2 SOCIAL SCIENTIST It seems to us that there is indeed a basic conceptual problem with the acceptance of 'peasant community' as a central analytical category, in historical situations where not only is there varying degrees of class differentiation within rural populations across regions at a point of time (from small little differentiated tribal communities to highly stratified cultivating societies) but also differing scenarios with respect to the speed and character of differentiation, over time (as under the differential impact of commodity production in the colonial period). Peasant struggles have arisen for quite different reasons and involving quite different combinations of social classes. To postulate a 'paradigmatic form' encompassing 'invariant elements' of a supposed 'peasant consciousness' then appears ahistorical and recalls the views of the Narodnik and neo-populist intellectuals of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Russia, who also stressed 'the principle of community* to the exclusion of any analysis of varying levels of contradictions. Revolutionary leaders, however, such as Mao Zedong— who came from a middle peasant background—appear to have had no problems in integrating peasant struggles with the organised political movement drawing its ideology from proletarian—not peasant— consciousness. K. Suresh Singh documents the progressive unfolding of the Tana Bhagat movement among the Oraon in Chotanagpur from 1915, from the millenarian phase to the growth of agrarian demands and finally the linking up with the wider national movement, within a few years. To what extent the aspirations of the Bhagats was satisfied however remains an open question. UTSA PATNAIK