Chapter - 1

INTRODUCTION
The reading and writing of history provide an opportunity to look back on the
past from the present context in order to avoid the path which might be
disastrous for the human civilization in general and for the concerned society in
particular. Hence, these interpretations of past keep on changing. This applies,
without exception, to the modern Indian history as well. It may be noted that the
colonial masters of India depended heavily on the imperial ideologues in the
process of creating and maintaining the colonial structure.

A historiography is a summary of the historical writings on a particular topic. It

sets out in broad terms the range of debate and approaches to the topic. It
identifies the major thinkers and arguments, and establishes connections
between them. If there have been major changes in the way a particular topic
has been approached over time, the historiography identifies them.

In writing on a topic, historians essentially enter into a dialogue with those who
have written on the topic before. A historiography sets out the main points of
that discussion, and serves to situate the author's work within this larger
context. This adds authority and legitimacy to a history essay as it confirms the
author's familiarity with his or her topic, and forces the author to acknowledge
and explain disagreements with others. It also serves to bring the reader up-to-
date on the most important works and debates on the topic.

The most important step in writing a historiography is to become familiar with

the history of your topic in broad terms. A good historiography is written from a
position of authority on a topic.

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A historiography is best situated early on in an essay, preferably in the
introduction in order to familiarize the reader with the topic and to set out the
scope of previous work in broad terms. Historiography should establish the
major thinkers on the topic, and their main arguments (or
theses).Historiography may also explain the perspective from which the authors
are writing (e.g. Marxist, feminist, etc.) and the type of history they have written
(e.g. political, social, cultural, economic, etc.)

A good historiography will present this information in a way that shows the
connections between these major works. For example, does one work respond
to an argument set out in another? Does it expand on that argument or disagree
with it? A good historiography will also situate the author's work within the
dialogue, explaining whether his or her thesis builds on or rejects the work that
has come before.

1. Significance of the Subject: Major Trends of

Historiography on Mahatma Gandhi

The history of the nationalist movement is studded with many precious jewels
who served the Indian cause with unflagging zeal and ceaseless efforts.
Mahatma Gandhi is one of them who rendered an exemplary service to the
Indian people. He was a multi dimensional personality. The credit goes to him
for bringing all the conflicting sections of the Indian society in the national
stream of freedom struggle. It is also true that Gandhi made all feasible efforts
to win over the confidence of the minority and depressed sections of the
society. He tried to solve the whole problems with real understanding non-
violent methods. It is now important to know the views of different set of
historians regarding his functioning as the chief figure of the nationalist
movement and solving many national issues faced by the nation at the point of
time. It will be interesting to review different approaches and how the Indian and
western scholars have analyzed this cosmic personality of Indians freedom
movement in their own perspective.

To a great many Indians, the single most significant aspect of Gandhi’s life is
that he successfully mobilized millions of people for the de jure overthrow of
Brutish rule in their country. For Westerners influenced by the saintly reputation
created for Gandhi by ruling class propaganda, Gandhi represents a citizen of a
colony who led his people to freedom without the bloodshed usually associated

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with national liberation struggles. Gandhi’s example is routinely used by the
latter to condemn armed national liberation struggles around the world, with the
mistaken assumption that it is always possible to expel foreign occupiers by
non-violent means. As such, Gandhiism is the favourite philosophy of
conservative opponents of actual national liberation struggles and those who
support the status quo of violent imperialist domination of the Third World.

Undeniably, Gandhi had a mass following and played a major role in the
glorious struggle for India’s independence (inevitable though the withdrawal of
the Brutish Empire from a crumbling economic base in India was). However, the
means employed by Gandhi to achieve India’s putative “independence” led to
the establishment of a decadent political system there which maintained its
dependent relationship to imperialist capitalism. To the extent that Gandhi’s
leadership of the Indian national liberation movement consolidated the power of
a haute-bourgeoisie allied to feudal and imperialist class interests, Gandhiism
can be described as a philosophy of counter-revolution. In what ways did
Gandhi help maintain imperialism?

