The Subaltern as Subaltern Citizen

Author(s): Gyanendra Pandey

Source: Economic and Political Weekly , Nov. 18-24, 2006, Vol. 41, No. 46 (Nov. 18-24,
2006), pp. 4735-4741
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4418914

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 Insight

The Subaltern as
Unavoidably, the term citizen appears
in two different senses in the pages that
follow. The first is that of the bearer of

Subaltern Citizen
the legal right to residence, political
participation, state support and protection
in a given territory. The second is this
more diffuse sense of acceptance in,
The "re-presentation" of the subaltern (a relational position in and acceptance of, an existing order and
the way power is conceptualised) as subaltern citizen is not existing social arrangements.
One immediate advantage of the use of
about the technical question of citizenship; rather the claim is the term "subaltern citizen" is that it
about historical agency, and about belonging - in a society and in prevents the easy erection of a barrier
its self-construction. For 200 years and more, the struggles waged between us (citizens, the people with
by the oppressed and subordinated, i e, the subalterns, were seen history), and them (the subalterns, people
without), as well as that between our times
as struggles for recognition as equals. The history of these efforts
(the time of equality, democracy, the
appeared as a history of sameness. However, in the later decades
recognition of human worth) and earlier
of the 20th century, this struggle was extended to encompass times (the time without such reason and
another demand - the demandfor a recognition of difference - the such understanding). "Not so very"long
existence of a variety of differences that explained the diversity, ago, the earth numbered two thousand
million inhabitants: five hundred million
density and richness of human experience. It is this paradox
men, and one thousand five hundred million
that needs to be answered, while debating the construction of natives". That was Sartre in his 1961
a subaltern'citizen: how is the long-standing struggle for preface to Fanon's Les Damnes de la
equality supposed to be folded into this newly asserted right Terre.2 Yet we know how persistent the
to the recognition of difference ? thought has been. It is salutary therefore
to emphasise that the subaltern citizen is
GYANENDRA PANDEY
subalternity to one of citizenship, although a necessary element of all social arrange-
again such a process may indeed be traced ments, and that the condition ofsubaltemity
rT his essay begins with a provocation in different parts of the world, not least exists in the age of reason and enlighten-
in its juxtaposition of terms from in the context of the anti-colonial struggles ment no less than in that of barbarism;
two very different discourses: "sub- of the 18th to 20th centuries. I am con- in the advanced, capitalist, supposedly
altern", a relational position in a conceptu- cerned with a somewhat different propo- liberal north, as surely as it does in the
alisation of power, a space without identity, sition, having to do with the potential that poorer, "developing", illiberal societies of
as Gayatri Spivak has recently described the subaltern possesses (or the threat s/he the south.
it;k and "citizen", a juridical figure in a poses) of becoming a full member of the That said, let us return to the figure of
pronouncement of autonomy and rights. community, the village, the neighbourhood the subaltern as s/he has appeared in recent
I need to clarify the reason for this and the polis. investigations of history and society classed
juxtaposition. Thus, the point in my re-presentation of under the rubric of subaltern studies.
The subaltern is, by definition, a politi- the subaltern as subaltern citizen is not
cal category. Citizen is not the ideal term centrally about the technical question of
for a rendering of the inherently pplitical
The Peasant Paradigm
citizenship, statutory or anticipated, of the
character of subalternity. But, until we kind that has been accessible in demo- For a quarter of a century now, in this
think of another more suitable alternative, cratic or quasi-democratic societies over project of a new critical history that origi-
let me work with this.
the last two centuries. For this has plainly nated in south Asia, the archetypal figure
For the purposes of the present state- not been an issue for most human beings of the subaltern has been the third world
ment, it is "citizen" that qualifies for the major part of recorded history. The peasant. From Ranajit Guha's insurgent
subalternity, not "subaltern" that qualifies claim is rather about historical agency peasant and Bagdi agricultural labour; to
(or describes) the status of citizenship. My broadly defined, and about belonging - Mahasweta Devi's poor tribal peasant
use of the phrase "subaltern citizen" is not in a society and in its self-construction. women (translated by Gayatri Spivak); to
primarily intended to suggest the sub- That is to say, it is about the living of Amin's 'otiyars' or peasant volunteers of
ordinate status of certain citizens, though individual and collective lives, and the Chauri Chaura, Skaria's bhils and
of course it can be used precisely to describe limitations on that living: about the Hardiman's patidars; toChatterjee's "frag-
such a condition in particular times and potential for life and creativity, in given ments of the nation" in which as one
places. Nor is it used to describe a his- historical circumstances, and the restriction reviewer noted the industrial working class
torical process of moving from a status of of that potential. was conspicuously absent; and even in

Economic and Political Weekly November 18, 20064735

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Chakrabarty's study of the Calcutta work-
ing class, which underlined the persistence
of feudal values, networks and practices
the deliberately paradoxical, not to say
Looking back at our attempts to rewrite
the subaltern experience, and with it oxymoronic,
the category of the subaltern
whole colonial construction of history, citizen.

