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Politics of Identity and the Project of Writing
The central orientation of this article is organised around Dalit identity politics and their implications on the project of writing history in postcolonial India. It critically engages with the Subaltern Studies project as a school of postcolonial historiography that claims to represent the voice of the marginalised and yet stops short of acknowledging caste and caste-based oppression as worthy of historical analysis. In particular, it engages with Dipesh Chakrabarty's reflections on Dalit identity politics in postcolonial India and argues that Dalits, while demanding sociopolitical equality and a dignified identity, also challenge the epistemologies of the nation and demand its historical narratives to be egalitarian and inclusive.
The first version of this paper was presented as a luncheon address at the 20th Annual Underhilll Graduate Student Colloquium, Department of History, Carleton University on 6 March 2014. I would like to thank the organisers of the conference, Marie-Anne Gagnon and Michel Chiarello and other graduate students for the invitation and also for their keen interest in my research. My colleagues in the department, Alek Bennett, Audra Diptee, Mark Saurette, David Dean, and James Miller, shared my enthusiasm in this project and I would like to thank them for their continual encouragement and support. Finally, an anonymous referee of this journal through an incisive and critical reading helped in sharpening the arguments.
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