On the Structure of Subalternity and the Process of Subalternisation in India

On the Structure of Subalternity and the Process of Subalternisation in India

We owe the current currency of the concept of subaltern in social science to historians, particularly of Indian origin (Guha & Chakravorty, 1988). Subaltern historiography is juxtaposed to nationalist historiography which has neglected history from below—the perspectives of adivasis, dalits, peasantry, women and other deprived sections. Conventional nationalist historiography was ‘history from above’ focusing on emperors, kings, monarchs, generals and conquerors; of wars, victories, defeats and the consolidation or division of empires, kingdoms and principalities. The histories of everyday life and ordinary peoples were subjected to a cognitive blackout, according to subaltern historians. To fill this enormous gap, the subaltern school of historiography emerged. Sociologists and social anthropologists who gathered their data directly from ordinary people necessarily had a worm’s eye-view instead of a bird’s eye-view, nurturing then a view from below, a bottoms-up perspective. Therefore, the sociological perspective did not neglect subalterns. However, those sociologists who relied only on indological sources to construct ‘social reality’ projected a misleading picture, independent of empirical facts. In fact, textual constructions tended to consign a set of people to the margins, indeed characterising them as inferiors.

The dictionary meaning of subaltern is one ‘of inferior rank’ and this inferiority can be derived from a multiplicity of sources. If it is inferiority seen in the economic context, one can invoke terms such as lower class or proletarian and operationally refer to them as those belonging to below the poverty line (BPL-I). However, this refers to only one aspect of inferior rank. If a person or group is deprived of power one has to refer to them as powerless and belonging to those below the power line (BPL-II). Yet again, there are groups with low social rank present in all societies and in a traditional Indian society they were assigned to levels below the ritual pollution line (BPL-III). Subalterns are those who combine all the three BPLs, or at the very least two of them, and therefore the concept of class, power and status viewed in isolation cannot comprehend the very notion of subaltern.

Broadly speaking, there are two types of collectivities—organic and aggregative (Oommen 2014, 2016). Those who constitute organic collectivities—caste groups, tribal groups, religious minorities, linguistic minorities, women and so on, clearly have specifiable social and cultural characteristics in spite of their internal differentiation. Thus, Sanskritisation of dalits, de-tribalisation of adivasis, the upward or downward mobility of caste groups, conversion of religious groups, losing or rejecting linguistic identity, the weakening, if not total disappearance of patriarchy, are empirically observable. However, subalterns as organic collectivities have a certain level of immutability unlike aggregative collectivities such as class, power elite, the physically and mentally challenged and so on who are drawn from a multiplicity of organic collectivities. This distinction between organic and aggregative collectivities, based on their social morphology, is crucial for understanding the causal factors (social etiology) in assigning them to static and changing positions in society. The fact that subalterns are organic collectivities means that in the fixity–flexibility continuum their location is towards the fixity end.

If subalterns are inferiors there are several indicators through which their inferiority can be indicated and communicated. That is, the process of inferiorisation or subalternisation is of differing intensity/directions. I shall designate them as externalisation, hierarchisation, denial of identity (which, in turn, has two manifestations—assimilation or assigning a subsidiary identity) and subordination. What I propose to do is to analyse the process of subalternisation in India so as to unfold the structure of subalternity.

Externalisation is a process through which a group/community within a polity or society is denied internality. Indian society/polity is a product of a long historical process which witnessed the entry and exit of a wide variety of groups and communities. And yet, some of these groups which have an alien geographical origin, such as Kashmiri Pandits and Rajputs, are perceived as cultural insiders. That is, an externalised community need not be subaltern. In contrast, two religious minorities whose nativity is historically established are defined and treated as cultural outsiders, not only by monists, those who conceptualise India as constitutive of one-nation, one-culture and one-people, but even by the Indian state when it was led by a political party which viewed Indian polity as culturally plural. The three tiny immigrant religious minorities (Jews, Zoroastrians and Baha’is) are outsiders but not perceived as inferior.

Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of Arya Samaj in his Satyarth Prakash (Light of Truth), published in 1875, contends that Vedic Aryans are the primordial and elected people of humanity to whom Vedas have been revealed to by God and that their language, Sanskrit, is the mother of all languages. Derivatively then even Dravidian Hindus are inferiors and hence subalterns. Golwalkar (1939) was more unequivocal and held that all Indian citizens who are the followers of religions which originated outside India, that is Muslims, Christians, Baha’is, Jews and Zoroastrians, do not belong to the Indian nation. To characterise a set of religious communities as outsiders to a society is a project of subalternisation. But the greatest victims of this perception are Muslims and Christians, the overwhelming majority of whom converted from the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs)who were more native to India, as compared to all other social segments found in the country. Thus, perception, rather than facts, is often pivotal in subalternisation.

One of the routes through which the Indian state attempted to de-subalternise the lower castes (those below the pollution line) was to uplift them materially through the policy of reservation. The specific legal measure used for this purpose was the Presidential Order 1950 which was initially applicable only to SCs of Hindu origin. In 1954, it was made applicable to the SCs who embraced Sikhism and in 1990 to SCs who converted to Buddhism. The point here is not that through this measure SCs who embraced Sikhism and Buddhism got de-subalternised but that even this limited measure was not applicable to those SCs who converted to Islam and Christianity although the political party which attested cultural pluralism was in power for most of the time in Independent India. That is, irrespective of their ideological orientations all political parties, save the leftists, tend to externalise Muslims and Christians which is a sure invitation to subalternisation.

If externalisation locates victims outside the polity, hierarchisation accepts victims as insiders but consigns them to the lowest step of the social ladder. This is the case of the social category currently designated SC by the state although they themselves prefer the appellation, dalits. The justification to treat this category as ‘untouchables’ is derived from Hindu theological texts. For example, the Apastamba Dharmasutra warns:

Pollution will occur if these people (that is, untouchables) are touched, conversed with, or even looked upon…. If the Chandala was touched, you must bathe submerging the entire body, if conversed with, exchange words with a Brahmin, if looked upon, observe the lights (Sun, Moon, Stars).

In spite of centuries of interrogation from the Buddha to Gandhi, the phenomenon of untouchability persists. Similarly, although the Indian state passed several legislations and attempted to implement them the stranglehold of caste with regard to the ritual dimension persists obstinately. The only way out is to abandon the caste system by rejecting the doctrines of creation in Hindu theology which legitimises it. Dr B. R. Ambedkar advocated this but his voice largely fell on deaf ears. In fact, the constructions by Indologists, also endorsed by sociologists, transcended the chaturvarna schema provided for in the Hindu scriptures and added a fifth one, the panchamas, the lowliest of the low. This invention of subalterns and consigning them to congenital inferiority was an act of sacrilege in that sociologists are trained to formulate propositions anchored to verifiable evidence. There are a large number of Indian sociologists who indulged in this questionable exercise. Ghurye’s (1979) view has been perhaps the most durable on this issue. Thankfully this orientation is being interrogated (Kumar, 2016, p. 39) has a telling recent example. In addition to the curse of untouchability imposed on dalits, they are also socio-economically marginalised resulting in their cumulative oppression (Oommen, 1984, pp. 45–62).

The third source of subalternisation is the denial of identity which has two dimensions—complete absorption into the cultural mainstream or assigning an inferior identity. Both these have happened in India. The religious identity of adivasis has been denied by the state in Independent India and the religious majority community. The British Indian census from 1881 to 1931 had an entry under religions variously referred to as ‘primitive’, ‘naturism’, ‘animism’, ‘tribal’ and so on. But the first census of Independent India absorbed these categories, which amounted to about 3 per cent at that time, into Hinduism in 1951. This denial of religious identity to adivasis is an apt measure of subalternisation.

According to the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order of 1950, the population of STs was only a little over 19 million. But the Modification Order of 1956 added another 3.4 million. By the time of the 1961 Census, the tribal population of India was 30 million, accounting for 6.87 per cent of the country’s population. The scheduling exercise in the case of STs was more political rather than social scientific. Some powerful chief ministers ensured that tribal groups from their states were not included in the ST category and this had to be rectified through the Presidential Order of 1967 (Raza & Ahmad, 1990). The 1991 Census revealed that 8 per cent of India’s population belonged to 461 ST groups, indicating that over 80 million people are STs. The first struggle that STs of India had to wage was the assertion of their identity. The second struggle, which is yet to be launched systematically, is to get recognition of their specificities, as opposed to the tendency to tag them along with SCs. In the beginning the Indian state established one common instrument, the SC and ST Commission, to attend to their welfare. However, the Commission was bifurcated into two, one for SCs and another for STs in 2004.