in the activities of the jute mill labourers,one might suggest that we have had to
to take a few prominent examples from the contend with an insufficiently acknow- The Wretched of the Earth
writings in Subaltern Studies,3 it is this ledged obstacle. This has to do with a
figure - superstitious, illiterate, ill- subterranean faith that persists, perhaps What do we gain in our exploration of
equipped, isolated and non-political as s/he subalternity by the pairing of the terms
even in the writings of many subalternist
had appeared in much of the received social scholars, in the lack of fit between "subaltern"
the and "citizen"? Here is my
science and historical literature - that peasantry and industrialised bourgeois submission. The term citizen helps to
emerges again and again as the paradigm society, in the "incipience" of peasant underline - in a way that the word "sub-
of the subaltern. political (hence, historical and cultural)
ject" perhaps cannot, even with a recog-
"Historiography has been contentconsciousness,
to and the belief that peasants
nition of its split meaning, as "subject of"
deal with the peasant rebel merely as an to advance - towards modernity and
need and "subject to" - the fact of historical
empirical person or member of a class", full cultural and political citizenshipagency
of and political arrangement (or "per-
wrote Guha, "but not as an entity whose the modern world. suasion"). It underscores the necessary
There is another dimension to this dif-
will and reason constituted the praxis called presence of the subaltern for the existence
rebellion".4 The task of subaltern histo-
ficulty. Many (one might even say, most)of dominance, not to say of society. It
modern peasants and agricultural labourers indicates also the necessity of choice
riography was to recover this underdeve-
loped figure for history, to restore do
the
not wish to remain peasants or agricul-(however limited), and the ongoing nego-
agency of the yokel, recognise that tural
the labourers. They seek to be in thetiation of lives and worlds. For the struggle
peasant mass was contemporaneous cities, with the amenities of modern civicto reproduce even the bare minimum
with the modern, part of modernity, existence
and - comfortable homes and jobs;conditions of survival (or humanity) in an
establish the peasant as the maker of
running water, electricity and access tooppressed "everyday" has been an impor-
power (of all kinds); motorised transport;tant aspect of social existence through the
his/her own destiny. "What distinguished
good schools and hospitals; and leisure centuries.
the story of political modernity in India
time that they may organise in a variety The words subaltern and subalternity of
from the usual and comparable narratives
of the west", as Dipesh Chakrabarty of putways.6 That was the burden ofcourse reinforce what the quest of a critical
it in a retrospective account of the Ambedkar's argument against Gandhi'shistoriography - Marxist, feminist, anti-
Subaltern Studies project, "was the fact
romanticisation of "village India", and thecolonial, subalternist, minority - has long
significance
that modern politics... was not founded on of his choice of the western been about: the endeavour to recover lives,
an assumed death of the peasant. The
gentleman's suit and hat over Gandhi'sand possibilities, and politics that have
peasant loin-cloth. The attempt to re- been marginalised, distorted, suppressed
peasant did not have to undergo a historical
mutation into the industrial worker in cover the peasant as a contemporary ofand sometimes even forgotten. They allow
order to become the citizen-subject modernity,
of and a maker of the modern,us to reinforce the point that not all "citi-
the nation."5 thus runs up against the common sense ofzens" (or human beings) are born equal,
This was an insightful and important the age, that the peasant, for all his or herthat many remain "second class" even when
departure. The peasant was modern no heroism, has remained at the receiving end granted the formal status of citizens, and
less than the working class or the insur- of larger forces of historical change andthat many are denied formal citizenship
ance agent. The peasant archetype itself progress. altogether- today, and of course over most
was confounded in many respects. Large Whatever its achievements, the attemptof human history.
numbers of peasants became part-peasant/ to recover the peasant subaltern for history The aim of such an intervention, as the
part-worker, moving between the "rural" has had to live with an enduring view of south Asian Subaltern Studies project has
and the "urban" on a regular or cyclical peasants as passive objects, or what one made amply clear, is not simply to recover
basis, and even between continents, owing might call the inertia of modern politicala neglected underside of human experi-
to colonial displacement, economic thought, premised to a large extent on the ence, and to announce that subaltern groups
imperatives and tax structures. The passing of "traditional" society. Seen as also counted in the unfolding of history,
societies of the "third world" were con-
the pre-political survival of a pre-indus-but to rethink the pattern of historical
temporaneous with those of "Europe", trial social order in a whole variety ofdevelopment as a whole, grasp the contra-
social and political analyses, from Marx's dictions that lie at its heart and outline
not a relic from the past, produced in
tandem with the advanced industrial Eighteenth Brumaire to Gellner's discus-political possibilities that have been lost
west, productive of it. sion of the passage from an agrarian to anto view or remain to be elaborated.
Once the argument about the peasant industrial age,7 the peasant has been the As mentioned at the beginning of this
is made for south Asia, its applicationobject
to of all kinds of radical social engi-essay, I have put forward the term "citizen"
neering
the historical experience of other parts of throughout the 19th and 20th cen-as a qualifier for the "subaltern" an in-
the world (including Europe) is readilyturies. Peasant, "the adjective used fordicator of the political quality of all
describing the masses", still stands for subalternity (and all dominance). To ex-
evident: and colleagues working on Africa
and Latin America have generously citedbackwardness in society and state, asplicate the argument a little, it will help
the south Asian initiative as they havevarious commentators have noted.8 It isto turn for a moment to perhaps the most
pursued some of the same questionsinin
this context that I propose the recastinginfluential philosophical explanation of the
relation to the histories of their continents.
of the figure of the subaltern subject intomotor of human history and the sources

