Can the subaltern speak?’, the famous essay of Gayatri Spivak contests the imperial subject of the West and welcomes the displacement and dismantling of the geo-political sovereignty of West as a subject. She symbolically writes this demolition as S/subject trying to portray the mask of Eurocentric universalism portrayed by a capital S separated by a small s to represent the subject under her scrutiny. She states that this S/subject belongs to the exploiters and inhibits the imagination of the subject of the Other of Europe. But the subject of the Other of Europe inhabits the imperialised S/subject and remains hidden and projects the S/subject of Europe as innocent having no geopolitical determinations. She further teaches us that we can clearly find in everything that Europe reads or writes (which maybe critical or uncritical) involves the production of its Other.
The clearest construction of such a subject can be traced in the production of the Other of the coloniser during colonial times where the subject only exists as subordinated and silenced. This sharp criticism of the West has it merits/demerits and has been favourably received by large number of scholars across the Globe. Drawing our inspiration from the work of Spivak, can we try and identify an imperial subject that constructs its Other only to be silenced and subordinated in our country? Where can we find an S/subject that mimics/imitates/copies (consciously or unconsciously) its Western counterpart in our days ? Like Spivak who finds S/subject in the production of the colonial Other, maybe we can easily trace S/subject in the construction of its Other in the discourse of the right wing in our country.
The S/subject of Hindutva not only has the Hindu subject and contains Hinduism as a subject of knowledge, but also requires the subject of its Other who has to remain silent, hidden and subordinated within it. The subject of its Other always remains objectified, demonised and is deemed worthy of abjection.
The subject of the Other of the reigning S/subject of Hindutva is women, dalits, minorities and tribals. We may portray symbolically the Other of the S/ subject of Hindutva as ‘O/subject’ to mark its objectified location in our society. It appears to be an unquestionable assumption that The O/subject cannot legitimately belong to India and has to remain silent and voiceless. This epistemic violence becomes not only the basis of discourse of ‘go to ….Pakistan…’ but also normalises physical violence and several kinds of deprivations handed to the demonised Other in our society. Hence, the question: ‘can the subaltern speak?’ raised by Spivak becomes ‘can the women, minorities, tribal or the dalits speak in our country? We may pose the question as: ‘can the O/subject speak?’ The O/subject is indeed heterogeneous and remains conceptually indeterminate and by nature polyphonic. But the patriarchal, brahmanic and capitalist discourse of the S/subject of Hindutva constructs, demonises and singularises the plural and heterogeneous O/subject of its Other and renders it voiceless. This means O/subject cannot legitimately speak. It can only repeat the narrative of S/subject of Hindutva.
The fact that O/subject cannot speak is manifested by the way media and right wing political elites have received the pastoral letters of three catholic Archbishops in recent days. Beginning with the Archbishop of Gandhi Nagar, then the Archbishop of Delhi and now the Archbishop of Goa, some channels in the main stream media have taken it upon themselves to become a megaphone of the right wing and interrogated the act of writing a pastoral letter which guides their people on issues of great national importance like the national elections, human rights and Constitution of our country.
Although the three religious heads were not the first to say that human rights are trampled and our constitution is in danger, they are depicted as indulging in unbecoming acts that seemingly target the ruling benches. The rendering of these apparently patriotic and courageous acts of these religious heads into malicious deeds has deep political motives. It seems to be directed to polarise the majority community in favour of the ruling Party. In the event of these three religious heads being named and shamed by a section of media that seem to bow down to its right wing masters, we can clearly trace the politics of enunciation at work in our country. It is this politics of enunciation that decides who can legitimately speak and who has to stay silent in our society.
‘The Spivak’s question’ becomes even sharp today. We may have to ask: ‘can the Media speak in our country?’ Has the media lost its voice? Has the media also become a puppet in the hands of the ruling benches? With what voice consciousness can the media speak? ‘Who scripts their narrative and with what effect?’ are important questions.
The undercover study of Cobra Post gives us all indications that a sizeable part of our main stream media has lost its voice and cannot speak but only repeat the narrative of the right wing. Hence, we may ask: ‘what does it mean to speak or rather what does it mean to repeat and not speak?’
Speaking involves autonomy. It means that one enjoys the freedom of expression as well as other freedoms enshrined in our Constitution. To repeat would amount to the loss of autonomy, loss of freedom of expression and loss of courage of creative originality.
Now by becoming propaganda tools of the right wing, some media houses for the first time exhibit that they have lost their voice. They seem to have turned their backs to the people and may have in a real way sabotaged democracy. This is why we are not surprised that these media houses have begun to overtly defend the ruling party by questioning and attacking the opposition parties.
By voluntarily giving up its voice some sections in the media have done great violence to the already subordinated people in our country. These media houses have not just willingly joined the O/subjects in our country but have become active agents of S/subjects in the mission of silencing and subjugating the poor, the women, the dalits and minorities of our country. Hence, without shooting down the genuine messengers we may have to deal with the rotten apples.
