78 SOCIAL SCIENTIST Chapter 4 is remarkable for having introduced new areas of research. The Knilafat Movement consolidated the Muslim identity firmly, but its consequences were far-reaching. The new spirit of defiance of the authority that animated the cultivating section of the rural Muslim masses prompted some of the leaders to favour militant mass movement rather than extend support to C.R. Das for wrecking the constitution from within' (pp. 143 -144). The second upshot appears to be more devasting in the light of the former: 'another section realizing the futility of carrying on the Khilafat agitation any longer, decided under the leadership of Pir Badsha Khan to eschew politics and strengthen the ulama organization instead for the defense of Islam in the face of the Suddhi movement started by Swami Shradhananda' (p. 144). The author has introduced us to a whole range of factors which are significant in understanding the marginalisation of the militant mass movement and the consequent triumph of the Islamic fundamentalism. Chapters six and seven which dwell on the growing influence of radicalism in otherwise adverse circumstances. By waging a relentless 'battle against the dcepseatcd Muslim social conservatism' (p. 181), the newly emerged radicals located mainly in the Dhaka university campus, introduced hitherto unknown dimensions to the process of politicization. Although this new trend had a limited appeal in institutional politics, it had contributed immensely to 'the left wing trade unionism and peasant movement in Bengal' (p. 182). What began merely as a ripple assumed massive proportions in subsequent years when 'a group of Bengali Muslim youth resolved to organize the workers and peasants irrespective of caste and creed under the banner of class struggle. Inspired by Maulvi Qutubuddin Ahmed, an associate of Muzzaffar Ahmad, one of the first Communists, these radical Muslim youth along with their Hindu associates 'held the exploitation by foreign and indigenous mahajans and zamindars responsible for the poverty and starvation of the peasantry' (p. 182 -83). Not only were they aware of the nature of exploitation they also devised a programme of action which inter alia included 'the abolition of the zamindari system and the fixation of wages and hours of labour for the workers' (p. 183). In order to popularise the new ideology both at the organised and unorganised worlds of politics, they began publishing journals, like the Langal (Plough) and later the Ganavani (The Voice of the People) which brought out articles written in lucid Bengali, showing the extent to which class exploitation accounted for mass poverty and starvation. Separating the praja movement from the peasant movement, the Ganavani argued to demonstrate that there were differences between the prajas and the peasants 'as most of the former did not till their lands but enjoyed the fruits of the labour of actual tillers of the soil* (p. 187). So, the aim of this new political