22 Dominance without hegemony

Kaushiki Das

It is imperative that before we proceed to understand ‘Dominance without Hegemony”, we should understand the historical background of Subaltern Studies, its tenets and criticisms.

SUBALTERN STUDIES: The Subaltern Studies, a category of Post-Colonial Theory, was postulated by a coterie of eminent scholars. The concept of the subaltern was first proposed by Antonio Gramsci, a Marxist theorist and politician, in the Prison Notebooks (1929-1935). The subaltern referred to those oppressed groups enduring the brunt of hegemonic domination by an elite class and they are not permitted to partake in the creation of local history and culture. Gramsci investigated the subaltern’s consciousness, as opposed to the state’s historical accounts, which essentially focuses on the history of dominant classes [Louai, 2012:2]. Since the subalterns have yielded to the dominated groups, their history is not unified. This in turn has led to the limited means to manage their representation and thus, cannot access the state’s cultural and social institutions. The solution is to liberate the subaltern consciousness from the cultural hegemony of the elites.

Gramsci’s work invoked an interest in peasant historiography. Thus, the Subaltern Studies Collective was born in India during the 1980s. It aimed to undertake an investigation of Indian history and society as a narrative and focussed on the formation of the subaltern subject in Indian historiography [Louai, 2012:1]. Its founder, Ranajit Guha described Subaltern Studies as a general attribute of subordination in South Asian society, whether it is expressed in terms of gender, caste, class, etc.. [Louai, 2012:3] . It was to study the elites’ role and their representation.

In Can the Subaltern Speak? (1988), post-colonial feminist critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak tries to deal with the subject of the subaltern through the lens of post-structuralist theories. She attacks Gramsci for his emphasis on the autonomy of the subaltern subject, arguing that it ended up homogenizing the subaltern subjective identity. She proposed that there have been several changes in the wake of divisions of labour in a globalized context and capitalist politics that has weakened revolutionary voices. The Subaltern Studies Collective too falls into the trap of essentialism, determining which groups are part of the subaltern group. The subaltern, for her, is a situational concept, used under censorship by Gramsci that has now become the accepted concept to describe the proletariat.

Sumit Sarkar, former member of the Collective and currently an influential historian of modern India, also condemned radical left-social history for shifting its focus from cultural studies and critique of colonial discourse to post-modernism. There have been other criticisms, like essentializing the subaltern and getting distracted from its commitment to progressive social history.

Dominance without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India (1977): Authored by the founder of Subaltern studies, Ranajit Guha, it is one of the seminal works in the field of subaltern studies. While history textbooks in schools have always emphasized on the autocratic nature of the Empire, they always present the nationalist freedom struggle in a sanitized fashion, shielding its myriad contradictions. And this is where Guha’s real contribution lies; in questioning the nationalists’ claim to embody popular will.

Guha is not alone in this regard. In the academia, a debate was raging about South Asian historiography, with Touraj Atabaki, Shahid Amin, Gyan Pandey, Sumit Sarkar, Partha Chatterjee, Dipesh Chakrabarty and others expressing their disappointment with it.

HISTORIOGRAPHY AS SITE OF POWER STRUGGLES: So, where do we start digging for evidence of the contradictions that besieged both the colonial government and the Indian nationalist leaders? Guha chooses historiography since it witnessed tussles for hegemony (defined as a condition in which persuasion outweighs coercion) between the two parties. The genesis of this discontent could be found in the criticism levied by Indian intellectuals against the colonial administration. Since then, there has been a steady stream of criticism. However, Ranjit Guha argues that most of the critics assume singular, integrated domain of politics during that period. What they don’t realize that the field was actually bifurcated into autonomous spheres—the elite and the subaltern.

The assumptions about unitary domain of politics stem from the idea that it was the effect of the homogenizing influence of colonialism. Both kinds of historiographies—neo-colonialist and nationalist— boil down the myriad and complicated realm of politics to just elite contestation, ignoring the voice of the subordinate. While the ne-colonialist version perceived the colonial rule as a munificent order, introducing liberal education and incorporating the natives into politics by giving them multiple incentives. The activities of the Western educated elite were the only thing that mattered.

