ABSTRACT
The publication of Ranajit Guha’s Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India in 1983 marked the beginning of ‘subaltern school’ in Indian academia. From books and articles published by distinguished academics like Partha Chatterjee and Sudipta Kaviraj to day-to-day academic lectures of teachers and discussions amongst students in universities and colleges, a significant shift within the academia towards post-colonial theorisation and ‘subaltern’ studies has taken place. The ‘subaltern’ deviation and shift towards ‘culture’- and ‘community’-specific studies have created a pedagogy within the realm of bourgeois ideological positioning, comfortably shying away from crucial issues of existing class antagonisms in Indian society. The ‘subaltern school’ has employed Gramsci’s concept of ‘hegemony’ in defining the Indian social reality; it has appropriated the concept/theory and adjusted it with the issues of cultural identities in understanding society and replaced ‘class’ with ‘community’ in the analysis of the Indian state. The chapter locates this as a misappropriation of theory by ‘subaltern school’ leading to pedagogical crisis within existing educational and academic pedagogy. The epistemological framework proposed by the school is an extension of the dominant discourse of power. The chapter recognises ‘subaltern school’ as an established pedagogy in the academia and educational institutions and tries to provide a critique based on Marxist theoretical framework and analysis, wherein ‘ideology critique’ forms the basis of study.
