Un-archived Histories: The 'Mad' and the 'Trifling'

Author(s): GYANENDRA PANDEY

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 47, No. 1 (JANUARY 7, 2012), pp. 37-41
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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 PERSPECTIVES
Un-archived Histories:
The 'Mad' and the 'Trifling'
GYANENDRA PANDEY
Traditional historians hold that
parent contradiction in terms. It
there can be no history without
an archive. But how is one to
announces a challenge to the tra
write a history of prejudice where be no history without an archive. Derrida,
the evidence that identifies or
signifies its everyday forms and
discriminatory behaviour is
scrappy and ambiguous? The
common sense of polarised race,
caste, class or gender relations is
articulated in rarely archived,
historically unpretty and
unacknowledged actions. Out of
what archive is the history of
these practices, which are not
events, not datable or even
nameable, to be written?
Gyanendra Pandey (gpande2@emory.edu)
teaches history at Emory University, the US.
Economic & Political weekly B353 January 7, 2012 vol xlvii no 1
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to be classified as "non-sense", gibberish,
madness, and is dispatched therefore to a
domain outside history. In this process of
selecting, framing, authorising, as even the
most hard-boiled of traditional historians
will acknowledge, every archive necessarily
excludes a great deal that is not of direct
interest to its custodians.
The early modern and the colonial
state's archive of land relations was sharply
Un-archived histories is an ap
focused on the question of (the enhance
ditional historians' argument that there can ment of) revenue, just as the colonial state's
archive of peasant protest and rebellion
among others, has helped put a question was built around the category of crime
mark on this apparently simple equation, (law and order) (Guha 1983,1984). Again,
history —> archive/archive -» history, census operations, classification and count
through a proposition about the place of ing, have been ways of fixing and manag
the archive in modern times, and the work ing diverse populations, hence of reducing
it does and undoes in the practice of his population groups to a few clear-cut, man
tory and politics. ageable and statistically accountable cate
gories. In more recent times of "represent
Remembering and Forgetting ative" government, they have also provided
Political power entails control of the archive a means of staking claims (and counter
and of memory, Derrida notes. Democrati claims) on the issue of differential access
sation may be measured, then, in terms of to state resources and political power
the extent of the access of different groups (Barrier 1981; Cohn 1996; Anderson 2006,
and classes to the constitution and inter Chapter 10). Similarly, the modern archive
pretation of the archive. (The "un-archivedof linguistic practice has been concerned
histories" of my title are, precisely, thosewith the fixing of various means and codes
to which we are denied access.) Whereverof communication as particular objects
secrets and heterogeneity exist, he argues,called "languages" - pure or (more or less)
wherever they are not already gatheredmixed. It may help to illustrate the last,
into a consignation (a single corpus, unitedand apparently most technical (hence
in its ideal configuration), it is a "menace"scientific?), of these archiving processes
or challenge to the theory of the archive; tothrough an example from south Asia -
the archive as "commencement" (origin)that of Hindavi as the sign of a language
and "commandment" (authority), as wellcommunity and medium of communication
as the unified, that is to say, the exclusive
in precolonial north India.
and unquestioned, ground for historical Rather than enjoying a continuous, auto
knowledge. Derrida's (1996: 3, 4, 91 andnomous existence, a designated place in a
passim) idea of a "trouble", sickness, fever oflinguistic continuum or thoroughfare, Hin
(for) the archive - trouble de I'archive, maldavi inhabited a zone of pronounced indeter
d'archive - refers to the passionate, restminacy before the now well-documented
less, interminable search for the (authori19th century Hindi-Urdu divide. It was only
tative, commanding, originary) archive,in the late 18th and more clearly in the
"right where it slips away.... right where19th centuries that this particular linguistic/
something in it unarchives itself". cultural inheritance came to be seen,
For the disciplinary historian, the archivesimultaneously, as more or less Persianised
may fairly be described as a site of selectionand Sanskritised. As Rashmi Bhatnagar
and classification, of framing and authoris(2011), a scholar charting the history of
ing. In Foucauldian terms, the archivethe Indian vernacular under the aegis of
authorises what may be said, laying down
the colonial and postcolonial states puts it,
the rules of the "sayable", negating (making the concept of a linguistic continuum -
inaudible and illegible) much that comeswhich is fundamental to the archive of
37
PERSPECTIVES