The nationalist historiography, on the other hand, only captured the elite’s response to the government and encapsulated all its activities. The masses—-comprising of labouring class and other intermediate strata– are considered to be passive pawns in the hands of dominant groups who use them as it suits their strategies. But, Guha insists that the subaltern politics is a separate, unique realm altogether.

To demonstrate this, Guha tries dissecting the colonial state, using the historiographical approach. The colonial state, unlike its originator, the metropolitan bourgeoisie state, has no hegemony since it relies upon coercive military power and not persuasion. Since it has not been able to assimilate the civil society of the civilized within its fold, it is not hegemonic. It negates the prevailing misconception in the academia that ‘with the ascendancy of the bourgeoisie in Western Europe, all of the power relations of civil society have everywhere been so fully assimilated to those of the state’ [Guha, 1977:10]. Hence, Guha is extremely sceptical of colonialist historiography’s claims about the supposed hegemony of the colonial state. Besides the colonial state, dominance without hegemony applies to the native bourgeoisie. They could not assimilate the consciousness of the masses either and as such, their attempts to speak for the nation were thwarted. Therefore, it was a battle for hegemony between the two parties.

INAUGURATION of COLONIALIST HISTORIOGRAPHY in SOUTH ASIA: Guha outlines the circumstances under which the first colonial historian was born. In 1765, with the East India Company taking over the post of Diwani, the official had to be apprised of the structure of landed property in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Dubbing it as the inaugural moment of the Raj, he argues that the grant to collect land revenue of eastern provinces and to administer civil services consolidated the colonial conquest. A triplicate of coercion, exploitation of land’s produce and the semblance of legality laid the foundation of the regime. Also, this spawned the initial attempts to build bureaucratic machinery which was well-attuned to its twin functions.

This entailed understanding the existing power relations. More specifically, it needed data about the volume and value of agricultural produce, the rules for extracting agricultural produce, the technicalities of estate accounts and nature of land tenures. This meant a deep understanding of the intricacies of traditions and past processes; essentially an understanding of history. It also stemmed from bureaucratic concerns about how to determine inheritance along lines of descent among the rich families. And this is where the first sign of elitist bias crops up.

However, the know-how, accessible to the native experts, was denied to the Company’s officials. The stand-off between the Company and the indigenous population antedated the accession, as evident in 1761, when Vereslt’s Council in Chittagong encountered reluctance of the latter to share information about management of revenue. In 1786, James Grant reported that a loss of around 15million rupees had resulted due to the refusal to share knowledge, used instead for individual enrichment. The tensions were exacerbated as the territories under the Raj’s purview expanded, the revenues increased and the complications in tenurial structures and accounting procedures multiplied. The more the officials failed to manage the increased revenues, the complicated tenurial structures and accounting procedures, the more the accounts presented the natives as inferior. As such, Warren Hastings’ prototype of natives as cooperative informants fell through, thus raising doubts about hegemonic role of western wisdom. The chasm grew further with the avarice underlining the faming system, the accelerated tax collections and the destruction of landed families owing to the stress of excessive fiscal demands, etc…

To avoid getting duped, the British launched the initiative to write Indian history from their point of view. There were essentially three kinds of historical dissertations: firstly, extensive surveys, written as political histories in which the ruling dynasties and changing circumstances. For eg: Alexander Dow’s The History of Hindoostan (1786-1772); secondly, narratives about dynastic histories which

focussed on the economy. For eg: Grants’ work; and thirdly, official reports about the relationship of power and property but at the local level. The collection of narratives altogether constituted colonial historiography, predicated not on the basis of a genuine need to disseminate liberal culture, but on the need to fulfil its material and political interests.

Not only the purpose, but also the style of writing marked a significant departure from the native chronicles. The writers, drawing on European and Whig historiography, converted the diachronic remembrance of past into a more general, distanced, objective historical account. History thus sounded the death-knell on tradition.