Viewed retrospectively, it seems that the lawyer–politician focused on the legal dimension, a process initiated by the colonial administration, while the economist–planner took cognisance only of the economic backwardness which STs shared with SCs. But the specificities of STs and SCs are to be located in non-economic factors which are crucial to de-subalternise these categories.

I have already referred to the crucial dimension which debilitated the SCs, namely their location below the ritual pollution line. In the case of STs, the specificities are territory and language while SCs live in the same rural habitats along with ritually clean castes; although spatially segregated, tribal villages in most cases are exclusive to them. Disturbing the territorial autonomy of tribes is a step towards their subalternisation. Not only state policy but even sociologists and social anthropologists ignored the specificity of tribal communities. Although most of them indulged in this act of culturocide (Oommen, 1986, pp. 53–74) one of them even declared the tribes as ‘backward Hindus’ (Ghurye, 1943, 1963). Even when socio-cultural differences between the Hindu peasantry and tribes were pointed out it was not acceptable to many sociologists and social anthropologists of India (Oommen, 1967, pp. 30–48).

If the identity of adivasis was sought to be liquidated that of religious minorities of Indic origin was assigned a subsidiary identity under the rubric of Hinduism. Thus, Savarkar (1949) incorporated Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs into Hinduism. And the Indian state included these religious minorities in Hinduism by making the Hindu Code Bill applicable to them also. This expansive Hinduism eroded the cultural autonomy of these religious minorities, indeed leading to their subalternisation.

Subordination is the last process of subalternisation. I intend to discuss this with the example of two collectivities: linguistic groups and women. Subalternisation of languages in India is a product of the tension between recognising linguistic diversity, on the one hand, and building a uni-lingual nation, on the other. Although the Indian Constitution unambiguously promises that all children will be given instruction till the age of 14 years in their mother tongue through a dubious definition a large number of children are actually deprived of access to their mother tongue. To bolster the number of Hindi speakers, some 50-odd mother tongues—of which 18 have one million or more speakers and four, Bhojpuri, Chattisgarhi, Magadhi and Rajasthani, have ten million or more speakers—are denied their identities based on their mother tongue and subordinated to Hindi. This is a clear illustration of subalternisation based on linguistic identities.

The process of subalternisation of linguistic groups started with the British–Indian Census. The 1931 Census of India, the last conducted by the British, identified 2,000 mother tongues in undivided India. The count of mother tongues in Independent India varied: in 1951, it was 782, in 1971, it was 1019 and in 1991, it was 1576. Both methodological lacunae in census counting and the ignorance of citizens in reporting lead to these variations (Oommen, 2015, pp. 1–21). But what is pertinent for the present discussion is that the Government of India seems impervious to this and in the process a large number of mother tongues are rendered inferior.

While the mother tongue of a section of the vast peasantry is linguistically subordinated to dominant languages, at the all-India level, Hindi or regional, the entirety of tribal languages is also subjected to a similar fate. The linguistic re-organisation of the Indian states was to bestow political recognition on linguistic groups by providing them with a separate provincial state. But the State Re-organisation Commission, which submitted its report in 1956, did not concede a single state to the Scheduled Tribes of India, a vast humanity of 80 million people, because the Commission apparently believed that the mother tongue of various tribes was not worthy of recognition. This is a clear illustration of the subordination of adivasis by denying them their linguistic identities. While the Indian state can legitimately take pride in the fact that there are 22 officially recognised languages (a rare phenomenon) the vast majority of mother tongues spoken in India are allotted an inferior rank, that is, subalternised. The fault here lies in adopting the model of western nation-states which is completely unsuited to India. Article 351 of the Indian Constitution prescribes:

It shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Hindi language, to develop it so that it may serve as a medium of expression for all elements of the composite culture of India and to secure its enrichment by assimilating … the forms, style and expression used in Hindustani.