2. Purpose of the Study

Revered the world over for his nonviolent philosophy of passive resistance,
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was known to his many followers as Mahatma,
or “the great-souled one.” He began his activism as an Indian immigrant in
South Africa in the early 1900s and in the years following World War I became
the leading figure in India’s struggle to gain independence from Great Britain.
Known for his ascetic lifestyle–he often dressed only in a loincloth and shawl–
and devout Hindu faith, Gandhi was imprisoned several times during his pursuit
of non-cooperation, and undertook a number of hunger strikes to protest the
oppression of India’s poorest classes, among other injustices. After Partition in
1947, he continued to work toward peace between Hindus and Muslims.
Gandhi was shot to death in Delhi in January 1948 by a Hindu fundamentalist.

According to Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi was no ordinary leader-

Divinely Inspired There are those who believe he was divinely inspired, and it is
difficult not to believe with them. He dared to exhort nonviolence in a time when
the violence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had exploded on us; he exhorted
morality when science, technology and the capitalist order had made it
redundant; he replaced self-interest with group interest without minimizing the

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importance of self. In fact, the interdependence of the social and the personal is
at the heart of his philosophy. He seeks the simultaneous and interactive
development of the moral person and the moral society.

His philosophy of Satyagraha is both a personal and a social struggle to realize

the Truth, which he identifies as God, the Absolute Morality. He seeks this
Truth, not in isolation, self-centeredly, but with the people. He said, "I want to
find God, and because I want to find God, I have to find God along with other
people. I don't believe I can find God alone. If I did, I would be running to the
Himalayas to find God in some cave there. But since I believe that nobody can
find God alone, I have to work with people. I have to take them with me. Alone I
can't come to Him."

3. Brief Events in the Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

(1869 - 1948)

Before writing the historiography of an eminent personality one should have a

thorough knowledge of the events which took place in his life. Known as
'Mahatma' (great soul), Gandhi was the leader of the Indian nationalist
movement against British rule, and is widely considered the Father of Nation
(India) and his doctrine of non-violent protest to achieve political and social
progress has been hugely influential. The events of his life are the events that
took place in our national movement. We cannot study the historiography of
Mahatma Gandhi without studying the National Movement in India, just because
of mutual relationship.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 in Porbandar in

Gujarat. After university, he went to London to train as a barrister. He returned
to India in 1891 and in 1893 accepted a job at an Indian law firm in Durban,
South Africa. Gandhi was appalled by the treatment of Indian immigrants there,
and joined the struggle to obtain basic rights for them. During his 20 years in
South Africa he was sent to prison many times. Influenced primarily by
Hinduism, but also by elements of Jainism and Christianity as well as writers
including Tolstoy and Thoreau, Gandhi developed the satyagraha ('devotion to
truth'), a new non-violent way to redress wrongs. In 1914, the South African
government conceded to many of Gandhi's demands.

Gandhi returned to India shortly afterwards. In 1919, British plans to intern

people suspected of sedition - the Rowlatt Acts - prompted Gandhi to announce
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a new satyagraha which attracted millions of followers. A demonstration against
the acts resulted in the Amritsar Massacre by British troops. By 1920, Gandhi
was a dominant figure in Indian politics. He transformed the Indian National
Congress, and his programme of peaceful non-cooperation with the British
included boycotts of British goods and institutions, leading to arrests of
thousands.

In 1922, Gandhi himself was sentenced to six years' imprisonment. He was

released after two years and withdrew from politics, devoting himself to trying to
improve Hindu-Muslim relations, which had worsened. In 1930, Gandhi
proclaimed a new campaign of civil disobedience in protest at a tax on salt,
leading thousands on a 'March to the Sea' to symbolically make their own salt
from seawater.

In 1931, Gandhi attended the Round Table Conference in London, as the sole
representative of the Indian National Congress, but resigned from the party in
1934 in protest at its use of non-violence as a political expedient. He was
replaced as leader by Jawaharlal Nehru.

In 1945, the British government began negotiations which culminated in the

Mountbatten Plan of June 1947, and the formation of the two new independent
states of India and Pakistan, divided along religious lines. Massive inter-
communal violence marred the months before and after independence. Gandhi
was opposed to partition, and now fasted in an attempt to bring calm in Calcutta
and Delhi. On 30 January 1948, he was assassinated in Delhi by a Hindu
fanatic.

4. Approaches to the Study Nationalistic Movement in India

Voluminous literatures are available on Mahatma Gandhi. These enormous

literatures are enough to have a thorough understanding about his life and his
service to the nation and the entire world. All the different groups of writers
especially the Imperials, the Nationalists, the Marxists, and the Subalterns
portrayed him according to there views in different manners. Inspite of the
enormous literature available on Gandhi there is still a lack of historiography on
Mahatma Gandhi throwing views of these four school of thought (the Imperials,
the Nationalists, the Marxists, and the Subalterns) and that is the reason why
the present thesis Major Trends of Historiography on Mahatma Gandhi.