4736 Economic and Political Weekly November 18, 2006

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of social change from early times to today, self-consciousness, and conceive andbuild the establishment and reinforcement of
namely, Hegel's short discussion of new worlds. For Hegel, it is not the lord privilege.
"Lordship and Bondage". I borrow from but the bondsman who will perform the The history of human achievement is
William E Connolly's excellent summary historically necessary task of transcending also a history of exertion to maintain or
account9 in presenting the following out- the conditions of his/her present existence. alter conditions of production and repro-
line of the argument. For Hegel, the saga "Through absolute fear and enforced work duction, comfort and want, dominance and
of history is the unfolding of the spirit and he... [begins] to acquire a coherent self and subordination. It is a struggle between the
the development of self-consciousness. It an enhanced consciousness of it. He can privileged and the unprivileged, "citizens"
is in the formation and consolidation of the think now about what freedom means for and those who would be "citizens", over
lord/slave relationship that the seeds of the individual and what kind of world will the rules of appropriation, accumulation,
self-consciousness are sown. The political enable that freedom to be."11 For Marx,preservation (and destruction) of resources,
scientist quotes the philosopher: "Self- in a parallel move, it is not the bourgeoisiepower, prestige and more. It is a struggle
consciousness exists in and for itself when, but the proletariat that is the universal to institute and perpetuate subalterity, or
and by the fact that, it so exists for another; class, the sign of the future, in the age ofin other words, relations of dominance and
that is, it exists only in being acknowl- capital. The subaltern is the seed of progress
subordination: and it is marked by continu-
edged". - in life and, crucially, in thought. ally changing modes of mobilising and
The conscious or unconscious desire for There is an idealism here, in Marx as indisciplining.
recognition takes the form of a struggle. Hegel, that will not easily survive the The fact of citizenship, statutory, antici-
In this battle, if the one kills the other, ravages of recent history. But there is also,pated or feared, is in my view written into
recognition is not possible. But if the victor in the inherently irresolvable character ofthe condition of subalternity. Over the last
sets himself/herself as master, forces the the dialectic they postulate, much food for300 years and more during which modern
vanquished into slavery and service, and thought about historical development,political thinkers have celebrated or la-
forces the latter to recognise his or her and about our understanding of subalternmented the passing of the ancien regime
lordship, then (in Connolly's words) "the conditions. and the arrival of a new regime of
fateful dialectic of self-consciousness has modernity, the view has gained ground -
been set into motion". however grudgingly this may have been
Subalternity and Citizenship
Yet, this is only the beginning of the conceded (and may still be conceded) in
irony. "The servile one, because he has We may return atthis point to the question the era of colonialism, neocolonialism and
been forced into servility, lives in circum- of subalternity and citizenship. In an imperialism - that human beings are
stances propitious to the seed of self-con- analysis of the mass nationalist campaigns created equal, that they deserve equal rights
sciousness," as Connolly puts it. The lord, of the 1920s to 1940s in India, Ranajit and are, at least theoretically, entitled to
having gained recognition, remains rest- Guha invokes the idea of a dual political citizenship of the city and the nation.
less, desirous of recognition from an equal, move on the part of the nationalist elite: The subaltern as potential citizen is the
yet unable to do anything about it for fear "discipline and mobilise". "The theme of condition of the history of these times. In
of losing an established superiority. Not mobilisation has a tendency to figure in earlier ages too, I am arguing, the subal-
so the slave. "The prospect of death leads all modes of dominant discourse as the terns were potential resource and potential
one to concentrate the mind, to plumb the nationalist elite's entitlement to hege-danger. On the boundaries of the commu-
priorities of one's life and the depth of mony", he writes. "What is highlighted in
nity and the polis: whether barbarians,
one's commitment to life. By examining such discourse is that aspect of the phe-Huns, Tartars, Mongols, or conquered
these priorities in explicit knowledge of nomenon which speaks only of the enthu-populations, "untamed" forest dwellers,
the contingency and finitude of one's own siasm of the mobilised. But as should be women and servants. People who could,
life one begins to give shape to one's self, clear from our survey, there was anotherand sometimes did, threaten and even
forsaking those goals because they are side to it - that is, the rigour and extentsubvert the established order.13 In a word
unimportant or not expressive of one's of the discipline used to b,ing it about."12 - and necessarily - potential equals.
best potentialities, accentuating these Guha's concern is with the discipline Without that potential, the slave cannot
because they are fundamental to one's that was deemed necessary in the course be there to recognise the master. That is
highest purpose."10 of popular mobilisation. There is no doubtthe conundrum facing the dominant classes.
As is clear from the above, for Hegel about the importance of this aspect of massHow to deny this potential its full possi-
both the master and the slave are vulner- politics. However, I want to turn the terms bilities, and maintain the subalternity of
able, given that the selfhood of each de- "discipline" and "mobilise" around, to the subaltern, without which dominance
pends on the other. That vulnerability, suggest not only that such mobilisationand privilege are immediately lost? How
which is also implicitly changeability and must also be followed by disciplining, butto perpetuate his or her disenfranchise-
historical contingency, in the position of also that the dyad used here for an expo-ment, using that term in its broadest sense?
lord and bondsman, needs to be under- sition of Gandhian tactics in anti-colonialIt is the struggle over the multifarious and
lined. For it is the history of that vulnera- civil disobedience may well serve as a ever-changing forms of enfranchisement
bility and changeability, and attempts to description of a central theme in worldand disenfranchisement, I suggest, that has
thwart change, that provides the content history. This history might be characterised constituted the political history of the world,
of human history. as an extended campaign to mobilisepast and present.
For Hegel, as for Marx, the slave has the and discipline resources - not the least of Two propositions here need to be care-
greater potential to think beyond current which are human resources - for pro-fully underscored. First, subaltern is a
conditions, to achieve a higher level of duction, conquest, political advantage,position in a relationship, and one that