This approach is thoroughly unsuited for the linguistically plural Indian polity and a sure invitation for the subalternisation of most mother tongues, particularly those used by the peasantry and adivasis.

The source of subordination of women in all societies was believed to be the sexual division of labour between men and women and the nature of values produced by them; it was believed that men produced exchange values and women, use-values. But these distinctions are no more valid with the obliteration of the sexual division of labour and the large-scale entry of women into the market as producers of exchange values. And yet, the subordination of women to men persisted in all societies—more in some and less in others—thanks to the phenomenon of patriarchy which treated women as inferior to men. Even in tribal communities, in spite of the absence of a sharp sexual division of labour, widely accepted as the basis of gender inequality, women did not enjoy equality in all contexts in these societies. Similarly, it is not true that the ownership of material resources by women automatically made them powerful and equal. For example, in matrilineal societies wherein women owned and inherited property their presence in the political sphere was either totally absent or extremely skimpy. Political citizenship was not conceded to women and even the right to exercise franchise was denied in European democratic polities in the beginning. In fact, gender equality is largely a twentieth-century idea.

Traditionally, all religions allotted subordinate positions to women, except the religions of adivasis, but some religions have accepted gender equality, gradually. The Indian Constitution promises gender equality and justice but its translation into everyday life is extremely difficult partially because the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the body which claims to represent Hindus who constitute 82 per cent of India’s population, seemingly endorses inequality between men and women. Indeed, the Rashtra Sevika Samiti, the women’s counterpart of the RSS, too, upholds gender inequality. The Samiti looks upon Hindu women’s struggle for equal rights and economic freedom as negative because ‘… there was every risk of women being non-committed to love, sacrifice and service’ (Bacchetta, 2004, p. 7). The sexual division of labour is thus clearly endorsed by the Samiti. While the RSS does not favour the entry of women into leadership positions and the public domain, the Samiti holds that Hindu women held a high status during the Vedic period which should be reinvented once the Hindu rashtra is established (ibid, pp. 36–37).

The root of gender inequality in Hindu society can be traced to the ancient text, Manusmriti, which prescribed that a woman should be subordinated to her father in childhood, to her husband while a youth and to her son in old age. But a Hindu saint of contemporary India in a book authored by him entitled, How to Lead a Household Life answers the question: ‘What should the wife do if her husband beats her and troubles her’? ‘The wife should think that she is paying her debt of her previous life and thus her sins are being destroyed and she is becoming pure’ (Swami, 2001, p. 43). It is possible that her parents may take her away but if that does not happen ‘… she should reap the fruit of her past actions… she should patiently bear the beatings of her husband with patience. By bearing them she will be free from her sins and it is possible that her husband may start loving her’ (ibid). This book was first published in 1990 and so far the 50 editions (in Hindi and English) have sold 1.2 million copies. The publisher is Gita Press (Gorakhpur) which has free stalls (along with similar books) in 110 railway stations, allotted in 1970 by Kamalapti Tripathi when he was the railway minister in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet. That is, ideas which foster not only gender inequality but even gender violence are encouraged by the Indian state, even if unwittingly. Admittedly, the state also has a role in subalternisation of women in India.

A number of factors such as descent and residence rules, ownership of property and rules of inheritance in unison condition male–female relations. This meant that the structure of patriarchy varied across societies. Thus, the combination of caste hierarchy and patriarchy rendered subordination of women more complex in India (Chakravarti, 2003). Thanks to the phenomenon of intersectionality, three factors—caste, class and gender—intersected in the case of Indian women making their subalternisation deep and durable.

Thus dalits, adivasis, linguistic and religious minorities, and women or sections among them, are subjected to the process of subalternisation either because of the hegemony of dominant groups and/or because of the measures, even if unintended, taken by the state. It is clear from the analysis so far that the core factor/s which contribute to subalternisation of these categories differ and to uplift them one should liquidate these factors.

