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Ars Artium: An International Peer Reviewed-cum-Refereed Research Journal
Ars Artium: An International Peer Reviewed-cum-Refereed
Research Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences
ISSN (Online) : 2395-2423 • ISSN (Print) : 2319-7889
Vol. 6, January 2018
Pp. 38-44
http://www.arsartium.o rg
On the Margins: Theorising Spivak’s
“Can the Subaltern Speak?”
–Hemangi Bhagwat*
Madhavi Arekar**
Abstract
Postcolonialism is the study of theory and literature which analyses the after effects
of the colonial era, that is, the effects of the coloniser on the colonised. One of the
essential threads in the realm of Postcolonialism is the Subaltern, a term coined and
adopted by the Marxist philosopher and theorist, Antonio Gramsci. The term is used
as a reference to the colonised South Asian sub-continent and encompasses an area in
the study of culture, history, human geography, sociology, anthropology and literature.
This paper traces the history of Subaltern Studies in India pioneered by Ranajit
Guha and focuses on the work of Gayatri Spivak who had developed this idea a step
further and asks the question, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, and throws light on the
comprehension of historical narratives of women’s resistance in India.
Keywords: Postcolonialism, Subaltern Studies, Historical Narratives, Women’s
Resistance, Othering.
Postcolonialism is the study of theory and literature as it speaks about the colonizer
and the colonized experience. It studies the after-effects of the colonial era, that is, the
effects the colonizer had on the colonized people. Postcolonial studies is defined as
the “critical analysis of the history, culture, literature and modes of discourse that are
specific to the former colonies of England, Spain, France and other European imperial
powers” (Abrams 306).
Postcolonialism rejects the European narratives of the western imperialism and
strikes back on the face of world history. They replaced the European narratives with
* Associate Professor of English, K. J. Somaiya College of Science & Commerce
Vidyavihar, Mumbai, Maharashtra - 400077, INDIA.
Email: bhagwat_hemangi@yahoo.com
** Assistant Professor in English, VPM’s Joshi Bedekar College, Thane, Maharashtra 400601, INDIA. Email: madhavi.arekar2708@gmail.com
On the Margins: Theorising Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak?”
39
narratives written in their own voices and through their own cultural ethnic perspective.
“Post-colonial theory considers vexed cultural political questions of national and ethnic
identity, otherness, race, imperialism and language during and after the colonial periods.
It draws upon post-structuralist theories such as those of deconstruction in order to
unravel the complex relations between imperial centre and colonial periphery” (Baldick
265). ‘Subaltern and Subaltern Studies’, as a discipline, was brought in by the Subaltern
Studies Group in the realm of post-colonial studies.
In general terms, Subaltern refers to the group that is excluded from society’s
established structures for political representation and therefore denied the means by
which people have a voice in their society. It literally refers to any person or group of
inferior rank and station, whether because of race, class, gender, sexual orientation,
ethnicity or religion. Some thinkers used it in general sense to refer to marginalized
groups and the lower classes – “a person rendered without agency by his or her social
status” (Young 2003).
It was the Marxist philosopher and theorist, Antonio Gramsci, who adopted the
term ‘subaltern’ to refer to the working class people that is, proletariat class, who are
subject to the hegemony power of the dominant ruling classes. Gramsci used the term
Subaltern to underline an inferior or subordinate place in terms of class, caste, gender
and culture. Some scholars are of the opinion that Gramsci, “used the term as a
synonym for proletariat, possibly as a code word in order to get his writings post
prison censors” while others believe “his usage to be more nuanced and less clear
cut” (Morton, “The Subaltern: Genealogy of a Concept” 96). Gramsci opined that
though the history of the dominant class, that is, the bourgeoisie class, is considered
as ‘official’ history, the history of subaltern classes was just as complex as the history
of the dominant groups. According to Gramsci, the history of the subaltern groups is
sporadic, periodic and disintegrated as they are subject to histories of the dominant
classes.
Since 1970s, the term ‘Subaltern’ is being used as a reference to colonized people
in the South Asian subcontinent, and it now encompasses an area in the study of
culture, history, human geography, sociology, anthropology and literature. All those
who were denied access to hegemonic power such as peasants, labourers, workers
and such other groups were considered as subaltern classes. (Ashcroft 25)
In India, in the 1980s, the enterprising historians started subaltern studies as a
project to reclaim and rewrite Indian historiography from the subaltern perspective.
Ranajit Guha took up the task to probe into the peasant movements of the past which
according to him, were showcased as something monumental and outstanding by
historians. The crucial motive behind this project was to collect genuine, reliable and
strong historical evidences of Indian history. This group of historians formed by
Ranajit Guha included Partha Chatterjee, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Gyanendra Pandey,
Shahid Amin, David Arnold, David Hardiman and they as a team aimed to promote
organized study and discussion of subaltern themes in South Asian Studies.
