NOTES 65 working class. What came out of following the national bourgeoisie was revisionist thinking. The other side of the deviation was the tendency of seeing the revolutionary consciousness of people in an exaggerated form and underplaying the strength of the national bourgeoisie. This gave rise to adventurist thinking and action. These two, right and left, deviations from Marxism did, according to B T Ranadive, weaken the whole movement. '""' This discussion on socialism and its various interpretations put the entire Indian political system with its inherent weaknesses and contradictions in a perspective. Such a discussion had become essential for opening ^ up real issues before Hindi readers and writers so that they became aware of their social and political responsibilities. Another important issue highlighted in Katha 2 was the new writing. It gave a comprehensive, though general, treatment to new writing with three writers taking up three different aspects of it. The Hindi writer of today could no more remain involved in artificial literary struggles of the fifties and the sixties and, therefore, his role in the wake of new sociopolitical developments needed to be re-defined. This concept of 'new writing'' was defined, in a fine analytical note by Neelkant in the next number of the magazine where he said that it actually went against revolutionary historical consciousness reflected in the works of a committed writer. 'New writing' was a device used by the writers of the vested interests to create an artificial consciousness through loud-mouthed talk about 'struggle5, ^rebellion' 'attack', etc. Though it is devoid of the understanding of history and concrete social reality, it often appears to be revolutionary on the false strength of big phrases. The third, and till now the last, number of Katha went further to consider, apart from the long discussion on 'new writing', Raghupati Sahai Firaq's life and thought, the presentation of Abhijnan Shakuntalam at Allahabad, and various new books. Katha had, still some shortcomings. In spite of its having given some brilliant critical pieces and polemical articles (in addition to those mentioned above, a detailed article on Yash Pal by Surendra Chaudhry, and a highly thought-provoking reply from Bhairav Prasad Gupta to Nirmal Verma, Katha maintained a broad liberal image. Much space was also at the same time given to a score of short stories out of which only a few could . be considered as serious writing. Then its large issues with many articles, notes, comments, book reviews, etc. lent a heavy and monotonous accent. If it were a little more selective and concentrated on fewer themes, its impact might have been even wider. The second magazine we have to consider is Yaa^^ once again a quarterly. It came out in December, 1971 and the second number, we are told, is on the way. It seems to have adopted a firmer left posture than Katha is clear from the two editorial comments on Hindi writing which are of immense literary interest. In the first article there is a discussion of a short story written by Markandeya in which the clash between