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describes the situation of many who are that have been available to different classes In one frame, these are histories of the
not at the bottom of one giant social heap. of people, to different constituencies and homeless, the uninsured and the
Secondly, dominance and subordination - assemblages in the past, to live their livesmarginalised (and I repeat that these terms
the relation of subalternity - is produced and have their being? What are the re-are not to be understood in a merely literal
historically, and therefore may also be sources available to individuals and groupsway; they are always relative, as we know
altered historically. in this era of globalising nation-states, in very well); in another, of materially more
In terms of referent, of the touchstone which societies continue to be very care- comfortable citizens who are even so not
if you like, the popular understanding of fully monitored by the state, yet consistallowed to be part of the polis, that is to
the subaltern as the down and out, the of populations that are far more summarilysay, citizens in the classic sense. The figure
impoverished, oppressed, humiliated and mixed, and often deracinated and baffled?of the subaltern citizen, and my proposi-
scorned, makes a good deal of sense. What kinds of traditions and histories and tion about changing modes of disenfran-
Subaltern history would lose its moorings senses of community have dislocated and chisement, allows us to investigate the
without the attempt to understand the lives vulnerable populations invoked, in earlier shifting structures and practices of domi-
and struggles of the most marginalised and times and in our own? nance and subordination in quite distinc-
oppressed.14 Yet the condition of Over the course of the 20th century, tive contexts with a renewed attention to
subalternity, of wretchedness and humili- subaltern groups have commonly been contending epistemes, inherited constraints
ation, attaches to individuals and groups and unexpected opportunisms. Two very
granted formal citizenship across the globe.
and who are not obviously poor and down- brief ex;mples will help to make the
Even where they have not - as in the case
trodden, and even to some who might be of illegal immigrants, refugees, "guest"
argumen t more concrete.
described as subaltern elites. workers and floating assemblages of many Considler, first, the litany of exclusions
The second caveat is equally important.other kinds - their existence as relatively
that were: meant to be suffered by the adi-
stable populations has been secured (not
The relation of subalternity is, necessarily, dravidas (the "original inhabitants", long
always negotiated. It is the struggle toto say necessitated) by the essential char- consigned to the status of outcastes or
overcome the marks of an inherited -untouchables) in Ramnad district, south
acter of many of the services they provide,
subalternity on the one hand and to and re-
they have been able consequently to India, in the early 20th century. According
institute it on the other that lies at the make
heartcertain kinds of claims on state and to what representatives of the locally
of subaltern history. 'Les damnes', quasi-state
to be resources. How do these con-dominant kallar caste told the census
sure, but in a repeatedly negotiated and of legal and quasi-legal residence,commissioner in 1931, the adi-dravida men
ditions
renegotiated damnation. voting or various welfare rights for sub-were not supposed to wear clothing below
altern groups, or simply the impossibilitythe knees or above the hips, or cut their
The Institution of Subalternity of doing without ill-paid and sometimeshair short; the women were not to cover
unregistered labour, affect the business ofthe upper parts of their body, nor to wear
The perspective outlined above may subaltern
help political mobilisation on the oneflowers in their hair. Adi-dravidas were
to amplify and complicate the notion hand,
ofand of governance on the other? not allowed to use anything but earthen
subaltem/ity, and the ways in which For we recent times, one might examine the vessels even in their own homes, or to wear
attempt to understand the history ofhistory sub- and politics of elite groups linkedgold or silver jewellery, or wear sandals,
altern groups and classes. It bringswith backhistorically subordinated populations: cover themselves with cloaks, or carry
to the subaltern domain the differentiated the African-American and the dalit parasols or umbrellas. In 1931', following
character, the contradictory forces and middle classes for example, the "black a serious conflict between the kallars and
tendencies, shall we say the complexity bourgeoisie" and "dalit brahmins" as thethey
adi-dravidas in the previous year, and
that was central to the initial "Subaltern have been called, white but not quite (in further motivated by the gathering
pe,rhaps
Studies" proposition. It restores to the Homi Bhabha's powerful and widelyoftrav- information for the decennial census,
subaltern the position of being a two-part elled phrase), groups that are under thepres-
kallars drew up an even more stringent
subject-object,15 and recognises the lay- sure simultaneously to be citizens of listthe
of prohibitions, which included a ban
ered and intricate character of the politicalmodem world (national, meritrocratic on learning
and to read or write (which
structures, institutions and opportunitiesmiddle class) and to speak for their still that some of the adi-dravidas were
suggests
within which subalternity has been under-privileged communities: innow other
beginning such learning), on playing
located, reinforced and re-inscribed at words, "not to forget where theymusic
comeat their own weddings and other
different times and in different places. from".16 At another level, one could take
ceremonies, on using horses or sedan chairs
The histories that subalterist scholars in these weddings, and so on.18
up for investigation what Partha Chatterjee
have sought to engage are the histories has
of called "political", as distinct from An appreciation of the obvious cultural
the underprivileged and disenfranchised: "civil", society: populations of slumand symbolic value of clothing and public
religious, ethnic and sexual minorities; dwellers, domestic servants, cheap display,
labour in all societies, will help to set this
in hotels and small businesses, construc-
marginal nationalities; dispossessed indig- in context. Being denied the right to wear
enous communities; immigrant labourers, tion workers, road builders, seasonal the same clothing or jewellery as other
labourers on farms, whose legal standingpeople is a sign of subordination and
the rural poor, urban squatters and work-
ing peoples of numerous other descrip- humiliation. In India, for a man to remain
remains uncertain, who may seek and obtain
tions; African-American and dalit womena degree of protection and support frombare-chested at all times was an indication
in the US and India (to refer to the two of poverty and humility. Many temples
the state and ancillary institutions, but who
countries I work on); African-Americans, can still scarcely be counted as members required male worshippers to remove their
dalits and women. What are the resources of civil society.17 shirts before entering the inner precincts.

