in fact, its very divisive basis that makes Hardiman choose a definition he admits is purely subjective and unscientific. In this how different is the Subaltern school of thinking from that great founder of dialecti-