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Transcript

SUBALTERN PERSPECTIVE

- Ranajit Guha

Presented by

Divyani Khaitan

INTRODUCTION

subaltern : "of inferior rank"

introduction

  • used by Guha as a name for general attribute of subordination in South Asian Society
  • binary relation : subordination (subaltern group) vs dominance

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF COLONIAL INDIA

HISTORIOGRAPHY

  • history of indian nationalism dominated by elitism-colonialist and bourgeois nationalists
  • by british writers and institutions
  • they share the prejudice that development of conscious-nationalism was elite achievement
  • native elites involved not for the general good of the nation but simply expectation of rewards
  • fails to acknowledge the contribution made by people on their own
  • narrow and partial view of politics
  • subaltern not powerful enough, not sufficiently mature, no consciousness as a class-for-itself

SUBALTERN STUDIES

SUBALTERN STUDIES

  • Guha said that "politics of the people" had been neglected
  • freedom movement history was "un-historical" "blinkered"
  • subaltern condition could be based on caste, age, gender, including class but not limited to it.
  • necessary for a historian to understand the heterogeneity and ambiguity within the society.
  • dissatisfied with unreflexive, techno-economic determinism of Marxian orthodoxy
  • need to rethink class based analysis
  • plurality of theories and methodology was central to subaltern studies
  • wanted to write "history from below"

DAVID HARDIMAN

  • class analysis of agrarian society : kheda dist
  • middle peasants :subaltern class
  • but not all of them became nationalists, only some that belonged to a particular caste as caste and kinship ties were also important
  • integrative subaltern history : alternative to class or caste analysis

GUHA

  • relation between working class and subaltern politics
  • working class still not sufficiently mature
  • their politics was "fragmented, sectional, local" to develop into a movement
  • later focused on existence of womens domain - "hearing small voices of history"
  • proposed turning to oral traditions
  • need for "defiant subalternity writing its own history"

GUHA

other subalternists

  • SPIVOK : position of subaltern women and developing the "new subaltern"
  • EDWARD SAID : subaltern no longer South Asian Historiography but "vigorous post-colonial critique"
  • subaltern studies + post colonial studies = post colonial scholars self consciousness in writing of historical discourses
  • India introduced late to capitalism and hence could never live up to universal category. need to understand heterogeneity and historical differences
  • Indias past was not a European past
  • later subalternists : analysis of gender; impact of 21st century forms of imperialism and globalization on subaltern classes.
  • ILLAIH : political and cultural concerns of dalits; urged them to write their own history; "Dalitbahujan Alternative"

others

REFERENCES

REFERENCES

  • a critical theory of subalternity : rethinking class in Indian historiography by Vianyak Chaturvedi
  • Subaltern Studies I : Ranajit Guha
  • fiasko-magazin.ch
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