4738 Economic and Political Weekly November 18, 2006

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In the famous breast-cloth controversy of Peyton Forest were listed for sale with
to the legal, political and perhaps moral
the mid-19th century, sparked off in part black real-estate agents. The 'Peyton Wall'
pressures they felt during and after the civil
by colonial and missionary propaganda incident, writes Kruse, was "only the most
rights era. In another significant twist, white
against existing customs, the lower castes public eruption of the much larger phe- conservatives, confronted by an ascendant
in Kerala demanded the right for their nomenon of white flight." "We are tryingcivil rights movement, turned from their
women to wear blouses or breast-cloths, to find some area outside the city limits.
traditional and openly racist arguments
at a time when in the countryside even where we can buy homes and get away about inheritance, intelligence and enter-
high-caste women did not cover their from the problem (of desegregation)", theprise to a sharpened statement of individual
breasts. Not surprisingly, the struggle for president of the Southwest Citizens rights and freedom of choice: the "right"
the right to cover one's upper body and Association noted. "Everybody I know to is associate (or not associate) with whom-
head, or wear shoes, or carry umbrellas, definitely leaving the city of Atlanta." ever they pleased; to select neighbours,
or to stand erect while talking to a "su- In the five years preceding the Peyton friends, and children's classmates; and to
perior", or to sit down on a chair or a cot Forest debacle, nearly 30,000 whites had manage economic and social affairs as
in his or her presence, has been a central left the city. During the 1960s another they wished, without governmental inter-
part of the struggles of the lowest castes 60,000 of the remaining 3,00,000 whites ference. Through this shift, as Kruse
and classes in colonial as well as post- fled; during the 1970s another 1,00,000. observes, conservative politicians at the
colonial India.19 "The City Too Busy to Hate", the sceptics local level "discover[ed] a number of ways
For a very different case, I want to turnremarked, was fast becoming "The City in which they could preserve and, indeed,
to the history of race relations in Atlar.ta,Too Busy Moving to Hate".21 In a classic perfect the realities of racial segregation
Georgia in the era of the civil rig[hts replication of residential patterns in otheroutside the realm of law and politics."23
movement and after, as told by the histo-American cities, it was also mutating into Generations of prejudice and privilege
rian Kevin Kruse in his White Flight.:an inner city populated by blacks, includ- are not given up in a day.
Atlanta and the Making of Modern Con-ing many of those who had moved up into
servatism.20 A booming centre of capital-the ranks of the comparatively comfort-
Subalternity and Difference
ist growth in the heart of the Old South able middle classes, and surrounded by an
of the United States, a leading hub of expanding area of wealthy and isolated The point of the argument presented
commercial, transport and service facili- white suburbs. above has been to recognise the variation
ties, Atlanta was portrayed as a beacon of There are other aspects to the story. The and sophistication of inherited histories
the New South, "a place where economicdesegregation of buses in Atlanta ledand cultures, religious, political and eco-
progress and racial progressivism wentsegregationists to boycott public transport nomic rituals, states and state policies, and
hand in hand". When Atlanta desegregatedand hence to its substantial collapse. Theto underline the highly differentiated
its public schools in 1961, apparently with opening up of the city's public education,character of subaltern groups and their
great success and a minimum of disruption,which was carried through much morepolitics, without losing sight of the un-
numerous observers showered praise on effectively and peaceably than in citiesdoubted facts of immiserisation, oppres-
its accomplishments, and Mayor William like New Orleans, led to a white migration sion or marginalisation. The examples cited
Hartsfield coined the famous slogan, "the to private schools and academies and toin the previous section should have served
City That Was Too Busy to Hate". the reappearance of what desegregationists to illustrate the range of tactics, the
A year later violent clashes between were fighting against - increasingly over-adaptability and cunning, the subtle and
blacks and whites erupted in Peyton For- crowded all-black schools. In the last the not so subtle ways in which contend-
est. Here, white activists set up physical decades of the 20th century, as new ing well-
parties have fought at different times
barricades on a crossroads dividing an to-do coloured immigrants movedand into
in different places to alter or perpetu-
expanding black residential zone from thethe suburbs, the phenomenon of atere-
particular conditions of dominance and
shrinking white sections of the city, insegregation of schools was seen insubordination. new
what they clearly saw as a last stand of (theareas. The departure of suburban whites I want to conclude with a brief reflection
old) order. As ablack middle class emergedfrom racially mixed schools was part of
on another aspect of this dialectic, which
and moved into what were traditionallya new stage in white flight, in which whites has become the focus of some exploration
white neighbourhoods, the Southwest abandoned the inner ring of suburbsand just
debate only in recent times. For 200
Citizens Association representing whiteouitside the city and moved to an outeryears ring and more, the struggles of the
homeowners stated that the barricades wereof "exurbs" in the counties beyond.22 oppressed and subordinated were seen as
nothing more than a response to "the Notice the determination in all of this struggles for recognition as equals. The
vicious, block-busting tactics being usedto maintain "distance", and to reinforce the history of these efforts appeared as a history
by Negro realtors". It was not just Peytonmarks ofsubalternity even upon those who of sameness, and the right to sameness:
Forest, an office-bearer of the associationhave escaped from poverty and the more "one man, one vote", equal pay for equal
declared, but all of white Atlanta that was undisguised forms of discriminatory social work, the need to overturn inherited struc-
"endangered" by black expansion. regulation. The negotiation of a higher tures of power, to capture state power, and
The barricades were removed within status by individuals and groups who have so on. In the later decades of the 20th
weeks, owing to the resistance of black
been historically subordinated is a process century, the battle was extended self-
activists and other civil rights groups, and
that has always been fraught with obstacles. consciously to encompass another demand
decisions in court cases that were instituted
Indeed, the exodus of rich whites from - the demand for a recognition of differ-
in the wake of the violence. In less than large American cities proved to be one of ence - as the awareness grew that differ-
a month after that, most white homes in the most effective segregationist responses ences of gender, of communal practices

