Keywords
Caste Politics
Subaltern Modernity
Contradictory Consciousness
Bengal
How to Cite
Abstract
This paper explores the political nature of cultural identities through the historical development of the Namasudras of Bengal as a socio-political community. Drawing on Antonio Gramsci’s concept of “contradictory consciousness” and insights from Subaltern Studies scholars, it examines how caste, culture, and politics intersected in colonial Bengal to shape the Namasudras’ path from outcast status to an organised political group. The article situates the Namasudra experience within broader theoretical debates on identity, power, and resistance — engaging thinkers such as Louis Dumont, Partha Chatterjee, and Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, alongside global theorists like Benedict Anderson, Ernest Gellner, and Stuart Hall. Through a historical-sociological analysis, it argues that the Namasudra movement exemplifies how cultural identity, far from being an apolitical construct, is produced and transformed through contestations over hierarchy, recognition, and representation. The paper concludes that the Namasudra narrative embodies the essence of Gramsci’s “contradictory consciousness,” in which subaltern political awakening coexists with the internalization of dominant ideology, thereby revealing the dual, dynamic nature of identity politics in colonial and postcolonial India.
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