languages - tells us nothing aboutwhich,

what through knowing [something] belligerent
too statement against persistent
fills out the Hindavi literary imaginary,
much, passes it over". caste prejudice, derision and discrimination
"the histories that are remembered in independent India's public life. The
by follows, I explore the apparent
In what
keeping open the channel between contradiction
lan contained in the phrasestatement formed part of his judgment in
guages [the relevant ones in the"un-archived
case of State vs Bhaiyan, a case in which a poor
histories" through an exami
Hindavi include Persian, Awadhi and way-side barber showed disinclination to
nation of signs, traces, evidence of human
cuta the hair of a dalit customer, and in the
Braj], nor [about] ... the poetics of this open activities and relationships - the body as
passage between vernaculars." The pro register of events; inchoate dreams; gestures,end cut his hair outside, rather than inside,
duction of Hindavi as an archive object pauses, gut-reactions; feelings of ecstasy, the shop and at an inflated cost. Given
defined by script and religion, as it was in humiliation, pain - that cannot easilythat
be no one disputed the facts, the young
the later 19th and 20th centuries, erases, articulated or read, let alone archived, but
magistrate could have proceeded immedi
in her words (Bhatnagar 2011), "significant that nevertheless call out for attention in ately to pronounce judgment and sentence
dimensions of its material existence as our historical investigations. In order to the accused. However, the dalit officer felt
make the analysis more specific and his it necessary at the same time to comment
bodily, performative, musical, affective
and narrative practices".1 torically grounded than it might otheron the wider social forces and prejudices
In short, the very process of archivingwise
is be, I turn, for this exercise, to some at work (Singh: 224-27):
research I have been doing on the struggle
accompanied by a process of "un-archiving": In the eyes of a Hindu even a dog can be
against casteism and racism in India and
rendering many aspects of social, cultural, allowed to enter the shop but not a human
the United States (us), and on the preju
political relations in the past and the being who by force of circumstances and ill
luck happened to be born in so-called scheduled
dices central to the question of caste and
present as incidental, chaotic, trivial, incon
castes. The Hindu society is a society of...
race.
sequential, and therefore unhistorical. In a A more complete statement of the re meanness and a store house of degradations.
word, the archive, as a site of remem
sults of this investigation is forthcoming ...Every conservative Hindu house is a South
in is
brance, doing the work of remembering, my book entitled A History of Prejudice: Africa [a domain of apartheid] for a poor un
the Struggle against Race and Caste in
also at the same time a project of forget touchable who is still being crushed under
India and the USA. Here I draw on some of the heels of Hindu Imperialism.
ting. For Foucault, madness (or un-reason),
logically enough, designates the limitsthe
ofkinds of evidence considered in the "For officers from the low castes", Singh
reason and history, hence too the limitsbook
of to make an argument about preju
writes in an autobiography published three
the archive. As he has it in the prefacedice,
to common sense and the archive decades
of later, "things were ... complicated.
human history.
the 1961 edition of his History of Madness They were acceptable [only] if they ac
(Foucault 2006: xxxii), cepted the prevailing ... social norms". He
History of the 'Everyday' might have made the point more strongly
The necessity of madness throughout the
How, we have to ask ourselves, does one
history of the West is linked to that decisive still. It is probably fair to say that such
action that extracts a significant languagewrite a history of prejudice; something
officers were tolerated if they accepted
from the background noise and its continu upper caste ways and attitudes, and yet
that, by definition, resists historicisation,
ous monotony, a language which is trans and even acknowledgement: a history that never fully accepted as social peers.2 Low
mitted and culminates in time; it is, in
caste officials suffered from much social
is at the same time a history of the reign
short, linked to the possibility of history
(emphasis in original). ing "common sense", and of the pervasive indignity and humiliation. Expressions of
violence allowed by that common sense?
grievance on their part were commonly met
He notes as well that (ibid) Two examples, drawn from very different
with the response that these were "trivial",
locations, should serve to indicate the"inconsequential" matters (Singh: 196-97).
the perception that Western man has of his
own time and space allows a structure ofsignificance
re of the question. The first isIt is perhaps not surprising that the
fusal to appear, on the basis of which a the
dis case of a young dalit man who was, forjudgment in State vs Bhaiyan was followed
course is denounced as not being language,five years from 1959 to 1964, a member quickly
of by charges and complaints against
a gesture as not being an oeuvre, a figure as
the elite Indian Administrative Service (ias),
Balwant Singh about several alleged acts of
having no rightful place in history.
the successor to the famed Indian Civil commission and omission. A local Congress
I want here to draw attention to another Party member of the state legislature
Service of British colonial times; the second,
boundary of history and the archive,
thea story of a brave African-American
accused him of lying in connection with
boundary marked not by the exile (thatwoman
is the administration's efforts to maintain
who moved, with her 10 children,
set outside society and, thereby, history),
from sharecropping in rural Georgia, deep
peace on the occasion of a hunger strike by
a Hindu Mahasabha worker. He was
but by the ordinary, the everyday, theinevthe us south, to relatively comfortable
middle class circumstances in the course
er-present, yet trivialised or trifling: con described as unduly sensitive by the chief
ditions, practices, relationships, expecta
of a few decades in the mid-2oth century. secretary, the senior-most civil servant of
tions and agendas so common as to not
The relevant part of the experience ofthe province: "My friend, your work is not
the dalit bureaucrat, Balwant Singh, is asthe consideration. You are supersensitive
even be noticed. This is a limit that is, indeed,
follows. His brief career in the ias ended
not far removed from Foucault's (2006: and not settling down"; and, by his account,
in May 1964, soon after he recorded a told by the same person to "shut up" and not
xxxiv) suggestion of a "calm... knowledge

