[We sought to highlight a range of social, political, economic,
and cultural forms of oppression that braided together in different
ways in different historical situations, and which provided the focus
for action by subaltern groups. ]
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HOW SUBALTERN STUDIES CHANGED OUR UNDERSTANDING OF RESISTANCE
STRUGGLES  
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Stellan Vinthagen
May 1, 2023
Waging Nonviolence
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_ We sought to highlight a range of social, political, economic, and
cultural forms of oppression that braided together in different ways
in different historical situations, and which provided the focus for
action by subaltern groups. _

Dalit women protesting for their rights (Wikimedia/Thenmozhi
Soundararajan), (Wikimedia/Thenmozhi Soundararajan)

 

David Hardiman was one of the founders of the Subaltern Studies Group
in 1982, an editorial and research collective that received worldwide
recognition for a book series, conferences and numerous articles. The
Subaltern Studies Group was part of a larger post-structural and
cultural turn in the humanities and social sciences, which has
profoundly changed how we today discuss history, power, consciousness,
colonialism and resistance.

Born in 1947, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Hardiman was raised in England,
completed his PhD in history at the University of Sussex in 1975 and
is now professor emeritus at the University of Warwick, U.K. When he
took part in the formation of the Subaltern Studies Group, he worked
at the University of Surat in Gujarat and was a visiting fellow at the
Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. At the time of this
interview, David was working on his latest book, published in 2021,
titled, “Noncooperation in India: Nonviolent Strategy and Protest
1920-22.”

SINCE YOU WERE INVOLVED IN THE SUBALTERN STUDIES GROUP FROM THE VERY
BEGINNING, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON ITS CREATION? WHAT FACTORS, IDEAS
AND PERSPECTIVES SERVED AS INSPIRATION, AND WHY DID YOU GET DECIDE TO
GET INVOLVED?

The Subaltern Studies Group was inspired by Ranajit Guha, an
intellectually charismatic figure who gathered around him a small
group of like-minded younger historians and political scientists. Born
in 1923 in a village in Bengal, he had been an activist in the
Communist Party of India up until the suppression of the Hungarian
rising by the Soviet Union in 1956, when he resigned from the party.
In this, he was acting in common with the New Left — a group that
included the English Marxist historians. A leading figure in this
group, E.P. Thompson, wrote in 1957 that he stood for a “socialist
humanism” that was a revolt against Stalinism — a “revolt
against inhumanity … against the dogmatism and abstractions of the
heart,” and for “the emergence of a warm, personal and humane
socialist morality.” Thompson’s approach was epitomized by his
notion of the moral economy, with its focus on lived experience rather
than purely economic arguments. He focused on the way that so-called
“backward” people fought to defend their values in ways that went
beyond narrow economic interests. He saw class as a human relationship
that was made consciously through lived experience and in struggles
with ruling groups.

Guha was influenced by the Naxalite insurrection in India in the late
1960s that — inspired by the Chinese example — sought to base
itself amongst the peasantry rather than the urban proletariat. He
sought to discover a structure of peasant insurrection, as well as a
complex politics of the peasantry that went far beyond the crude
economism of most existing explanations for peasant revolt. He argued
that this politics had a quite different logic than the elite politics
that forms the subject of most histories.

Guha taught history at the University for Sussex, where I was inspired
by him as a postgraduate student. I gained my doctorate in 1975, and
soon after that became involved in the group of young historians of
India that gathered around him — myself, Gyan Pandey, David Arnold
and Shahid Amin. We thrashed out our ideas in a series of meetings,
coming up with the idea that in colonial India there were two separate
domains of politics, that of the elite and the subaltern. The latter
term was taken from Gramsci, meaning all those who are subordinated.
Gramsci wrote in a situation — Italy in the 1920s and 1930s — in
which the industrial working class was comparatively weak and
underdeveloped, while the peasantry continued to be the chief
subordinate group. A project that called for a socialist revolution
could not afford to ignore the peasantry, and hence there was a need
to understand the politics of this subordinate group. We were
developing our ideas in the 1970s, having before us the examples of
the peasant-based revolutions in China and Vietnam, where the
peasantry was regarded as a radical force.

We were able to apply Gramsci to India, as under colonial rule and
many years after, it was a predominantly peasant society. We argued
that almost all existing histories of India focused on elites as the
chief movers of politics. We held that this led to a frequent
misrepresentation of the subaltern, which operated according to
different rules and on different conditions. The project was subjected
to strong criticism by many historians of Indian nationalism in India
and Britain, and by many orthodox Marxists in India, but embraced with
enthusiasm by the New Left, dissident Indian Marxists and numerous
historians outside Britain, particularly in the Americas.

