INTRODUCTION 3 populist measures, the impact of which were understandably shortlived. Therefore, the Congress increasingly resorted to the manipulation of religious identity and sentiments of the people in order to prop up its shrinking electoral base. Indira Gahdhi's blessings to the Kalash Yatra and Rajiv Gandhi's 'Ram Raj* speech at Ayodhya and support given to the shilanyas are obvious instances of the steady decline of the secular credentials of the Congress. This is indicative of a process, a process of progressive communalisation of a secular party. This process cannot be wished away or dismissed by invoking such trivia as the selection of candidates supposedly on caste and religious considerations. Randhir Singh's argument that communalism has been integral to ruling class politics becomes pertinent in this context. Relevant to the understanding of communal politics during the post-independence period is the expectations, aspirations and apprehensions of the minority communities. The partition was a political and social trauma and the Muslims in India were forced to respond to a variety of questions which impinged upon their social being. The manner in which they sought adjustment and accommodation in the changed context in independent India is the concern of Mushirul Hasan's essay. Krishna Bharadwaj's brief note cautions against the general assumption that economic development would automatically do away with social dissensions like communalism. The basis for such a sanguine and confident hope, she argues, is premised on the liberating potential of economic development, 'giving rise to the rationally tempered free individual, freed of irrational prejudices and obscurantism*. Such a premise overlooks the role of 'social-cultural factors like religion, language, class and caste in the making of human consciousness*. Apart from the essays on communalism this issue also carries Makarand Paranjape, The Ideology of Form: Notes on the Third World Novel1, M.S.S. Pandian, 'Culture and Consciousness: Historiography as Polities' and a rejomder by K.N. Panikkar.