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The first school of historiography emerged soon after the establishment of
British rule in India. The British trend greatly impacted the technique and
approaches of different school of historical writing. It is a very interesting aspect
in Indian History. The study of any historical occurrence is filled with debates
and contradictions. It is viewed from various different perspectives and makes a
wide variety of opposing assumptions.

It is interesting to note the historiography of Mahatma Gandhi in the perspective

of the study of Colonialism and Nationalism in Indian scenario with a view of the
following four prominent schools of thoughts.

1. Imperialist Approach
2. Nationalist Approach
3. Marxist Approach
4. Subaltern Approach

It will be very interesting to study the different views of the above mentioned
four different schools of thoughts in Indian History.

4.1. The Imperialist Approach.

The beginning was made by the British officials working branches of the
administration. This trend of administrator historians is popularly known as the
imperial historiography consisting of utilitarian, Auglicist and Orientalist scholars
who saw and analyses Indian aspects in their own perspectives. The imperial
interest imbued with administrative and economic laid great stress on the
educational expansion, new administrative techniques, new political, legal and
socio-cultural institutions and analytical and critical approach in historical writing
in India. Though their prime motto was to prepare monographs on each and
every aspect of Indian affairs for the people of their own country i.e. Britain yet
they highlighted only the negative aspects of the Indian society. This school
was later on joined by the scholars of British universities.

The British scholarship was greatly imbued with the Namier approach (Sir Lewis
Bernstein Namier, a great British Scholar) which explicitly believe in emergence
of vested- interest, groups in politics of every country which often made alliance
with the ruling elite. Sir Lewis Namier applied this approach to British history
and proved that the emerging British educated class allied with the ruling elite of
Britain for sharing the political power. The British historians like Gallagher,
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Johnsons, Anil Seal, Branford, C. A. Bailey, Judith M. Brown, and B. R.
Tomlinson etc. also applied Namierian approach to Indian politics. All the
Indians leaders such as Gandhi, Nehru, Patel have been termed as power
hungry politicians of India who always alleged with the British ruling elite for
their own vested interests. The imperial approach outrightly condemned the
indian life and culture to the edificatory character of British rule. The British
scholars tried to justify their rule in India due to static quality of Indian society to
caste, community, colour and regional variation. It was only the microscopic
minority, this school of historians believe, which was engaged in anti- imperialist
struggle and the rest of the population did not even know the idiom of struggle.
The struggle started by the congress under the leadership of Gandhi had
neither mass appeal nor assumed on all India character. So this set of imperial
historiography has tried to see the Gandhian struggle from Namierian
speculum. The Imperialist approach is also known as the Cambridge school
and this perspective is seen in the writings of viceroys such as Lord Duferin,
Curzon and Minto.

Its views on Colonialism and Nationalism in India can be summed up in the

following points:

1. India under British rule grew into a stage at which she could advance claim
to the sight of self-government.
2. The British rule was essentially Benevolent, understood the aspirations of
Indians and gradually moved towards it fulfillment.
3. The imperialistic historiographers deny the existence of colonial exploitation,
underdevelopment and other anti-imperialistic and nationalistic forces.
4. They also deny the existence of colonialism as an economic, political and
social structure.
5. They say it was simply a foreign rule and neither was it exploitative. Hence,
they do not agree with the view that the socio-economic and political
development of India required the overthrow of colonialism.
6. They do not see any basic contradiction between the British and Indian
interests which led to the national movement.
7. India as a nation was a myth. India was neither a nation nor a nation-in-
making but a group of different castes and religious groups which are the real
basis of political organisation.
8. Nationalism in India was not anti-imperialistic rather the politicization of
Indian society developed along the lines of traditional social formations such as
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linguistic, regional, castes or religious communities rather modern categories of
class and nation.
9. The struggle against colonialism was a motiveless and simulated combat. It
was merely a product of the need and interests of the elite groups who used to
serve either their own narrow interests or the interests of their perspective
groups.
10. The basic pattern was of an educated middle class reared by British rule
engaged in various renaissance activities and virtually turning against their
masters and so giving birth to modern nationalism out of frustrated, selfish
ambitions, ideals of patriotism and democracy derived from western culture or
natural revulsion against foreign rule.
11. The imperialist approach questioned the ontology of a unified nationalist
movement and has traced instead only a series of localized movements in
colonial India.
12. India was not a nation but an aggregate of desperate interest groups and
they were united as they had to operate within a centralized national
administrative framework created by the British.