Colonial historiography was a convenient smokescreen for legitimising the Raj. The accounts projected local aristocracies as the rightful owners of land and then, through the construction of genealogies from antiquity and Mughal charters, tried to establish it as a long historical tradition in India to legitimise zamindari settlement. This helped disguise the disruption brought in by the western meddling into an Asian landed property. Moreover, by embellishing details of conquests starting from Turk-Afghans, they tried to naturalise the extraction of tribute by the conquerors. Ultimately, these worked in favour of the Raj which got entrenched as a rule of property and silenced all its critics.

Gradually, the individual accounts were turned into a full-fledged discourse, spanning the time period from Mill’s History of British India (1812) to Hunter’s Indian Empire (1881), which highlighted the victories of the colonial state. Whenever Indian history was incorporated into those accounts, there was deliberate effort to characterize the differences between the two as one between an affluent Western power and its poor Asian subjects, between higher and lower levels of civilization, between superior religion of Christianity and barbaric, superstitious indigenous belief systems.

Moreover, liberal-colonialist histories of the Raj exaggerated the universalizing tendency of capital i. e. its capacity to replicate its conditions (not just mode of production, but also the accompanying liberal culture) as in the West. But, Guha argues that the universalising tendency is in fact one of the biggest inconsistencies underlying capitalism. According to Marx, it is the natural tendency of capital to go beyond the spatial confines and to replace non-capitalist systems of production and exchange based on use-values. As a mode of production, it generates value-creating labour and capitalises on natural and human qualities. It appears to be an ever-expansive enterprise which not only surpasses limitations of territorial boundaries with ease, but also previous imagination of human needs. However, it soon confronts it limits. But, liberal-colonialist histories did not bother to acknowledge it. They assumed that all pre-capitalist relations have been subsumed by capital, thus endowing it with hegemony; a practice repeated by nationalist accounts as well.

At the same time, the appropriation of indigenous history enabled natives to redefine their identity. They used those very differences to distinguish themselves politically and culturally from their rulers. Thus, history became the battleground for both the parties’ claims and counter-claims. Guha argues that despite the constant jibes and hostile exchanges, there was a fundamental agreement between them that the ‘colonial state was an organic extension of metropolitan bourgeoisie state and colonialism; a supposedly positive affirmation of the universalising tendency of capital’ [Guha, 1977:23].

To illustrate the fallacy of feudal historiography, Guha mentions the historian Kalhana who authored Rajataranjini. Although Kalhana held himself to high standards of neutrality and objectivity, evident in his critical analysis of the rule of his patrons, and although he did raise doubts about the absence of popular uprising, he was deeply embedded in the superstitious fears of his time. For instance, he ended up attributing the cruelty of a king to the will of Gods. Kalahana’s historical accounts were not only stuck within the confines of feudal conceptual universe, but were also part of a political propaganda to persuade rulers of Kashmir to put their house in order. Basham, his harshest critic, ironically ended up committing the same mistake when he characterised his work as entertaining and instructing the royals. Thus, in both instances, history becomes an accomplice to the treatises on politics.

Guha contends that a genuine critique of ruling culture can only be sourced from a historically antagonistic universe [Guha, 1998:30]. For instance, Aristotle’s pro- slavery work was denounced by Montesquie and Hegel, pleading the cause of natural equality and universal equality, respectively. Both the stances can be traced to an era of rise of bourgeoisie ideology in Western society. This era also witnessed the emergence of a rationalistic visionand abstracted humanism which signals the gradual disappearance of all feudal beliefs and ideologies. For instance, Majumdar and Basham’s criticized Kalhana’s obsession with magic, witchcraft and karmafor lacking logic and neglecting role of man in creating his destiny. Therefore, history is riddled with precedents wherein an ‘ideology countering the ruling culture precedes the ascendancy of the class for which it speaks’, epitomised by the bourgeoisie class [Guha, 1998:32]. The latter, during the Enlightenment, waged a war on the feudal regime (including its mode of production and power relations) and gradually was able to replace it.

Similarly, the critique of bourgeoisie ideology must materialize from outside its universe and must seize the real contradictions inherent in capitalism to shake its foundation. A coterie of alternative ideals, values and lens will help reorient the dominant liberalism perspective. While the ideology may not actually make a dent in the material base of bourgeoisie structure and is still its infancy, yet the highlighting of the lacunae in the institution does pave the way for its eventual destruction.