Economic and Political Weekly November 18, 2006 4739

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and ways of being, even of incommensu- Ironically, today, at the very time when In Hegel's abstraction of the master-
rable languages and beliefs, have provided the question of difference and its relation slave relationship, the slave has to be
the very ground for the diversity, density to struggles for social justice and equalityrecognised in order to give recognition to
and richness of human experience. One has been established as a matter for debate the master; and yet his or her enslavement
question inevitably follows: how is the and intervention in widening academic and has to be maintained. Concrete history
long-standing struggle for equality sup- political circles, and it has become clearcompounds the problem. The subaltern is
posed to be folded into this newly asserted that the issue of difference has necessarilya necessary presence, s/he cannot be wished
right to the recognition of difference? to be folded into any programme of demo-or spirited away; and yet he or she cannot
The answer is hardly straightforward. At cratic struggle, conservative political andfully belong. S/he has to be the same - and
one level, the demand for the recognition intellectual groups are pivoting towardsyet different at the same time. Difference
of difference refines and expands the another line of reasoning, one they have is not to be privileged, yet it must not be
demand for fundamental human rights, long shunned. Right wing forces around entirely denied.
equality andjustice. For, until the assertion the world, who have for ever so long stated It is precisely the competing demands
of a politics of difference by feminists, their claim to continued power and privilegeof "difference", on the one hand, and the
marginal nationalities and other "minori- in terms of innate difference (the superi-language of equal rights and social justice,
ties", the proclamation of difference was ority of a particular race, caste, sex, etc)on the other, that produced the twisted
always a means of containment. Yet, if the are now sometimes turning to an affirma- American slogan, "Equal but Separate".
latter suggestion is correct, it leads to tion of sameness. So long as African-Americans and Euro-
another, more fundamental proposition We are all the same, this particular versionpean Americans both had access to schools,
about the place of difference in the history of the argument goes - men and women,hospitals, hotels and parks, what was the
of dominance and subordination. black and white, upper caste and lowerharm in keeping these separate for each
caste, Christian, Hindu and Muslim. No"race". The proposition of course has a
It is my belief that there is a critical and
still largely unexplored relationship be- one needs to be given any special advan-wider provenance, although, as we have
tween dominance/subordination and the tages or state support. Success and ad-seen, its terms are sometimes modified.
categorical attribution of difference. vancement depends, and must depend, on Whatever the specific argument, the
Difference, one might say, is the mark ofmerit, individual ability, hard work, and,"separate" in this proposition are hardly
the subordinated or subalternised, maybe (just maybe) "luck". And those whothe salt of the earth. The Muslims of India
precisely because it is measured against don't make it simply do not deserve to. are like the rest of "us", they deserve no
the purported mainstream, the "standard" The underlying proposition here has tospecial privilege or state protection: yet
or the "normal". And it is in the attribution
do with the equal rights of all (irrespectivethey do not really belong, since they adhere
of caste, colour, race, sex or creed, as to a "foreign" religion. It is the same with
of difference that the logic of dominance
and subordination has always found several modern constitutions declare).Latina/Latino migrants to the US: they can
expression. Men are not "different"; it Freedom
is of choice, the ability to decidenever be truly American, since they cannot
women who are. Caste Hindus are not what religion one follows, what associa-dream in English.24 The dalits and the
"different" in India; it is Muslims, tions
and one joins, whom one associates with,African-Americans of course belong.
"tribals", and dalits who are. White where one lives, shops, plays, or whereHowever, as the familiar elitist proclama-
Australians are not "different"; Vietnam-one's children go to school - these aretion has it, generations of "low" life- loose
ese boat people, and Fijian migrantsfundamental
to human rights, so eloquentlyliving, dirty personal habits, the collective
Australia, and, astonishingly, Australianarticulated in the 18th century revolutionsmentality of the ghetto - have made the
aboriginals are. and since. It is on this hallowed groundmajority of them "different" and, shall we
Such an insight may help us also in that, in the age of civil rights, the dominantsay, somewhat "unworthy": they need to
analysing the situation of the doubly classes in India as well as the US replacepull themselves up by their bootstraps, and
subalternised. The tribal peasant woman: claims about race and caste with the lan- deserve only the minimum of social wel-
guage of liberal individualism, equality of
"different" as tribal, and "different" again fare or state support.
as woman. Or women of colour: subaltern opportunity and free choice to try to keep In complex ways, then, the powerful
twice over. Subalternity and difference dalits ("ex-untouchables") and African-manoeuvre to return the figure of the
rolled into one. Difference as subaltemity. Americans ("ex-slaves") "in their place".subaltern to its appointed location: the
Subalternity as difference.
The point I am making is not that the
issue of difference must be added to that
Back Volumes
of subalternity. It is to recognise that they
appear all too often as one and the same
Back Volumes of Economic and Political Weekly from 1976 to
thing. The foregrounding of gender, caste,
are available in unbound form.
race, etc, in this manner, as so many ways
of organising subalternity, may help to Write to:
complicate and deepen our understanding Circulation Department,
of social and political power, even as we
Economic and Political Weekly
work to expose the roots of contemporary
Hitkari House, 284 Shahid Bhagat Singh Road, Mumbai 400 001.
as well as past prejudice and discrimina-
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tion, and refashion the project of turning
the world upside down.

