62 SOCIAL SCIENTIST normal process may not meet the degree of urgency in the alleviation of disabilities, then these need legislative measures forthwith. Such a consensus will, to a good measure, take away the contentiousness over the claims as were witnessed in the anti-Mandal agitations. The left at that time remained indecisive and watched the situation from the sidelines, unfortunately for the people. What however seems required is a change in the terrain of politics and the contentions and discourse informing it. The recognition of the claims and entitlements of the communities needs to get subsumed within a politics which has some, at least minimal, emancipatory content to it. To make democracy stable and meaningful in the life of people and secure the foundations of secular politics, an alternative combative politics has to be built up. Without this the terrain cannot be captured from the communal forces. It is only the left that can take initiative in this as it has the perspective and strength. We need to move towards a national-popular front, as Gramsci in grave and Lenin on his last pedestal are demanding of us. People hope we move. NOTES AND REFERENCES 1. For details see Sumit Sarkar et.al Khaki Shorts and Saffron Flags (New Delhi, Orient Longman), 1993; by far the best work on the recent phase of Hindutva politics. 2. My argument here does not in any way contradict the position of Prabhat Patnaik in A Note on the Political Economy of the Retreat of the State; we are referring to the different domains of the state activity in this era of 'liberalisation*. 3. On these points I have gained considerably from Rajeev Bhargava. See his 'Secularism, Democracy and Rights' in Mehdi Arslan & Janaki Rajan eds. Communalism in India: Challenge and Response (New Delhi, Manohar), 1994; see also his 'What is Democracy?' in Seminar No. 3^9, January 1992. 4. I am grateful to Professor O.P. Crewal of Kurukshetra University for this term. 5. I have dealt with this in some details in my 'Looking at Civil Society in the Context of Indian Polities', (Forthcoming). 6. See Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Serious^ (London, Duckworth) 1978. 7. I owe this insight to Rajeev Bhargava although I have used it somewhat differently. See his 'The Right to Culture', in K.N. Panikkar, ed. Communalism in India: History, Politics and Culture (New Delhi, Manohar), 1991.