DISCIPLINING AND MOBILIZING TACTICS: Guha reiterates that dominance was established at two levels, not just through the Raj but also through the indigenous elite’s control over subaltern population. He stated that historiography projected the idiom of ‘Improvement’ as proof of the Raj‘s liberal character. Antagonistic masses were sought to be placated through extension of patronage to local

arts, missionary efforts to alleviate lives of the marginalised, preservation of Indian heritage, etc… Even the teaching of history in schools had a debilitating effect, brainwashing locals into uncritically accepting the Empire as the culmination of a historic will, celebrating their own defeat. An entire generation of ‘yes men’, complacent in their subservience, was fostered. This was buttressed by the Indian concept of Dharma, used to assimilate dissidents by convincing them it was their moral duty to accept the status quo. For instance, in the name of Dharma, Gandhi urged enlistment in the Indian Ambulance Corps to help the Company during Boer War; collaborationist nationalism at its best! Even the Bhakti tradition’s principal modalities-the rasas encouraged servitude.

However, Guha attacks this myth of ‘benevolent guardian-state’. The colonial state, unlike the metropolitan bourgeoisie state, lacks hegemony since it has not been able to assimilate the civil society and relies upon coercion. The army and the bureaucracy imposed control on the press and even public services, by introducing municipalisation; all in the name of ‘Order’. In the countryside, the villagers were forcibly recruited for construction works, in plantations and in war. This was reinforced further by ‘Danda’, the indigenous notion of dominance imposed through caste sanctions and patriarchal moral codes which induced allegiance to Dharma.

There was not much change in the nationalist struggle as well. The nationalists were keen on mobilizing the masses since it would imply that the latter had submitted their loyalty to them from the imperial rulers. According to Guha, they deemed it as emblematic of their hegemony, which was believed to be crucial to its ambition of building a South Asian nation-state. They dreamed of enthusiastic masses congregating in public spaces to declare their war for their beloved motherland, sacrificing their savings and security of their homes to enlist as members in the great freedom struggle. The boundaries of caste, class, gender and regionalism will be transcended for the sake of the nation. The wilful enthusiasm mentally conjured up by the nationalists was to be a contrast to the colonial fantasy of collaboration. However, in discrediting the colonial empire and claiming it to be a dominant state without hegemony, it unwittingly revealed its hegemonic ambitions.

Guha draws attention to the tactics through which participation was extracted during the Swadeshi (1903-1098) and the Non-Cooperation (1920-1922) movements. The non-cooperation movement was a call to reclaim the lost prestige under the imperial regime. In opposition to the proposed visit of the British royal family member, allegedly to sell a false perception of content subjects, Gandhi planned for counter-demonstrations, like hartals/strikes and local boycotts of functions intended to celebrate the visit. The Swadeshi movement tried to further cement the perception of nationalist leaders as the “true representatives” of the people, but it failed miserably and a splintered hegemony was revealed.

While cases of physical intimidation, ranging from destroying imported goods to attacking individuals who dealt with the administration, were not unheard of, caste sanctions resulting in social ostracism were the more dangerous weapon in the armoury of Swadeshi leaders. Withdrawal of ritual services, refusal of inter-dining and boycott of ceremonies were common tactics used to shame the dissidents. Such sanctions were heavily applied in the most politically active regions like in Bengal, paradoxically hinting at a strong relation between nationalism and casteism. Caste sanctions were most effective to induce conformity since there was little possibility of reporting them and ensure humiliation. Although Swadeshi movement was meant to rescue people from the web of orthodox values and customs, it entrapped them further by employing traditional tropes of Sanatan Hinduism. Through the lexicon of patakas and acara, sins committed through transgression of caste norms like routine of bath, meditation, worship or butchering of cows, a seemingly secular political movement was recast in the throes of religion; equating patriotic duty with Dharma. For instance, refusing to go through the ritual of oath-taking in support of Swadeshi or wear rakhi on the wrist as a mark of solidarity with the campaign [Guha, 1977: 112]. Moreover, tadrupaya/ the rule of resemblance was used to include or exclude the blacklisted itemsand thereby, expand the scope of sin and impurity. It was creatively used to encompass goods from Germany, Britain and Austria, deemed impure, like chinaware, leather shoes, coloured prints, cigarettes, sugar, salt and cotton textiles. Other anti-swadeshi transgressions included pollution by samsarga/contact or association; a sin often incurred by Brahmins who did not stop offering their ritual services to the individuals who were being ex-communicated for anti-national activities [Guha, 1977: 114] Besides Brahmins, barbers and washer men, tradesmen and agriculturalists, even doctors and lawyers joined the bandwagon, in denying to see clients not supporting Swadeshi movement. Guha states that since the political ethos was so entrenched in Hinduism and the discrimination between purity and impurity and pollution established as a defining principle of nationalist conduct, liberal professions identified with modernity and secularism was seduced by the same logic [Guha, 1977: 119]. Hence, he argues, the essentials of Indian politics can never be grasped without an understanding of religion.