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 PERSPECTIVES

"talk like a clerk or a tehsildar" (lower-level

However, the writing is rarely far removedunderlying prejudices, that make for the
fromand
revenue officials, unworthy of the status day-to-day enactment of caste and race
what "whites" and "blacks", men and
standing of the ias!) when he sought anrich and poor, had given to themdiscrimination in India and the us. In the
women,
explanation for the effective "demotion"
by law and inheritance. "The white man
postcolony, as in the colony, in the 19th
could as
he was being given through a posting not loose [lose]", she writes in her
and 21st centuries, and even in what are
assistant commissioner (Singh: 210-17). seen as relatively free and democratic
notes on "growing up" in the early 20th
The common criticism, and evencentury,
more repeating the proposition three
societies today, notwithstanding all the
times on one page. "The coloured man
usual view, that many dalits and African political advances that have taken place, a
Americans and women (including in those
could not win". The whites bragged that
violence - institutionalised in practices of
categories, of course, dalit and Africanthey were "Free, White and Twenty-one",racism, slavery, untouchability - serves to
American women) - to name only theand powerful. "They looked down
young maintain the existing social order and
on everyone else", she notes: not onlypersistent boundaries between racially or
groups whose history I have been research
"Niggers" as they called them, but all
ing - complain of "trivial", "trifling" matters, socially segregated communities.7 Studies
races,
is entirely in line with this response. And "Orientals, Asians".5 of the African-American middle classes

when they write, it is sometimes said,The have shown how black middle class areas in
matter of race was a running battle
they
inside the Andrews' home as well. Viola's
write "unscientifically" and "emotionally", most large American cities still remain
in texts that inhabit the domain of the husband, George, fair-skinned, blonde,bound within segregated black communi
blue-eyed, yet socially and officially black -ties. In many instances, where black mid
merely "ordinary". The "ordinary": that is
since he was the son of a white man and a
to say, not history. As M S S Pandian (2010: die class groups have moved out or tradi
101 and passim) puts it, in a sensitive read
black woman - was desperate to fit in with tionally black neighbourhoods, their relo
ing of a number of dalit autobiographical
the local African-American community, cation has been followed by the phenome
writings, "The everydayness and repeata
"Deadly against Educated Niggers" (Viola's non of "white flight" from the areas they
words), and a firm believer that African have moved into, leading to the establish
bility of untouchability in these texts [as
of racial and sexual humiliation in others]Americans should never try to be "above ment of separate white and black neigh
place them outside the domain of history".3themselves". Viola was exactly the oppo bourhoods once again.8 Even where this is
The other example I want to provide in
site, ferociously ambitious for her children not so obviously the case in physical terms,
illustration of our inherited view of history(and, more quietly, for herself). Constant as might be claimed for dalit professionals
comes from the unpublished reminiscences strife was thus a feature of their rural home. in India (smaller in number than their