I have identified five organic collectivities as subaltern categories with special reference to India. These are SCs (dalits), STs (adivasis), religious minorities, linguistic minorities and women. The core factors which contribute to their subalternisation differ and therefore the social policy measures enforced by the state and the value orientations to be nurtured by society for their de-subalternisation should also be different.

By all accounts, dalits constitute the most ‘inferior’ of the subaltern category: their inferiority is anchored in two dimensions—ritual inferiority, assigned by Hindu doctrines and socio-economic inferiority which is a function of their low economic, political and social condition. The Indian state undertook a series of measures to improve the socio-economic condition of SCs which is gradually resulting in their upward social mobility. However, the unstated assumption that this will automatically lead to their upward mobility in the ritual context has not materialised. For this to happen, a frontal attack is a pre-requisite. Although this process was initiated by Dr B. R. Ambedkar through a series of measures—burning the Manusmriti on 25 December 1927; leading a protest to allow dalits entry into Nashik’s Kalaram temple in 1930; his decision to quit Hinduism in 1936 and conversion to Buddhism along with a large number of his followers in 1956—uppercaste Hindu samaj in general has not endorsed this route. And, unless dalits are accepted as fully fledged, ritually clean Hindus they will remain a subaltern category.

The second subaltern category in India are the STs (adivasis). Although the SCs and STs were initially treated as a combined category by the Indian state gradually they are being regarded as two separate categories. While both these groups share economic disabilities, they are clearly different in other contexts. Adivasis do not belong to Hinduism but the Indian state and the Hindu mainstream groups have subsumed them. The critical factors which contribute to the subalternisation of adivasis are the denial of their identity based on territory and language both of which are exclusive to them unlike dalits. Therefore, the core remedial measures in de-subalternising adivasis are recognising their territorial autonomy and cultural specificity, of which their mother tongue is the most crucial. The nomadic and semi-nomadic tribal communities require more specific measures.

Religious minorities are classified into two catergories, based on the sources of their presence in India, both by Hindutva ideologues and the Indian state and they are treated differently. The three Indic religious minorities are Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs. Both the RSS, the association which claims to represent Hindus, and the state in India virtually treat them as part of Hinduism, thereby denying their specific religious identifies. This denial of identity subordinates them to Hindus. To emancipate them from this process of subalternisation their specific religious identity should be recognised and celebrated.

The predicament of the non-Indic religious minorities is exactly the opposite. Muslims, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and Baha’is, particularly the first two, are subject to a process of externalisation both by the RSS and the Indian state. This results in the denial of some of citizenship rights especially for those with a SC background who had embraced Islam and Christianity. Among the other three, only Zoroastrians, are given the status of a religious minority. One also notices complaints about the lack of protection of the minority rights of the Jews and Baha’is. Unless the specific discriminations to which the non-Indic religious minorities are subjected to are eliminated the process of their de-subalternisation cannot be initiated.

The linguistic subalterns drawn both from the peasantry and adivasis are victims of the proclivity to construct a nation-state of the West European model, for ‘each nation (read linguistic community) its own state’. The fact that this goal is not achieved even in the cradle of this idea, namely Western Europe (Oommen, 1997) did not deter the ‘nation-builders’ of India. The fact that India has recognised 22 official languages (a singular exception in the whole world) is an eloquent testimony to the untenability of establishing an Indian nation-state. But the constitutional mandate of imparting educational instruction to all children in India till the age of 14 years through their respective mother tongue is a pre-requisite to accord due recognition of their identity based on mother tongues. And, this is a definite step towards de-subalternisation of both the vast peasantry and the substantial adivasi population in India.

Finally, and most importantly, is the case of women. That women are treated as a subaltern (of inferior rank) category the world over does not require any long winded argument, frequent denials to the contrary. And yet, women are rarely perceived as a subaltern category. But viewed in terms of everyday life women are treated as subalterns, although ontological equality is conceded to them by all constitutions of democratic states. I suggest that women need to be treated as a different category; different but equal. The source of their differences emanate from the indispensable role they play in human reproduction. Based on the postulate of functional indispensability women should be bestowed a superior status because the very continuation of the human species depends on their willing participation in the reproductive process. And, the recognition of this vital role played by women not only would de-subalternise them but function as an anchor to provide a higher status to them.