Democratisation in Rural Bengal

G K LIETEN relates his findings on 'Caste, Gender, and Class in Panchayats: Case of Barddhaman, West Bengal' (July 18, 1992) to the friendly but critical discourse on political development efforts in rural West Bengal. This, of course, is most welcome (especially in view of the more common traditional-Left method of passing sensitive things over in silence). But despite this 1 am not sure that his way of handling the confrontation is especially fruitful, at least intellectually. Unspecified and sweeping value judgments will be neglected. But the more sophisticated manoeuvre of making a kind of strawman argument calls for a few remarks.