span 550. Dominance without hegemony

In this book Guha offers a perspective on the History of power in India's colonization and decolonization. His main argument is that a classic understanding of modernity, as something expanded towards the colonies, is not appropriate to think of the constitution of colonial power in India.

The author develops a frame in which power of domination is exercised through coercion and persuasion, while subordination is enacted through collaboration or resistance. If in Europe state power and bourgeoisie class interest is made dominant mainly through the action of persuasion (or consent), and only anomalous moments demand for physical violence, in India capitalism and a supposedly political liberalism are only imposed through force. In this movement the only consent and collaboration that can be identified is the one of Indian elites that participate and benefit form colonial economy. This is what it means for Guha to have dominance without hegemony.

Imposition however, does not exhaust the way subordination is operating, for this he proposes that an alternative paradigm is allowing submission, and this is the "feudal" pre modern order of cast system. British rule imposes a colonial capitalism legitimized in the notion of development, while subalterns respond to the historical subjection to local powers legitimized in religion and moral order of society.

Thus if in Europe the bourgeoisie revolutions, the conformation of a free market and free workers are accompanied by the development of liberalist ideas, modernity in India comes through the imposition of colonial rule. Subjects are then not subjects of their own actions free to get employed, but rather equally subjected as labour force in colonial companies. The notion of improvement is absent in India but for the small portion of elites.

The second third of the book looks at the strategies of the Indian nationalist movement in using the lack of hegemony of the colonial rule to challenge its power in these terms and by generating a hegemonic project. He discusses the way the elites generate mass mobilization as the only way of assuring their representatives over the subaltern, which was not a modern subject claiming for a democratic state, but rather intending to subvert domination. An interesting point is that for him in India there is no class solidarity but juts hierarchical relations of subordination, this is the only commonality that brings together the mass. These movements of insurgence are he objects of control of nationalist elites in their conformation as a movement. The control of the crowd, as Guha call it, is both by direct action, discipline of habitual actions and moral discipline (Gandhi).

A question that comes at this point is how much nationalist movement builds its power on the gaps of colonialism, as if for example the extension of power to the domain of the private (as Arnold shows for the control of the bodies) is what then is transformed into the Hindi biopoliotics - politics of the body, which is at the same time a particular type of morality.

Bueno la tercer parte es interesante pero no tanto, asi que me abstengo de comentario.

Criticas habria varias, por un lado como es que dominacion encarnada en un paradigma y subordinacion en otro funcionan sin mediacion, si la mediacion son las elites que si participan de un discurso liberal, esto les otorga ua especia de supra consciencia de todo el proceso en el que finalmente su poder es casi mas absoluto que el de los colonizadores, y no se si es este el caso. En relacion a la segunda parte se podria pensar a lo Pandian como es que la gente pasa de un paradigma de subordinacion religiosa a uno de disciplina nacionalista sin mas, es decir que es lo que hace que el subalterno quiera prestarse a la disciplina. La imagen que presenta Guha es quizas de una extrema maleabilidad explicada a traves de la raligio, la cultura, el sistema de castas, pero estos huecos culturales quedan un poco como cajas negras autoexplicativas.

El otro dia me quede pensando en las implicancias para pensar la trayectoria histórica y el rol de la historia en la subaternidad, si es un sujeto definido por la negativa como entender su expereincia histórica si no la tiene? Bueno si esto ya lo hablamos, al subalterno como sin historia y antihistoria. Pero me quedo pensando que implicancias tiene para pensar en las nociones de experiencia y trayectoria social (estoy pensando en Sider against experience). Creo que esto ya esta discutido, sin embargo me pregunto por las implicancias en lo que sería el estudio de lo cotidiano o por ejemplo si un analisis del tipo de Cralo Ginsburg con el queso quedaría fuera del estudio de los usbalterno. Que nocion de experiencia y as implicancias en la creacion de sujetos (aunque sean temporarios e inestables) estarían manejando los subalternistas es algo que no me queda muy claro.