Rabindranath Tagore was a vitriolic critic of this kind of mobilization, entrenched in force and isolating impact it had on the people, as opposed to galvanizing them into action. Gandhi too was critical, to a certain extent, to be critical of those sanctions he termed as ‘social boycott’, which included the denial of services, which he condemned as barbaric and inhuman. He preferred ‘political boycott’, which meant to deprive oneself by refusing to accept water or food at the hands of those boycotted or enter into marriage alliances. But these lines, Guha argues, were very easily blurred.

Moreover, the elitist strains in the movement showed up in the leaders’ denunciation of the subaltern participants. Gandhi expressed his distaste by labelling it ‘mobocracy’, loathing their lack of premeditation. Guha counteracted that the subalterns willingly imposed discipline on themselves as they mobilized for corporate labour, local conflict or communal rejoicing. Yet, a code was laid out for crowd control, not only measuring out the spots at which the people have to gather but also at what intervals should the national cries be allowed. This was not only about physical control but also about soul control (entailing abstinence), a concept yet again borrowed from the spiritual vocabulary. All these ended up alienating Muslims, peasants and workers. Clearly, the nationalist movement failed to live up to its own ideals.

TENSIONS WITHIN NATIONALIST HISTORIOGRAPHY: Guha states that with the onset of an all-India mobilization for nationalist struggle, the Congress presented itself as the sole spokesperson for the people. It staked its claim to hegemony and pressed it against not just the colonial regime, but also against the Muslim League, left-nationalist and socialist parties. The Congress had to confront challenges to its claim of representativeness time and again by the peasants and workers. The party’s unitary notion of nationalism had to contend with the two-nation concept proposed by the Muslim League. The interests of the peasants could not be included within any of its programmes and could not be entrusted to a party comfortable with pre-capitalist modes of production that paradoxically served to strengthen the British reign. The workers too were influenced by socialist ideologies and the October Revolution as well as by the impact of the Depression, and hence had become ‘militant’, perceived to be an unresolved threat by the party.

It based its hegemonic claim on the basis of an India past, which varied according to the different strains in nationalist ideology. From Gandhi to Rabindranath Tagore to Nehru, the past has been imagined in multiple ways—as an autonomous civil society, as spiritual achievements and moral superiority or as secular unity of politics and fusion of diverse cultures. As such, a body of literature accumulated during the period spanning from the Swadeshi to the Quit India movement.

Guha traces the birth of native historiography to colonial officers’ attempt to harness Indian languages for consolidating their rule. It gradually bore the stamp of its colonial predecessors. With the present marking the point of departure and detachment from Puranic discourse, native accounts became secularised and could qualify for the epithet of ‘history’. Adoption of Bengali as the official medium of public instruction, rising demand for historical literature and Orientalism strengthened the impulse further. It enabled natives to redefine their identity by appropriating indigenous history.

This fledgling nationalist historiography was to counteract the spurious claims of hegemony by the Raj, as propagated by James Mill’s tradition of colonialist writing on the Indian past [Guha, 1998:153]. However, its claim to hegemony was as unhistorical as the colonial rulers. This proclivity, for a progressive, liberal spirit in accordance with modern nation-state formation, has now become fully formalised and established as part of India’s official history.

