THE book is an attempt to theorise the relationships between the many factors responsible for the degradation of forests. Although it does not deal with the latest developments in India in forestry - Joint Forest Management and the new, proposed Forest Act - it nevertheless provides a useful backdrop for the understanding of these developments.

The author uses the latest developments in political theory to analyse forest problems. Some of his theoretical positions are debatable because the lynchpin of his analysis - state theory - is itself a "contested domain" between different schools of thought. What is most disconcerting is Pathak's rejection of the tribalness of tribals and his contention that they are the same as any other peasants - a line, unfortunately, favoured by the Right-wing Rashtriya Swayarn Sewak Sangh to homogenise various cultures.

Pathak also smugly congratulates himself for having discovered that tribal societies are stratified. The import of the far lesser stratification in tribal societies, which contributes to a preponderance of extraeconomic relationships helping them retain a ' distinctive identity despite the on-slaught of modernisation, escapes him altogether. It is a serious flaw in his understanding of the tribals' relationship with forests.

Analysing the Chipko movement, the author swims along with the much-publicised myth that it was a resounding success. In actual fact, it was a miserable failure, in that it failed to achieve both its original aim of establishing people's control over forests and the later one of conservation What is interesting is that while the rejection of the state's articulation of conservation by the Marathwada tribals (a case study given in the book) helped them secure their own interests and that of genuine conservation, the adoption of the same rhetoric by the leaders of the Chipko movement has resulted in the movement's failure on both fronts.

The final section details how the state, in a bid to fulfil the increasing demand for timber, propagated the plantation of trees on community and private lands through social and farm forestry.

The debate on forestry has so far been singularly lacking in theoretical perspectives; by introducing one, however faulty, this book has made a start towards removing this lacuna.

---Rahul is an activist working in Madhya Pradesh.