of a relatively unknown woman, mother,

Viola Andrews' autobiography recalls her African-American counterparts, and less
sharecropper, seamstress, writer and reli
father-in-law as being "mean and cruel" easily distinguished by skin colour or physical
during the time that they lived on his land appearance), it has long been the social
gious educator from Georgia called Viola
Perryman Andrews. She began writing
in the 1930s, dependent on him. When a psychological condition under which ex
her autobiography at the height of the civilcow got loose, she recalls, he cursed her
slave, ex-untouchable, lower-class middle
soundly. She had to accept this quietly for classes have to live and find their being
rights movement, in one of its most impor
tant headquarters, Atlanta. She wrote
fear that he would hit her, even if no damage (Scott 1997; Goffman 1963; Guru 2011).
was done. "Anyway he was a white man
throughout the tumultuous mid-1960s, and The violence in question is to be found
long afterwards. Two of her older sons,and I was on his place, also I was Black."6 not only in physical and sexual abuse,
among the first readers of the first parts of When Viola Andrews writes that she rape and flogging of lower caste and class
her life story, and themselves both on has not attended to "race relations", she servants
is and workers; and not only in riots
their way to becoming well-known artists, and police violence against blacks and
clearly thinking of demonstrations, sit-ins
immediately asked her why she had not and other dramatic events of the civil dalits. It may be traced, too, in the upper
addressed the issue of race politics. Viola
rights' movement in the 1950s and 1960s.
caste desertion of neighbourhoods, clubs,
Andrews responded somewhat defensively.
The theme of her own autobiographyschools,
is public transport and sometimes
"The reader may wonder", she interrupts
her family, and its straggle to make good
even jobs into which the lower castes have
her writing, begun in 1963, to say in 1979, been allowed entry. It is seen in actions
in an exceptionally difficult environment.
"why I am not writing about Race Rela against affirmative action, in the courts
For her sons, this does not qualify as being
and the legislatures as well as on the
tions. I am writing as I knew and saw itquite on par with the civil rights struggle.
then and there.... I was young and I knew streets, and in the continued abuse and
And Viola seems, at some level, to agree
nothing about Race Relationship."* Yet, with them. History, with a capital H, must
punishment of dalits, blacks and other such
much of what Viola writes about is in fact be Eventful. The personal, the familial,
stigmatised, "lower class" populations for
the invidious state of black/white rela the everyday is, by comparison, trivial.appearing where they are still not expected
tions and its deplorable consequences. to be. The African-American addition to
She focuses on the fortunes of her Archive of the Commonplace the list of statutory offences relating to
Following the above examples, it is neces
immediate family, and the effort to find drinking and driving in the us (not only
the minimum resources necessary for sur
sary to put forward a slightly more general
dui, "driving under the influence", and dwi,
vival and the education of her children. statement about the violence, and "driving
the while intoxicated", but also dwb,

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PERSPECTIVES e

in the wake of the now incontrovertible

"driving while black", which is of coursethe recoil, the refusal to touch; what in
not a legally cognisable offense!), and theIndia is called untouchability. How, we
feminist slogan, "The personal is political".
Native American version of it (in which must ask, out of what archive, are we to "Soft history", it is sometimes whispered,
and often assumed. "What does this have
Dwi becomes "driving while Indian"), is awrite a history of these practices, which
profound comment on the necessity of be are not events, not datable, sometimes not
to do with the making and transformation
ing "white", "modern", and mono-cultural in nameable either; just routine, everydayof- historical states and societies - real His
a very particular way, to fully access thethe very stuff of life and, we must insist,
tory?" The problem for the historian of the
resources and opportunities of modernof history. un-archived is this: how shall we make the
civic existence. personal (sexual orientation, control of the
Returning more directly to the question Knowledge of the 'Trifling' body, dreams, fears), the trivial (routinised,
of the archive, I would submit that theThe disciplinary historian, like the judge,
habitual arrangements and behaviour),
archive for the kinds of histories referred and the unacknowledged (ambivalence,
seeks verifiable evidence, identity, deter
to above is bound to be unconventional, mination, motivated authorship - in thisuncertainty, incomprehension, polyphony,
even subterranean. Put simply, the evidence case, through what might be classified gibberish)
as politically legible, without sur
that identifies or signifies everyday preju an official (cognisable) archive. A critical
rendering to the reigning common sense?9
dice and discriminatory behaviour is fleet history needs to be a little more historical: The issue of legibility/intelligibility is
ing and chancy, scrappy and ambiguous. aware of the location (and fallibility) of crucial here. Knowledge is always power
For it is not always in the form of physical both historian and archive, and of the
knowledge. Intelligibility is a function of
power as well. Hence "knowing some
torture or verbal abuse that practices of fact that it is never an autonomous, self
thing too much" (in Foucault's words) can
discrimination, objectification and humil generated, sovereign, rational, and wholly
iation are perpetuated, or that instigation lead us to miss it, precisely because our
articulate, human subject who lies at the
to (renewed) violence occurs. Nor is preju heart of human endeavour and human knowledge constructs grids of intelligibility
dice often proclaimed from the rooftops. foible. It is in this context that I have that filter out what we can and cannot

