Post Colonial Writings from India
Imtiaz Dharker (Born 1954)
is a Scottish Muslim poet, artist.
The main themes of her poetry include
geographical and cultural displacement,
communal conflict and gender politics.
Purdah And Other Poems deal with
the various aspects of a Muslim woman's life
where she experiences
injustice, oppression and violence
injustice, oppression and violence
engineered through the culture of purdah
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
(born February 24, 1942)
is an Indian literary critic and theorist.
She is best known for the article,
a post colonial text "Can the Subaltern Speak?".
Can the Subaltern Speak?
The term subaltern
is used in postcolonial theory
generally refer to
marginalized groups and the lower classes
- a person rendered without agency
by his or her social status.
The forceful assimilation of the coloniser’s
(British) language, culture and ideology
onto the colonised (Indians).
as implied in the poem
' The Word'
Using your knowledge of postcolonial discourse in your
approach,do a close critical reading of Imtiaz Dharker’s
‘The Word’.
Your answer should take into account all of the following issues:
a) Identify the main post-colonial concern or issue that is
raised in the poem
b) Examine how this concern/issue is brought out through
poetic techniques like language, imagery, tone and form.
c) Apply Spivak’s essay, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ to your
analysis of the poem.
The Word
It is pure power,
not in the throat or on the page
but sliding, coiling and uncoiling
in the minds of men
and women, lifting itself to creep
out of their eyes. It slithers
everywhere, over the shoulder,
right or left
prepared to heal or wound,
give birth to whole nest
of hungry thoughts.
This way is madness,
this may change the world, this
tame a thousand beasts, or make monsters
of a million sheep.
And I the keeper, with my
small signs and codes. How long
will it obey my trivial commands? I,
wary of this thing
hissing in its box. A quivering of hands.
It is waiting to be fed,
let loose, one day,
when its moment comes,
upon a world unready
to be stung from sleep.
by Imtiaz Dharker
In ‘The Word’, Dharker expresses her compassion for the
powerless colonised people, in particular, the subaltern.
Subaltern is a term that refers to people from class or caste
that is outside of the hegemonic power structure. The key
concern raised here is the forceful assimilation of the
coloniser’s language, culture and ideology onto the
colonised and the colonised’s inability articulate their
central problem or concern from their very own perspective.
The subaltern’s narrative or discourse seems to be from the
single perspective of the coloniser and this muting of the
subaltern leads to a deep sense of ‘being trapped’-
helplessness, powerless.
‘The word’ represents the coloniser’s language with its
embedded culture. The first sentence ‘It is pure power’ is
highly potent in setting the tone - the hegemony of the
coloniser. The power of ‘ the word’ is ‘not in the throat
or on the page’ but ‘ in the minds of men and women’-
this suggests that this is not merely a matter of learning
a new language but that its ideology has already assimilated
into their minds. The compelling verbs used in the internal
rhyme -‘sliding, coiling and uncoiling’ - convey the
movements of a snake. It is a metaphor suggesting how the
colonial language is simmering in the minds of the
colonised and deviously maneuvering and influencing them .
‘lifting itself to creep out of their eyes’indicates that
‘The word’ is stealthily controlling what the colonised
should see and not what they wanted to see. ‘It slithers’
(another imagery of a snake), ‘everywhere, over the shoulder,
right or left’ tells us that there is no escape from this
omnipresent dominant force.
Dharker could be suggesting that this power is either going
‘to heal’(using western ideology ‘to enlighten’ the colonised)
‘or wound’ (by forcing their language and culture on the
colonised and disrupting their tradition without considering
their perspective). This oppressive force starts
nurturing ‘hungry thoughts’ (thoughts that are not
verbalized) that inspire ‘madness’. It reveals the
coloniser’s goal of taming the uncivilized ‘Other’ and that
it might serve to tame only some -‘a thousand beasts’-
but it will provoke the wrath of even more people -
‘a million’- who are initially peaceful ‘sheep’.
