—Yatin Satish
‘Subaltern’ is yet another term you will hear being used as a buzzword by HS boffins fresh out of class – all off their rockers on Sociology. Rather well-known, it is used in every context imaginable – and is also the subject of the worst pun I have ever heard in my life.
“Dude, can we go to subaltern this weekend – I want B.M.T, da!” – is the most repugnant sentence I have ever had the misfortune to be subjected to.
‘Subaltern’ – apart from its usage in soul-shatteringly abhorrent puns – is a technical term in Postcolonial Theory, used in reference to a certain type of marginalisation.
It was first used in an academic context by the Marxist scholar Antonio Gramsci, in his prison notebooks – the same ones which contained his famous theory of Cultural Hegemony. He was writing from an Italian prison, during Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime – an experience made complete with the unique publishing process that comes with having a prison censor as an Editor. Gramsci’s notebooks would be rigorously checked for any deviant ideas, and so he devised a codeword for ‘proletariat’ – who were subject to the hegemony of his soon-to-be-executioners. The chosen codeword was ‘subaltern’.
Taken from Gramsci, ‘subaltern’ was then co-opted by Postcolonial Studies scholars, most famously by the father of the feted field of Subaltern Studies – Ranajit Guha. Within Subaltern Studies – a name coined by Guha – the word ‘subaltern’ is “a name for the general attribute of subordination in South Asian societies – whether this is expressed in terms of class, caste, age, gender and office or in any other way”.
Thus, the Subaltern came to denote a type of Other, which harkened back to its latin roots – sub (below) and alternus (all others) – a sort of hidden Other.
This understanding in the context of early Postcolonial Studies can be shown by the following distinction:
Coloniser – Self
Oppressed – Other
Subaltern – Other to the Other
One important critique of this understanding of Subaltern Studies was conducted by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, in her 1985 paper Can the Subaltern Speak?: Speculations on Widow Sacrifice. Spivak highlighted the problem in a key premise of Subaltern Studies – that the heterogeneous, disparate groups taken to be subaltern can in fact have enough unity that ‘they’ can speak. And so Spivak answers her own question by underscoring a key feature of the subaltern. No. The subaltern cannot speak, for they are invisible and without voice; in the social sense. Indeed, if the subaltern actually do find a voice, they no longer count as subaltern.
If we want an example, or a ‘trace’ of the subaltern, we can look at certain groups under the early British Raj. The devadasis, the hijras, the rural populace and lower castes in this period formed the subaltern. They were the Other even to those parts of Indian culture seen as Other by the British. They were pushed to the margins of society, and had no voice. The access that these groups had to centres of power were basically non-existent.
Someone classified as subaltern is so oppressed within the framework of the oppressor/oppressed binary that they are unable to even access the voice of the oppressed.
This hammers home the point that subaltern is not simply a catch-all term for the downtrodden, as repeatedly reiterated by Spivak:
“ (…) subaltern is not just a classy word for “oppressed”, for [the] Other, for somebody who’s not getting a piece of the pie. . . . In post-colonial terms, everything that has limited or no access to the (sic) cultural imperialism is subaltern — a space of difference.”
“[Those] within the hegemonic discourse, wanting a piece of the pie, and not being allowed – let them speak, use the hegemonic discourse. They should not call themselves subaltern.”
And there you have the history of the word “subaltern”, along with a general guide to its usage.
Its usage and definition, along with the idea that the subaltern cannot speak and can only be spoken for is more than slightly controversial. The word is also used rather hazily in contemporary times, and it doesn’t always stick to Spivak’s strict definition. Confusion and arguments aside, it is clear that ‘subaltern’ is going to be a part of the Social Sciences discourse for quite a while.
Use it responsibly, I implore you – without reference to any international sandwich chains.
Design by Rohit G
Edited by Samaja Penumaka
Article 19 