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Subaltern Studies Reader, 1986-1995
The Subaltern Studies Collective, founded in 1982, was begun with the goal of developing a new critique of both colonialist and nationalist perspectives in the historiography of colonized countries. Its most famous members - Gayatri Spivak, Partha Chatterjee, and others - were instrumental in establishing the discipline best known as postcolonial studies. A selection of the definitive and most influential work from the collective's eponymous journal, these essays chart the course of subaltern history from an early concentration on peasant revolts and popular insurgency to an engagement with the more complex processes of domination and subordination in a variety of the changing institutions and practices of evolving modernity.
328 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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About the author
Ranajit Guha
34 books59 followersRanajit Guha was a historian of South Asia who was greatly influential in the Subaltern Studies group, and was the editor of several of the group's early anthologies. He migrated from India to the UK in 1959, and currently lives in Vienna, Austria.
His Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India is widely considered to be a classic. Aside from this, his founding statement in the first volume of Subaltern Studies set the agenda for the Subaltern Studies group, defining the "subaltern" as "the demographic difference between the total Indian population and all those whom we have described as the ‘elite’."
His Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India is widely considered to be a classic. Aside from this, his founding statement in the first volume of Subaltern Studies set the agenda for the Subaltern Studies group, defining the "subaltern" as "the demographic difference between the total Indian population and all those whom we have described as the ‘elite’."
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 19, 2007
Quite possibly my all-time favorite book. The Subaltern Studies Collective was a radical intellectual movement out of Calcutta starting in the mid-80's which redefined South Asian historiography. Their argument was that South Asian history had been framed from an elite perspective: the independence movement of India as we knew it, they argued, was an elite pursuit, and co-opted the rhetoric of more organic popular resistance movements while ignoring their key concerns.
An early focus of the study conducted by the Collective (especially in the period anthologized by this collection) was revisiting 19th and 20th-century grass-roots peasant revolts. They argued that the popular portrayal of these "uprisings"-- which connoted spontaneousness, knee-jerk reaction, violence for the sake of violence-- neglected the legitimacy of the peasants' actions, and that there was actually a deep significance to how and why these revolts occurred.
The Collective argued that peasants had forthwith been portrayed in mainstream history as part of one resistance continuum with unified concerns and actions, but that the anti-colonial movement was founded on bourgeois concerns and ideals. Saying this was like poking a big stick in the eye of the contemporary government, as the research implicitly questioned the rhetorical base of the post-Independence government.
This compendium focuses on challenging those ideas and revealing "peasant concerns" to be diverse, complex, and tragically ignored by the mainstream, even after the end of British rule. All the articles in it are fantastic, of the highest quality, and unblinkingly radical. Not only is the content riveting, though, all the authors featured are at the top of their game, and craft their arguments beautifully.
An early focus of the study conducted by the Collective (especially in the period anthologized by this collection) was revisiting 19th and 20th-century grass-roots peasant revolts. They argued that the popular portrayal of these "uprisings"-- which connoted spontaneousness, knee-jerk reaction, violence for the sake of violence-- neglected the legitimacy of the peasants' actions, and that there was actually a deep significance to how and why these revolts occurred.
The Collective argued that peasants had forthwith been portrayed in mainstream history as part of one resistance continuum with unified concerns and actions, but that the anti-colonial movement was founded on bourgeois concerns and ideals. Saying this was like poking a big stick in the eye of the contemporary government, as the research implicitly questioned the rhetorical base of the post-Independence government.
This compendium focuses on challenging those ideas and revealing "peasant concerns" to be diverse, complex, and tragically ignored by the mainstream, even after the end of British rule. All the articles in it are fantastic, of the highest quality, and unblinkingly radical. Not only is the content riveting, though, all the authors featured are at the top of their game, and craft their arguments beautifully.
October 4, 2022
In A Subaltern Studies Reader 1986-1995, editor Ranajit Guha presents a sampling of
essays from the numerous volumes of Subaltern Studies. The essays present the common vision
of Indian history through the view of the vast peasant population. While these essays differ in
their subject matter, they still focused on the peasant majority of India. The subaltern studies
group kept their attention upon subalterns or nonelites as the prime movers of social and political
change. Ranajit Guha emerged as one of the most important historians of the Subaltern Studies
movement, who declares in the Introduction that,
a hallmark of Subaltern Studies from the very beginning-this insistence on a
solidarity that would not reduce individual voices, styles, and approaches to a flat
and undifferentiated uniformity.((ix)
David Hardiman sums up the approach of Guha and the Subaltern Studies concisely
saying,
Ranajit Guha has depicted the writing of nationalistic history as an attempt “to
represent Indian nationalism as primarily an idealist venture in which the
indigenous elite lead the people from subjugation to freedom. Such a
historiography finds it hard to come to terms with the fact that these movements
were started and carried on by the adivasis themselves. (103)
In his essay, "origins and Transformation of the Devi," Hardiman examines the Adivasi
movement South Gujarat in 1922. He explores the origins of the Devi from a smallpox goddess
to a campaign for reforms. Hardiman pushes back upon historians claiming that the Devi
movement was an inspiration derived from the activities of Gandhi and his followers. These
historians ignore the fact that similar ideas circulated within Gujarat long before Gandhi arrived
on the scene.
