NOTE 69 economy thinkers mainly concentrated on class (income and wealth) inequalities. In situations like ours, where capitalist forces have not become all pervasive, the production and exchange processes are significantly affected by the existing structure of social differentiations— whether of religion, caste, sex or others. It is not mere income differentiation that explains the process of development. While old forms and characteristics of social relations thus persist, however themselves changing in context and meaning, the force of commercialisation is also bringing in new awareness of the acquisitive power of the individual and the rise of 'individualism* even if of a distorted kind. It is this challenge that is leading to the eventual breakdown of the old community-based institutions—or at least the community-based roles of social institutions. The process of commercialisation has introduced a competitive, acquisitive drive towards individual betterment and given that the opportunities are opening out tardily and differentially, this drive can take aggressive. turns generating conflictual situations in every domain. Apart from the force of commercialisation there is also the presence of the state in the society at all levels. Given the goal of accelerated growth under planned development the state has actively intervened in shaping and guiding the development process. This is sought to be achieved in a democratic set-up within which are pursued difficult goals of equity, growth and justice. Given the relatively scarce resources, slow and uneven growth and the splurge of aspirations released through the political processes in a representative democracy, there has emerged an intense struggle between groups that aspire to gain access and control over the limited national resources through political access to the bureaucratic and state machinery. This has led to the politicisation of all social groups and the formation of new social groups which act as pressure groups to seize power or to gain in access to the state. It is thus a paradox that religious communities that, in old times, operated more as institutions of social security and harmony, now emerge as combating armies seeking to gain power. It is in this context of the fast advancing process of commercialisation leading to 'individuation' (in a distorted way) and the politicisation of religion that the notion of the 'secular state* needs, to be examined. Secularism for the state has come to mean attempts at keeping at abeyance the violent conflicts between groups and to bestow 'equal privileges* on each community. Again this 'equal treatment' has to be made compatible with the notion of 'equity'—social and economic—where the less privileged groups need to be favoured. Such an attempt to tread on the razor's edge has become even more difficult because the different communities feel that it is precisely through seizing political power that they would turn the distribution of the scarce resources in their favour. It is in this sense that we can say that religion has got communalised', internalising the values of aggressive pursuit of self-