4.1.1. Imperialist Attack on Indian Culture and Civilization

The imperial attack on the Indian culture and civilization is clearly seen in the
books of James Mill. He in his history and the account of Hindu civilization
wrote that Indians are rude and excelled in the qualities of slave. In the same
way another British historian Vicent Smith in his account of Alexander is
invasion on India tried to prove that Europeans were superior in warfare than
Indians. He further says that the perennial political chaos in India, their inability
to unite and rule themselves properly made the British rule absolutely
permanent in India. Mountstuarst Elphinstance administrator turned historians
mentions that the Indian foreign trade was conducted by Greeks and the Arabs
and the Arabs easily overrun India as Persia. The British historians often tried to
underestimate the Indian culture and suggested the lowest possible dates for
the Vedas and the great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Even they
hinted that the Indians might have borrowed their culture from the Greeks but
they did not give any evidence to prove it. The European historians
mischievously professed that Indian drama, mathematics, philosophy and
astronomy were derived from the Greek civilization and the most popular
Krishna culture of India might have been developed from the Jesus Christ. The
Christian missionaries highlighted deliberately the religious superstition, social
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abuses and the practice of Sati in Indian society where as they systematically
ignored the burning of heretics, practice of slavery, and serfdom in the
European societies. This led the Indian historians and philosophers to prepare
themselves to defend the imperial attack on their culture and civilization which
generated historical writings, came to be known as the nationalist school of
Indian historiography.

4.1.2. Criticism and Analysis of the Imperialistic Approach

1. This approach denies the existence and legitimacy of exploitative nature of

British rule and of Nationalism as a movement of the Indian people to overthrow
imperialism.
2. Categories such as nation, class, mobilization, ideology etc which are
generally used by historians to analyse colonialism and nationalism are missing
from this approach.
3. It deliberately misses the economic exploitation, under development,
racialism and the role of the masses in the anti-imperialistic struggle.

4.2. The Nationalist Approach

The second school of historiography emerged soon after the formation of the
Indian National Congress in 1885. This school is popularly known as the
Nationalist historiography school that began to challenge the writings of the
imperial scholars. Raj Narain Bose, A. C. Majumdar, A. Sundarraman, Lahpat
Rai, S. N. Banerjee, G. A. Natasan, B. Pattabhi Sitarammay , Girija Mukherjee,
Rajendra Prasad, Jawarharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad, Subhash Bose and others
laid the foundation of nationalist writings in India. All these scholars condemned
the imperial scholarship for its anti- India stand. It was basically a beginning of
new show between British imperialism and Indian nationalism. These scholars
began to perceive the national character and pride in its writings and speeches.
In post –independent India, R.C. Majumdar, Tara Chand, S.N. Sen, B.R.
Nanda, P.C. Ghosh, Amba Prasad etc. strengthened further this approach and
applauded the role played by Mahatma Gandhi in India's freedom struggle. It
was under the dynamic leadership of Gandhi and the congress, India not only
fought for its liberation but for the social reconstruction and removal of
untouchability from Indian society. All the nationalist scholars fully accepted the
yeomen's service rendered by Gandhi to the nation in many ways.

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4.2.1. The Search for National Identity

