Reading Chakrabarty and Pandey's paper on the Peasant movements and the working class reveals a lot about 'layers' of power as they existed within South Asia. This allows us to move forward from simple, un-examined categories of colonizer-colonized, oppressor-oppressed, bourgeoisie-proletariat. They reveal how power is divided and distributed not in clean, clear categories but along messy relationships. This, in some ways, begs the question of how we conceptualize relations when writing/reading history. Is there really a term for the Sardar as he appears in Chakrabarty's work? Or for that matter the 'Labor' as it appears in his work? In fact, while one can argue that Chakrabarty's paper pushes the idea of the difference between India and Britain to the point where he seems to imply that no similarities between English and the Indian 'working class' can exist, there is value in understanding the 'culture' of the working class. It not only has implications of Labor history within India but also modern day Labor politics. How does organization happen in a group which builds mosques in honor of its instrument of oppression? Many of the factors which Chakrabarty points remain true even today; almost unlimited supply of Labor, experiential training, poor working conditions, some sort of Sardar etc. How then, can we begin to understand the potential of consciousness? Perhaps, one starting point could be Aasim Sajjad's paper on 'Politics of common-sense' which shows how the things which are normally conceptualized as 'corruption' are seen as 'common-sense' and the workers/peasants understand that to work within the system, they need to work with this 'common-sense'. However, admittedly, this scarcely explains the veneration of the Sardar. Perhaps, another hint can be found in Pandey's paper on Peasant movement and the Nationalist movement; he shows how old system of Zamindari was accepted but not the new one of Nazrana.
While Chakrabarty's paper was definitely interesting, two objections can be raised; one has already been raised by Saniya about the investigation of the European context. The second is about the relationship between the Mill owners and the Sardars. In his paper, it almost seems as if the mill owners very innocently realized that it was in 'capital's interest' to let the Sardar as he does. Perhaps, we also need to investigate the role of Mill owner in ensuring that the power of the Sardar is maintained.
In addition to this, Pandey's work allows us to better understand the role of the Nationalist movement. In many ways, we can go back to the 'provocative' question that was posed in session 2 about the extent to which we can consider Nationalist movements as radical; this paper reveals that the objection against Nationalist movement is not that they were not radical enough, but rather that their role was, in at least this particular instance, to ensure the continued subjugation of the peasants. As Pandey points out, perhaps the most important thing to do when studying anti-imperialist movement is not to forget relations of class within the anti-imperialist movement; clearly, the leaders of the Nationalist movement didn't.
The three papers also raise the important question of consciousness - how do we understand consciousness in these contexts? Particularly, how do we understand consciousness as it appears in 'Encounters and Calamities'? Ali Hassan, regards a particular administrator as a 'great men' because he used to call good marsiya khuwan during the Muharram procession. How can we even begin to understand this? Pre-political; non-political; idiotic? Other instances in other articles also hint towards something of the same sort; for example, the fact that Ghandhi's name continued to have power even after he had effectively sent instructions which would have all but destroyed the peasant movement?
In terms of archives, Pandey warns us against reading colonial archives 'with the grain'; but he does more than that; he shows exactly how the narrative in the archive is biased when he quotes the documents prepared by the colonial administration. In addition to this, the focus on absences within the archive which Chakrabarty points out is useful for us. In effect, he is able to construct the entire story by simply looking at what is 'not' there. We can learn a lot from this technique but at the same time, almost all papers point towards an element of unknown which simply cannot be recovered. For example, as both Pandey and Chakrabarty point out, in most cases, the archive simply does not exist. (Pandey counts himself lucky that he could get his hands on a diary entry) This again points out that even with the Subaltern methodology, the extent to which we can recover 'a' voice is limited, let alone an 'authentic' voice.
While Chakrabarty's paper was definitely interesting, two objections can be raised; one has already been raised by Saniya about the investigation of the European context. The second is about the relationship between the Mill owners and the Sardars. In his paper, it almost seems as if the mill owners very innocently realized that it was in 'capital's interest' to let the Sardar as he does. Perhaps, we also need to investigate the role of Mill owner in ensuring that the power of the Sardar is maintained.
In addition to this, Pandey's work allows us to better understand the role of the Nationalist movement. In many ways, we can go back to the 'provocative' question that was posed in session 2 about the extent to which we can consider Nationalist movements as radical; this paper reveals that the objection against Nationalist movement is not that they were not radical enough, but rather that their role was, in at least this particular instance, to ensure the continued subjugation of the peasants. As Pandey points out, perhaps the most important thing to do when studying anti-imperialist movement is not to forget relations of class within the anti-imperialist movement; clearly, the leaders of the Nationalist movement didn't.
The three papers also raise the important question of consciousness - how do we understand consciousness in these contexts? Particularly, how do we understand consciousness as it appears in 'Encounters and Calamities'? Ali Hassan, regards a particular administrator as a 'great men' because he used to call good marsiya khuwan during the Muharram procession. How can we even begin to understand this? Pre-political; non-political; idiotic? Other instances in other articles also hint towards something of the same sort; for example, the fact that Ghandhi's name continued to have power even after he had effectively sent instructions which would have all but destroyed the peasant movement?
In terms of archives, Pandey warns us against reading colonial archives 'with the grain'; but he does more than that; he shows exactly how the narrative in the archive is biased when he quotes the documents prepared by the colonial administration. In addition to this, the focus on absences within the archive which Chakrabarty points out is useful for us. In effect, he is able to construct the entire story by simply looking at what is 'not' there. We can learn a lot from this technique but at the same time, almost all papers point towards an element of unknown which simply cannot be recovered. For example, as both Pandey and Chakrabarty point out, in most cases, the archive simply does not exist. (Pandey counts himself lucky that he could get his hands on a diary entry) This again points out that even with the Subaltern methodology, the extent to which we can recover 'a' voice is limited, let alone an 'authentic' voice.
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