However, Guha accuses it of being just as elitist. While its emphasis on mobilization could counteract the misnomer of collaboration rampant in colonial historiography, its assertions of unquestioned authority are specious. Likening the Congress to a messiah leading his devotees to spiritual liberation, nationalist historiography tried to drum up the image of clueless masses who were to be led to glory. It also absolved the Congress of its ineptness in reconciling opposing factions.

Guha laments that nationalist historiography also failed since it did not question the necessity of the colonial state. It clung resolutely to the pattern set by British pedagogy manuals that merely traced the reign of governor-generals, administrative measures and incorporation of regions into the Empire. The other stream of native accounts, though critical of British renderings of the past, was only meant to correct the Kalamka/slander against the Indians and to acquire some prestige, not to forsake loyalty to the Company. Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay’ sagenda for Indian historiography in 1880 marked an incipient nationalism. Rejecting British writings of Indian past, in Bangadarshan (1880) he urged a local re-writing, essential for Jatipratishtha/nation-formation. He also devised the concept of Bahubol/physical strength to counter colonial construction of the frail native. Yet, it did not suffice as a mechanism for undermining the foundations of the Raj.

Guha contends that a critique of bourgeoisie ideology must materialize from a historically antagonistic universe. He insists that subaltern politics holds the key. It embodies the notion of Dharmic protest, including mass desertions by labourers, peasant uprisings, sitting on hartals, withdrawal of labour or denying specialist services; as against elite collaborators. While the ideology may not actually make a dent in the material base of bourgeoisie structure and is still its infancy, yet highlighting the lacunae in the institution does pave the way for its eventual destruction.

CHALLENGES AND CRITICISMS: Following Guha’s contribution, there was an implosion of views in the arena of subaltern studies, which will be fruitful to pursue. Sociologist Vivek Chibber, in his Postcolonial theory and the Spectre of Capital (2013), is sceptical of Guha’s claim that the bourgeoisie democracy of postcolonial India could qualify as ‘dominance without hegemony’. He argues that none of the bourgeoisie revolutions, whether of the English or the French, were ever hegemonic. Thereafter, he proceeds to uncover the past of these revolutions, trying to prove that neither the revolution in England targeted feudalism nor the French revolution’s participants were capitalists. Chibber also accuses Guha of harbouring a Whig view of history. In addition, he alleges that Guha had claimed the hegemony of the bourgeoisie was based on the inclusion of subaltern’s interests.

Renowned historian and author of Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World (1986), Partha Chatterjee refutes these accusations of shortcomings in Subaltern Studies. He argues that Chibber had misread the claim about hegemonic bourgeoisie revolutions since it was meant to challenge the representations of liberal historiography and not intended to be a historical sociological account of bourgeoisie revolutions of Europe. Chatterjee points out that Guha had actually attacked liberal historiography for exaggerating the universalising tendency of capital, and for uncritically celebrating the bourgeoisie revolutions of England and France. He also rejects Chibber’s historical comparison between India during 20th century with England during 17th and France during 18th centuries. He states that the Indian bourgeoisie in 20th century had to actually be compared with the bourgeoisie of the European and North American countries following the Second World War. Also, by Indian bourgeoisie, Guha was referring to the middle strata between the aristocratic class and the lower, labouring class, and not to capitalists per se. Guha has been able to capture true essence of hegemonic bourgeoisie when he says, drawing on Antonio Gramsci, that it is able to represent its own interests as the universal interests of society [Chatterjee, 2013:70]. Chatterjee attacks Chibber for misinterpreting the concept of abstract labour. Since the latter has conceptualised capitalism in terms of a system with generalised market dependence, he has neglected the significance of wage labour to the emergence of abstract labour in capitalism [Chibber, 2014:84].

       Chibber in turn tries to defend his stance. He points out that Guha was indeed referring to the capitalists. He also argues that wage labour is just another kind of market dependence. Chibber further counter-argues that Chatterjee had discounted the interests of peasants and workers in the context of political mobilization, thus invoking an ‘Orientalist perception’ of the East. He adds that the community ideology did not hold much sway among peasants during political struggle and if it did, it was only due to their calculated interests, which is negated by Chatterjee for the fear of it being a “bourgeoisie consciousness” [Chibber, 2014:85].

