48 SOCIAL SCIENTIST during his tenure, as reflected in the sycophantic chorus of praise with which the Muslim Women's Bill was pushed through Parliament, the stealth and the expedition with which the Anti-Defamation Act was approved by the Lok Sabha, and the manner in which the Parliamentary Committee on the Bofors deal was led by the nose and hustled into sanctioning the looting of the national exchequer. Witness further the self-emasculation of Parliament through the 1986 amendment of the Commissions of Enquiry Act and the farcical game of musical chairs that the chief ministerial incumbents at Lucknow, Patna, Bombay, Bhopal, and Jaipur were put through, by the coterie of political johnnies-come-lately in Delhi. Witness too, the subjugation of the judiciary to the will of the executive in the Indira Gandhi murder trial, and the Bhopal case judgement. Democracy is today threatened by the growing encroachment of the executive on the legislative and judicial domains, and the continuing caste exclusivity of the executive apparatus of the state. The fiscal crisis of the state implies that objective factors seem to be impelling the polity further in the same direction. The logic of these circumstances determines that the state is preparing to launch an offensive against the rural and urban working classes. But the coercive power of the state, if exercised in a manner that draws attention to class differences, would blow the whole facade of national identity. If the ideology of nationality is to survive, then it would require that a national minority, not quite of the mainstream, should be seen to be bearing the brunt of the coercive power of the state. Communalism creates an 'enemy within* hysteria that distracts attention from the class underpinnings of state repression. It has become an accepted feature of life, because it is the very justification of the Indian nation-state as it stands now. During the optimistic 1950s, the sta.te could afford to keep up the pretence of being the protector of the minorities. But in the crisis-ridden 1980s, the Indian state has become a prisoner of the majoritarian world-view, that denies the minorities the right to maintain their cultural specificities. The Mandal Commission—despite the limited and token nature of its recommendations—threatens this happily settled pattern of national development. It cleaves the monolithic facade of Hindu unity, right down the middle, and exposes the grievous inequities that the developmental strategy chosen since independence has been perpetuating. It challenges the elite dominance of a narrow upper-caste minority—both substantively and ideologically. Rather than invite the under-privileged to forget their deprivations in the effort to build the nation, it asserts their claim to the governance of the nation. Having captured the legislative arm of the state, it proclaims that they will now have to establish real power over the executive arm. By seeking to remedy the growing disparity between the character of the