L E T T E R S

I am reading your paper from time to time.  It is analytical and informative.

At Bangalore I attended a talk on Subaltern Studies: Law and social Movements in the form of a discussion by Gayatri Chakravarty Spivacc, Professor of Columbia University USA and Prof. Upendra Buxi, also professor of law in an USA university. Buxi was earlier Vice Chancellor of Delhi University. I always found his writings on law in the WEEK quite illuminating. Gayatri Spoke on Subaltern theory- one of her seminal essays ' can the subaltern speak' had been theoretically path-setting in post-colonial and post-modernist studies. some of the insights, I feel are very original, the talk helped me to understand them better and  realize her depth and sensitivity as a social thinker, besides being the outstanding literary scholar that she certainly is. In the lecture there was an element of debate as the category of Subaltern was contested by some who thought that it stood in the way of affirmative action. Gayatri said that her motivation was to create space both in terms of theory and action for the Subaltern, the so-called marginalised communities, a space which will be legitimately be outside the public or the civil society space. The subaltern has to be looked from 'inside' and not from outside. Prof. Buxi referred to the fact that the very mention of ’law’ or legal categories are absent from her discussion of the Subaltern. Law, she said was only an agency, even though it may be social law and not state law derived from the post-colonial nation state. She connected this concept of inside with her idea of translation. No translation in another language can be really true to the original. Instead of using the word to translate, one should use the expression to speak after. This is very interesting because her international fame has been earned as the most authentic and erudite translator of the French philosopher Derrida.

L.K.Barua, Former fellow Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla.

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