SOCIAL SCIENTIST from formal Indian historical writings/textbooks but continued into the early 20th century - a point that actually illustrates the flaws inherent in the logic of binarising continuity/'rupture' from the position of the colonised. He examines several aspects related to Bengal society, its complexities and ambiguities, many of which are applicable to other regions as well. The author problematises the discourse of nationalism itself. Thus, it synthesised anti-imperialism with communal, patriarchal and brahminical assertions. This is based on the search for 'authenticity', 'community' and 'indigenism'. The essay - The Decline of the Subaltern in Subaltern Studies9 -in many ways continues with the positions delineated in the first chapter, especially in the context of the 'dissatisfaction' with Marxism and the denying of classes and contradictions within structures we have noted earlier. Here he points out how the poor and the marginals have been replaced (from Volume VII onwards) by a focus "on the critiques of Western-colonial power-knowledge, with non-Western 'community consciousness' as its valorised alternative". Sarkar is also critical of the tendency to see such communities principally in terms of religious identity. Thus, he seems to defend the initial thrust of the project - a point that has been examined in a detailed fashion in the Social Scientist (October 1984; March 1988) in the past. Perhaps a very serious methodological problem existed within the Subaltern Studies from the very outset. Thus stressing popular autonomy and ignoring - what Sarkar calls (today) - classes/ contradictions and interactions within structures had created the space for what happened subsequently. In fact, Sarkar also critiques his own method of binarising the domains of the 'elite' and the 'subaltern' (in his essay in Subaltern Studies Vol.III). Coupled with this was the 'spectre' of economic determinism which needed to be replaced, with an abstraction from all that represented 'material' forces - including colonialism. The battle lines were drawn - and correctly so - against nationalist historiography. Nevertheless, an off-shoot of this was a 'hidden' battle against 'Marxism' itself and more significantly the method of Gramsci. What Sarkar claims to rescue - the early Subaltern Studies - should be seen against this backdrop. However, one perhaps ought to add that although the subaltern might have 'declined' in the Subaltern Studies, the project has definitely contributed in some measure to inspire scholars to make her/him vibrant and visible when it comes to research on colonial south Asia. There are four essays which deal with colonial Bengal, centred mostly around the urban world of the Calcutta bhadrolok echoing