Peasant Pasts: History and Memory in Western India

by Vinayak Chaturvedi

Peasant Pasts is an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to writing histories of peasant politics, nationalism, and colonialism. Vinayak Chaturvedi's analysis provides an important intervention in the social and cultural history of India by examining the nature of peasant discourses and practices during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through rigorous archival study and fieldwork, Chaturvedi shows that peasants in Gujarat were active in the production and circulation of political ideas, establishing critiques of the state and society while promoting complex understandings of political community. By turning to the heartland of M.K. Gandhi's support, Chaturvedi shows that the vast majority of peasants were opposed to nationalism in the early decades of the twentieth century. He argues that nationalists in Gujarat established power through the use of coercion and violence, as they imagined a nation in which they could dominate social relations. Chaturvedi suggests that this littletold story is necessary to understand not only anticolonial nationalism but the direction of postcolonial nationalism as well.

Genres: India, History

329 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Hafsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chaturvedi makes a strong critique against Indian nationalist narratives and argues that the histories of the Dharalas (a peasant group) have been either marginalized or misinterpreted by the nationalist narratives. He also makes a critique of Gandhi and states that those whose vision of an alternate political reality differed from Gandhi’s were not included in the freedom movement. Furthermore, Gandhi did not care to address the concerns of the peasants and his ideas of freedom did not go so far as to question the existing inequalities within the community (between Dharalas and Patidars, for example).

I am impressed with how Chaturvedi is able to craft such a coherent and powerful narrative based on very few sources. He refers to this as “fragmented” history and it gives me hope that there are ways to analyze and work off of such sources, even for groups that were for the most part, nonliterate. Small clues can still provide insights into the everyday world of a subject. Part of the historians craft in this case is to take a risk and fill in the missing pieces with his/her own conjectures and creativity--and Chaturvedi succeeds in doing this.

[Nick Hussong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. Made Gandhi look like an asshole.