subaltern
LEE
1
Silent Trauma: Representing Indian Partition in Subaltern Studies, Bapsi
Sidhwa’s Cracking India
I.
Subaltern Studies: Silence of History of Partition and Subaltern
In 1947, India gained its independence following 350 years of British
colonization.
At the same time, due to the serious communal conflicts that had long
existed among the three main communities in India—Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs, the
Independence brought the Partition of India to create two newly independent nations:
India and Pakistan.
Having a dissatisfaction with how the Independence and the
Partition were represented in history, a group of Indian historians initiated serious debates about historiography—or the writing of history—of colonial India. Led by
Ranajit Guha, this group of Indian historians, known as the Subaltern Studies group, inaugurated the Subaltern Studies project in the early 1980s in an attempt to revise elitist and nationalist historiography and promote discussion of subaltern themes in
South Asian studies.1
The term “subaltern,” literally meaning “of inferior rank” in the OED, has been used by the Subaltern Studies group to designate the people who are not the elite—the dominant groups. This term was derived from the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci in his celebrated collection Selections from the Prison Notebooks.
When he
investigated the insurgency of the rural peasants in Southern Italy, Gramsci categorized the peasants into the non-hegemonic classes—the subaltern groups.
Gramsci listed six necessary points to study about the subaltern,2 explicating the
1
To revise the bias in the historiography of Indian nationalism and recuperate the voice of the subaltern in history, the Subaltern Studies group contributed to produce a number of monographs and ten volumes of essays entitled Subaltern Studies: Writings on South Asian History and Society between
1982 and 1999 by Oxford University Press in Delhi. In 1988, the
1
Silent Trauma: Representing Indian Partition in Subaltern Studies, Bapsi
Sidhwa’s Cracking India
I.
Subaltern Studies: Silence of History of Partition and Subaltern
In 1947, India gained its independence following 350 years of British
colonization.
At the same time, due to the serious communal conflicts that had long
existed among the three main communities in India—Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs, the
Independence brought the Partition of India to create two newly independent nations:
India and Pakistan.
Having a dissatisfaction with how the Independence and the
Partition were represented in history, a group of Indian historians initiated serious debates about historiography—or the writing of history—of colonial India. Led by
Ranajit Guha, this group of Indian historians, known as the Subaltern Studies group, inaugurated the Subaltern Studies project in the early 1980s in an attempt to revise elitist and nationalist historiography and promote discussion of subaltern themes in
South Asian studies.1
The term “subaltern,” literally meaning “of inferior rank” in the OED, has been used by the Subaltern Studies group to designate the people who are not the elite—the dominant groups. This term was derived from the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci in his celebrated collection Selections from the Prison Notebooks.
When he
investigated the insurgency of the rural peasants in Southern Italy, Gramsci categorized the peasants into the non-hegemonic classes—the subaltern groups.
Gramsci listed six necessary points to study about the subaltern,2 explicating the
1
To revise the bias in the historiography of Indian nationalism and recuperate the voice of the subaltern in history, the Subaltern Studies group contributed to produce a number of monographs and ten volumes of essays entitled Subaltern Studies: Writings on South Asian History and Society between
1982 and 1999 by Oxford University Press in Delhi. In 1988, the
Cited: New York: Oxford, 2000. xi-xvii. New York: Oxford, 2000. 1-21. Apter, David. Preface. The Legitimization of Violence. Ed. David Apter. New York: New York UP, 1997. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2000. Ed. Vinayak Chaturvedi. London: Verso, 2000. vii-xix. Violence and Subjectivity. Ed. Veena Das et al. Berkeley: U of California P, 2000 Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage, 1979. London: Verso, 2000. 1-7. ---. Introduction. A Subaltern Studies Reader, 1986-1995. Ed. Ranajit Guha. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1997. ix-xxii. Ranajit Guha. Delhi: Oxford UP, 1982. vii-viii. Literature, Identity. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1995. 129-53. California P, 2000. 79-101. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Primacy of Perception. Ed. James Edie. Chicago: Northwestern UP, 1971. Pandey, Gyanendra. “In Defense of the Fragment: Writing about Hindu-Muslim Riots in India Today.” Representations 37 (1992): 27-55. ---. “The Prose of Otherness.” Subaltern Studies VIII. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 1994. ---. Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism and History in India. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001 Seltzer, Mark. Serial Killers: Death and Life in America’s Wound Culture. New York: Routledge, 1998. Sidhwa, Bapsi. Cracking India: A Novel. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed, 1991. New York P, 2000. 1-20. Thieme, John. “Parsi, Parsee.” Post-Colonial Studies: The Essential Glossary. London: Arnold, 2003