Although India came under westernization, followed westerns life in dress,

manners and customs but the educated Indians began to think to make Indians
real Indian and not English. They never wanted the westerns civilization to
displace the Indian civilization as Macaulay and the missionaries desired. They
wanted only the West should revitalize the Indian culture as Raja Ram Mohan
Roy emphasized the most. Hence these educated Indians began to reform their
age old socio-religious scenario and rejuvenate their ancient culture. This trend
began to create a sense of self reliance, self respect and self confidence among
the Indians which was suppressed for a longer period. This self confidence bred
the national consciousness on a large scale and aspired for freedom from the
foreign rule. This national consciousness, however, was to be sustained and
promoted by historical consciousness i.e. the knowledge of people’s past.
BanKim Chandra Chatterjee says that in order to create a sense of unity,
national pride and desire for freedom, there is a fundamental need to study and
write history of the country. India being subject country for many centuries, its
history is not described and interpreted by Indian historians. In his ‘Bibidha
Prabandha’ Chatterjee says that there is no Hindu History, no one glorifies our
noble qualities, if we do not loud them, then there will be no nationalism. The
warlike prowess of Romans is found in the history of Roman people, the
heroism of Greeks is found in the writing of Greek histories, the Mussalman
velour in battles covered in the records of Muslims. But there is no such
glorification of noble qualities of Indians because, there is no written evidence
by the Indians on their own. When Bankim Chandra pointed out this deficiency
then the several historians began to address to the same deficiency with
national spirit and ideology which gave birth to the nationalist school of Indian
historiography.

4.3. Marxist Approach

The third trend of historiography became visible in the second-half of the

twentieth century when a mathematician D.D. Koshambi initiated quite a new
trend in Indian historical writings. The trend is known as Marxist trend which
was further developed by M.N.Roy, Rajini Palme Dutt, A.R. Desai, Hiren
Mukherjee, Ayodhaya Singh, Bipan Chandra etc. who believe that Gandhi
evolved a new type of techniques of struggle to exert pressure on the colonial
regime for the benefits of the Indian bourgeoisies. In almost all the movements

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started by Gandhi, he often took compromising stand but never shrank from
calling the 'satanic' British Government during the non-cooperation movement.
The Non-cooperation movement, if ineffective, was to be followed up by mass
civil disobedience. Regarding the latter, however, there was no clear plan or
even definite objective. The scholars of this trend believe that mass movement
for the attainment of Swaraj led by its bourgeois leadership had reached at its
zenith when Indian National Congress held its session at Ahmedabad in 1921.
Gandhi acted as a sole dictator for the congress movement in India. He did not
even define the term SWARAJ. The Ahmedabad Congress did not take any
note of the non-payment of taxes which could exert pressure on the colonial
govt. besides, the leftists has raised many other questions as far as the
Gandhian politics was concerned.

4.3.1. Difference in Opinion Among the Marxists Group of Writers

The historians of Marxist school of Indian historiography differed with each

other in the conclusion on the identical mode of production and gradual
changes in it. Kosambi concluded that the Indus Valley Civilization did not know
the use of plough and the banks of river valley were cultivated with the help of
harrow. On the other hand , Romila Thapar argued on the basis of recent
evidence that the pre-Aryan even pre-Harappan people knew the plough
agriculture and they practiced it regularly as well as the Vedic literature suggest
that the word plough is of non-Aryan origin. As a matter of fact the raising dykes
and embankment to collect flood waters of big rivers and supply to produce
agricultural surpluses to feed the entire urban population could be the operation
of more developed and sophisticated technology than the surface scratching
harrow. In the same way Prof. Sharma and Prof. Thapar differ each other on
the attitude of Buddhism to the system of slavery Prof. Sharma says that
Buddhism was well aware about the social order in the sixth century B.C. and
favoured the money lending for trade and slave keeping to enhance agricultural
production. On the other hand Romila Thapar did not agree with Prof. Sharma
and argued that Buddhism did not approve the system of slavery, which
considered it as antihuman. Thus, the conclusion or guesses of the Marxist
historians differed one to another.

4.4. Subaltern Approach

The forth school of Indian historiography emergedin80's of the century known

as the Neo –Marxists or Subaltern historiography. This trend dismisses all the
previous historical writings as 'old blinkered historiography'. Ranjit Guha, Shahid
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Amin, Gyanendra Pandey, Parthea Chatterjee, Sumit Sarkar, Kapil Kumar,
David Hardiman and others are the prominent scholars who drew inspiration
from Italian scholar Antonio Gramsci for writing history from the below. Now the
question arises: who are the Subaltern? In the preface of the SUBALTERN
STUDIES, Vol. 1, Ranjit Guha clearly mentions that if the Landlords,
industrialists, business planters, financiers and bureaucrats are excluded from
the Indian Society, the remaining lot would be Subaltern. This school does not
agree with the Marxist point of view and even called the Marxist historians as
the elitist historiographical scholars. Subaltern scholars assert that the Indian
people were never united in a common anti- imperial struggle and there was no
such entity as the Indian National Movement. They firmly believe that there
were two distinct movements or streams- the real anti-imperialist stream of the
subalterns and the bogus national movement of the elite which was led by the
congress under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. This leadership was for the
struggle of power among the elite. Anyhow, the subaltern group of historians
first divide the movement into two then accepts the neo-imperialist
characterization for the rural poor, workers, tribals etc. in the nationalist
movement. Due to local demands, they could not integrate themselves with the
national movement for liberation. So this trend never recognizes the leadership
of Gandhi as far as the participation of the subaltern is concerned. The peoples'
movement was the real movement which had nothing to do with the Gandhian
movement. Both the movement were different in nature and leadership.

