Before entering into the topic of Subalternisation, one must understand what does the term subaltern actually mean?
In colonial parlance, the term subaltern designated and identified the colonial populations who are socially, politically, and geographically excluded from the hierarchy of power of an imperial colony and from the metropolitan homeland of an empire. Basically the irrelevant and downtrodden class among the colonies of empires.
Subalterns have existed around all parts of the world ever since civilizations came to existence . They were an indispensable part of feudal life in all hierarchical societies, doing the work that elites, nobles and other respectable parts of the populace would do. Hence they indeed were essential for the survival of a self-sustaining economy.
Now coming back to the topic , the issue in India is not about the existence of subalterns , but the projection and promotion of subaltern icons and culture at the expense of all others sometimes even extending to appropriation of Savarna historical figures. The worst part is that it's sanctioned by the ruling party too.
Case in point, is the example of Gurjara Pratihara emperor Mihir Bhoj who was designated and hailed by Gujjars as Gujjar king, with the support of Bha-Ji-Pao in Noida. This was resisted by Rajputs whose many a clan descent from Pratiharas. Interestingly Rajputs form a bigger voter bank in UP than rhe Gujjars, this might prompt one to think, what would prompt one to displeased core voterbase to impress and bag few unfaithful votes?
The answer is that Bhajipao itself has become a Nagpuri Subaltern party, which after realising that appeal to common Hinduness is slowly eroding way, decides to resort to history re-distribution to maintain its overwhelming support from masses , especially OBCs and SCs.
Coming to South India, afaik Bhajipao didn't appropriate anyone, instead in Karnataka they created 2 new Vokkaligga warriors entirely who allegedly killed Tipu Sultan.
Anyways, moving on from appropriation let's see few subaltern figures which Bhajipao made more popular :
(1)Phule
(2)Periyar
(3)Ayyankali
(4)Narayana Guru
And another one was popular even before, but Bhajipao made him more popular than ever: B.R.Ambedkar
But even after all these stunts what they will get in return from the ungrateful populace, is party members like this :
Now all of these was just role on the ruling party in subalternisation of India. But there are some states where people themselves have carried out the process, more on this topic will be discussed in the next article.
So... stay tuned, read, comment and share the article !
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