SOCIAL SCIENTIST Secularism" which had appeared in one of our earlier issues. Against Alam's argument that secularism is the only interlocutor that can coordinate and negotiate the new social phenomena unleashed by the process of "individuation", which has involved the detachment of a mass of people from their earlier bonds, Raghuramaraju argues that the process of "individuation" is necessarily incomplete. Indeed the raw material for communalism comes precisely from those who have left their communities, migrated to the urban centres, and are caught in the psychological trap of both imbibing and rejecting individualism. Anchoring the case for secularism in the process of "individuation", the author contends, amounts to making a poor case for it. M.M.M.Mahroof's paper looks at the caste-system among the Sri Lankan Tamils, which differs between the different Tamil groups. The focus in the paper is on the Tamils of the North, principally of the Jaffna district, among whom the Vellalas, or the farmer caste, constitute the dominant caste exercising power and influence over the depressed castes. Thorstein Veblen inspired a stream of writing, by Douglas, Orage and others, which belongs broadly to the tradition of guild socialism. These authors advocated decentralisation of control over communal resources and the operations of industrial plants and processes, and were highly sensitive to environmental issues as well. This alternative socialist tradition is explored in the article by Hutchinson and Burkitt. Finally, we carry a review article by Vishwa Mohan Jha on the book edited by Harbans Mukhia on the "Feudalism Debate", a theme which has, appositely, occupied a very important place in the Indian Marxist discourse.