The general hypothesis regarding the economic nature of factional groups was tested once again on members of each faction which, in the final analysis to be discussed here, included all the Rebels and all the Loyalists from the four districts, pooled together in their respective groups. In this chapter, we will be examining the characteristics of these rival groups as derived from this last series of discriminant analyses. Perhaps I ought to preface this discussion with a general observation (made earlier in Chapter 3) regarding the effectiveness of the variable clusters used as tests of discrimination and prediction of factional alignments. I would remind the reader that these tests do not compare well, on the whole, with equivalent tests applied separately in each district, specifically in regard to discriminating strength and predictive scope. With this caveat in mind, we may proceed to the interpretation of the findings yielded by this analysis.

As in the individual districts, so too on the all-district level, the cluster of combined variables proved to be the most powerful discriminator of Rebels and Loyalists. The strongest single predictor within this cluster was an indicator of the average size of land-holding owned by cultivators in the respective talukas of respondents (Table 1.1). It should be noted that the variable which thus proved most effective in identifying factional membership was an environmental one, with an economic connotation, and not one directly descriptive of the individual respondent.