Subaltern Studies and Modern Literary Theories

1 CHAPTER-I SUBALTERN STUDIES AND MODERN LITERARY THEORIES The importance of subaltern studies in the domain of Indian cultural is growing day by day. The question on how the existing cultural forms consider this new cultural form as relevant one, is of immense significance in subaltern politics. Subaltern studies initially emerged in Indian historiography as a term to consider the significance of suppressed groups in shaping history - ‘A history from the bottom up’. Moving beyond the historiography, which charted the colonized and the colonizers as the key social forces, in the 1970’s the term began to be used as a reference to the colonized people in the South Asian- Subcontinent. Subaltern studies focus on the domination and oppression of the marginalized in both colonial and the post-colonial societies. They provide a new perspective on the history of the colonized which was entirely different from the perspective of the hegemonic power. The main aim of subaltern studies is to promote the discussion of subaltern themes in the South Asian studies. 2 The term ‘subaltern’ originated in the 16th century; and is derived from two Latin words ‘sub’ meaning ‘under’ and ‘alter’ meaning ‘other’.1 The literal meaning of the word subaltern, as given in the Oxford Dictionary is, ‘any officer in the British army who is lower in rank than a captain2. As an adjective the term means ‘of lower status’. In the Aristotelian scheme of debate, the term subaltern denotes and means a special word other than a common declaration, it is used untechnically to denote officials of lower ranks etc.3 It was Antonio Gramsci who first used the term subaltern in a non-military sense4. Subaltern now-a-days is used to denote the entire worlds that are subordinated in terms of class, caste, age, gender, or in any other way5. This term also denotes oppression and the attitude of negation. The people having no capital of their own or in their hands, the people who fall back economically and culturally, the people who fall back religiously, politically and socially, the people having no land of their own, the labour class people 1 Ellis Cashmore, Dictionary of Race and Ethnic Relation, Routledge London, 1984, p. 356. 2 Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Oxford University Press, New York, 2005, p.1528. 3 Susie Tharu, Keezhala Patanangal. D.C. Books, Kottayam , 2006, p .23. 4 Gramsci uses the term subaltern interchangeably with subordinate and instrumental. He attaches special significance to this term by incorporating peasants, workers and other groups who are denied access to hegemonic power. ‘Prison Notebooks’ is in many respects, his most important work dealing with these concepts. 5 Ranajith Guha (Ed), Subaltern Studies Vol 5, Oxford University Press, New Delhi,1982, p. 203. 3 and the people of lower castes can be considered as subalterns. Along with this, a person who gets no consideration as an individual in the society can also be included in the schedule of subalternity. When we try to define the subaltern by keeping in mind the Indian cultural, historical and social backgrounds, it is necessary to find out who the persons are that are kept apart as subalterns. In India, even now it is the caste system that forms the basis of class hegemony. It stands on the basis of the superiority of the upper class and inferiority of the lower class. During the colonial period, among foreigners the upper class people included the British officers of the colonial state, industrialists, businessmen, landlords, missionaries, and moneylenders. Among the indigenous people the superior classes included the powerful feudal landlords, the people holding superior offices in bureaucracy, businessmen and industrialists. The dividing line between the upper class and the lower class varied/varies depending upon the place and time.6 Like other fields, in the field of literature also, the subalternity expects a thorough deconstruction, assessment and reconstruction of the existing concepts. The social concepts like caste, women, environment, and religion have their own part to play in this process. Thus various disciplines like 6 Ranajith Guha, Op.cit, Vol. 1, p.3. 4 Marxism, Political Science, Legal Studies; Economics, Feminism, Cultural studies and Anthropology started to enter into the concepts of subalternity and have made tremendous contributions in the field of subaltern studies. In Gramscian thought the term ‘subaltern’ is used to denote those groups in society, who are subjugated to the hegemony of the ruling class. In this sense, the term can refer to any group that is collectively subordinated, whether on the basis of race, ethnicity, sex, religion or any other category of identity. Gramsci expands its scope by using it as a reference for any social groups, outside the establishment structures of political representation with particular reference to the marginalized rural peasantry of Southern Italy. In the chapter ‘Notes on Italian History’, he suggests six points for studying the history of subaltern