Telling (her)story: an overview of subaltern studies

This study seeks to make a critical overview of Subaltern Studies as a theoretical framework to discuss the intersections of gender and history since the post-structuralist thought till contemporary feminist studies in the Indian postcolonial context. A clear example of the dominant codes of British imperialism and Indian patriarchy shared by ‘history’ is the case of Bhuvaneswari Bhaduri, a woman who struggled for Indian independence, and who hanged herself in 1926 at the onset of menstruation so that her death would not be diagnosed as the outcome of illegitimate passion. However, her death was remembered as a case of illicit love. Furthermore, we will pay attention to the charges about the absence of gender issues and lack of engagement with feminist scholarship that these theories about historiography share. We will finally discuss issues such as the gendering of subalternity (whether gender is subsumed under the categories of caste and class or gender is seen to ark a social group apart from other subalterns), silence, subjectivity, neocolonialism and agency.