Articles by M S S Pandian

An Aspect of MGR Phenomenon M S S Pandian This essay is about how dominant ideologies succeed in the terrain of struggle and produce consent among the subaltern classes. This process is illustrated by exploring the screen image of MGR and its insertion in the pre-existing common sense of the subaltern classes in Tamil Nadu.

M S S Pandian Geetha V One of the major reasons why in the Tamil Nadu assembly elections Jayalalitha was able to legitimise herself as the true heir to MGR's mantle while Janaki failed is that Jayalalitha and AIADMK(JL) used certain cultural presuppositions of patriarchy elaborated and reified by MGR.

country, while the two communist parties in India have, at least in some of their recent pronouncements, come to hold Rajiv Gandhi responsible for contributing to a large measure to this growing threat. Indeed, this distinctive perception of the CPI and CPI(M) is at the root of a fundamental dilemma in their tactical formulations and operations. But of this, later The second presumption of the Indian commentators about the existence of some enforceable obligation on the Indian communist parties to toe the Soviet line is completely baseless. This only once again vindicates the truth of Marx's statement that "the traditions of all the dead generations weigh like a nightmare on the part of the living", in this instance, the critics of the Indian communist parties. They forget the fact that much water has flowed down the Volga, Yangtse, Tiber and Ganga since the time when monolithism was the order of the international communist movement. More particularly, they forget the facts that the CPI(M) was born as a separate party with the outspoken condemnation of the CPSU as 'revisionist' and that the CPI some years ago nonchalantly decided to suffer a second split when it parted company with S A Dange, a founder-member of the pre-split CPI, on the issue of purported loyalty to the Soviet line on Indira Gandhi and her government.

Struggle among different competing interests to exercise control over the use of natural resources is an important aspect of human history. This paper traces the consequences of state intervention in the traditional resourse use pattern of a paddy growing micro-region in south India during 1850 to 1940. The geographical confines of the study is Nanchilnadu which comprised of the two taluks of Agastiswaram and Tovalai in the present Kanyakumari district State intervention in Nanchilnadu, the author argues, destroyed the pre-existing physical balance between crop land and non-crop land in the region as a basis for the reproduction of paddy technology. Consequently, Nanchilnadu peasants were increasingly forced into the market as buyers of various agricultural inputs. This involvement of the peasants in the market, inter alia, took Us toll during the 1930s when the decline in paddy price was accompanied by inputs exhibiting downward price rigidity in the region, A large number of peasants in Nanchilnadu became excessively indebted and a number of them were forced to sell away their lands. Hypotheticall, had the traditional resource use pattern of the region continued, the harshness of the economic crisis of the 1930s on the peasantry of Nanchilnadu might have been less.

capability in process designing and engineering of the national fertiliser industry has been pulled out of retirement by the Fertiliser Ministry to review and supervise the manage- ment and operations of fertiliser plants in the public sector. Meanwhile, Indian design and engineering services have been relegated from the position of prime contractors, which they occupied with distinction as far back as during the Fifth Plan period, to that of sub-contractors to foreign firms in the construction of new fertiliser plants, both in the public and private sectors.