Question

Write short notes : (A
(1) Subaltern History​

Answer 1

Answer:

Explanation:Subaltern Studies emerged around 1982 as a series of journal articles published by Oxford University Press in India.  A group of Indian scholars trained in the west wanted to reclaim their history.  Its main goal was to retake history for the underclasses, for the voices that had not been heard previous.  Scholars of the subaltern hoped to break away from histories of the elites and the Eurocentric bias of current imperial history.  In the main, the wrote against the "Cambridge School" which seemed to uphold the colonial legacy—i.e. it was elite-centered.  Instead, they focused on subaltern in terms of class, caste, gender, race, language and culture.  They espoused the idea that there may have been political dominance, but that this was not hegemonic.  The primary leader was Ranajit Guha who had written works on peasant uprisings in India.  Another of the leading scholars of subaltern studies is Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.  She draws on a number of theoretical positions in her analysis of Indian history: deconstruction, marxism, feminism. She was highly critical of current histories of India that were told from the vantage point of the colonizers and presented a story of the colony via the British adminstrators (Young, 159).  What she and other historians (including Ranajit Guha) wanted was to reclaim their history, to give voice to the subjected peoples.  Any other history merely reconstructs imperialist hegemony and does not give voice to the people—those who resisted, those who supported, those who experienced colonial incursion.  According to the Subaltern Studies group, this history is designed to be a "contribution made by people on their own, that it, independently of the élite" (quoted in Young 160).  They did this by establishing a journal out of Oxford, Delhi and Australia and called it Subaltern Studies to write a history against the grain and restore history to the subordinated.  In other words, to give the common people back their agency.

In other words, proponents of subaltern studies suggest that we need to find alternate sources to locate the voice of the subaltern historically.  Elite records, like those at the home office or foreign office could still be used, but you had to read them with a different pair of lenses.  So even though we might be subject to using these same sources, we can read them "against the grain" –this phrase comes from Walter Benjamin's theoretical work.

Many SS critics, like Dipesh Chakrabarty ("postcoloniality and the artifice of history" in representations) suggest that it is really impossible to fully break from the western narrative.

Obviously, the introduction of subaltern studies, like all of our theories we've encountered this term, has tremendous political repercussions.  

Answer 2

Explanation:

*Subaltern History*

1. History of deprived classes or community who were deprived in all rights is known as Subaltern History.

2. The seeds of Subaltern History are found in Marxist historiography.

3. In Subaltern History the process of writing History should be bottommost rank.

4. Subaltern History is the history of the people who are considered as the 'bottommost rank' in the society.

5. Itlalin Historian Antonio Gramsci played an important role in developing this idea.

6. Ranjit Guha played an important role in establishing Subaltern History as an important acedamic school of historiography.

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