A theme that emerges across the early work undertaken by Subaltern Studies
Group is the relationship between the marginalized classes and the anti–colonial
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Ars Artium: An International Peer Reviewed-cum-Refereed Research Journal
movement of the twentieth century. A marked feature of the nationalist movement in
that century was how it resonated with either the educated elites or their political
interests or, with the capable and skillful leadership of Gandhi and Nehru. It is the
keen interest and inquiry of these Subaltern scholars that transformed the face of the
nationalist movement. It pushed the nationalist movement from the reserve of its elites
and leaders, and made it wider by making it the middle class affair. This paved a way
to reclaim and reconstruct the histories and experiences of the poor, neglected and
oppressed.
Guha believed that the politics of the subaltern did not constitute an autonomous
domain, for it neither originated from elite politics nor did its existence depend
on the latter. Subordination in its various forms has always been the central
focus of the subaltern studies (Biswas 202).
When one takes to reading history, whose history is to be read? The history of the
superiors which is regarded as ‘official’ or the history of the oppressed? Subaltern
Studies took to re-writing history. It is a history that agrees to the inclusion of the
common man; all those who were overlooked, neglected and treated with indifference.
History from Below being by concentrating on local and regional developments,
encompassing various groups in the world popular—tribal, peasant, artisan,
labour protests and in the middle class, a class which started asserting some
kind of regional on national leadership and which had a totally different
composition from Princes and Zamindars. (Sarkar n.p.)
When British workers left India they gave their voices and versions to British historians
in form of their diaries, Indian workers, labourers, and peasants however, had left
behind nothing to be called original or authentic and hence Subaltern Studies had to
use Census Reports, Government documents, Folk narratives, documents from Judiciary
and Police Department to write Subaltern Studies.
To the subaltern studies project, colonialist and bourgeois – nationalist histories
were problematic because they failed to recognize the agency and actions of
subaltern people. Instead, the credit for India’s independence and the nationalist
movement that preceded it was given to either colonial policies or the altruism
of the Indian elite. The failure of contemporary historiography to acknowledge
the agency of the socially and economically marginalized – or subaltern – was
highlighted throughout the 1970s and early 1980s by periods of peasant action
and demonstration, sparking a broader interest in peasant agency throughout
Indian academia. As a Maoist activist Guha had directly engaged in peasant
insurgency, and had, perhaps during this period, been witness to ‘the
contribution made by people on their own.’ During Guha’s role as editor of
Subaltern Studies, he continued to emphasize the need to ‘negate’ this
historiography, before a new one could be created. (Altern 60)
Therefore, to find and recuperate these Indian Subaltern voices, Subaltern Studies
used diverse techniques of reading documents that were available. However, in the
pursuit of finding these lost and marginalized voices, they focused more on how
subalternity was organized and developed.
On the Margins: Theorising Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak?”
41
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak developed the idea of Subaltern Studies a step further
“emphasizing that the western Marxist model of social change that these historians
employ does not do justice to the complex histories of subaltern insurgency and
resistance which they seek to recover” (Morton 7).
Spivak’s works reflect her assertive voice as she speaks about the issues of
representation, self-representation, political strategies and so forth. “I am not erudite
enough to be interdisciplinary but I can break rules” (Spivak, Outside in the Teaching
Machine Exp. 1 L 9). Spivak has always questioned the conventions and margins of
literary criticism by shifting the attention towards the cultural texts of those who were
pushed away towards the periphery and treated with indifference by the dominant
western culture. She focused on the working class, women and the postcolonial
subjects. In doing so Spivak challenges the mainstream prominent ideas of the
contemporary society and culture. As an influential postcolonial critic, Robert Young
asserts,
Spivak’s thought is best understood if it is situated in terms of ongoing political
debates within India about the employment of classic European Marxism in
the context of anti-colonial struggles, and the failure of Indian socialism to
recognize the histories and struggles of women, the underclass, the tribal
communities and the rural peasantry in Indian society. (350-352)
Spivak also counters the ideology and methodology of the Subaltern Studies Group by
pointing out the western Marxist model of social change that Subaltern historians
apply, does not give its due importance to the subaltern histories of resistance which
are multifaceted, complex and scattered. And this creates a barrier especially in the
comprehension of historical narratives of women’s resistance in India. Thus, she has
specifically furthered the historical research of Subaltern Studies Group by drawing
attention to the life and experience of subaltern, marginalized women which the official
Indian history has completely ignored and failed to acknowledge.
Spivak profoundly recognizes that the dominant political, economic, cultural and
educational strategies have blighted the lives of many marginalized and disempowered
communities. She employs deconstruction as a tool to critically voice this recognition.
According to her, the deconstruction perspective empowers the reader to raise a
query on the investigating subject, keeping the expert’s insight intact and transforming
circumstances and conditions which are not possible into ones which are. She writes,
To investigate, discover and establish a subaltern or peasant consciousness
seems at first to be a positivistic project- a project which assumes that if
properly prosecuted, it will lead to firm ground, to something that can be
disclosed. This is all the more significant in the case of recovering a
consciousness. (Spivak 278)
She also anchors on the theme of ‘Otherness’, a prominent concern in post- colonial
studies. Sartre used the term, ‘Other’ in ‘Being and Nothingness’ to define the relations
between self and others. One finds that it is extensively used in existential philosophy.
