Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for 'Indians' Pasts? (Dipesh Chakrabarty)

 Introduction:

Dipesh Chakrabarty (born in 1948 in Kolkata) is an Indian historian and leading scholar of postcolonial theory and subaltern studies. He is the Lawrence A Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor in history at the University of Chicago, and is the recipient of the 2014 Tonybee Prize, named after Professor Arnold J. Tonybee, that recognizes social scientist for significant academic and public contributions to humanity.

 

Domination of European History:

Dipesh Chakrabarty in his essay, “Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for ‘Indian’ Pasts?” tries to analyze the history of the world and the position of Indians in it. the world history were mostly written by European writers who were totally unmindful of the eastern values. Their histories were mostly produced at the institutional level. Europe being a royal power influenced the entire world order in terms of politics, trade, commerce, defence and other aspects of an advanced society. The European history dominated the entire world order and engulfed the theoretical subject of all histories including “Indian, Chinese, Kenyan” and so on. Therefore, the European history became a master narrative. In this sense, the  Indian history itself in a position of subalternity and can only express subaltern position in the name of history. Thus arises the question of domination and subordination. The great phenomenon of orientalism is willfully sacrificed at the altar of European imperialism. Europe dominates the phenomenal world of everyday relationship of power. Europe works as a silent referent in all historical knowledge.

 

There is a compulsion for the third-world and non-western historians to refer to works in European history but the historians of Europe do not feel any need to reciprocate.  European historians produce their works in relative ignorance of non-western histories. Hence Chakrabarty states that the dominance of “Europe” as the subject of all histories is the theorical condition under which historical knowledge produced in the third-world. this condition expresses in a paradoxical manner. This is the blatant result of cultural arrogance on the part of European historians. Karl Marx views this paradox in terms of social conditions. He uses terms such as “Bourgeoise” and Pre-bourgeoise” are “Capital” and “Pre-capital”. Bourgeoises and capitalists according to Marx give rise for the first-time to a history that can be seen as philosophical and universal category. History becomes for the first-time theoretical knowledge.

 

Marx’s View of Transition:

According to Chakrabarty, Marx calls for “equal pay for equal work” is the first call to move to the main stream social order. Marxism paved the way for the historical narratives. These narratives turn around the theme of historical transitions. Most modern third-world histories are written within problematics posed by these transition narratives. This tendency forms the backdrop of subaltern studies. Peasants dream of mythical kingdom, the left’s ideal of social revolution constitute the history of modern India. The transition narratives celebrated the imperialists’ capacity for violence and conquests. Alexander Dow’s “History of Hindostan” is the best example for this conviction.

The British introduced the “Rule of Law” in the place of “arbitrary” and “despotic”. In 19^th and 20^th centuries nationalism became the subject of Indian transition narratives. Transition from imperialism to nationalism is the most notable trend in Indian literary and social contexts. Raja Rammohun Roy and Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay emerged as India’s most prominent nationalists’ intellectuals of the 19^th century. The peasants and the workers who formed the Indian subaltern classes were on the rise. Many Indians who were in London for education and livelihood returned to India to become nationalists which includes Mahatma Gandhi also. Many of the public and private subjects of modern individualism became visible in India in the 19^th century. This period also witnessed sudden development of four basic genres such as novel, biography, autobiography and history. Along with these developed modern industries, technology, medicine and legal system. Gandhi realized this as early as 1909. He remarked in his famous book, “Hind-Swaraj” “make India  English” or as he puts it otherwise to have “English rule without the English man”.

 

Inadequacy of Indian Transition Narratives: 

All Indians have now become “citizens’. They are well protected by the constitutions. The modern individual whose political life is lived in citizenship. They also supposed to have an interiorized “private-self”. Their private lives are not properly represented in this narrative. Since the middle of the 19^th century, there have been Indian novels, diaries, letters and autobiographies but they seldom yield pictures of an endlessly interiorized subject. Chakrabarty argues that all our autobiographies are fully public. Women writers just tell the stories of the extended family life. Nirad Chaudhury’s “autobiographies” are largely public than personal. Thus, the transition narrative situates the modern individual at the very end of history. literature produced in Bengal between 1850 and 1920 mostly deal with Bengali middle-class Hindu life. they are full of “domestic science”. The condition of women in 19^th century India was not well-presented in these  narratives. The idea of the “modern” individual, “freedom”, “equality”, and “rights” are all highlighted. Bengali literature have often become the subject of ridicule and scorn. Bengali women writers like Kundamala Devi and Indra Devi have expressed their views on the conditions of women in the family and society: “Unaffected by nature, of pleasant speech, untiring in their service (to others) oblivious of their own pleasures (while) moved easily by the suffering of others and capable of being content with very little”.

 

Women are the Lakshmis of the community. If they undertake to impose themselves in the sphere of dharma and knowledge, then there will be an automatic amusement in the quality of social life. Hindu woman should be united in complete harmony with husband through mutual submission, loyalty, devotion, and chastity. If they are not so, the entire family is destroyed by the spirit of Alakshmi (not-Lakshmi). Thus, the Indian transition narratives focus much on making the family a site where the sacred and the secular blended   in a permanent principle that was heavenly and divine. Thus these voices combining the constituting theme of nationalism, class-based ideology, women struggle against men and the friendship between husband and wife are the deep ambivalence that marked these narratives.

 

There is a strong difference between European history and Indian history. Indian history, culture and tradition accord more importance to community and individual relationship, whereas the European history give smore importance to the nation and not the individual. This is the sharp difference between the European imperialism and the third-world nationalism which constitute the basic layers of subaltern studies. Therefore, there is continuous struggle and inherent confrontation between these cultures and histories. Third-world domain represents the rejection of modernity, historical values, individualism, science, and grand-narratives. These struggles include coercion of politically instituted symbolic violence. The Europe like the west is notably an imaginary entity. But third-world nationalism and modernizing ideologies are par-excellence. The strength of India lies with grand-narratives of “rights, citizenship, the nation-state, public and private spheres”

 

Conclusion:

Chakrabarty in this essay has effectively defended against the third-world counties being labelled as subaltern in the European context. he argues that the term subaltern has been created by the western thinkers who are totally ignorant of non-western narratives, cultural and traditional achievements. He concludes that Europe may be termed in the context of science and legal system but not in the sphere of literature, architecture and other traditional values of the third-world nations.