3^ SOCIAL SCIENTIST nation-state. The people of Sind, Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier are struggling for the recognition of certain 'democratic' rights as constituent 'nationalities' of a federal Pakistani state. V9 The only permanent solution of the social, economic, political and cultural problems, which afflict these two countries, is rapid economic development through a people's democratic revolution. Considering the class character of the governments in these countries, the foundations of a socialist economy cannot be laid without a successful democratic revolution. 10 In India a successful people's democratic revolution cannot be brought about by^ji revisionist^^eajdership whiciT accepts the norms of bourgeois-democracy and works in alliance with the ruling party, or by Sarvodaya workers who swear by Gandhian 'socialism', and the 'constitutional' socialists, who align with reactionaries and raise pseudo-revolutionary slogans. In Pakistan and Bangia Desh, the democratic revolutionary movement is still not properly organised and the regimes led by the .People's Party in Pakistan and the Awami League in Bangia Desh represent the interests of the bourgeoisies in these countries. \/11 In the whole of South and South-EastAsia, whether it is India or Pakistan, Indonesia or Philippines, the real solution of the problem of nationalities as well as other aspects of socio-economic exploitation and oppression can be found only through a relentless revolutionary struggle by the people. "^^Marxism^ regards national oppression a^ a specific form of class exploitation. The formation of linguistic states does not put an end to class exploitation. In Indian society, the tribal peoples, the scheduled ? castes, the religious minorities and women as a whole suffer from gocial disabilities and certain forms of economic exploitation. But this does not prove that the bulk of the population of high caste Hindus \ us not subjected to similar or other forms of exploitation. In Calcutta, the f Marwari capitalist exploit the Bengali and Bihari workers employed in their factories, but this does not make the Marwari nationality a commu- (nity of exploiters as there are millions of Marwari landless workers and poor peasants in Rajasthan who are themselves exploited by Rajput landlords. When class exploitation is presented in its 'national' or communal form, the aim of the ruling class is to conceal its fundamental nature. The exploiting class tries to convert the class struggle into a war of nationalities or communities in order to protect its own vested interests. In_ America, the oppression of the Black people as a nationality i§ organically refated to the exploitation of the poor Whites as a social class. The oppressor of both is the American capitalist class, which protects its own class interest by creating animosities between them. 'Hindi imperialism' is a slogan used by the ruling class to divide the Indian people into two warring camps, which protects the special privileges of English, undermining at the same time, the position of all other Indian