ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a critical discussion of the theoretical frameworks through which state-society relations have been conceptualized in the study of subaltern resistance in colonial and postcolonial India. It presents a critical assessment of the Subaltern Studies project's conceptualization of the relationship between the state and subaltern groups in colonial and postcolonial India. The chapter outlines an alternative approach to the study of state-society relations which is grounded in Gramsci's conceptions of sub-alternity, hegemony, and state formation. This conception of subaltern politics as an autonomous domain had significant implications for how state-society relations were conceived of by key participants in the Subaltern Studies project. Foucauldian ethnographies have situated subaltern politics in contemporary India in "relational spaces of connection and articulation" and in doing so they have been of singular importance in terms of moving beyond the impasses.