WHILE THE GROUP’S EMPIRICAL STUDIES FOCUS ON SOUTH ASIA, DO YOU FEEL
THAT ITS CORE CLAIMS ABOUT SUBALTERN POLITICS AND HISTORY ARE RELEVANT
FOR SUBALTERN STRUGGLES OUTSIDE OF INDIA? IN OTHER WORDS, DO ITS CORE
CLAIMS CONSTITUTE A MORE GENERAL THEORY?

The idea that resonated in other parts of the world was the emphasis
on the hierarchy of power, with its interplay of domination and
subordination, and the analysis of its impact on popular politics and
resistance. Political theory of both the bourgeois and Marxian
varieties had tended to emphasize economics as the prime driver of
popular action, while we sought to highlight a range of social,
political, economic, and cultural forms of oppression that braided
together in different ways in different historical situations, and
which provided the focus for action by subaltern groups. Many groups
were subjected to multiple layers of oppression. I think that this
broad idea could be applied regardless of the specific cultures of
oppression of a given society, and it was this that struck a chord.

THE CONCEPT OF SUBALTERN IS UNCLEAR TO MANY PEOPLE. IT IS SOMETIMES
USED TO REFER TO “THE MOST OPPRESSED” IN A SOCIETY, SOMETHING THAT
SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE TO DETERMINE, AT LEAST IF WE ACCEPT THE INTERSECTIONS
OF MULTIPLE FORMS OF DOMINATION. OTHERS, LIKE GAYATRI SPIVAK,
CONTROVERSIALLY USE SUBALTERN AS A PLACEHOLDER FOR THOSE MADE MUTE BY
IMPERIAL HEGEMONY. COULD YOU CLARIFY THE MEANING OF SUBALTERN AND HOW
IT MATTERS FOR OUR UNDERSTANDING OF RESISTANCE?

The word subaltern has been used in various ways. We used it as: A
person or (occasionally) thing of inferior rank or status; a
subordinate. This is the way that Gramsci understood the term. The
dictionary even notes that this usage is now commonly associated with
a member of a marginalized or oppressed group; a person who is not
part of the hegemony. In this respect, Subaltern Studies has found a
place in the English language, and indeed many other languages. It is,
after all, based on the Latin word subalternus [which translates to
“under-other,” and thus easily integrated into most European
languages).

It is true that the term has been applied very broadly, including to
groups that are oppressed or dominated at one level, but who in turn
dominate other groups. Thus, white Australians have been depicted as
historically subaltern in relationship to the British ruling class,
while they in turn have oppressed Australian aboriginals in often
genocidal ways. Guha once joked about this tendency of Subaltern
Studies to go so far beyond its original remit that everyone except
the President of the United States is now being defined as subaltern!

Gayatri Spivak sought to delineate the subaltern in a more exclusive
way by arguing that they are those who have no voice — people who
are rendered invisible and mute by dominant culture. She argued that
all we can hope to do is to examine the ways that the subaltern is
rendered in the texts of the dominant classes. She applied
poststructuralist methods of textual analysis to this task and
enjoined on us to do the same. Although it is true that our knowledge
of the subaltern in history is from texts produced almost always by
the elites, these texts do reflect a material reality that we can
analyze in a way that centers the subaltern. For example, in “The
Cheese and the Worms,” Carlo Ginzberg uses the transcripts of the
Catholic Inquisition’s interrogation of a “heretic” to uncover
the attitudes and beliefs of a 16th century miller, Menochhio. As the
Inquisition sought to record objectively the specifics of
Menochhio’s beliefs, we have a meaningful glimpse into his mental
world. Radical historians such as Ginzberg seek to write about the
poor and oppressed to bring out the ways in which they thought and
acted. This is what we should try to do to the best of our abilities.

When applied to their resistance to oppression, we find that subaltern
groups were often informed by aims, objectives and beliefs that are
poles apart from the driving forces in contemporary movements. There
are, for example, notions of restoring a kingdom of justice and
godliness. There is a frequent belief that a savior or messianic
figure is coming to sweep away the old order, and so on. My stance on
this is that this reflects merely a different consciousness and that
it is valid in its own terms, in that it provides a driving force and
inspiration for possible radical change.

AS YOU EMPHASIZE IN YOUR WRITINGS, ANY SUBALTERN IS, PER DEFINITION,
IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH AN ELITE, AND THERE ARE ALWAYS MOMENTS OF
TEMPORARY ALLIANCES BASED ON MUTUAL INTERESTS AND COMPLEX
ENTANGLEMENTS BETWEEN THE SUBALTERN AND ELITES. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE
THESE ENTANGLEMENTS AND WHAT CONSEQUENCES DO THEY HAVE FOR
UNDERSTANDING RESISTANCE?

