JNU student didn't identify as Dalit: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in conflict over seminary

Disclaimer: To allow for free conversation on the topic, the interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak was conducted with the understanding that she would approve any direct quotes that would be published. Ms. Spivak received the quotes that were to be included, but her responses were not received by the first deadline. Therefore, an earlier version of this story was revised after Ms. Spivak sent us the final version of her responses.

Days after videos showed a Dalit student being arrested by academic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak during the question and answer (Q&A) session of a lecture at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, Ms. Spivak said in a statement to The Hindu that she never stopped the student concerned from asking his question and that the student did not identify himself as Dalit.

Anshul Kumar, 28, a master's student (sociology) at the Center for the Study of Social Systems, had tried to question Ms. Spivak about her position as a middle class person during the May 21 conference.

But he was interrupted by the pronunciation of the last name of the American sociologist WEB Du Bois, which was corrected several times by Ms. Spivak, one of the most famous scholars in her field. That caused other members of the audience to burst out laughing, many conference attendees said, adding that Ms. Spivak might also have had a problem with Mr. Kumar identifying himself as the “founding professor of Center for Brahmin Studies”.

Shortly after the altercation, Mr. Kumar put up a protest poster outside the auditorium where the debate was taking place, which read: “If the subordinate cannot speak, he will abuse!” » with an added expletive. The aim of presenting itself as part of the 'Centre for Brahmin Studies' was to highlight the need to interrogate Brahmanism as subaltern identities are studied, Mr Kumar had said. The Hindu.

In response to the controversy that has since erupted, Ms. Spivak said The Hindu On Friday, “Anshul Kumar did not identify himself as Dalit. That's why I thought he was a Brahmin, since he said he was the founder of an institute of Brahmin studies. I did not stop Mr. Kumar from asking his question. He still mispronounced Du Bois' name and began to speak to me in a very rude manner. As an old teacher confronted with a student, and especially since I had not been informed that he was Dalit, my hurt remark that I did not want to hear his question was a gesture of protest.

She added that “for some reason” conference attendees were not pronouncing Du Bois' name correctly – which is the Haitian way. “Since Du Bois was himself a black ‘Dalit,’ I would like to suggest that the correct pronunciation be learned,” she said.

She said it had been an “extremely enlightening experience” for her, adding: “That this kind of public misunderstanding and defamation could be undertaken in contemporary India is deeply troubling for someone like me and for others. others. »

Further, Ms. Spivak said, “We understand that Mr. Kumar is studying for a master’s degree in sociology at JNU; I have repeatedly emphasized that Du Bois invented the modern discipline of sociology with his Negro from Philadelphiapublished in 1899.

Since videos of the incident went viral, criticism of Mr. Kumar has focused on the language he has used with Ms. Spivak since the interview. Mr. Kumar, on the other hand, argued that the point he was trying to make by asking his question to Ms. Spivak had been missed by many.

Meanwhile, Mr. Kumar used quotes from Du Bois's work to argue against the rejection of subaltern voices because of the demands of “syntactic obedience,” although the incident caused some scholars to question whether Subordinate voices are heard when they do. speak up — pointing to one of Ms. Spivak’s most widely read essays, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” »

Responding to this speech, Ms. Spivak said: “Subaltern and Dalit are not interchangeable words. The upwardly mobile Dalit in the classroom – and the academy is an instrument of upward mobility – should certainly use his new privilege to work for the entire Dalit community, especially the subaltern Dalits, who do not get into the universities of elite.

When asked if one stops being subservient when one begins to enter elite academic spaces, she replied: “Yes, they do, although they certainly don't stop of being people of Dalit origin, who should use their privilege to help subaltern Dalits. There is a kind of reverse casteism, somewhat frightened, among politically correct non-Dalits, which serious activists do not take advantage of.”

She continued: “Regarding subalternity: our consistent position has been that subalternity must be destroyed and made more generalizable as citizenship. I regret that Subaltern Studies, which is a historiographical enterprise, does not seem to recognize castes. For forty years I have worked for subordinates, running primary schools rather than studying them.

While denouncing Mr. Kumar's use of expletives as misogynistic, several Dalit activists and scholars also questioned the necessity of Ms. Spivak having latched onto the pronunciation of Du Bois's last name upon hearing the question by Mr. Kumar.

Before being interrupted, what Mr. Kumar wanted to ask Ms. Spivak was: “Spivak claims to be middle class. She stated in her lecture that Du Bois belonged to an upper-class elite. How is she, as the great-granddaughter of Bihari Lal Bhaduri, a close friend of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, supposed to be middle class?

Responding to the question, Ms. Spivak said the question had nothing to do with the lecture topic “WEB Du Bois's Vision of Democracy.” She continued, “And I am not the great-granddaughter of Bihari Lal Bhaduri. I believe it was him (I can't be sure) who asked my real great-grandfather (at the time a hired cook in a bourgeois family) to marry a widow.

Ms. Spivak added: “By the way, I did not say that Du Bois was an elite, upper-class person. The only thing I said was that he was not enslaved and that he apologized for not having had the experience of slavery.

In prepared remarks, Ms. Spivak said she was not correcting her accent, but also asking more people in the audience to pronounce Du Bois' name correctly — “the Haitian way rather than the the French. This is because the French had colonized Haiti. Du Bois's father was Haitian. From all the documentation I have consulted, I believe that “Haitian” was understood as “English”.