Revisiting Subaltern Studies : Issues and Perspectives

Revisiting Subaltern Studies : Issues and Perspectives

Dr. Pradeep Waghmare

Nineteenth century colonial India could be marked as a turning point in the emerging creation of awareness among the downtrodden. It is during this time that the oppressed social groups were identified against the backdrop of new socio-economic and political structures. The era also witnessed deliberations on their contribution to nation-making and the impact of modernistic principles resulting in their visibility in the social fabric. In the academic context, Subaltern Studies attempted to foreground social categories, which were at the receiving end of a range of power structures at different locations of the Indian subcontinent.

Subaltern Studies generated intense debates and critiques about social location and historiography by later historians and scholars. New generations of researchers working on the past experiences of subaltern masses need to explore a wide variety of perspectives that have not found space in earlier historiography. Ideas of gender and class inequalities have been at the centre of their historical enquiry and a considerable effort is now being made to study the convergence of multiple identities on life experiences. Many historians and scholars later expanded the framework of caste exploitation by paying special attention to caste and gender, underlining the limits of subaltern historiography.

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