Chandras Death: History And Analysis Of Chandra's Death

1543 Words7 Pages
Subaltern is a word used for someone of inferior military rank in the British army, which was originated from the combination of the Latin terms “Under” (sub) and “other” (alter) (Abrams 306). Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist first used the term Subaltern for the unified inclusion of all subordinated and oppressed fractions of society. Chandra’s Death is an essay serialized in Subaltern Studies: Writings on South Asian History and Society. Ranajit Guha, an Indian Historian, was born in 1923, to a family of prosperous landowners in East Bengal. He moved to Calcutta for his university education, and became heavily caught up in the left wing student milieu of the 1940s. In 1947, after independence, he was sent as student representative to Europe by the CPI. Between 1949 and 1980, he taught at the University of Manchester and Sussex in England. In 1970s, the historiographical project associated with him, Subaltern Studies. Chandra’s Death is a reclaimed record of series of events in the process of historiography by Ranajit Guha, a historian. A real life event entered in to realm of historiography. Taken from the legal documents, the depositions are formatted in to an essay. Chandra belongs to Bagdi section, a sub-caste, which is beyond the pale of dominant caste Hindu society. It is a focus on the death of an obscure lower-caste peasant Bengali woman in the mid-nineteenth century. Chandra, daughter of a widow Bhagaboti Chashin, was in a liaison with Magaram Chasha, a man