78 SOCIAL SCIENTIST scientists in the accepted sense of the term. They were^ on the other hand, discharging their responsibilities either as administrators or political 'acti-vists9 and ^agitators9. In the process of their administrative and agitational studies however, they made valuable contributions to the understanding of the problem. They might not have had the technical sophistication which could be provided only by the professional social scientist, but the studies made by these 'practicalists9—administrators and agitators—yielded such valuable material which could be processed through the methods and tools which are available to the professional social scientist whose independent study would, in its turn, help the practical administrator and the political agitator. It is in this manner that science in general and social sciences in particular have developed from pre-historic days to the present nuclear age. As the founders of dialectical and historical materialism have pointed out, practice is the source of knowledge, while knowledge enables the improvement of practice. It is through the continuous process of interaction between practice and theory that science and technology has developed. Social Science is no exception. Scholar-politicians on the Scene The beginning of an intensive study of the agrarian question in India was the establishment of British rule over the country when the new rulers felt the need for precise and authentic data regarding the institutional framework of Indian society including its land and revenue systems. The creation of agencies for data collection and the use of modern methods and techniques in economics and social surveys were the developments of far-reaching importance during this period (early British rule). These laid the basis for many fruitful enquiries and studies on the nature of Indian institutions in general and the Indian system in particular.5 It is in this context that Joshi mentions such outstanding contributions as ee The Land Systems of British India and The Indian Village Community by Baden Powell, The Early History of Institutions and The Village Communities in the East and the West by Henry S Maine and pays well-merited tribute to numerous other scholar-administrators (who) were the products of the intellectual ferment associated with early British rule.'^6 The monoply of the British scholar-administrators in the field of agrarian research was short-lived. They were challenged by the indigenous class that emerged within the Indian society—the class which challenged the British rule — the slowly but surely evolving bourgeoisie: its intellectual representatives to begin with, and subsequently its economic and political representatives. The mutiny in fact marked the end of one era and the beginning of another: the era in which the British scholar-administrators dominated the scene was coming to an end and the era of the Indian scholar politicians was beginning.