Welcome back again to the series of lectures
on Postcolonial Studies.
During the course of this lecture, as well
as the next lecture, we will try to understand
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s theorisation
of the subaltern position through Mahasweta
Devi’s short story titled “Pterodactyl,
Puran Sahay, and Pirtha”.
But before we start exploring the story itself,
I would like to revisit Spivak’s “Can
the Subaltern Speak”, an essay that we have
been referring to from our previous lecture
and I would like to revisit it to highlight
the connecting threads that link Spivak’s
theoretical position, as far as subaltern
is concerned and the story of Devi that we
are going to study.
Now, as you will remember, from our previous
discussion, we had defined subaltern as a
position of disempowerment and marginalisation.
And, we had also talked about Spivak's argument,
that for someone within the position of subalternity,
it is impossible to generate discourse about
one's own desires, about one's own interests
and indeed about one's own self-identity.
And, according to Spivak, this is the characterising
feature of the subaltern position.
And, this basic argument is found coded in
the form of the cryptic but very powerful
statement that 'the subaltern cannot speak.'
And, I will not elaborate on this cryptic
statement in this lecture because we have
already discussed this, quite a bit, in our
previous lecture.
But what I would like you to note here is
that, Spivak’s essay, "Can the Subaltern
Speak," is not merely limited to showing that
the subaltern cannot speak.
That is one of the things that Spivak does
in her essay but that is not the only thing.
Indeed, this observation that the Subaltern
is unable to generate discourse about herself
or her own interests, her desires, this theorisation
acts in Spivak as a trigger for ethical intervention.
In other words, the realisation of the fact
that the subaltern is disempowered and cannot
speak for herself, her own desires, they act
for Spivak, in her essay, as a kind of a trigger
for ethical intervention.
So, in other words, this observation that
the Subaltern cannot speak leads Spivak to
another very critical and very crucial question.
And what is that question?
The question is if the subaltern cannot speak
then what should be our critical response
to it, our ethical response to it, our response
to it as intellectuals, as academicians, as
responsible members of a society.
And here when I say our response, I mean the
response of those who have agency and whose
speech is recognised within the society as
meaningful discourse.
Now, a simplistic answer to this particular
question would be to state that since the
subaltern cannot speak for herself, we, who
are the elites, and here I use the term elite
following Ranajit Guha’s categorisation
of a society into elites and subalterns.
So, I mean clearly, if we have agency and
if our discourse within the society is regarded
to be valid discourse, then we are clearly
not subalterns.
And therefore we belong to the group of elites
according to Ranajit Guha’s categorisation,
at least.
So, a simplistic answer to the question- that
ethical question that I had raised just now
is that since the subaltern cannot speak,
we, who are the elites, should speak for the
subaltern.
Now, on the surface, speaking for or representing
the oppressed and the disempowered sounds
like a very valid ethical gesture but as Spivak
points out in her essay "Can the Subaltern
Speak," this desire to speak for someone else
is fraught with its own dangers.
Because, what might happen, and indeed what
often does happen, is that when the elite
tries to represent the subaltern, he ends
up not actually representing the subaltern
but he ends up speaking for his own self.
In other words, what gets represented as the
voice of the subaltern is not her voice at
all but the voice of an elite trying to pass
off his own desires, his own interests, as
the interest and desires of the subaltern.
And, according to Spivak, any such attempt
to speak for the subaltern leaves the subaltern
ultimately in that zone of speechlessness
and in that zone which is bereft of agency.
Now, this argument of Spivak that we cannot
speak for the subaltern, we cannot really
represent the subaltern as elites, is slightly
confusing.
But, I hope it will become clear if we dwell
into the section of the essay "Can the Subaltern
Speak" where Spivak writes about the position
of Sati.
So, to exemplify the dangers of the attempt
of the elite to represent the subaltern, Spivak
refers to the debate surrounding the ritual
Sati in which an upper caste Hindu widow mounts
the funeral pyre of her husband and ends her
own life.
Now, I think the context will make it very
clear as to when I am referring to Sati as
a ritual and when I am referring to Sati as
the figure of the Hindu widow.
But, we should bear in mind that Sati refers
to both.
In contemporary discourse, it refers both
to the ritual of self-immolation by the widow
and also it refers to the figure of the widow
herself.
Now, Spivak in her essay argues that though
a lot of discourse is available on Sati, the
figure of the Sati herself, the figure of
the Hindu widow who burns herself in the funeral
pyre of her husband, represents a typical
example of a subaltern who cannot speak.