Hardiman also takes on socialist historians who disregard the religious conviction of the
adivasis either because they discount religion as mere superstition or see religion as a “primeval
consciousness” easily removed once a proper socialist education enlightens the masses.
Socialists see religious beliefs as a tool used by higher classes to confuse and rule over the
peasant class. Hardiman discounts the socialist history as an “impoverished historiography,”
completely missing the importance of religion.
All religions consist to a large extent of assimilated folk beliefs. It is this that
gives them their mass appeal and great pertinacity over time. Religions are highly
ambiguous, with seemingly identical sets of doctrines being made to serve
contradictory causes. It is an elitist form of socialism that can view religion as
merely an imposition from above. (105)
Gyanendra Pandey in his essay “In Defense of the Fragment: Writing about HinduMuslim Riots in India Today,” challenges the idea that communal violence was an aberration in
comparison to the nonviolence of Gandhian nationalism. As an aberration, this violence receives
little historical investigation. Pandey also confronts historians who only view violence with an
economic motive, which discounts the cultural and religious impetuses for conflict. Shahid Amin
also deals with violence in his essay, “Remembering Chauri Chaura: Notes from Historical
Fieldwork.” In 1922, a group of peasants set fire to a police station, killing twenty-three police
officers. Many historians and guardians of the Nationalist tradition claim that the perpetrators
were not true nationalists but rather an aberration. This interpretation leaves this event as mostly
forgotten in “nationalist lore.” (179) Amin argues that this was a nationalist event and that the
historical rejection was due to Gandhi’s revulsion of the violence and the effort of nationalist
elites to sanitize the historical memory.
In his essay, "The Mentality of Subalternity: Kantanama or Rajdharma,” Gautam Bhadra
uses a long poem, Kantanama or Rajdharma, written by Dewan Manulla Mandal, to demonstrate
that the “idioms of domination, subordination and revolt… are often inextricably linked together;
we separate them here only to facilitate analysis.” (63) Subordination and subservience are not
fixed, but rather a process and relationship entered into by people for their own motives and
reasons. (94) David Arnold explores Indian prisons during the colonial period in his essay, “The
Colonial Prison: Power, Knowledge, and Penology in Nineteenth-Century India.” Arnold relies
upon the work of Michel Foucault to explore the various ways the prisons became a prism
through which to view Indian resistance and British interactions with issues of caste and religion.
Further research offers promise to explore other examples of subalternity within India. (171)
Partha Chatterjee explores the female emancipation of middle-class Bengali women in
his essay, “The Nation and Its Women,” and appears as an odd fit with the other articles. But he
maintains that nationalism sought to solve the question of women but became consumed with
more pressing problems of political power. (259) Ranajit Guha also deals with the complexity of
women in his essay, “Chandra’s Death.” Chandra Chashin died in her third month of pregnancy
through an abortion and an illegitimate love affair. The pregnancy and the affair had “dire
consequences for the entire community.” (45) Guha uses this account of her pregnancy, abortion,
and death to relate subalternity to the theme of dominance and patriarchy.
Dipesh Chakrabarty concludes the volume with his essay, “Postcoloniality and the
Artifice of History: Who Speaks for “Indian” Pasts?” Chakrabarty challenges the notion that
Indian history is a variation on European history. Even Marxist historiography stands guilty of
using terms defined by European historical standards. The essays included offer a unique
perspective and challenge for not only historians of India but provide an insight helpful to
subjects worldwide.
