Research Note on Subaltern Studies

The Subaltern School of historiography emerged in the 1980s. From its inception it resulted into a major transition in South Asian historiography and posed a vigorous challenge to existing historical scholarship. It was largely by its relentless postcolonial critique that Indian history came to be seen in a different life. Indian History had thus found a new approach that was so critically needed. The Nationalist and the Cambridge Schools became the focus of their criticism due to their elite based analysis of history. They also contested the Marxist School due to the fact that their mode of production based narratives have a tendency of merging inevitably into the nationalist ideology of modernity and progress. Moreover the Subalterns rightly pointed out that the Marxist found it really difficult to accept the ideology of caste and religion as crucial factors in Indian History, which to them was somewhat backward and degrading. They were thus, according to the Subalterns, totally unable to gather vital historical data from lived experiences of various oppressed classes, which were submerged in religious and social customs.