64 SOCIAL SCIENTIST same talk, proposed that they would set up a model community elementary school in each development block and a model comprehensive higher secondary school in each district with 25% seats reserved for deprived students. While this sounds fine, what use are 25% places where the deprived population forms 90% of the total or more ? Further, tribal populations live in concentrations and a 25% provision would still be meaningless. It functions purely as a palliative and in keeping with the Congress policy of muddling through at any cost. And in any case, would they then join the ranks of the educated unemployed ? The conference however, has aired some major problems. First, those of the unnecessary hardships that tribals undergo in the desperate attempt of the Congress government to build capitalism in India, in spite of the development of the forces of production beyond its scope and the rise of a new mass consciousness that forces it to disguise its policy in socialist trappings. Secondly, there is uneven development within tribes and distorted development of national sentiment because of the suppression of all genuine national feelings not in keeping with the arbitrary vision of nationhood expressed by the Central Government. Finally, it would appear that the task of the committed intellectuals is not so much to provide an administrative alternative, as an administration without correct political guidance can never be efficient, but rather, they must struggle to create a political alternative to the Congress party and the classes that control its direction. This alternative in today's world can only be a socialist one, and it is instructive to see how different the development of minorities has been in even entirely tribal nations like Mongolia, and how the genuine federal structures of countries like the USSR are able to enrich themselves through the process of democratic development of nationalities rather than being hamstrung by it. The tribal problem is not one of maladministration, but one of an outdated political approach. Genuine scholars who get fooled into becoming tools of the administration will become the unwilling instruments of continued exploitation, oppression and warfare against the most unfortunate of our fellow-citizens at the cost of both their integrity and their scientific objectivity. The committed social scientist is one who is committed to the people and not necessarily to the State, as the latter may well begin to attack the people in order to preserve the status quo. BSC