2 Social Scientist
exploitation; on the other hand, anyone making a theoretical study of Marxist Political Economy remains confined to the range of topics spanning from the theory of surplus value to the falling tendency of the rate of profit, all of which are based on an examination of a closed capitalist system. This dichotomy perhaps also explains why many distinguished Marxist historians too, like Hill, Dobb and Hobsbawm, have found it difficult to give colonialism its proper role in capitalist development: the very theoretical status of this role remains i ambiguous in Marxist Political Economy. The task of such an , ^ integration however is by no means easy; apart from some clues in Marx, '"S especially in volume III of Capital, and Rosa Luxemburg, there is not much by way of classical literature to turn to. Nonetheless the priority of this task is unquestionable.
Krishna Mohan Shrimali's article which is the text of his Presidential Address to the Ancient India section of the Indian History Congress in 1988, surveys the different phases in the growth of the methodology of the 'science of religion', and the different tendencies which appear and acquire prominence in each of these phases. In the course of the survey, the author highlights important aspects of the history of religious practice in India; the last section of the survey takes up the Marxist contributions to the subject and discusses en passant the base-superstructure relationship. While the author firmly believes, in contrast to some recent Marxist writings, that religion and ideology must be seen as belonging to the realm of the superstructure, he discusses with illustrations from Indian history the different roles that religion has played in different phases.