4740 Economic and Political Weekly November 18, 2006

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traditional "third world" peasant eking out 1890-1940 Histories, Princeton University I shall submit myself to the purificatory rites
a miserable existence in Haiti, Rwanda or Press, Princeton, NJ, 1989; and for further of course; please prescribe something suitable
examples, Gyanendra Pandey, The Ascendancy for a pauper' - are we to allow these plaintive
Bangladesh; dalits "unfairly" promoted to
of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh: Class, voices to be drowned in the din of a statist
college degrees and bureaucratic office Community and Nation in Northern India, historiography? What kind of history of our
(and, even more dangerous, medical 1920-1940, 2nd edition, Oxford University people would that make, were it to turn a deaf
practice) in India; African-Americans Press, Delhi, 2005; Gyan Prakash, Bonded ear to these histories which constitute, for that
"looting" the stores and "shooting" at relief Histories: Genealogies 6f Labour Servitude in period, the density of power relations in a civil
Colonial India, Cambridge University Press, society where the coloniser's authority was
helicopters in the wake of the Katrina
Cambridge, 2003; and Ramchandra Guha, The still far from established?"; see his 'The Small
disaster. Much of this would be laughable,
Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Voice of History' in Shahid Amin and Dipesh
were it not part of a widely accepted Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya, Oxford Chakrabarty (eds), Subaltern Studies IX:
common sense, resolutely purveyed and University Press, Delhi, 1990. Writings on South Asian History and Society,
promoted by the media. 4 Ranajit Guha, 'The Prose of Counter- Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1996, p 6.
What underlies this effort is the con- Insurgency' in Ranajit Guha (ed), Subaltern 15 This is a position we all share, yet one that is
Studies 11, Oxford University Press, Delhi, not easily granted to the master or the slave,
scious or unconscious attempt to isolate
1983, p 2. since the one is seen as a fully autonomous
subalternity and assign it to the margins
5 Dipesh Chakrabarty, Habitations ofModernity: subject (that is agent) and the other as pure
of society and history, "margins" that have Essays in the Wake of Subaltern Studies, object (acted upon).
been brought into being by the historical University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2002, 16 For the African-American case, see, for
accident of "backwardness" or the un- p 19. example, E Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie,
fortunate inheritance of poverty. This is6 It a goes without saying that modem capitalist Free Press, New York, 1957, Bart Landry, The
farmers not only desire these facilities and New Black Middle Class, University of
move that is both predictable and insidious
comforts, but often enjoy them in full measure, CaliforniaPress, Berkeley, 1987, and Stephanie
- in its denial of the politics that goes intoadding the joys of fancy country homes to the
Shaw, What a Woman Ought to Be and Do:
the establishment and sustenance of privi-resources of the city. Black Professional Women Workers during
lege, and in its confining of difference to 7 See Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of the Jim Crow Era, University of Chicago Press,
another discourse which, as the pretenceLouis Bonaparte, 1852; International Chicago, 1995; for the Dalit middle classes,
Publishers, New York, 1963; Ernest Gellner, Harold Isaacs, India's Ex-Untouchables,
has it, has nothing to do with the business
of dominance and subordination. 21 Nations and Nationalism, Basil Blackwell, Harper, New York, 1964; Sacchidanand, The
Oxford, 1983. Harijan Elite: A Study of the Status, Networks,
8 The words in quotation marks are from Gokhan Mobility and Role in Social Transformation,
Email: gpande2@emory.edu Bacik, 'Turkey and Russia: Whither Modern- Thomson Press, Delhi, 1976; Nandu Ram, The
isation?', Journal of Economic and Social Mobile Scheduled Castes. Rise ofa New Middle
Notes Research, Vol 3, No 2, 2001, p 56. Class, Hindustan Publishing Corporation,
9 William E Connolly, Political Theory and Delhi, 1988; and for a recent foray into this
Modernity, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1988. history, Gyanendra Pandey, 'The Time of the
[I owe thanks to several friends in Emory - Shalom