Indeed, one might say, it is hardly self gestured toward routine elements in know the about things. Yet there is a curious
conscious. It appears, instead, as common past and the present that have not been,kind
or of knowing involved in the routine
sense, as the natural order of things. What cannot be, archived: the meanings that
and the everyday that I have focused on
here. For the things it passes over are
is, is - and, if all were properly ordered, discrete gatherings and belief systems and
almost not-knowledge. It is a knowledge
must be. It is in this way that the idea of channels of communication give to familiar
the "lazy", "dirty", "inefficient", "slow to tales and mundane practices; pauses, ges
beneath notice, not worth knowing, beneath
learn", and yet "untrustworthy", "aggres tures and silences; indeterminacy, incom
legibility. Trifling. Trivialised.
sive", "clannish" dalit or black (or other prehension and polyphony; the unremarked,The insurgent political moment - the anti
impoverished denizen of the ghettoes and the trifling and the intangible. colonial uprising, the women's movement,
the slums) lives on. "minority" struggles of Native Americans,
In calling for renewed discussion of the
As one might expect, the common sense logic of the archive, one might even goAfrican-Americans,
so dalits, and other margin
of particularly polarised race, caste, class far as to suggest that much, if not most,alised,
of borderland and indigenous peoples
or gender relations is articulated in rarely human history is un-archived because- of
provides a challenge to these inherited
grids of legibility and illegibility, knowl
archived, historically un-pretty, and there the everydayness and endless repeatability,
edge and not-knowledge. The translation
fore generally unacknowledged, actions and the common knowledge and the triviality
of non-histories into history, of the unar
statements: the derogatory names given to, of most of our social and political relations
and the insulting meanings often attached and interactions. Further, because of the
chived into an archive, the search for new
to the names of the lowest castes and histories and new archives in other words,
difficulty of archiving (in the narrower
classes, or the abusive language used to
sense of recording, preserving, document
will always be part of such insurgency.
That said, there is at least one further
ing) many critical features of the human
wards them by the privileged, when mem
past, a great deal that should qualifyquestion
bers of long subordinated groups happen as to be addressed. Un-archived his
to receive access to education or rapid so
history remains outside the practice of tories
the are spaces of possibility, inescapably
discipline - at least, until new questions
cial mobility, or are able to mount a politi shot through with ambiguity. Why, it might
are asked, and new boundaries claimed,
cal challenge to the power of those provi legitimately be asked, should we try to
dentially assigned to rule. Further, given
by insurgent political movements and theirrecover the meaning of all the blanks, fill
the history of disproportionately skewed"un-reasonable" demands and "un-archived" all the silences? "Silence can be a plan/
access to resources and power in historical
histories. Yet, perhaps not surprisingly, even rigorously executed", as Adrienne Rich put
societies, such abusiveness and disdainat that point, much of this provocative, it (Bammer 2011).10 Is not silence itself
redefined history remains ungrasped, un sometimes a strategy, a refusal of inclusion
has often not needed to be fully articulat
graspable, and resisted by the upholders (which, we know, always means inclusion
ed. It has commonly been reserved for the
spat-out yet suppressed word-of-mouth,
of the discipline? Witness, the continuing on given terms). This is a story not to be
and one might add, for the gesture of dis
stand-off in history departments, and the passed on, as Toni Morrison and Rigoberta
community of historians more generally, Menchu and Babytai Kamble, and others,
dain, contempt and disgust, the pause and