Metaphors here depict the ‘beasts’ as what the coloniser
considered as people with primitive culture that need to
be tamed or enlightened and ‘sheep’ represents people from
the powerless class.
The first paragraph depicts the omnipresent and omnipotent
power of the coloniser who craftily indoctrinate its culture
and language into the colonised’s mind. The second paragraph
contrasts significantly with the first paragraph; here it
depicts the powerless situation of the sublatern. ‘small signs
and codes’ and ‘trivial commands’ illustrate the humble pleas
of the subaltern. ‘How long will it obey my trivial commands?’
echoes the subaltern’s frustration of being undermined and
ignored. Using the same imagery of the snake – ‘ this thing
hissing in its box’ –however, this time linking it to the
subaltern instead– a sense of being helplessly frustrated
of being trapped- the inability to articulate their wrath
and desire. ‘quivering of hands’ and ‘waiting to be fed’
portrays the powerless existence of the subaltern.
The poet further asserts that this ‘silence’ has power and
that ‘when its moment comes’ to be ‘let loose’; this
simmering silence will erupt and the world will be ‘unready’
for the wrath of this silence. The alliteration used in
the last sentence ‘stung from sleep’ powerfully asserts the
implication involved when the ‘sheep’ eventually emerge
from its silence.
Spivak’s ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ exposes the hypocrisy of
western intellectual elite’s ideology and the limitation of
western discourse. It is presumptuous in assuming all cultures
communicate the analogous language of ‘identity’ : assuming to
know the narrative of the subaltern based on the western’s
perspective. This essentialisation of others is the
reinforcement of the empire’s menace. Spivak seems to imply
that all the awe-inspiring western logic is, at its root,
imperialistic. Dharker’s ‘The Word’seems to implicitly
highlight the coloniser’s imperialistic civilising mission
– in forcing their ‘word’ (ideology) onto the colonised
and their assumption that they need to be tamed and healed.
British abolition of widow sacrifice in 1829, is in the
pretext of ‘ saving brown women from brown men’. Widow self
-immolation is not redefined as a superstition, but a crime.
However, Sati could be understood in the context of
martyrdom. In religious term, the wife upon killing herself
on their husband’s pyre is able to release her female body
in the entire cycle of birth. This could be another
perspective of freedom – an extraordinary signifier of
their desire; an intoxicating senseof self-sacrifice. The
coloniser appears to ‘save’ thebrown women by abolishing
Sati (for its political agenda) and the brown men
reject this intruding interference of their tradition.
However in the midst of this tug- of-war, the women involved,
were never ever given a voice of what they really wanted.
This continuing assumption and construction of the subaltern
women’s consciousness render the unquestioned muting of
subaltern women. The free will of the female has been
effaced.
Dharker concurs with Spivak’s assertion ‘The subaltern as
female cannot be heard or read’ and ‘The subaltern cannot speak’
as this silence is still ‘hissing in the box'. Subaltern women
are subjected to triple colonization-colonial, patriarchal and
class or caste. Woman is defined as object of her husband; she
is also the object of the coloniser and if she is from the
subaltern class, this would further renders her powerless.
The questions here is – is there any intellectual aim to
study the subaltern? Even if there is, from whose perspective
does it represent - the colonial or the colonised (Other)?
The Subaltern conditioned by their race, class and gender
cannot speak, they have no agency to speak on their behalf
and from their perspective. The glimmer of hope for the
subaltern is the work of Subaltern Studies group- not to
give the subaltern a voice but rather the space to allow
IT to Speak.
(997 words)
Bibliography:
Offprints Collection: Post-Colonial writings from India and Australia, SIM University, 2001.
Offprints Collection: Post-Colonial writings from India and Australia, Indian Poetry in English, Imtiaz Dharker, The Word SIM University, 2001.
Walder, Dennis, Sankaran,C., General Introduction, Post-Colonial Writings from India and Australia, Study Guide, SIM University, 2001.
Spivak, Gayatri Charavorty. (1985) ‘ Can the Subaltern Speak?’ Speculations on Widow-Sacrifice’, Wedge, Winter/Spring, pp. 120-30.
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