THE OTHER HISTORY
Sumit Guha
Subaltern Studies I: Writings on South Asian History and Society/Subaltern Studies II : Writings on South Asian History and Society by Ranajit Guha Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1983, 241 pp., 90.00/125
Nov-Dec 1983, volume 8, No 3

The essays in these two volumes, their editor tells us, are united in their rejection of academic elitism and their acknowledgement of me subal¬terns as makers of their own history. Much previous work in South Asian history has been flawed by an elitist outlook, either of the colonialist or of the bourgeois nationalist variety, and failed to perceive the existence of an autonomous domain of subaltern politics, structurally differentiated from elite politics.

Such an approach evidently lays great stress on the elite-subaltern distinction, and the editor, in his contribution to the first volume, tells us that the elites included all non-Indian capitalists, landlords, officials and missionaries. The indigenous elite comprised the biggest feudal magnates, the most important representatives of the industrial and mer¬cantile bourgeoisie and senior officials. At the regional and local levels these elements would be supplemented by groups that, though hierarchi¬cally inferior to them, still acted in their interest and not in conformity with interests corresponding truly to their own social being.

Continue reading this review