And, this is because the different elite groups
discoursing on Sati, though they claim to
represent or speak for the woman who emulates
herself with her dead husband, ultimately
they end up speaking for their own self-interest.
As I was just saying a few minutes before,
that it is difficult to speak for the subaltern
because when we try to speak for the subaltern
as elites, we often end up speaking about
our own self-interest, and about our own self
goals, about our desires and we tend to impose
those desires on to the Subaltern.
We tend to present them as the genuine desire
of the subaltern herself.
And, according to Spivak, this is what has
happened with regards to Sati because a huge
amount of discourse is available on Sati.
And, all this discourse claims to be the voice
of the Sati herself, the widow who burns herself
on the funeral pyre of her husband.
But Spivak’s argument is that in spite of
this claim, none of the elite discourses about
the Sati actually brings out the voice of
the widow.
Now, to understand this better, let us start
our enquiry from the year 1829 because this
was the year when the then-Governor General
of British India, Lord William Bentinck, he
passed a legal Act.
And what was the Act about?
Well, the Act Sati, in the Indian territory,
under British jurisdiction.
And, of course later, this Act was also extended
and implemented to the princely states.
Now, this Act or the legislative document
which formed this Act can be read as part
of the 19th century colonial discourse which
characterised the right of Sati as a brutal
and barbaric custom in which the "Hindu men"
punished the Hindu widow by forcing her to
mount the funeral pyre of her husband.
In this colonial discourse, the right of Sati
was nothing less than the murder sanctioned
by the Hindu patriarchy.
So the colonisers, who banned the right of
Sati, this sort of ritual of Sati, they regarded
Sati as nothing less than a murder, a murder
that was sanctioned by the Hindu patriarchal
society.
And the Hindu widow who mounts the fire is
presented in this colonial discourse as the
helpless victim of Hindu males' sadistic desire
to punish and torture the weaker sex.
The law passed by the colonial government
banning this ritual of widow sacrifice, therefore,
becomes an attempt by the British coloniser
to speak on behalf of the subaltern Hindu
widow who otherwise cannot express her desire,
or assert her authority, against the aggression
of the Hindu male.
Now, according to Spivak, the colonial discourse
made this entire ritual of Sati, they made
it out to be a case of "white man saving brown
women from brown men."
And here, I mean, this is again a cryptic
statement, typical of Spivak, "white man saving
brown women from brown men."
Of course, it refers to the apparent attempt
by the white coloniser to save the brown women,
which means the woman who were punished, and
forced by Hindu males to burn themselves on
the funeral pyre of their husbands, from brown
men, which means the Hindu men who sanctioned
Sati.
However, Spivak argues that though the colonial
discourse tried to argue that the banning
of Sati was an attempt by the colonial government
to provide agency to the otherwise powerless
Hindu widow, the ulterior motive behind this
legislative act was different.
What was the ulterior motive?
Well, according to Spivak, by portraying the
right of Sati as a barbaric practice, the
colonisers could justify the colonial rule
as a civilising mission because the very fact
that brown women needed protection from brown
men, cast the white coloniser into the role
of a benevolent protector whose civilising
efforts were needed to root out the cruel
and savage practices that plagued the Hindu
society in particular, and Indian society
at large.
So, the argument here is that though the coloniser,
by banning Sati, claimed to give agency to
the Hindu woman, this was not the ulterior
motive behind the banning of Sati.
The ulterior motive was to portray the ritual
of Sati as a barbaric practice, as a practice
which needs to be condemned, which does not
have a place within the modern society.
The coloniser then presented colonialism as
a civilising mission, which was needed in
such a society to root out the barbaric practice
Sati or similar barbaric practices like Sati.
So, the colonial discourse, though it claimed
to be the voice of the Sati, is revealed by
Spivak to be simply the voice of the coloniser
which is informed not by the desires and interests
of the Hindu widow but by the desires and
interests of the British overlord justifying
colonialism, justifying the colonial subjugation
of India as a civilising mission.
So, because there is Sati, you need to be
under colonial rule because the argument is
that you are not civilised yourself, because
you burn your women.
So, your woman needs protection from you.
You are not civilised enough, you are not
mature enough, to take care of your woman
which is why you need the British overlord,
the protection of the British overlord, the
civilising influence of the British overlord.
Now, if you read Spivak’s essay "Can the
Subaltern Speak," you will note that Spivak
also makes a similar argument about the male
Hindu nativists who opposed the colonial intervention
in banning the ritual of Sati and who, too,
claimed to speak on the behalf of the Hindu
widow.