It was our task as historians to study the consciousness that informed
subaltern politics and action, using tools that were available to us.
Yet, at the same time, the resistance occurred in a context in which
the subaltern was bound up at many points with the dominant classes.
Members of the elite could act as champions or agents of the people.
The dominant classes might allow a degree of subaltern resistance to
defuse or neutralize the more radical objectives of the subaltern. In
these ways the two streams of politics braided together in complex
ways.

We sought to promote a mindset that is not patronizing towards
subaltern groups. In terms of contemporary relevance, we may say that
it allows radical members of dominant classes to be open to the aims,
objectives and desires of subaltern groups. In doing this, they may
contribute their owns skills, expertise and ability to communicate
with a ruling class in a way that facilitates the resistance. This
allows for the building of powerful coalitions. To take a recent
example, the support of large numbers of sympathetic white people to
the Black Lives Matter movement undoubtedly make it a much more potent
force.

IN WHAT WAY DOES IT MATTER WHETHER IT IS THE SUBALTERN DOING THE
RESISTANCE? IS THE QUALITY OF SUBALTERN RESISTANCE DIFFERENT FROM
RESISTANCE BY OTHER GROUPS?

Any movement that hopes to succeed must build alliances of different
class groups. By itself, one social group is unlikely to gain much
traction. In my opinion, what matters above all is the agenda that is
being pursued. One problem found in the original Subaltern Studies was
the assumption that subaltern resistance was itself characteristically
radical. As we now know from hard experience, the subaltern can often
be mobilized in support of the most reactionary and oppressive causes.
In India, the xenophobic and fascistic Hindu right has managed to gain
mass support by claiming to be the champion of Hinduism. In fact, it
supports the most narrow and intolerant form of this religion — one
that we associate with the most elite caste of all, the Brahmans. It
builds appeal by holding out a promise to the lower Hindu castes that
they will gain respectability if they support this agenda. In
practice, it involves genocidal attacks on members of the Muslim
minority.

As in many other parts of the world today, populist agendas are
pursued with appeals to the worst prejudices of the subordinated —
xenophobia and racism. Radical activists, by contrast, seek to build
coalitions on progressive agendas, such as democratic representation,
a rule of law, anti-racism, international solidarity, regulations that
protect citizens, the protection of the environment and so on. I would
hold, therefore, that it is the agenda that is being pursued that is
of primary importance, along with the dialogue between different
classes that occurs in the space of such a movement.

YOU BECAME CRITICAL OF THE SUBALTERN STUDIES GROUP’S VIEW ON THE
ROLE OF VIOLENCE IN LIBERATION STRUGGLES, AS WELL AS ITS OPPOSITION TO
GANDHI AND NONVIOLENCE. COULD YOU ELABORATE ON THE GROUP’S CONCEPT
AND ROLE OF VIOLENCE?

The first time I met Ranajit Guha, in 1971, he was carrying out
research on Gandhi for a multi-volume biography. I remember him saying
that he admired Gandhi far more than those he characterized as
vacillating liberals such as Jawaharlal Nehru. By 1971, he had also
become engaged with some young Naxalites, and he soon abandoned the
project on Gandhi to focus on peasant insurrection. Guha had a deep
understanding of Gandhi, but because of his belief in the efficacy of
violent insurrection, he was critical of the ways, he argued, it
allowed Indian elites to maintain their power without serious
challenge. Gandhian methods were described as “passive,” and
indeed in South Africa, Gandhi had initially used the term to describe
his protest, before later abandoning it for the term Satyagraha, that
is, “sticking to truth.”

As I argue in my book “The Nonviolent Struggle for Indian
Freedom,” there was a history here that stretched back to the
revolutions of 1848. The term “passive” was used in Germany to
describe the limited form of the resistance adopted by the Prussian
bourgeoisie who sought greater power for themselves while blocking any
power to the masses. Karl Marx accordingly described “passive
resistance” as a counter-revolutionary tactic used by the
bourgeoisie. Marx was however sympathetic to Irish nationalism —
which adopted passive resistance in the 1870s — which he saw as
progressive and with radical potential. This was ignored by his
followers, who continued to depict nonviolent methods as
counter-revolutionary. In India, Marxists found it hard to reconcile
this with the reality that Gandhian nationalism united a range of
classes in the struggle against imperial rule.