4.4.1. Criticism of Subaltern Historiography

Sociologists, historians, economists, anthropologists, and those who combine th

e methods of history and sociology have made commentaries on the Subaltern
Studies collective and on the monographs produced individually by some of its
members. Mukherjee criticism, a well known Indian sociologist and historian
Ramkrishna Mukherjee has chosen to criticize the writings of Ranjit Guha, the
founder of Subaltern Studies, because the unifying principles of the Subaltern
School are found in Guha's Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in
Colonial India (1983)
.
4.4.1.1. Use of categorization of Peasants and Large Span of Time
Mukherjee's critique hits at the two major flaws in the assumptions of the
founder of the Subaltern Studies: one, Guha's use of the concept of "peasant"
not appropriate because it is devoid of real life variations among peasants

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and their contemporaneous social base. Thus this categorization is
a historical and on a structural basis. Two, Guha draws parallels among
countries by the sweeping use of a large span of time (four hundred years) in
history across the universe.

4.4.1.2. Flawed Methodology

Mukherjee also thinks that Guha's exclusive cultural analysis is based on Webe
rian appraisal of reality and reminds one of similar efforts made by British
imperialism "for a cultural understanding of contacts among conflicting groups
"Mukherjee's concerns are echoed by others in several subsequent
commentaries on the Subaltern Studies volumes. For example, Rosalin O'
Hanlon and David Wash brook wrote the following in a critique of Gyan
Prakash's discussion on "Writing Post- Orientalist Histories of the Third World:
perspectives from Indian Historiography". "What all this begins to look very like,
in fact, is a new form of that key and enduring feature of Western capitalist and
imperialist culture: the bad conscience of liberalism, still struggling with the
continuing paradox between an ideology of liberty at home and the reality of
profoundly exploitative political relations abroad, and now striving to salvage
and re-equip itself in a postcolonial world with new arguments and better
camouflaged forms of moral authority".

4.4.1.3. Charge of Promoting Fascism

Other scholars have accused the Subaltern School of implicitly promoting
fascism. Sumit Sarkar, a well-known Indian historian and the son of
Sushobhan Sarkar, the mentor of Ranjit Guha, wrote the following in an essay
on the Fascist nature of the Hindu Right: An uncritical of the popular or
subaltern, particularly when combined with the rejection of Enlightenment
rationalism can lead even radical historians down strange paths. It is
from this stance that Dipesh Chakrabarty drives his conclusion that Sarkar
stopped just short of calling him and Gautam Bhadra (a member of the
Subaltern Studies editorial team) fascist. Similarly, Chakrabarty reports that
Tom Brass, and K. Balagopal, an Indian activist, have" expressed similar
misgivings." For Brass, "The real importance of postmodernism lies in its
theoretical impact on political practice; it forbids socialism, encourages
bourgeois democracy and allows fascism." Balagopal wrote on the dangers
of neo-Hinduism. As Chakrabarty responds by that Balagopal "blames 'post
modernists' ' and 'subalternists' ' alleged rejection of the possibility of 'objective'
analysis for the inadequacies of Left resistance to the fascistic Hindutva push".
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4.4.1.4. Deviation From Gramscian Ideas
The Subaltern School represents a significant divergence from the Gramscian
idea of the subaltern because, for Gramsci, subaltern groups by definition can
not possess autonomy. Similarly, O' Hanlon writes that to portray "The figure of
the subaltern as self-originating, self-determining, in possession of a sovereign
consciousness is [in effect] to readmit through the back door the classic figure
of Western humanism--the rational human subject." Mallon, a Latin American
historian, points out that "complicity, hierarchy and surveillance within subaltern
communities make clear that no subaltern identity can be pure and transparent,
most subalterns are both dominated and dominating subjects". In the words of
Ortner, an American scholar, this insight, that there is no pure and transparent
subaltern identity, "offered repeatedly by structural Marxism and
feminist studies in their different ways, by and large elude[s] Subaltern Studies".