In the postcolonial studies, the theme of Otherness has always been of prime
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Ars Artium: An International Peer Reviewed-cum-Refereed Research Journal
importance. Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism’ discusses the theory of the Other- the treatment
given by the so called privileged west to the east. Said argues that the Orient is one of
Europe’s ‘deepest and most recurring images of the Other’ (1).
The western thought and culture has defined certain people and concepts as
‘other’ throughout their historical narratives. The poor and powerless were considered
as the other that threatens the values of the so called civilized society. According to
Stephen Morton, “In the structure of western thought, the ‘Other’ is relegated to a
place outside of or exterior to the normal, civilized values of western culture; yet it is
in this founding moment of relegation that the sovereignty of the Self or the same is
constituted” (Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Routledge Critical Thinkers - Essential
Guides for Literary Studies 37). This led to the act of ‘Othering’, a term coined by
Gayatri Spivak to speak about the process by which the western dominant narratives
create their ‘others’.
Spivak tries to shake the foundations of the rigid Self - other dichotomy while
describing the lives and struggles of the Third World marginalized subaltern women.
According to Stephen Morton, Spivak in her essay ‘Imperialism and Sexual Difference’
(1986) “criticizes some feminists for ignoring the specific experiences of ‘Third World’
women when they construct a universal feminist subject” (40). Thus, she brings to
light the errors of the practical truth- system and knowledge which claim that all
women of the world suffer the same set of problems, oppression and resistance
transcending geographical, social, cultural and linguistic boundaries simply because
they are women. She strongly opposes the myth of ‘global sisterhood’ (Spivak 226)
as it expels the lives and sufferings of Third World women. Spivak writes,
Within the effaced itinerary of the subaltern subject, the track of sexual
difference is doubly effaced. The question is not of female participation in
insurgency, or the ground rules of the sexual division of labour, both of which
there is ‘evidence’. It is, rather, that, both as object of colonialist historiography
and as subject of insurgency, the ideological construction of gender keeps the
male dominant. If, in the context of colonial production, the subaltern has no
history and cannot speak, the subaltern as female is even more deeply in
shadow. (Spivak 287)
However, Neil Lazarus emphasizes, “Spivak’s injunction to investigate the histories of
subaltern women’s insurgency is rarely accompanied by any substantial historical
research” (Lazarus 113). To which Spivak replies that this is the consequence of the
‘ideological construct of gender’ which underlines the patriarchal dominance in
historical records and archives during Indian colonization. (Spivak 281)
In her essay, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak? (1985), Spivak popularized the term,
‘Subaltern’ where she says, “The Subaltern cannot speak. There is no virtue in global
laundry lists with ‘woman’ as a pious item. Representation has not withered away.
The female intellectual as intellectual has a circumscribed task which she must not
disown with a flourish” (Nelson and Grossberg 308). Spivak not only breaks the
dichotomy of Self and Other but also uses the term ‘Subaltern’ flexibly, accommodating
On the Margins: Theorising Spivak’s “Can the Subaltern Speak?”
43
“social identities and struggles… that do not fall under the reductive terms of ‘strict
class analysis’” (Morton 45).
Spivak rightfully opines in an interview with the journal, Polygraph-”I like the
word ‘subaltern’ for one reason. It is truly situational. ‘Subaltern’ began as a description
of a certain rank in the military. The word was used under censorship by Gramsci: he
called Marxism ‘monism,’ and was obliged to call the proletarian ‘subaltern.’ That
word, used under duress, has been transformed into the description of everything that
doesn’t fall under strict class analysis. I like that, because it has no theoretical rigor.”
(Spivak 141)
Spivak argues that there is no space from which the sexed subaltern can speak.
She emphasizes that the subaltern women cannot speak as their voices and agencies
were completely silenced under the political, social and cultural hegemony of Hindu
patriarchal codes of moral conduct and their representation as victims of a barbaric
culture in British colonial narratives. In the male dominated culture, though these
subaltern women attempted to voice their narratives, their voices were not recognized
that led their silence in the dominant political systems of representation.
In conclusion, her essay, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ criticizes much of the work
done mostly by the western male academicians. She opines that it is difficult for
anyone looking in from outside of the colonized group to grant speech to the subalterns
from outside. This is because the evidences collected by them are through bare words
and not real actual experiences. This, Spivak says, produces logo-centric assumptions
inherently restricted or misleading writing built on the study of only one part of the
total experience. Spivak was also wary of the intellectuals who attempted to speak on
the behalf of the subalterns rather than allowing them to speak for themselves. She
thought that this led them being positioned relative to their colonial rulers rather than
allowed them cultural identity of their own.
She believed that the western intellectuals intended their response as positive
affirming act but actually they contrasted the group they were writing about by looking
entirely at their response to one thing – Colonial Rule. Spivak also repeatedly restated
that it is extremely important to challenge the universal assumption rooted in some
western feminist thought. Histories and narratives of women across the globe are the
same. Also, it is crucial to have the global political awareness of the local economic,
political, social and cultural conditions that shaped women’s oppression in the world.
She concluded that, while it is possible to recover the voices of the oppressed, it is
almost impossible for the academics from other countries to recover them wholly or
without significant distortion.
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