Investigating ‘Moral Legitimacy’ and ‘Belonging’ within Subaltern Counterpublics vis-à-vis the Raj: A Study of Select Short Stories by Janice Pariat

When there is a stringent demand for a viable reconstruction of the traditional socio-political structure, especially amid the paucity of “reliable” historical records from the pre-colonial era, the native population’s recurrent anxieties of losing indigenous cultural heritage, and instances of its xenophobic politics, become visible in an unprecedented form. In this context, the discursive void between the dominant state-power and “excluded” subjects usually engenders counter-cultural values of endowed “subaltern counterpublics”. Though these alternative public spheres are formed to uphold neglected discourses, often, a few ‘dissident’ voices reside within them to challenge the unanimity of such groups, towards more progressive ends. These apparent “nonconforming” discourses within the subaltern groups strive to foreground humanitarian principles by giving voice to alternative ideologies, and sometimes, for these propositions, are accused of lacking moral legitimacy towards the subaltern counterpublics themselves. Accentuating this vital site within the marginal yet homogenized discourse, the present paper attempts to foreground the question of moral legitimacy and its critical linkages with participatory parity of the subaltern counterpublics in the context of the British colonial era in Meghalaya. It further seeks to unpack how subaltern politics itself is manipulated by anti-egalitarian ethos within the subaltern counterpublics, in response to the colonial rule. In order to understand the inclusive approach of the “nonconformist” subaltern within the subaltern colonial subjects, who sometimes appear to challenge and rethink the very basic tenets of subaltern counterpolitics, and their negotiations of the varied legacies of the Raj, this study endeavours to analyze select short stories by Janice Pariat, the 2013 Sahitya Akademi Award-winning writer from Meghalaya.