4.4.1.5. Inconsistencies in Subaltern

Siva Ramakrishnan's critique is particularly trenchant in this
regard. When Prakash claims to reject traditional foundational
categories, it is acceptable that he create new ones: "Subalternists,
particularly those dealing with peasant movements in adivasi (indigenous
people)areas, have mechanistically applied the categories of elite and subaltern
to their material, without attending to the actual power relations they were
intended to signify or examining the historical formation of important
sociological categories like tribe and caste, shifting cultivator, pastoralist,
laborer, petty producer and so on". Jene Lerche, a scholar in South Asian
studies, points out other contradictions in Subaltern Studies writings. She
remarked that they concentrated mostly on the conflicts between tribal and non
tribal people and not on landless groups (which are work-related): "It is
mainly (but not only) when struggles can be understood within contexts other
than the work relation, such as conflicts between tribal and non-tribal peoples,
or questions of ethnicity and religion that they have become foci for subaltern
enquiries." Similarly, Ortner states "The lack of an adequate sense of prior
and ongoing politics among subalterns must inevitably contribute to
an nadequate analysis of resistance itself."Darshan Persuk,
however, goes beyond a comment on the important issue of the Subalternists'
contradictions. He writes, "What seems to have little or no place in this
[Subalternists'] historiography is the institutions and structures of power and
economic exploitation which, in their very real and bloody exchanges with
passive or insurgent masses, break bones and spirits equally effectively.. . .It is
14
not enough for subaltern historians to prove, by recounting 'peoples' revolts,'
that the oppressed have never liked being oppressed, or to show that, when
they did not, their deviations from the rituals and symbols of the
dominant culture contained seeds of 'incipient' revolt. The primary question
is, to what extent did these revolts and deviations pose a challenge to the
ruling class? The powerless cannot, just by virtue of their indubitably
heroic struggles, become subjects of uncritical admiration, nor can their cultural
achievements, because they are the achievements of the oppressed,
be idealized without noting their inadequacies." Quoting from the
Genoveses, Persuk points out that "Marx viewed any attempt to cover
the blemishes or exaggerate the virtue of working masses not only as romantic
nonsense but as counter-revolutionary politics".

4.4.1.6. Emphasis on Non-material Culture.

Subaltern Studies, by emphasizing only the subalternist non-material
culture (values, consciousness, and identity) has failed to consider aspects of
the material culture such as clothes ,food , furniture , living and working
conditions, housing, technology, the financial system, political institutions trade,
and the impact of the features on people's lives. Furthermore, the Subalternists
do not examine how the human agency produces the material culture (physical
objects) while people interact socially with other people and with
specific conditions. Subalternists by avoiding the discussion of material culture
and conditions of people are able to avoid the question of emancipatory
politics as it is closely linked with material life. Chakarabarty, for example, in
his studies of jute workers, found the workers' backward primordial values to be
a hindrance to the development of their class consciousness. He does not
explain why the nationalist ideas prevailing at the time and the project
of modernity did not affect these jute workers' "primordial values."Without
understanding the context in which resistance takes place, the Subalternists,
despite their attraction to the term postcolonial discourse, ignore the complexity
of the role of colonialism in a capitalist context. In their analysis, "colonialism
[sometimes] appears as a force whose nature and implications do not have to
be unpacked". Subalternists' refusal to consider class as a category in a
colonial context frees the capitalist society from the stigma of "classness". In
such a "classless" society, people's resistance can never be directed against
capitalist or imperialist forces. In this way Subalternists can easily keep intact
both the worlds, capitalism/ colonialism and resistance--while at the same time
remaining "committed" to "people's history."
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4.4.1.7. Ambiguities
To begin with, Subaltern Studies used the term 'subaltern' to stand largely for
the peasantry without really making clear the relationship of the peasantry to
the proletariat. In the process, the proletarian seems often to disappear from
Subaltern Studies texts, the positioning of the Subalternists. Perhaps the main
difference between the way Gramsci used 'subaltern' and the way in which
Subalternists often do can be understood in this context. For Gramsci, subaltern
groups were by definition always subject to the authority of ruling groups, even
when they rose in rebellion. However, for Ranajit Guha subaltern politics in
colonial India constituted an" autonomous domain" which did not originate in or
depend on the domain of ruling groups. The fact that Guha and most
Subalternists are writing against the backdrop of colonisation helps understand
the compulsion behind this difference. This is a matter both subjective and
objective. Subjectively, it is easier for an Italian scholar to accept that Italian
subalterns have always been by definition comprehensively under the thumb of
the Italian ruling classes. It is much more difficult -- and problematic -- for an
Indian scholar to accept that Indian subalterns have always been under the
thumb of their colonial (European) rulers. The later thesis is also
objectively problematic -- for, given the greater cultural differences and lack of
cultural hegemony, colonised Indians may often appear to form an 'autonomous
domain' from, say, colonizing Englishmen. But are (were) these 'autonomous
domains' subaltern or were they subaltern in the British-colonial context but
actually hegemonised by various Indian elites ? If the latter was often the case,
one can begin to understand why many strands of Subalternist thought seem so
close to the discourse of the Hindu-nationalist BJP.