essays from the numerous volumes of Subaltern Studies. The essays present the common vision
of Indian history through the view of the vast peasant population. While these essays differ in
their subject matter, they still focused on the peasant majority of India. The subaltern studies
group kept their attention upon subalterns or nonelites as the prime movers of social and political
change. Ranajit Guha emerged as one of the most important historians of the Subaltern Studies
movement, who declares in the Introduction that,
a hallmark of Subaltern Studies from the very beginning-this insistence on a
solidarity that would not reduce individual voices, styles, and approaches to a flat
and undifferentiated uniformity.((ix)
David Hardiman sums up the approach of Guha and the Subaltern Studies concisely
saying,
Ranajit Guha has depicted the writing of nationalistic history as an attempt “to
represent Indian nationalism as primarily an idealist venture in which the
indigenous elite lead the people from subjugation to freedom. Such a
historiography finds it hard to come to terms with the fact that these movements
were started and carried on by the adivasis themselves. (103)
In his essay, "origins and Transformation of the Devi," Hardiman examines the Adivasi
movement South Gujarat in 1922. He explores the origins of the Devi from a smallpox goddess
to a campaign for reforms. Hardiman pushes back upon historians claiming that the Devi
movement was an inspiration derived from the activities of Gandhi and his followers. These
historians ignore the fact that similar ideas circulated within Gujarat long before Gandhi arrived
on the scene.
Hardiman also takes on socialist historians who disregard the religious conviction of the
adivasis either because they discount religion as mere superstition or see religion as a “primeval
consciousness” easily removed once a proper socialist education enlightens the masses.
Socialists see religious beliefs as a tool used by higher classes to confuse and rule over the
peasant class. Hardiman discounts the socialist history as an “impoverished historiography,”
completely missing the importance of religion.
All religions consist to a large extent of assimilated folk beliefs. It is this that
gives them their mass appeal and great pertinacity over time. Religions are highly
ambiguous, with seemingly identical sets of doctrines being made to serve
contradictory causes. It is an elitist form of socialism that can view religion as
merely an imposition from above. (105)
Gyanendra Pandey in his essay “In Defense of the Fragment: Writing about HinduMuslim Riots in India Today,” challenges the idea that communal violence was an aberration in
comparison to the nonviolence of Gandhian nationalism. As an aberration, this violence receives
little historical investigation. Pandey also confronts historians who only view violence with an
economic motive, which discounts the cultural and religious impetuses for conflict. Shahid Amin
also deals with violence in his essay, “Remembering Chauri Chaura: Notes from Historical
Fieldwork.” In 1922, a group of peasants set fire to a police station, killing twenty-three police
officers. Many historians and guardians of the Nationalist tradition claim that the perpetrators
were not true nationalists but rather an aberration. This interpretation leaves this event as mostly
forgotten in “nationalist lore.” (179) Amin argues that this was a nationalist event and that the
historical rejection was due to Gandhi’s revulsion of the violence and the effort of nationalist
elites to sanitize the historical memory.
In his essay, "The Mentality of Subalternity: Kantanama or Rajdharma,” Gautam Bhadra
uses a long poem, Kantanama or Rajdharma, written by Dewan Manulla Mandal, to demonstrate
that the “idioms of domination, subordination and revolt… are often inextricably linked together;
we separate them here only to facilitate analysis.” (63) Subordination and subservience are not
fixed, but rather a process and relationship entered into by people for their own motives and
reasons. (94) David Arnold explores Indian prisons during the colonial period in his essay, “The
Colonial Prison: Power, Knowledge, and Penology in Nineteenth-Century India.” Arnold relies
upon the work of Michel Foucault to explore the various ways the prisons became a prism
through which to view Indian resistance and British interactions with issues of caste and religion.
Further research offers promise to explore other examples of subalternity within India. (171)
Partha Chatterjee explores the female emancipation of middle-class Bengali women in
his essay, “The Nation and Its Women,” and appears as an odd fit with the other articles. But he
maintains that nationalism sought to solve the question of women but became consumed with
more pressing problems of political power. (259) Ranajit Guha also deals with the complexity of
women in his essay, “Chandra’s Death.” Chandra Chashin died in her third month of pregnancy
through an abortion and an illegitimate love affair. The pregnancy and the affair had “dire
consequences for the entire community.” (45) Guha uses this account of her pregnancy, abortion,
and death to relate subalternity to the theme of dominance and patriarchy.
Dipesh Chakrabarty concludes the volume with his essay, “Postcoloniality and the
Artifice of History: Who Speaks for “Indian” Pasts?” Chakrabarty challenges the notion that
Indian history is a variation on European history. Even Marxist historiography stands guilty of
using terms defined by European historical standards. The essays included offer a unique
perspective and challenge for not only historians of India but provide an insight helpful to
subjects worldwide.
May 4, 2020
The book is well articulated and provides a fresh perspective on Indian history. I enjoy the chapter by David Hardiman on Factions. Though at times we feel that the book has gone a little marxist in its effort to put the subaltern into perspective, it can be forgiven while considering the efforts that have gone into creating such a new theoretical framework.
October 2, 2011
Extremely, extremely academic. Remarkable in its way. Those reading it know what they are getting into, I needn't try to explain it (which would take me a day of devoted thought, anyway).
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May 18, 2016i have to interest to the read this book
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews