Can the ‘Subaltern’ Ride? A Reply to O'Hanlon and Washbrook

Abstract

The problem with Prakash, O'Hanlon and Washbrook conclude, is that he tries to ride two horses at once—one Marxist, the other poststructuralist deconstructionist. ‘But one of these may not be a horse that brooks inconstant riders. …’ So, they say we must choose only one to ride on, not both because the two, in their view, have opposing trajectories. One advances historical understanding and progressive change, the other denies history and perpetuates a retrogressive status quo. Posed in this manner, the choices involve more than a dispute over which paradigm provides a better understanding of the histories of the third world and India. At stake is the writing of history as political practice, and the only safe bet, from their point of view, is Marxism (of their kind), not the endless deferral and nihilism of deconstruction and postmodernism. Having set up this opposition, O'Hanlon and Washbrook's either/or logic has no place for the productive tension that the combination of Marxist and deconstructive approaches generates. They are uncomfortable with those recent writings that employ Marxist categories to analyze patterns of inequalities and exploitation while also using deconstructive approaches to contend that Marxism is part of the history that institutionalized capitalist dominance—approaches which argue that although Marxism can rightfully claim that it historicizes the emergence of capitalism as a world force, it cannot disavow its history as a nineteenth-century European discourse that universalized the mode-of-production narrative.

A Critical Psychology of the Postcolonial

“…The psychology of resistance thus enabled would not necessarily hence be one a pristine, pure or decolonized state of mind, but would refer rather to an assertion of presence -or voice -that had been previously muted and not given the space in which to speak. 9 In this respect we find a convergence of theorization on behalf of a variety of postcolonial theorists who focus on the necessity of creating the cultural, historical and material conditions under which the subaltern can come forward and speak for him or herself (in this respect, see Guha, 1988;Guha & Spivak, 1988;Prakash, 1990Prakash, , 1992Said, 1993;Spivak, 1988Spivak, , 1996. A whole new vista of speculative possibilities thus for the theorization of resistance.…”

History and Anthropology in South Asia: Rethinking the Archive

“…What unites the group, according to Guha, who edited the first six volumes of the series, is a critical idiom that self-consciously challenges the elitism of these earlier paradigms, and an emphasis on "the primacy of the subaltern as the subject of historical and sociological inquiry" (Guha 1983a:vii). In addition to this edited series, currently in its tenth volume, the corpus now includes several books by collective members (Amin 1995;Arnold 1986Arnold , 1993Chakrabarty 1989;Chatterjee 1993a,b;Guha 1983bGuha , 1997aHardiman 1987;Pandey 1990;Prakash 1999), two compilations of selected essays (Guha 1997b, Guha & Spivak 1988, and a set of ongoing discussions in history, literature, and anthropology about the issues raised by its interventions (Arnold 1984;Chakrabarty 1992;O'Hanlon 1988;O'Hanlon & Washbrook 1992;Ortner 1995;Prakash 1990Prakash , 1992Prakash , 1994Scott 1999;Sivaramakrishnan 1995b;Spivak 1988a,b;Visweswaran 1996).…”

Loving America and Longing for Home: Isma'il al‐Faruqi and the Emergence of the Muslim Diaspora in North America

“…One might plausibly argue that this contradiction could have been easily avoided. There should be enough room for intellectual obligations of any sort in a plural terrain -room for both Salman Rushdie and his Muslim critics (Prakash, 1992). But as James Clifford (1988) once wrote, "the privilege of standing above cultural particularism, of appealing to the universalist power that speaks for humanity, for universal experience of love, work, death, etc., is a privilege invented by totalizing Western liberalism" (1988: 263).…”