NOTE 67 reference to Great Britain. It was then that the notion of a competitive capitalist regime which rapidly advances material forces of technology through the rational choices of free individuals, mediated through the 'impersonal' market, emerged. On the 'market' was thus enshrined the dream realm of the liberal bourgeoisie of 'Bentham, Freedom and Property.' It was in this perspective that the lassez-faire philosophy, glorifying the free individual, was integrated with the inevitable material progess of human societies. Economic development was seen therefore as a progressive dynamic movement of the society, that is, as the advancing man-nature relationship enlarging the feasible opportunities for mankind in terms of material and related social-cultural achievements. Economic development and the cultural (educational and scientific) developments that accompany it, were seen as the liberalising force, giving rise to the rationally tempered free individual, freed of irrational prejudices and obscurantism. The free and equal individual participating with equal opportunity and access on the market, thus 'individuated' himself (herself) so that the social stratifications were only seen as a temporary hindrance to the emancipation of the individual. It was believed that the rapid material advances, endowing the individual with wider action choices and powers would ultimately dissolve these barriers. There was thus postulated, implicitly or explicitly, the primacy of material forces to predominantly shape social relations as in Marxist understanding, while in the conservative liberal tradition, the individual was so constructed in an anaesthetised world reduced to an atomistic autonomy, bereft of any 'social* dimension. It is here that the changing role of social/cultural factors like religion, language, class and caste distinctions through history was never grasped. Iildeed their roles change. And, if religion today in India acts predominantly as a pernicious force of bigotry, obscurantism, an instrument of social exploitation, divisiveness and of political opportunism, much is to be attributed to the character of economic development and the social relations that it has generated. It may be observed that, in early capitalist development, as shown by research, the social movement towards capitalism was launched along with religious movements (like Protestantism). It is not true also that the present-day advanced capitalist world has eliminated the influence of religion. It is however true that, to various degrees, a distinction has emerged between the private domain of the individual where religion is located and the public domain of state action. The liberal idea of equality before law has been translated into the notion of secular law. Religion, in the pre-capitalist or as-yet-not-capitalist world has had a role in terms of communitarian organisation, providing a focus and basis for community life and a security/support system in situations where the conditions of living are insecure and the social infrastructure is as yet undeveloped. In the Western capitalist world, with the fast advance of the process of commercialisation, the 'market* and the