Indian peasant historiography: A critical perspective on Ranajit Guha's work

With the publication of six volumes of Subaltern Studies (1982–89), under Ranajit Guha's general editorship, South Asian social and political history, centred round the struggles of the subaltern classes of South Asia under colonial rule, and of the peasantry in particular, was poured into an entirely new historiographical mould. The intellectual foundation for this exciting project was laid in Guha's three major works published during the previous two decades. The historiography of the Indian peasantry, cast in this new mould, constitutes not only a formidable challenge to the dominant mainstream orientations of the metropolitan liberal and natonalist elite historians but has also opened a new frontier of understanding of the dynamics of peasant insurrections which is of significance for the future and for peasant societies in general.