Education: Politics and Social Structure Poromesh Acharya This paper attempts to study the problems of popular education in an agrarian society. It examines the implications of the vast expansion of educational facilities in West Bengal in relation to particular social and political developments since independence. It highlights the structural and attitudinal roots of unequal participations of different strata of rural society in the existing programme of primary education. In conclusion, a search has been made for an alternative course of universal elementary education.