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 e PERSPECTIVES

have said.11 Do we not lose somethingWoman:

in the Girl-child/Woman in the Colonial and the Colonial Archive in India (Durham: Duk
Encounter" (forthcoming). University Press).
this quest for the "full record"? What2 One
arecould adduce all kinds of evidence to show Bammer, Angelika (2011): "Sighs, Silences, and S
the ethics of uncovering the silence?12 this. Among striking examples that I came across pended Stories: Negative Spaces in the Archiv
in my own interviews are the recollections of a of History", presentation at the Un-archiv
One suggestion that has been put forward
retired upper-caste IAS officer's wife that in Histories workshop at Emory University, 18-1
the bureaucratic circles of her husband, an ex-un
by critics considering particularly difficult February.
touchable officer (whom she recalled clearly) was Barrier, Norman G, ed. (1981): The Census in British In
and sensitive histories - the investigation
superficially treated as a friend, but "hamesha New Perspectives (Delhi: Manohar Publications)
of violence and rape in which hundreds heya drishti se dekha karte the (he was always Bhatnagar, Rashmi (2011): "Hindavi as Archive Ob
looked upon with some revulsion)"; and the recol and a 17th Century Katha", presentation at work
and thousands of ordinary men and women,
lections of Meera Kumar, the major Congress
shop Un-archived Histories (Atlanta: Emor
and for that matter even children, have
leader and long-term cabinet minister, Jagjivan
University) 18-19 February.
Ram's daughter, later a central government min
been involved, or the impossible task ister
of and now Speaker of the Lok Sabha or lower Chakrabarty, Dipesh (2000): Provincialising Euro
Postcolonial Thought and Historical Differenc
seeking "truth and reconciliation" in house
the of Parliament, about her experience of (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
being visited at home by several school and
wake of mass slaughter - is to ask the
college friends but never being invited to their Cohn, Bernard S (1996): Colonialism and Its Form
of Knowledge: The British in India (Princeton
historian to step aside at this point, andhomes
let in return.
Princeton University Press).
3 For another important critique of the received un
the creative artists and the psychiatrists
derstanding of "event-full" history, based on a Derrida, Jacques (1996): Archive Fever: A Freudi
take over. The argument could be, and has
reading of two other dalit autobiographies, see Impression, trans Eric Prenowitz (Chicag
Toral Jatin Gajarawala (2011). University of Chicago Press).
sometimes been, extended to events of
4 Emory University Manuscripts and Rare Book Foucault, Michel (2006): History of Madness, tra
individual rape, and domestic violence, and
Library (MARBL), Viola Andrews Papers, Mss 813, Jonathan Murphy and Jean Khalfa (London an
Box 17, FF9. New York: Routledge).
other experiences that produce humilia
5 (MARBL) Mss 813, Box 17, FF 7 8c 8; and Box 21, Gajarawala, Toral Jatin (2011): "Some Time betw
tion and shame. "Let bygones be bygones.
FF 8. Revisionist and Revolutionary: Unreading Histor
Why reopen old wounds? Why make the Mss 813, Box 17, FF 12.
6 (MARBL) in Dalit Literature", Proceedings of the Moder
7 As Paul Gilroy (1993:175) notes, this is a situation Language Association of America, Vol 126, No
victims go through this torture again?"13 575-91
in which the lines between public and private
In response to such concerns, the critical
violence have often been very hard to draw. Gilroy, Paul (1993): The Black Atlantic: Moderni
8 The literature on this theme is considerable. For two and Double Consciousness (Cambridge: Harvar
historian may have to pose a counter University Press).
important recent studies, see Mary Patillo-McCoy
question. Do we really have a choice,
(1999) and Kevin Kruse (2005). Goffman, Erving (1963): Stigma. Notes on the Man
9 The reader will note similarities with Dipesh ment of Spoiled Identity (New York: Touchstone)
when so many powerful forces (estab
Chakrabarty's (2000, Chapter 2) argument about Guha, Ranajit (1983): Elementary Aspects of Peas
lished historians, the corporate media, the
history 1 and history 2's here. There is a difference of Insurgency in Colonial India (Delhi: Oxfo
common sense of our times) continuefocus,
to however, in that my proposition about the University Press).
"impossibility" of history 2's is not related to the - (1984): "The Prose of Counter-Insurgency"
write histories on the basis of these un
