58 SOCIAL SCIENTIST concrete conditions of Indian society that makes it an important aspect of class struggle and how is it to be dealt with? Here the question is the nature of the Dalit movement, which we feel is a radical democratic movement, crucial to the struggle against caste oppression which itself has been a part of the anti-feudal movement in India and continues today to be a crucial part of people's revolutionary movement. The issue is not whether the leadership of the movement is petty bourgeois or whether certain castes and areas are disproportionately represented in it. The issue is whether the working classes should take up the fight against caste oppression and seek to give it direction^ and whether in doing so they must make an alliance with the concretely existing movement and its petty bourgeois leadership "with all its prejudices." Gupta claims that I say that it is not essential to route the movement against casteism in a class struggle aimed at overthrowing the bourgeois state. It is an unsubstantiated slander. But what is his position? It seems that he believes the Dalit movement i^ solely to be characterized as a petty bourgeois movement which cannot take a radical position—which implies that there should be no alliances with the concretely existing movement at all, leaving it an open ground for ruling class distortion. But Gupta makes no suggestions at all about concrete strategy; he merely throws brickbats at me. GAIL OMVEDT 1 Dipankar Gupta, tl Understanding the Marathwada Riots: A Repudiation of Eclectic Marxism," Social Scientist, May 1979. 2 The Frontier article (vol II, no 9-11) itself is "one-sided" in the sense that it focuses, or is meant to focus, on the role of the Left and it does not give a full analysis. But I think it is perfectly clear that I do not contrast "caste war" with "class struggle'? (the title was not the one I gave it)—example the very opening sentence, "The anti-Dalit riots in Marathwada represent a turning point in the development of class struggle in India." 8 Especially "The Dalit Liberation Movement in the Colonial Period", Economic and Political Weekly, Annual Number 1979. See also "The Bourgeois State in Post-Colonial Social Formations", Economic and Political Weekly, December 31, 1977. There are a series of articles on Marathwada, including R S Morkhandikar's "The Background"; Amrita Abraham's "A Report from Marathwada" fSept. 9, 1978^), Atyachar Virodh Samiti's "The Marathwada Riots: A Report" (May 12, 1979). •• Dipankar Gupta, op. cit., p 15. 6 See Morkhandikar, op. cit. 6 Gail Omvedt, "Glass Struggle or Gastc War?" Frontier, Calcutta, vol II, no 9-11. 7 Dipankar Gupta op. cit., (p 16) cites me with absolutely no basis as "recording" that the Dalit movement ''has very few supporters in rural Marahwada'*. Does he mean only the Panthers? "Dalit movement" is another term he never defines.