Subaltern Studies and Its Critics: Debates over Indian History
Author(s)
Lal, Vinay
Abstract
Reviews four books that debate Indian history: A Subaltern Studies Reader 1986-1995 (1997), edited by Ranajit Guha; Peter Heehs’s Nationalism, Terrorism, Communalism: Essays in Modern Indian History (1998); Sumit Sarkar’s Writing Social History (1998); and Achin Vanaik’s The Furies of Indian Communalism: Religion, Modernity, and Secularization (1997). The accomplishments and gaps of subaltern studies of Indian history and, most especially, the very relevance of historicity to Indian civilization and to the actions of its “marginalized” people are being vigorously examined and debated but remain rather unclear.