narrative of capital (= Europe, = modernity) Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies: Writings o
archived moments, taking pauses and alone, but to a more general condition of language South Asian History and Society, Vol 2 (Del
and legibility, and the "scientific" grounding of Oxford University Press).
silences for "racial" characteristics and this in the "archive".
Guru, Gopal, ed. (2011): Humiliation: Claims and
inheritances, or ignorance, or consent, or
10 The discussion on this point draws heavily on text (New Delhi: Oxford University Press).
Angelika Bammer (2011), from which the Adrienne
triviality and unimportance, and hence Rich citation also comes. (I owe thanks to the
Huffer, Lynne (2010): Mad for Foucault: Rethinking
Foundations of Queer Theory (New York: Columb
inconsequentiality? participants in the Emory workshop, and especially
University Press).
to Angelika Bammer, Rashmi Bhatnagar, Rita Costa
Given these circumstances, concerned Gomes, Colin R Johnson, Jonathan Prude, Milind
Kruse, Kevin (2005): White Flight: Atlanta and t
Making of Modern Conservatism (Princeto
scholars and activists have proposed another, Wakankar, and to my writers' group "soul-mates",
Princeton University Press).
Lynne Huffer and Ruby Lai, for their generous
possibly more viable, political alternative comments on the rough notes I prepared on the Pandian, M S S (2010): "Writing Ordinary Lives"
to that of turning away. What we need, it overall theme of the workshop.) Gyanendra Pandey (ed.), Subaltern Citizens an
11 See, e g, Doris Sommer, "Resisting the Heat: Their Histories: Investigations from India and t
could be argued, is more, not less, political USA (London and New York: Routledge).
Menchu, Morrison, and Incompetent Readers" in
contestation: an expanded, and not a Amy Kaplan and Donald E Pease (ed.), Cultures of Pandey, Gyanendra (2001): Remembering Partit
United States Imperialism (Durham: Duke Univer Violence, Nationalism and History in India (Ca
reduced, sense of history and archive. If it
sity Press, 1993); and Baby Kamble, The Prisons We bridge: Cambridge University Press).
is acknowledged that silence is not an Broke, trans Maya Pandit (Chennai: Orient Longman, Patillo-McCoy, Mary (1999): Black Picket Fen
2008), especially the translator's "Interview with Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Cl
absence, what we might try to do is to
Baby Kamble", 136-57. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
learn to listen to the silences, to trace as far12 Lynne Huffer (2010: 242) sets out the terms of Sarukkai, Sundar (2009): "Phenomenology of Untou
as possible the itinerary of a suppression14 the attendant paradox as follows: the stakes ability", Economic & Political Weekly, Vol XLI
are "epistemological - what can we know? - No 37,12 September.
- and thereby perhaps contribute to greater and ethical - to whom are we accountable?"
Scott, Darryl Michael (1997): Contempt and P
self-understanding. For an extended discussion of the paradox, see Social Policy and the Image of the Damaged Blac
Chapter 5.
Psyche, 1880-1996 (Chapel Hill: University
13 For one example of this kind of appeal, made in North Carolina Press).
the context of recent debates on Partition violence
NOTES Sikand, Yoginder (2007): "Interview with Kancha Ilai
in the Indian subcontinent, see Pandey (2001).
Mukta Mona, 13 February.
i A similar fate often awaited individual stories 14 These formulations are derived from Gayatri
Singh, Balwant (not dated): An Untouchable in the
and authors too. Thus, as Ruby Lai demonstratesChakravorty Spivak. See, e g, Spivak (1999) and
(Balwant Singh, Saharanpur).
in a forthcoming book, the later 19th century (2005). See also Arondekar (2009).
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1999): A Critiqu
framing of Insha'allah Khan's remarkable 1803
tale about Rani Ketki as the "earliest example of
Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of t
Vanishing Present (Cambridge: Harvard Universi
Hindi prose" served to make it part of an archive
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successfully reduced the prospects of it beingAnderson, Benedict (2006): Imagined Communities: - (2005): "Scattered Speculations on the Subaltern
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National
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own literary playfulness; Ruby Lai, "Becoming Arondekar, Anjali (2009): For the Record: OnNoSexuality 4.

Economic & Political weekly B5B3 January 7, 2012 vol xlvii no 1 41

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