Pyu Civilisation

are born class consciousness and class struggle". This is not at all a conclusion or even a feeling which I arrive at on reading the story. As a reader I am overpowered by the crushing weight of the superstitions of the tribal people depicted and the gruesome hatred and violence that is born out of it. The perfidy of the upper caste people appears to me to be less important in this story, given that they could not have manipulated the poor tribals the way they did but for the evil existing in the tribal consciousness itself. Even apart from the editor's penchant for discovering class consciousness where it does not exist there are many other interpretations she gives of many stories which I find difficult to agree with. For example, the comments she makes about Tagore's story The Punishment