Colonial Liberalism and Subaltern Politics: A Reappraisal
Xavier Centre of Historical Research
HISTORY HOURColonial Liberalism and Subaltern Politics: |
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Colonial Liberalism and Subaltern Politics
A Reappraisal
Relations between marginalized groups in Indian society and the colonial state have typically been interpreted as fundamentally antagonistic. Such an understanding informed much of the scholarship produced by the Subaltern Studies collective, and endures in refracted form in contemporary perspectives about for instance, the unprecedented significance of independent India’s constitutional moment in the mid-20th century. This talk proposes an alternative perspective on the matter by identifying fairly prolonged engagements of subaltern communities with the state under colonial rule that were marked not by conflict, but on the contrary, indicated mutual intelligibility and communication. In particular, I survey key moments in the history of Dalit and Adivasi engagements with the colonial state to advance our hypothesis. In so doing, I invite reconsideration of widely held assumptions about both subaltern consciousness and its supposed antinomy in colonial liberalism, thereby laying the groundwork for a possible re-envisioning of the historical significance and legacies of British colonialism in India.
Uday Chandra
Uday Chandra is Assistant Professor of Government at Georgetown University in Qatar. His research lies at the intersection between critical agrarian studies, political anthropology, postcolonial theory, and South Asian Studies. His research has focused on caste, tribe, and the state in modern India, as well as indigeneity and mobility in a broader comparative postcolonial canvas. Chandra is the author of Resistance as Negotiation: Making States and Tribes in the Margins of Modern India (Stanford University Press, 2024) and is working on a second book manuscript tentatively titled Democracy sans Liberalism.
Dale Luis Menezes
Dale Luis Menezes is a historian at Georgetown University, Washington DC working on the importance of rice and coconut cultivation in the Portuguese empire, from 1500s till about 1800s. Currently on a Georgetown University Qatar Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Menezes is finishing his dissertation. His research closely observes society in one village in early modern Goa, zooming out to explain how empire and transoceanic systems slowly developed from the 1500s at the local, regional, and global levels. He is interested in understanding the motivation of locals who participated in the Portuguese empire.
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