CONCLUSION: The colonial state boasted of uncontested dominance by flaunting the support pledged by the indigenous elite. The Congress in turn showcased the mobilized millions as proof of the Indians’ uncritical acceptance of its leaders’ hegemonic claims. Guha is disparaging of their claims to hegemony. Both kinds of historiographies—colonialist and nationalist— boil down the varied and complicated realm of politics to just elite contestation, ignoring the voice of the subalterns. He proposes subaltern politics as an alternative solution.

However, despite building a case for subaltern politics, Guha does not divulge much detail about alternative protest fields. He also leaves out the campaigns by women activists which ran parallel to the nationalist agenda. Moreover, Guha does not question the violence embedded in the act of transforming native remembrance of past into history. The marginalised have alternative ways of remembering the past, like oral histories, which continue to be excluded from modern historical accounts. Thirdly, it is questionable whether the western bourgeoisie had actually reconciled the interests of opposing subaltern factions like the working classes.

In conclusion, for those who have grown up on a staple diet of history textbooks valorising the nationalist freedom struggle, Guha’s work is an eye-opener. By unveiling the ideological charade of a united front and highlighting the discrepancies within, the book attacks some of the misconceptions fostered by historiographers who went into an overdrive to cover up the evidence to the contrary. What is also interesting is the way Guha’s work reveals how historical writings are not as objective as they claim but are fostered by the political circumstances and the ideological underpinnings of their time.

FURTHER READING

·        Bahl, V. (1997), “Relevance (or Irrelevance) of Subaltern Studies”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 32, No. 23, pp. 1333-1344, Available: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4405482

·         Chatterjee, P. (2013), “Subaltern Studies and Capital”, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. xlviii, No. 37

·         Chibber, V. (2014) “Making sense of postcolonial theory: a response to GayatriChakravortySpivak”, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 27:3, 617-624, Available: http://sociology.fas.nyu.edu/docs/IO/225/Chibber_ResponsetoSpivak.pdf

·         Chibber, V. (2013), “Postcolonial Theory and the Spectre of Capital”,VersoBooks,London

·        Chibber, V. (2014), “Revisiting Subaltern Studies”, Economic and Political Weekly,Vol. xlix 82, No. 9, Available: http://www.epw.in/journal/2014/9/discussion/revisiting-subaltern-studies.html

·        Fisher, M.H. (May, 2001), “Book Review of Dominance Without Hegemony”,The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 60, No. 2 pp. 582-583, Available: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2659752

·         Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks, London: Lawrence &Wishart.

·         Guha, R.(written in 1977, 1998 edition),“Dominance Without Hegemony”,Oxford University Press,Delhi

·        Louai, E.H.(2012),“Retracing the concept of the subaltern from Gramsci to Spivak: Historical developments and new applications”,African Journal of History and Culture, Vol. 4(1), pp. 4-8, Available:http://www.academia.edu/6286304/Retracing_the_concept_of_the_subaltern_from_Gra msci_to_Spivak_Historical_developments_and_new_applications

·        Prakash, G. (Dec., 1994),“Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism”, The American Historical Review, Vol. 99, No. 5, pp. 1475-1490, Available:http://www.jstor.org/stable/2168385

·        Rohini, S. (2002), “Whither Subaltern Studies?”,Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 37, No. 29, pp. 3076-3077, Available:http://www.jstor.org/stable/4412393

·         Sarkar, S. (2002). The decline of the subaltern in subaltern studies. Reading subaltern studies: Critical history, contested meaning and the globalization of South Asia, 400-429.

• Spivak, G.C.(1988). “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds.),University of Illinois Press, Available: http://www.uky.edu/~tmute2/geography_methods/readingPDFs/spivak.pdf

• http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Historiography “What is historiography?”, New World Encyclopaedia

WEB LINKS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXKyxc6pzb4 —- Subaltern Studies Panel Discussion on 30 Years of RanajitGuha’s Elementary Aspects by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6Heu5TRDB8 —- VivekChibber: Postcolonial Theory and ‘Really Existing Capitalism’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbM8HJrxSJ4 —- Debate: Marxism & the Legacy of Subaltern Studies – Historical Materialism NY 2013