46 SOCIAL SCIENTIST communal assumptions and consequently communal analysis and answers are not true. Some people are very afraid of the word truth. I am not. I think that there is no way in which you can ideologically fight against communalism unless one goes to the people and points out that the assumptions of communalists, that the questions they raise, the answers they give, do not conform to the reality of social life. In other words, they are not true. Since I am not a philosopher, I feel very hesitant in making such a statement. So, I have fortified myself privately with lot of quotations from Marx, where he uses the word *Not True*. I may be wrong, but I do not think I am committing some sort of a bourgeois error in talking of truth. For example, one must ask the people, is the Hindu religion or religions or Hindu interests under threat or is it true that Muslim interests are being promoted in India— the entire communal propaganda for the last one-and-a-half years has been that Muslim interests are being promoted and Hindu interests are being downgraded. There is a letter written by Jawaharlal Nehru which is profound in many ways: I agree that there is Muslim communalism in India and I would also probably agree that Muslim communalism is much worse and stronger among Muslims, than Hindu communalism. But Muslim communalism cannot dominate Indian society and introduce fascism. That only Hindu communalism can. Therefore, we have got to be very chary and very aware and to struggle against Hindu communalism, above all. Once we take this type of position of attacking and exposing all types of communalisms simultaneousy, it is not difficult to go to the people and point out to them that communal assumptions and therefore communal answers are wrong. It is necessary to show to the people as to who benefits from communalism. The role of the petty bourgeoisie has to be examined and thought out in this respect. This is one class which does benefit from communalism and casteism and which is growing by leaps and bounds in India; every strata of Indian society, every class of Indian society is contributing to the groups of the petty bourgeoisie. Even the agricultural labourer's children are, through education, acquiring petty bourgeois social positions or at least aspiring to acquire petty bourgeois social positions. The linkages of communalism with the social structure and the pattern of India's socio-economic development also need emphasis. What is it in the Indian social condition which makes people adopt or accept communal positions? Having found an answer one must then go to the people and explain to them that it is your social condition which is making y6u adopt communal positions, but that this social condition