The Small voice of History refers to the story of the Common People in History. This is because History, in general, tells the story of the elites as it is written by the elites. Ranajit Guha, one of the pioneers of today’s ‘Subaltern Studies’ enumerates the condition of the ‘Common People’ in British India and before. The Small voice is not small; it is the voice of the largest number of Indian (as also of the World).It is, in reality, the biggest voice of History.

1. Prof. Ranajit Guha

2. Ranajit Guha, perhaps the most influential figure in postcolonial and subaltern studies, is also the founding editor
of Subaltern Studies. He taught history for many years at the University of Sussex, England and also served as
Professor of History, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, and Canberra. Guha’s
works have deeply influenced not only the writing of sub-continental history but also historical investigations
elsewhere, as well as cultural studies, literary theories, and social analyses across the world.
Link:- www. yourarticlelibrary.com

3. The Small voice of History refers to the story of the
Common People in History. This is because History, in
general, tells the story of the elites as it is written by the
elites. Ranajit Guha, one of the pioneers of today’s
‘Subaltern Studies’ enumerates the condition of the
‘Common People’ in British India and before. The Small
voice is not small; it is the voice of the largest number of
Indian (as also of the World).It is, in reality, the biggest
voice of History.

4.  1. What does the term ‘Historic’ mean?
Ans.The term ‘Historic’ means ‘Certain incidents or
deeds which are assigned to History’.
 2. Who nominates these for history and on what
basis?
Ans. The nominating authority is none other than an
ideology for which the life of the state is all there
is to history. This ideology is called ‘statism’ which
is what authorizes the dominant values of the state
to determine the criteria for the ‘Historic’.
That is why the common sense of history may be
said generally to be guided by a sort of statism
which thematizes and evaluates the past for it.

5. The British introduced the study of History as a highly
institutionalized and statist knowledge in India in nineteenth-
century .
3. When did the tradition of ‘statism’ begin?
Ans. The tradition of ‘statism’ dates back to the
beginnings of modem historical thinking in the Italian
Renaissance.
4. What was the ruling element of fifteenth century
city-state?
Ans. The ruling elements of the fifteenth-century city-
states was the study of history as a schooling in
politics and government indispensable for their role
as citizens and monarchs of the state.

6. 5. What was Machiavelli’s view on ‘historical study’?
Ans. According to Machiavelli ‘historical study and the study
of statecraft should have been essentially the same. The idea
remained alive for nearly three centuries.
6. When did politics become the very staple of
historical scholarship?
Ans. With the initiative taken by Lord Acton, politics became
the very staple of historical scholarship in the 19th century.
7. Where did the historical study become fully
institutionalized and why?
Ans. The study of history had become fully institutionalized in
Western Europe, perhaps more so in England than elsewhere,
because of the relatively greater maturity of the English
bourgeoisie.

7. 8. What was the significance of the institutionalized of the historical
study ?
Ans. Institutionalization of the historical study signified that, first,
the study of history developed into a sort-of 'normal science' in the
Kuhnian sense. It was integrated into the academic system as a fully
secularized body of knowledge with its own curricula and classrooms
as well as a profession devoted entirely to its propagation by
teaching and writing. Secondly, it now acquired a place of its own in
the increasingly expanding public space where the hegemonic
process often appealed Ito history in order to, realize itself in the
interaction between citizens and the state. Thirdly, it was this
literature ranging from school manuals to historical novels which
helped to institutionalize the writing of history by constituting it into
imaginative and discursive genres equipped with their distinctive
canons and narratologies.

9. But no such assimilation was feasible under colonial conditions
where an alien power ruled over a state without citizens, where the
right of conquest rather than the consent of its subjects constituted its
charter, and where, therefore, dominance would never gain the
hegemony it coveted so much. So it made no, sense to equate the
colonial state with India as constituted by its own civil society. The
history of the latter would always exceed that of the Raj, and
consequently an Indian historiography of India would have little use
for statism.

11. 12.What is the position of statism in Indian Historiography?
Ans. Statism in Indian historiography was a gift of this education. The
intelligentsia, its purveyors within the academic field and beyond, had been
schooled in their understanding of the history of the world and
especially of modern Europe as a history of state systems. In their own work
within the liberal professions therefore they found easy to conform to the
official interpretation of contemporary Indian history simply as a
history of the colonial state. That there was It fallacy about this interpretated,n.
The consent which -empowered the bourgeoisie to speak for all citizens in the
hegemonic states of Europe was also the license used by the latter to assimilate
the respective civil societies to themselves. But no such assimilation was
feasible under colonial conditions where an alien power ruled over a state
without citizens, where the right of conquest rather than the consent of its
subjects constituted its charter, and where therefore, dominance would never
gain the hegemony it coveted so much. So it made no, sense to equate the
colonial state with India as constituted by its own civil society. The history of the
latter would always exceed that of the Raj, and consequently an Indian
historiography of India would have little use for statism.

13. The Small Voice of History

14. The SmallVoice of History

15. Q.What were the three main aspects of ‘Telengana Movement’?
Ans. The Three main aspects of ‘Telengana Movement’ were ---i) An
anticipation of State Power; ii)Strategies and Programmes designed
for its realization and iii) at he corresponding values of these two. All
these points are very neatly clarified in Sundarayya’ narrative.
Q. What was the answer to the women’s voice in the ‘Telengana
Movement’?
Ans. The women’s voice in ‘Telengana Movement’ was not heard. It
was ‘an undertone of harassment and a ‘note of pain’ because they
suffered dual torture –one from the Govt. authorities and another
from the male voice of their coworkers. The male leadership of the
movement was never ready to share their position with the women
and unable to hear what he women were saying. The small voice of
the women remain unheard and as such unrecognized althrough.
Only a rewriting of the history of ‘Telengana Movement’ can make it
possible to know about the exact position of women thereto.

16.  Who wrote ‘That Magic Time’? What
is the full title and theme of the
book?
 Vasantha Kannabiran and K. Lalitha
wrote ‘That MagicTime’.
 The full title of the book was ‘That
Magic Time: Women in the
Telengana People’s Struggle’(1990).
The book deals with not only the
active participation of women in the
Telengana Rebellion during 1946
and 1951 but also highlights the
pangs of women questions in an
undertone. The focused facts reveal
the holocaust of gender issues
within the main leadership in the
Telengana Uprising.

17. Q. What, according to Guha, will be the impact of a re-writing
of the history of ‘Telengana Movement’?
Ans. A rewriting of the history of the Telengana Movement
that is attentive to the ‘undertones of harassment’ and ‘the note
of pain’ in women’s voices will, in the first place challenge the
univocity of statist discourse. And secondly, a rewriting
paying attention to women’s small voice will put the question
of agency and instrumentality back into the narrative. In a new
historical account this metaphysical view will clash with the
idea that women were agents rather than instruments of the
movement which was itself constituted by their participation.
This will inevitably destroy the image of women as passive
beneficiaries of a ‘struggle for ‘equal rights’ waged by others of
their behalf. Thirdly, women’s voice once it is heard, will
activate and make audible the other small voices like the
advisees, tribes and the subaltern in general. Finally, a
bourgeois narratology will certainly be the form of a rewritten
history of ‘Telengana movement’.

18. It’s Indranil Sarkar’s presentation for B.A Major
(English) 6th Semester.
Reference:
Prof. Ranajit Guha’s text ‘The Small voice of History’.