106 SOCIAL SCIENTIST women as having uniform socio-religious values in all parts of the country is no more than an exercise in metaphysics. Besides, while religion forms an important source of values, mores and attitudes, the basis for all obscurantism lies not so much in the religious faith or loyalty to traditional rituals or norms as in the material conditions of living. Avoiding the pitfalls of 'economic determinism9 is very important, but no less important is it to remember that the root of social oppression lies essentially in the instruments and relations of production. The Committee on the Status of Women in India seems to have recognized this truth when it states: In our highly complex and extremely diversified society, women in different religious groups, caste levels, economic strata, and those belonging to tribal, rural, and urban areas merit separate consideration. Differences in customs and norms and in conditions of their operation across groups and categories make it imperative for us to adopt this approach.8 Soon this approach fades out in a -64-page description of more important forms of oppression like ploygamy, dowry system, widowhood and prostitution. Even this elaboration is not without use for an exposition of the problem. A long summarization of different religious systems and their norms^ under the assumption that responses of all Hindu women to their religion are the same, leaves the relationship between religion and women's oppression totally undefined. The approach of differentiated but interconnected study of regional and group peculiarities remains nothing more than a promise or wishful thinking. Formalistic Approach to Participation Consequently, the chapter on political status of women largely follows the methodology of behavioural social science: tabulating percentage figures of men and women voters and listing the number of women candidates in elections to state and central legislatures. The chapter on socio-cultural setting of women's status does not mention even one of the hundreds of instances of rapes and killings of landless women labourers, or of assaults by political hoodlums. The largest number of organized political actions of women took place in post-independence India during the committe's own life-time, 1972-74. Strangely enough, several women's demonstrations against price rise and on other issues (especially in Maha-rashtra) which made front-page headlines in newspapers failed to get even a passing mention in the committee's report. The official concept of participation is mainly a formal one, synonymous with the status of the 'gainfully employed' or unemployed, in terms of which economic dependence is measured. Of the 264 million women in India in 1971, only 31.3 million were reported as workers. The number of women in the age group 15-59 were 136.3 million. Of total 'workers' 2.8 million came from the age group 0-14. Assuming that the rest of the workers, that is, 28.5 million came from the age group 15-59, 107.8 million