10 These quotations come from Connolly, Political Dalit Conversion', Economic and Political
Goldman, Bruce Knauft, Chris Krupa, Ruby Lal,
Theory and Modernity, pp 94-96. Weekly, Vol XLI, No 18, May 6, 2006.
Ken Maclean, Laurie Patton, Aruna Ramachandran
11
- and to David Hardiman in Warwick for comments
Ibid, p 96. 17 Partha Chatterjee, The Politics ofthe Governed:
12 Ranajit Guha, 'Discipline and Mobilise: Reflections on Popular Politics in Most of the
on an very rough first draft; and to other
Hegemony and Elite Control in Nationalist World, Columbia University Press, New York,
members of my graduate seminar on "Subaltern
Campaigns' in ParthaChatterjee and Gyanendra 2004.
Citizens" whose questions have made it harder to
Pandey (eds), Subaltern Studies, VII: Writings18 See Robert Deliege, The Untouchables of India,
write this essay.]
on South Asian History and Society, Oxford Berg, Oxford, 1999, pp 109-10.
I Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak, 'ScatteredUniversity Press, Delhi, 1989; reprinted in19 For the breast-clothcontroversy, see ibid, p 108;
Speculations on the Subaltern and the Popular', Ranaj it Guha, Dominance without Hegemeony: Robert Hardgrave, 'The Breast-Cloth Contro-
Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Vol 8, No 4, History and Power in Colonial India, Harvard versy', The Indian Economic and Social
November 2005, p 476. University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, History Review, 5, 2, June 1968, pp 171-87;
2 Preface to Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the1997: the quote is found on p 150 of this volume. and Kawashima Koji, Missionaries and a
Earth, Grove Press, New York, 1963, p 13
7. Consider the 'Slave dynasty' that ruled in Delhi Hindu State: Travancore 1858-1936, Oxford
3 See the eleven volumes of Subaltern Studies. in the 13th century; or the Mamluks who ruled University Press, Delhi, 2000. For other
Studies in South Asian History and Society, from Cairo from the 13th to the 16th centuries. struggles over similar issues of deference and
especially volumes I-VI, published by Oxford Or, for a different kind of example, consider power, see, for example, Ranajit Guha,
University Press, Delhi, 1982-1989; Ranajit the renowned 16th century Bhakti poet of Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in
Guha, Elementary Aspects of Peasant northern India, Goswami Tulsidas's well known Colonial India, Oxford University Press, Delhi,
insurgency in Colonial India, Oxford verse: "Dhol, ganwar, shudra, pashu, naari; 1983; Sumanta Banerjee, In the Wake of
University Press, Delhi, 1983; Gayatri yeh sab taaran ke adhikari (The rustic, the Naxalbari: A History ofthe Naxalite Movement
Chakraborty Spivak, In Other Worlds. Essays lower castes, women must be beaten to be kept in India, Subarnarekha, Calcutta, 1980; and
in Cultural Politics, Routledge, New York, in shape- like [domesticated] animals and like Kalyan Mukherjee and Rajendra Singh Yadav,
1988; Shahid Amin, Event, Metaphor, Memory: the drum)" Bhojpur: Naxalism in the Plains of Bihar,
Chauri Chaura, 1922-1992, OxfordUniversity 14 Cf Ranajit Guha: "When Abhoy Mandal of New Delhi, 1980.
Press, Delhi, 1995; Ajay Skaria, Hybrid Momrejpur, considered polluted by the 20 Kevin Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the
Histories: Forests, Frontiers, and Wildness in asthmatic attacks suffered by his mother-in- Making of Modern Conservatism, Princeton
Western India, Oxford University Press, Delhi, law, submits himself for expiation to the local University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2005.
1999; David Hardiman, Peasant Nationalists council of priests and says, 'I am utterly 21 The quotations and figures in this and the
of Gujarat, Oxford University Press, Delhi, destitute; would the revered gentlemen be kind preceding paragraphs are from ibid, pp 3-5.
1981; Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its enough to issue a prescription that is 22 Ibid, pp 114-15, 147, 168ff, 263-64.
Fragmenets. Colonial and Postcolonial commensurate with my misery?' or when 23 Ibid, p 8; see pp 8-9, 161ff and passim.
Histories, Princeton University Press, Panchanan Manna of Chhotobainan, his body 24 Samuel P Huntington, Who Are We? The
Princeton, NJ, 1993; Dipesh Chakrabarty, racked by anal cancer, pleads before a similar Challenges to America's National Identity,
Re-thinking Working Class History: Bengal, authority in his own village, 'I am very poor; Simon and Schuster, New York, 2004.

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