4.4.1.8. Ability of Indian Bourgeios to Represent Nation

In his seminal essay , 'On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial
India' (included in the book under review), Ranajit Guha speaks of "the failure of
the Indian bourgeoisie to speak for the nation." Even a scholar like Guha, who
is aware of this fact and more 'Marx-influenced' than some other Subalternists,
commits the mistake of assuming (in this essay) that the bourgeoisie can speak
for the 'nation'. The national bourgeoisie always fails to speak for the 'nation' (if
the 'nation' is considered synonymous with the 'people') for it is always in the
process of constituting the people into a nation in its own image. The
bourgeoisie speaks the nation-- yes, even today, as one can see in the
relationship supposedly 'free' American capital has to the US and vice versa. It
is only when Capitalist hegemony has enabled the bourgeoisie to speak
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a particular nation that it starts appearing that the bourgeoisie of a particular
country "speaks for" that 'nation'. In a place like India - where Capitalist
hegemony is still not complete -- it will often appear that the bourgeoisie does
not speak for the nation. But if that is simply a failure then the only success can
be a complete Capitalist hegemony. For Gramsci, "ideologies are anything but
arbitrary; they are real historical facts which must be combated and their nature
as instruments of domination exposed, not for reasons of morality and so on,
but precisely for reasons of political struggle so as to make the governed
intellectually independent of the governors, in order to destroy one hegemony
and create another as a necessary moment of the overturning of praxis."(EC,
Q10, 41-XIIC, p.1319). the creation of an organic collaboration between
intellectual ranks and subaltern groups in the process of overcoming
"Subalternity" and the reorganization of the relationship between "the state and
civil society."

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5. Research Methodology

An effort would be made to analyses all the aspects such as his ideology,
programmes, strategies, dynamism, propaganda, struggle etc. with critical
evaluation in true historical perspective. However, many biographies, private
papers, newspapers, interviews(for his contemporizes) recorded (by NNML) ,
writings, speeches, correspondence available in Gandhi Smark Nidhi, Nehru
Memorial Museum and library, National Archives of India, New Delhi. All these
sources would undoubtedly, throw some new light on some such aspects which
have not yet been covered by many scholars so far. All the old and new
sources (acquired recently by research institutes mentioned above) would be
consulted, compared and collaborated in order to make this research work quite
authentic. After analyzing the above aspects in a more lucid way, the
conclusions would be drawn on proper and scientific basis in true historical
perspective.

6. Studies Conducted

Scholars of different streams have prominently written on the nature, extent,

leadership, programmes, policies, strategies adopted by Gandhi in India's
national movement. The writings of different streams on Gandhi and his
movements in the forms of studies of the national movement, biographies and
other writings would be consulted. Around fifteen dozens of biographies are still
available in published form on the life and activities of Gandhi. It is not possible
to mention all such biographies/ works here but their in depth studies with
critical evaluations would be discussed in this piece of research. The
autobiographical writings are equally important as the imperialist, nationalist,
Marxists, neo- Marxist (subaltern) approaches would be highlighted keeping
their own view points in the nationalist struggle. All such schools of thought
have different approaches/ perspectives as far as the Gandhian ideology was
concerned. All such approaches would be discussed and analysed in broader
way in this research work.

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