BENGAL 81 in India today. We also know that the only genuinely all-India bourgeoisie has developed a monopoly character almost from its birth, and has numerous ties of dependence with world capitalism. Finally, there is ample evidence of the continuous growth since 1947 of the unproductive sector of the economy, and the mutually sustaining relations between this phenomenon and the populist stance adopted by the ruling classes.20 It is not difficult to understand, then, that failing a major restructuring of the economy, based on a solution of the agrarian question, the enduring effects of an unsolved national question will remain with us. Indeed, an attempt at a more efficient and disciplined capitalism, under state bureaucratic protection, can only aggravate the fundamental problem, not solve it. A modern historian of Bengal, commenting upon the decline of the Bengal Congress in Indian politics in the 1930s, has said, "The province which had inspired Indian nationalism was sacrificed for its sake. Imperialism devours its own children. Nationalism destroys its own parents.95 2 1 Had this really been true, India would have been a different country today! [The author is grateful to Dipesh Chakraborty, S K Chaube Barun, De, Asok Sen and Hitesranjan Sanyalfor their suggestions and comments. J 1 I have discussed the theoretical issues at length in a forthcoming article, "Analyzing Nationalism : Some Concepts and a Framework". a On this point, see Karl Marx, "On the Jewish Question" in Lloyd D Easton and Kurt H Ouddat (Eds.) Writings of the Young Maix on Philosophy and Society, Doubleday, Garden City, N Y 1967, pp 216-48. 8 The existence from precapitalist times of this cultural community of nationality, as distinct from the bourgeois concept of "nation" was explicitly recognized by Engels in his three articles on Poland in the Commonwealth CMarch-May 1866): See Marx-Engels, Werke, Vol 16, Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1973, pp 153-63. Engels maintains this distinction implicitly in The Peasant War in Germany, wliere he talks of "the entire German people" while noting at the same time that "the low level of industry, commerce and agriculture ruled out any centralization of Germans into a nation'9. The distinction is quite explicit in his manuscript on the "Decay of Feudalism and Rise of National States^, appended to The Peasant War in Germany, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1974, pp 178-88. See also, Roman Rosdolsky, "Worker and Fatherland: A Note on a Passage in the Communist Manifesto", Science and Society 29, 1965 pp 330-7. The distinction has also been made in connection with Chinese discussions on the national question in that country. See Chang Chih-i, ''A Discussion of the National Question in the Chinese Revolution and of Actual Nationalities Policy" in George Moseley (Ed.) The Party and the Motional Question in China, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1966, pp 29-J59. Stalin unfortunately attributes to the "nation" all these,characteristics which should properly apply only to the "nationality". This lands him in all sorts of conceptual difficulties when discussing the national question in eastern Europe: J V Stalin, "Marxism and the National Question^, H^orks, Vol 2, Gana-Sahitya Prakash, Calcutta 1974, pp 194-215. 4 This, I believe, is the central point of the distinction between the "two ways of nationalism" made by Barun De in "Two Ways of Nationalism: Observations on the Relationship between Nationalism, Capitalism and Imperialism", Essays in Honour of Niharranjan Ray (forthcoming).