Eugene Salazar March 31, 2008

Lit 202 Texts and Textuality Mr. Oscar V. Campomanes

Reaction Paper to Ranajit Guha’s The Prose of Counter Insurgency

Ranajit Guha is an extremely difficult critic to read although his insights are very original
in terms of articulating the nuances of the notions of subalternity in the ways of textual
representation in the Indian subcontinent. With his formidable intellect, Guha
approximates the problem of counterinsurgency as one that is precipitated not by
mindless and reactionary movements and uprisings fueled only by hate and revenge. In
fact Guha asserts that most of the peasant and local insurgencies in the different
provinces of India were ones that were preceeded by meaningful table talks. They only
led to outright rebellion after all exhaustible and fair bargainings were pursued.

In The Prose of Counter Insurgency, Guha directs the reader to the active role of the
historians and researchers as they engage in recoding accounts of insurrections among the
scattered communities where the British rule in India. Guha criticizes the way these
historians write since they are representatives of the interests of the state. In fact many of
these chroniclers serve in the British colonial government in India. Although such claim
is correct, it may also be indicated that objectivity may or may not be reached by such
accounts. What is acute in Guha’s observation is the fact that attempts to make these
recordings objective (because the recorders where not direct observers and therefore are
presumed as clinically detached from inserting their biases) are merely politicized
maskings of the true intent of the chroniclers. Guhat even provides an analytical
comparisons of strands of writing which he calls segments and micro-sequences. Tracing
their lines of reasoning and presuppositions Guha, astutely points out the flaws of such
recordings by describing also the nature of the sources. He aptly calls them primary,
secondary and tertiary in reference both to the closeness of the historian to the time frame
of the actual event and his access to the records that purportedly record the events.

Guha’s brilliant way of exposing inner inconsistencies and carefully veiled assumptions
smack of a writer who is both original and astute but creatively brilliant as well. His
mastery of the mechanisms of colonialism in his home country as well as its expressions
in various forms (“as materialized by property allotment, institutionalized by law,
sanctified by religion and made tolerable-even desirable by tradition” to quote Guha)
knows no limit. His acuity in pointing out the prejudices and flaws of the methodologies
of history writing is matched by his courage in speaking up against such glaring evils of
colonial “scholarship” He moves around the discourse of colonialism and its dalliance
with the local systems of governance and exposes the false assumptions compromised
even by the Raj system. Guha does not only diagnose the cancer but provides a proper
prognosis of solution- recognition of the distortions implicit in the ways historiography
has been done in South Asia, as well as dismantling elitisms brought about by foreign
rule. For this Guha stands as one of the most articulate and vociferous critics of distorted
ways of reading and writing history in India.