J PS POLITICS 45 The three political tenets discussed above broadly represent the New Left line sired by C Wright Mills and nurtured by the Frankfurt school (of "critical social theory") of Max HorLheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Ralf Dahrendorf, Erich Fromm et al. It may therefore h^ CQnt^Rd^4 that JP is wittingly or unwittingly following t^ N€W Left line (which, in certain respects, is quite close to Trotskyism) like many intellectual and student radicals of western capitalist countries. This he is of course doing with his Sarvodaya touch (Sarvodaya, contrary to popular impression, is not a-political), but that too broadly conforms to the New Left and "critical social theory*' radicalism, which has largely tended to minimize the importance of class (as defined by Marxism) factor, depoliticize conflict, concentrate on the cultural superstructure and view culture (consciousness, morals, values) change as the basic source of all social change, as done by the protagonists of counter culture. Evidently such 'radicalism' is based not on the revolutionary historical-materialist but deceptive and diversionary idealist-psychological conception of "root", Hence, for example, JP is highlighting "corruption^ and electoral maladies with practically not a word on their feudal-bourgeois economic foundation or origins, that is, the class character of stare power in India. In fact, how 'Marxist9 the New Left line really is, is amply revealed by the very title of the well-known student activist Cohn-Bendit's widely-publicized book. Obsolete Communism: The Left-Wing Alternative. Tweedledum and Tweedledee The New Left in general and "student power" in particular have in any case been able to achieve practically nothing by way of structural or systemic change in the capitalist world. It is therefore quite necessary for the New Left camp to do some serious rethinking on its theoretical and action line, if it has not already started doing so. Bluntly put, the New Left (andJP) would do well to note the historical fact that the intellectuals and students—the entire "middle class^' in fact—can at best be the assistants of revolution, not its vanguard. Further, to shun class conflict is to shun the very lever of all revolutionary change, from the existing feudal-bourgeois to socialist system in the present case. Hence the fact that both the ruling party andJP are frankly opposed to the class confrontation line is enough to make me reject the radical and revolutionary claims of both as empty and misleading. Finally, a word on JP's movement. It is evidently but an in-fight of the ruling feudal-bourgeois class, an in-fight born of the growing inner contradictions in the face of the deepening crisis of our economic system, and JP, as indicated earlier, i;s the best safety \ alve of the existing economic-political system, whatever be his rhetoric of "total revolution". As such, it is patently stupid and utterly misleading to pose and debate the issue in terms of choice between Indira Gandhi's government and JP's movement; also, it is time one stopped thinking and acting in terms of choosing the lesser evil, which is statusquoism plain and simple.