BOOK REVIEW 7^C sixties have not succeeded in extinguishing this ancient Iiad^n^iirse. Even well into the seventies the bandits flourish in the ratfoesL,aw^ bastes of Central and Western India. ^ ^ Bandits are not simply a law and order problem, neither 'weqAey a moral problem to be tackled by prophets and religious refbttoe^ Unless we scientifically assess the Indian Banditry, its social roots and politico ramification^, we can never succeed in tackling tt. ^ ^ Hiren Mukerjee on the eve of our freedom stated that, r ^ When the history of India comes to be rewritten, as it must be, a different verdict, very probably, will be given on the Pindaris, for 1 example, alleged to have been professonal free booters. Mukerjee very rightly questions the assumptions and claims of the British and seeks to throw a new light on those condemned as free booters and bandits. But when Bharatiya Vidya Bh^van actually tried to rewrite hi&tory from the strictly Indian point of view, the Editors and contributors did" not find themselves agreeing with Professor Mukerjee who saw in the widespread growth of banditry in the 19th century India influences of the and" British stirrings. Volume IX of The History and Culture of the Indian Peopk dealing with the 19th century devotes only two and a^half pages to the Bandits and that too as a subjection ofth^ cfeapter on British Administration. Then there are two or three isolated references in this vast volume of 1206 pages. Dr RG Mazumdar, the General Editor of the series has himself contributed the chapter. He says : Thus the fight of the Pindaric and WaWbis^ against English cannot be regarded as a struggle for Independence, because to them English stood as a symbol, either of ruling authority or of heretic religion^ and not merelv of an alien rule In other words, thev did not take up arms with the conscious and definite object of freeing of India from the foreign rule. 4! With all his militant nationalism. Dr Mazumdar does not hesitate to declare : The name bf Sleemari octfUpies an honoured place in Indian history for the successful exertions he made for the expatriation of the Thugs and the well known wo^k Confessions of ^ Tku^ by Medows Tailor gives a lurid picture of the criminal bands. Even contemporary observers of the banditry in post-independence India are baffled and conftee3. Dr S S Ka^are savs : It is a paradox that in spite of various and vigorous administrative measures to suppress and liqu^dat^ d^coity it has continued to flourish unabated. ' >: Katare quotes Sleeman who compared the phenomena to "a ball ^f qifibtP silver, which if pressed By the finger, divided into many stttaH globules > all c^rtair^to :3 ne together ag^in and cohere as fmnty as before/3 ^ Klatare notes the failure of the police. He &ays: