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regarding the APC (which later came to be called the CACP) its constitution and reconstitution, etc. It is this attention to the politics within the state apparatus that makes this book a special contribution to the existing literature.
Finally, the NFMs politics are seen as self limiting. There is a limit to the extent that this politics can go. And the limit is set by the 'multiple selves' of the farmers themselves. Rural people can be mobilized with some difficulty for price-subsidy-loan waiver movements for some time, but whenever the electoral politics come it is the other cross cutting cleavages, in terms of castes, community, ethnicity, etc which come to the forefront. Thus rural politics is seen as self-limiting. There with rural power in national politics. On the whole Varshney gives a sympathetic account of the assertion of rural power in national politics. This book is well written and well presented. Varshney does a commendable job whenever it comes to the question of analyzing macro- and even micro-situations. A bibliography ifi the end would have definitely helped the reader. But in spite of that the book makes compulsory reading for all those interested in the relations between the state and the new farmers' movements.
V ANIL KUMAR
Research Scholar
Department of Political Science
Delhi University
REFERENCE
'New farmers' movements in India', The Journal of Peasant Studies special issue Vol. 21, Nos 3/4, April/July 1994.