Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism 1477
nationalist hagiography , but its elite-based analysis turned the common people into dupes of their superiors . Marxists contested both nationalist historiography and the " Cambridge School " interpretation , but their mode-of-production narratives merged imperceptibly with the nation-state ' s ideology of modernity and progress . This congruence meant that while championing the history of the oppressed classes and their emancipation through modern progress , the Marxists found it difficult to deal with the hold of " backward " ideologies of caste and religion . Unable to take into account the oppressed ' s " lived experience " of religion and social customs , Marxist accounts of peasant rebellions either overlooked the religious idiom of the rebels or viewed it as a mere form and a stage in the development of revolutionary consciousness . Thus , although Marxist historians produced impressive and pioneering studies , their claim to represent the history of the masses remained debatable .
Subaltern Studies plunged into this historiographical contest over the representation of the culture and politics of the people . Accusing colonialist , nationalist , and Marxist interpretations of robbing the common people of their agency , it announced a new approach to restore history to the subordinated . Started by an editorial collective consisting of six scholars of South Asia spread across Britain , India , and Australia , Subaltern Studies was inspired by Ranajit Guha . A distinguished historian whose most notable previous work was A Rule of Property for Bengal ( 1963 ), Guha edited the first six Subaltern Studies volumes . 5 After he relinquished the editorship , Subaltern Studies was published by a rotating two-member editorial team drawn from the collective . Guha continues , however , to publish in Subaltern Studies , now under an expanded and reconstituted editorial collective .
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SUBALTERN STUDIES was aimed to promote , as the preface by Guha to the first volume declared , the study and discussion of subalternist themes in South Asian studies . 6 The term " subaltern ," drawn from Antonio Gramsci ' s writings , refers to subordination in terms of class , caste , gender , race , language , and culture and was used to signify the centrality of dominant / dominated relationships in history . Guha suggested that while Subaltern Studies would not ignore the dominant , because the subalterns are always subject to their activity , its aim was to " rectify the elitist bias characteristic of much research and academic work " in South Asian studies . 7 The act of rectification sprang from the conviction that the elites had exercised dominance , not hegemony , in Gramsci ' s sense , over the subalterns . A reflection of this belief was Guha ' s argument that
institutions . As the official institutions reached down to the locality and the province , the elites reached up to the central level to secure their local and regional dominance , finding nationalism a useful instrument for the articulation of their interests .
5 Ranajit Guha , A Rule of Property for Bengal ( Paris , 1963 ). I should also mention his important
article , " Neel Darpan : The Image of a Peasant Revolt in a Liberal Mirror ," Journal of Peasant Studies , 2 ( 1974 ): 1-46 , which anticipates his fuller critique of elite historiography .
6 Ranajit Guha , Subaltern Studies I ( Delhi , 1982 ), vii .
7 Guha , Subaltern Studies I , vii .
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW DECEMBER 1994