PEASANT MOVEMENTS AND CHANGING NATURE OF NATIONALISM UNDER THEME: SUBALTERN HISTORY AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION

Abstract

The history of modern South Asia has long been narrated as a linear progression toward the birth of the nation-state, a story typically told from the vantage point of the urban intelligentsia and the political elite. In this traditional historiography, the nationalist movement is portrayed as a top down phenomenon, where charismatic leaders awakened a dormant, illiterate peasantry to the cause of anti-colonialism. However, the emergence of Subaltern Studies in the late 20th century, spearheaded by historian Ranajit Guha, fundamentally challenged this elitist bias. By shifting the focus from the corridors of power to the fields of agrarian struggle, this perspective reveals that peasant movements were not merely subsets of the nationalist cause. Instead, they represented an autonomous domain of politics with a distinct consciousness, one that played a decisive role in shifting the very definition and trajectory of nationalism.