So, contrary to the colonial view, these Hindu
nativists, and they included people like Rabindranath
Tagore for instance, or Ananda Coomaraswany
for instance, they constructed the image of
the Hindu Sati not as a victim of male sadism
but rather as someone who mounts the pyre
of her husband out of her own volition, out
of her own desire.
Now, Spivak argues that in spite of being
a contrary discourse, this discourse is of
course contrary to the colonial discourse
which presents Sati as a kind of sadistic
practice in which Hindu widows were bullied
to burn themselves by the Hindu male- this
is a counterpoint.
But, according to Spivak, in spite of being
a contrary discourse, in spite of being a
counter-discourse, this Hindu nativists argument
too, just like the colonial discourse, does
not help us listen to the voice of the widow.
Spivak points out a number of ways in which
the widows voice gets suppressed within this
Hindu nativists discourse.
But we lack the time to go into further details,
now.
What we need to remember here, however is
that, is the larger point that Spivak is making.
And the larger point is that any attempt to
speak for the voiceless subaltern often ends
up in creation of discourses which are underlined
by the desires and interests of the elites,
rather than the subaltern.
Just like, the colonial and the nativist discourse
about Sati, ends up reflecting the desires
and interests of the colonisers and the Hindu
males, and not that of the widow.
But, now we come to the question then, that
what is the way forward- if we cannot really
speak for the subaltern, if we cannot really
represent the subaltern, because speaking
for the subaltern often ends up in creation
of discourses where we speak actually for
ourselves and not for the subaltern.
If that is the case, then what is the way
forward?
What should we, as ethical individuals, do
to address the situation of the disempowered
and the voiceless subaltern?
According to Spivak, since we cannot really
speak for the subaltern, the more ethical
move would be to create enabling conditions
for the subaltern to speak for herself, and
thereby come out of the disempowered position
of subalternity.
And, let me repeat this.
According to Spivak, since we cannot really
speak for the subaltern, since we cannot really
represent the subaltern, our ethical move
should be to create enabling conditions for
the subaltern, so that she can herself be
empowered to speak and, by doing that, she
can come out of the disempowered position
of subalternity.
And, it is really in this light, in the light
of creating enabling circumstances for the
subaltern, that we should read Spivak's work
as a teacher among the landless illiterate
population in the villages of West Bengal.
Spivak's role there, as a teacher, as she
conceives it, is primarily the role of a facilitator,
someone who creates the situation in which
the subaltern can then find her voice.
But, for Spivak, even this act of creating
enabling circumstances, for the subaltern
to speak, comes later.
According to Spivak, this step should be preceded
by another step.
And the first step should be to try and learn
from the subaltern, and sensitise ourselves
to her needs and her desires.
The process of learning from the subaltern
that will enable us to create the enabling
circumstances, for her to come out and speak
for herself, is a difficult process because,
if you remember, we are starting from a position
where the subaltern cannot speak.
So, trying to learn from someone who cannot
speak is a difficult task.
And, here again, we come across one of Spivak's
cryptic but powerful statements, that we should
"learn to learn from the subaltern."
Now, the meaning of this phrase, "learn to
learn from the subaltern," is that the desire
to learn from the subaltern does not mean
that we can automatically and easily start
learning from the subaltern.
We need to learn how to learn from the subaltern
because it is, as I said, it is not an easy
task to learn from the individuals who have
been denied, for very long, the right to speak
for themselves.
So, the first step is not even learning from
the subaltern.
The first step is to think through the difficulties
that are there, if you want to learn from
the subaltern.
So, the first step is really to know how to
learn to learn from the subaltern.
Now, it is only when you face the subaltern
as a learner, as a listener, that we can,
perhaps, empower and enjoin the subaltern
to speak.
And, according to Spivak, this is our only
ethical move that is possible.
Now, to explore Spivak’s theorisation of
the subaltern through a literary texts, let
me now turn to Mahasweta Devi’s short story.
The story that we are going to read is one
of the three tales by Mahasweta Devi that
is contained in the book titled Imaginary
Maps.
And, this book contains three translated stories
and all of these three stories are translated
by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, herself.
And, the story which we will be focusing on
today, and in the next lecture, bears the
title "Pterodactyl, Puran Sahay, and Pirtha."
But, before we go on to the story, let me
introduce Mahasweta Devi to you.
