76 SOCIAL SCIENTIST of Bettelheim's India Independent lies not so much in the precise description of all that has has happened in the field of agriculture and industries as in its effort to relate the dynamics of the economy to the increasing social contradictions. Bettelheim starts his analysis of the social change in India after the independence with his observations on the objective necessity that impelled the Indian bourgeoisie to favour some kind of state capitalism. State capitalism has taken several forms and the indicative planning which India has practised since 1957, has become its principal instrument. The chapter entitled "Agriculture and Agrarian Policy" deals with the production trends and the institutional and technological reforms. Commenting on the performance of the agricultural sector as a whole, the author has remarked with great dissatisfaction that "there is an increase in crops considered as a whole, but it is too slow and too little ; the foreign trade situation is not at all improved in consequence.5^ (p. 179) This failure of the agricultural sector has been attributed to both institutional and technological constraints. The author has examined in detail how the present structure remains a formidable obstacle to the development and thus leaves a note of warning to all those who are trying to find a wholly technocratic solutien of the problem. The legislations passed by the state governments to eliminate all intermediaries between the tiller and the state have left much to be desired and the peripheral changes have failed to make any qualitative change in the agrarian situation. Bettelheim is perhaps right when he argues that the reforms were carried out with an implicit understanding that capitalist production is the only way to break the inertia in the rural life and to activate the productive forces. But the social and political considerations were a strong deterrent to carrying out reforms effectively. The author feels that in spite of several defects in agrarian legislations and their half-hearted implementation, capitalist farming has increased ; though it is limited by small number of holdings ^nd the size of the farms. The only honest attempt, the author continues»to introduce progressive agraian reforms was made by the Namboodiripad Government in 1959, but the move was thwarted first by the bourgeois parties at the state level which resorted to violence and finally by the Central Government which suspended the Communist majority Kerala Government. In the opinion of Bettleheim, industry has shown the most decisive advance. The first fifteen years of economic planning recorded the highest rate of expansion that India has ever known ; yet, the economic progress has been far below the targets as well as insufficient for the country's requirements. But what is still more regettable from the author's point of view is that some recent developments particularly the growth of monopolies and misuse of economic surplus and distortions in the priorities have weakened rather than reinforced the economic structure.