52 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
the petty bourgeoisie. Thus he calls them an "uprising" which was "a petty bourgeois revolt", and he characterizes the long Mahar-Buddhist movement to escape from feudal bondage and achieve some form of equality and humanity mainly in terms of forsaking traditional caste status in order to leave the rural areas, become educated and take advantage of concessions to achieve a foothold in the white-collar world. Thus he comes to the conclusion:
Though unemployment and economic uncertainty were felt uniformly by both the petty bourgeoisie and by the poor labouring classes in Marathwada (as elsewhere in India), the fusion took place most dramatically in the ranks of the petty bourgeoisie and in the three affected districts . . . This fusion threw up the ideology of casteism and caste intolerance which enthused a large section of the petty bourgeoisie as it provided them with an immediate explanation for the reasons impeding their economic well-being. This set the stage for the Marathwada riots.*
The Main Contradiction
But was this the main contradiction or the main cause for the attacks? We do not think so. Rather, the main contradiction determining the events was that between the agricultural labourers and capitalist farmers—classes which were not "pure" but were in the process of emerging from (though still enveloped by) the particular caste-feudal relations which had existed in the Marathwada region. In Marathwada, and in much of India, there has been a significant shift in the production relations in agriculture. The old render and upper caste landlords have given way to a dominant kulak class, emerging from the upper sections of the former peasant cultivators as well as from the old landlords turning to commercial farming. Increasingly this class is not only involved in production for the market, but works its land through wage labour rather than subsisting on rent. At the same time a process of land concentration has resulted in increasing numbers of poor peasants losing their land wholly or partially and joining the ranks of agricultural labourers.
Thus, though big landlords do remain dominant in some areas and though middle and small peasants remain crucial elements, increasingly the central conflict is between agricultural labourers and rich farmers. And throughout India, a dominant fact of the last decade has been the complex, many-sided and bitter struggle of the labourers and poor peasants, fighting for