Mahasweta Devi, a well respected author and
social activist, was born in 1926 in Dhaka,
which is now the capital of our neighbouring
state Bangladesh.
After the partition of the subcontinent, during
the independence, Devi moved from Dhaka to
West Bengal, where she completed her tertiary
education in English, first in Tagore’s
Viswa Bharati University, and then in the
University of Calcutta.
She started her career as a teacher in a college
in Kolkata but then navigated towards journalism
and creative writing.
Her career was also marked by social activism
and a strong commitment towards the tribal
population of India.
As Devi has, in fact, pointed out in several
occasions, this tribal population, which forms
about 1/6th of the total population of India,
has long suffered unimaginable oppressions
from the people who belong to the mainstream.
With every wave of migration that has arrived
in the subcontinent, the position of the indigenous
tribal population has been made more and more
precarious.
The forest, which is their habitation, has
been gradually taken away from them and their
ways of life have been brutally crushed.
Devi traces back this oppression of the tribal
population, back to the days of Hindu epic
Ramayana, and argues that the oppression that
started so long back, has not ended yet.
Under the British rule, many of the tribals
were branded as criminals and their rights
to the forest were curtailed.
And such curtailment of tribal rights has
continued even in post-independence India.
Thus, here we are confronted with a form of
oppression that is as gruesome as the colonial
oppression that we have discussed in this
course.
And the tribal in the story of oppression,
the tribal emerges as a architable subaltern,
whose voice has been systematically gagged
and marginalised for centuries.
Both, as a social activist and as an author,
Devi has stood up for the rights of the disempowered
tribals and her work, both as an author, and
as a social activist, has been widely acknowledged,
both in India and abroad.
And she has been the recipient of numerous
awards, including the Sahitya Akademi Award,
the Ramon Magsaysay Award, Padma Shri, and
Padma Vibhushan.
Now, one of the reasons I chose the story
"Pterodactyl" for our reading in this course
is because Devi herself, in an interview with
Spivak, identifies it as the summation of
the entire experience she obtained while working
with the tribals.
She also identifies the story as the distillation
of the agony of the tribals that she had learn
to perceive through her sustained engagement
with them.
In Devi’s own words, and I quote, “If
read carefully, Pterodactyl, the story, will
communicate the agony of the tribals, of marginalised
people all over the world.
Pterodactyl wants to show what has been done
to the entire tribal world of India.”
Devi then goes on to add that, and I quote
again, “Each tribe is like a continent.
But we never tried to know them.
Never tried to respect them.
That is true of every tribal.
And we destroy them.”
So, "Pterodactyl," really is a story which
confronts this narrative of destruction which
is continuing even today in modern day India
in the name of development.
It speaks of our ethical obligation to stop
this wanton destruction and to reach out to
the tribals, not in the role of subjugators,
or even in the role of patronising superiors,
but as empathetic listeners and learners.
To quote Devi again, “Our double task is
to resist development actively and to learn
to love.”
We will elaborate on this double task in our
next lecture.
But I would like to end today’s discussion
by briefly commenting on how "Pterodactyl,"
the story, and Devi’s engagement with the
tribals that it narrates, how do they connect
to the concerns of postcolonial studies.
Well, this story contributes to our understanding
of the postcolonial situation in at least
two distinct ways.
Firstly, by speaking about the subalternization
of the tribals in India, that has continued
from the period of the British raj to the
present day, it points out the fact that even
as an independent nation, we are still burdened
with a huge amount of colonial baggage and
we have not really been able to dismantle
the colonial structures of coercion, subjugation
and oppression.
Secondly, this narrative about the tribals
whose world we have destroyed and whose world
we continue destroying even today, questions
the narrative of nationalism, it questions
the narrative of postcolonial freedom.
Because, it forces us to reconsider the kind
of freedom that we have earned.
Because, this freedom that we talk about so
much, that we celebrate every independence
day, and the sense of agency that this freedom
has given us, has definitely not reached the
hundred million strong tribal population in
India.
"Pterodactyl" asks us the question that what
kind of nation have we really built for ourselves.
What is this nation in which the tribals,
who are, as the Indian word Adivasi suggests,
the original or the primitive inhabitants
of this land, they do not have a place?
What is this nation that we have created for
ourselves?
It is definitely not a very inclusive nation
if it leaves out the hundred million tribal
population.
We will take up this powerful story of Mahasweta
Devi, as well as the difficult question it
raises for us, in our next lecture.
Thank you for listening.