classes. They are:- 1 Their objective formation of the subaltern social groups, by the developments and transformations occurring in the sphere of economic production; their quantitative diffusion and their origins in pre-existing social groups, whose mentality, ideology and aims they conserve for a time. 2 Their active or passive affiliation to the dominant political formations, their attempts to influence the programmes of these formations in order to 5 press claims of their own, and the consequences of these attempts in determining the process of decomposition, renovation or neo-formation; 3 The birth of new political parties and dominant groups, intended to conserve the assent of the subaltern groups and to maintain control over them; 4 The formation that the subaltern group produce to press their claims of a limited and partial character; 5 Those new formations which assert the autonomy of the subaltern groups, but within the old framework; 6 Those formations which assert the integral autonomy. 7 He states that in every class - divided society, the hegemonic and the subaltern classes are in a state of conflict. Thus in a wider perspective, he uses the term subaltern to marginalized and oppressed groups anywhere in the world. In Gramsci’s perspective capitalism sustains its exploitation of the subaltern, through the hegemony of culture. He also emphasizes the fact that the nature and the structure of subaltern consciousness vary from one social 7Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (Eds), Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, Orient Longman, 1996, p .52. 6 context to another, owing to the difference in their experience of capitalist exploitation and subaltern responses to it. The racial difference has intensified capitalist exploitation in colonial situations. The capitalistic society bears a special pattern of power and procedures which creates circumstances for the exploitation and suppression of the labor class people. Here the subaltern class changes into or becomes the hegemony of the upper class groups having the power in their hands. In all societies where class conflict exists, we can see this kind of superior loyal relationship existing8. Here the subalterns are made to believe that they belong to an inferior race and hence they are not fit for making any real contribution to the society. The white settlers always emerge as champions of the superior race. They subjugate the will and aspirations of the subalterns. Very often they resort to violence for the implementation of various policies, for the imperialists believe in the principle that offence is the best form of defence for this subjugation, To quote Franz Fanon, “In the colonies, the foreigner coming from another country imposed his rule by means of guns and machines. In 8 Partho Chatterji, Op. cit, p.25. 7 defiance of his successful transplantation, in spite of his appropriation, the settler still remains a foreigner… The governing race is the first and foremost those who come from elsewhere, those who are unlike the original inhabitants, the others.”9 Racial subalternity continues to evolve its repercussion even after the colonial rule. In the post-colonial studies,10 the term ‘race’ has paved way for ‘ethnicity’ so as to account for human variation in terms of culture, traditions, social patterns and ancestry.11 The term subaltern figures in the post-colonial theory, especially in the works of the subaltern school of South Asian History that mainly centers to recover the subaltern-peasants, working classes, tribals and women in the anti- colonial resistance movements in India. Gayatri Chakravorthy Spivak, a major figure in post-colonial and post- structuralist Feminism, has contributed a lot to the study of subalternity in India. Spivak prefers the model of Gramscian subaltern as it provides more 9 Fanon Frantz, The Wretched of the Earth, London, Penguin, 1990, p. 31. 10 In The Empire Writes Back, Ashcroft makes a distinction between colonialism and post-colonialism. Colonialism is used to denote a “period before independence” and post-colonial is used to “cover all the culture affected by imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day” 11 Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, (Eds) The Empire Writes Back, London, Routledge, 2004, p. 207. 8 appropriate and flexible tools of analysis for the study of domination and subordination in power relations. Spivak, in her essay ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ criticizes the theoretical positions of the subaltern historians. She tries to widen the scope of the subaltern studies by revising and widening the Marxist thought, which forms the theoretical foundation of the project on subaltern studies. According to Spivak the Marxist interpretation of the Indian society is making a shift from feudalism to capitalism, may explain how the middle class colonized subject became a national subject after colonialism, but it cannot account for the lives and struggles of the subaltern class.

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