96 SOCIAL SCIENTIST as interpreted and elaborated by their traditional intellectuals. The oppression by Hindu landlords was projected by^hese intellectuals as social injustice and opposition to it, even with violence, was justified as a religious undertaking. A British official was told by a Mappila that eviction of a tenant was according to Islam, *a sufficient pretext* to murder the janmi and become a shahid. The assumption behind this statement was, indeed, that the janmi was a Hindu; yet the commitment to the notion of shahid was not unconnected with oppression. The shahid sought death, sanctified by religion, in pursuit of justice. The eschatological dreams thus came to be enmeshed with the urge to find a solution for the problems of wordly existence. The mediation of religion, however, played a dual role. On the one hand, it enabled the peasantry to act against oppression and, on the other, it negated tKeir potential by circumscribing their vision to the pleasures of the other world. To the Mappila peasantry religion was at once an ideology of action as well as an opiate. (Against Lord and State, p. 195). The analytical implication of what Pandian dismisses as invocation and straightforward view are indeed complex; they pertain to the realm of ideology. Missing the import of this dimension, Pandian deals with what is apparent and elementary, like 'internal differentiation* and 'vehicle for social protest.' These are by now common knowledge and no 'recent study* needs to be invoked to substantiate them, unless to demonstrate their analytical potential. I share Pandian's reservations about the limitations of tradition-modernity paradigm to understand the dynamics of the intellectual history of colonial India. I had rejected this framework as early as 1975 (Presidential Address, Modern History Section, Indian History Congress, Aligarh, 1975). Incidentally, the 'recent work' of Harjot Oberoi Pandian quotes in support of his view had appeared in a special issue of Studies in History which I had put together. Obviously I was in agreement with Harjot's analysis, as evident from my introduction to that number. Pandian has located my essay within the framework of tradition versus modernity by imputing an identity between religion and tradition and between reason and modernity. This, to say the least, is a wrong reading of my essay. Nowhere have I established a connection between reason and modernity. On the contrary, I hold that there are different modes of rationality in different epochs, just as there are different forms of humanism in different stages of social development. Most of the ideas generated or adopted and disseminated in the nineteenth century, including the idea of equality, had a class dimension and hence they were linked with power domination and hegemony in society. They were integral to the making of a bourgeois society, within the parameters of colonial domination. My view of reason and rationality is conceived within this perspective and hence their potential to hegemonise the cultural universe of the subordinate classes is implicit in my analysis. Pandian's rhetoric about the march