The Marxian position failed to grasp the way that nonviolence was
being applied in progressive ways with, as Chenoweth and Stephan have
shown [in “How Civil Resistance Works”], a much higher success
rate than more violent methods. It is notable in this respect that
Subaltern Studies was conceived at a moment when violent insurrection
appeared to be the way forward, with success in China, Cuba and
Vietnam. Subsequently, in the 1980s and 1990s, a range of nonviolent
movements brought the downfall of repressive regimes and the creation
of functioning democracies. The analysis of this kind of resistance
had been central to the project in its early years, but later slipped
from the agenda.

HOW MIGHT THE SUBALTERN STUDIES GROUP SERVE AS AN EXAMPLE, AND
POSSIBLY A WARNING, FOR OTHER CRITICAL AND RADICAL RESEARCH
INTERVENTIONS, SUCH AS QUEER STUDIES AND RESISTANCE STUDIES
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WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE TO YOUNG ACADEMICS TRYING TO CREATE
COUNTER-HEGEMONIC ORIENTATIONS WITHIN MAINSTREAM SOCIAL SCIENCE AND
HISTORICAL FIELDS?

The informing passion of the project was a commitment to the poor and
powerless. This commitment is of course just as relevant today, at a
time when the subordinated face continuing racism, misogyny,
homophobia, religious hatred and other forms of contextual
discrimination — or are being forced into exile from wars and
environmental collapse. In his book “Postcolonial Resistance,”
David Jefferess refers to Ben Okri’s statement that the people must
change the “stories” they live by in order to change the world.
Jefferess glosses this to understand “stories” as the historical
and literary narratives that represent “discourses of identity and
power through which subjectivity is constructed and within which
action is understood.” I think that this sums up a lot of what
Subaltern Studies tried to do.

On a warning note: I learned personally from my observation of
politics in India in the 1970s-90s that we overestimated the radical
potential of the subaltern. Being so intertwined with elite culture
and religion, they were always open to being co-opted by reactionary
interests. The lesson is that it generally takes many decades of
ideological and cultural struggle to build radical movements. The
Indian nationalist movement had in fact done this in the late 19th and
early 20th century, to the point at which it became a mass movement
under Gandhi’s leadership. The reactionary counter by the Hindu
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took decades to become a mainstream force. I think that we can see
this now — it has taken a long time to create such a critical mass
behind environmental issues, and education in nonviolent strategy that
has been continuing for many years has borne dividends over the past
decade.

TODAY THERE IS AN ALMOST MYTHICAL AURA OF SUBALTERN STUDIES FOR
RADICAL SCHOLARS. ON THE ONE HAND, SUBALTERN STUDIES IS SEEN AS ONE OF
THE MORE RADICAL ACADEMIC APPROACHES IN THE WORLD, ILLUSTRATING HOW
ACADEMICS CAN BE INTEGRATED WITHIN AND CONTRIBUTE TO COUNTER-HEGEMONIC
STRUGGLES. ON THE OTHER HAND, IT HAS BEEN CRITICIZED FOR ROMANTICIZING
THE SUBALTERN, CREATING A SIMPLIFIED DICHOTOMY BETWEEN
SUBALTERN/ELITE, AND UNDERMINING NATIONAL COALITIONS IN ANTI-COLONIAL
STRUGGLES. WHAT IS THE REMAINING LEGACY OF THE SUBALTERN STUDIES GROUP
TODAY?

Subaltern Studies grew out of the New Left. At that time, historians
and social scientists generally understood popular action as being
driven by economic need. We stressed that there was a complex politics
involved that went well beyond crude economic urges. We argued that
the complex mental worlds of the subordinated and their solidarities
were created out of a constant process of differentiation from the
dominant classes. This all occurred, however, within spaces that were
controlled ultimately by the elite, permitting elite politicians to
appropriate the subaltern in certain situations.

How this worked out in practice was set out as an agenda for research.
We need not claim to provide easy answers or a clear historical
formula. In this, we differentiated ourselves from some influential
studies of modern India of that period that sought to provide a key to
the understanding of this historical process. The openness of the
project gave room for diverse contributions, and for its evolution and
growth over time. Issues such as the gendered nature of the subaltern
or the idea of a unified “subaltern consciousness” were addressed.
The valorization of subaltern violence in acts of armed insurgency was
not however considered problematic. Indeed, in India many radicals
continue to uphold such revolt, as with the Naxalites.

The main legacies of the project were that it challenged old
assumptions about the poor and oppressed, providing a space for far
more nuanced and detailed studies of their experiences and life
histories. For example, I believe we were able to address issues such
as the religiosity of the subaltern classes in new and more productive
ways. The volumes also provided excellent scholarship that was able to
inspire a new generation of radical historians and social scientists.
That has, for us, been particularly gratifying.

* subaltern studies
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* India
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* organizing
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* Intersectionality
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* Antonio Gramsci
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