LIONS OF THE PUNJAB: CULTURE IN THE MAKING by Richard G. Fox (Berkeley: University of Califomia Press, 1985) NOAKHALI VILLAGES: A DESCRIPTION OF THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN FOUR VILLAGES IN NOAKHALI DISTRICT, BANGLADESH by Ann-Lisbert Am (Copenhagen: Report No. 6, Centre for Development Research, I986) PEOPLE'S PARTICIPATION, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE OF WEST BENGAL, INDIA by Kirsten Westergaard (Copenhagen: Report No. 8, Centre for Development Research, 1986) The colonial perspective viewed India as a society composed of disparate communities with distinctive cultural patterns, religions and world views co-residing in a state of potential or actual antagonism. Consciously or otherwise, much of the commentary on the recent events in the Punjab has drawn on this framework to explain the pattern of violence between "Hindus" and "Sikhs." There have been numerous references, for instance, to long-standing traditions, the "martial identity" of Sikhism and the characteristics of the "Sikh psyche." Historically established cultural patterns can, it seems, account for present actions. Alternatively, more materialistic explanations tend to directly relate militant, anti-government Sikhism to the deteriorating economic situation of small cultivators in the Punjab. Although completed before the violent event of 1984, Fox's account of the Third Sikh War in the 1920s and the "making" of culture provides a timely reminder of the complexities of rural protest and what he sees as the determinism inherent in contemporary concepts of culture. The aim of the study is to examine religious re- formism and agrarian protest with a view to providing a clearer...