(Re)construction of ‘History’ as a form of Subaltern Politics in Amitav Ghosh’s The Calcutta Chromosome

Abstract

This paper deals with Amitav Ghosh’s novel The Calcutta Chromosome, which aligns with the postmodern approach towards history as a form of hegemonic construction by people in power. It thus reflects on history’s prospects of being a meta-narrative that acknowledges the knowledge formation system as a form of sociocultural-political domination and endorses progressive politics. In this paper, I argue that Amitav Ghosh’s The Calcutta Chromosome highlights the power-play hidden underneath authoritative history and reflects on people’s undocumented, quiescent experiences vis- à-vis the subaltern status quo. To carry out his objective to re/deconstruct history’s position as “master narratives” (Jameson 148), Ghosh uses the silence and secrecy of the subaltern group presented in the novel as tools of resistance against this dominant role of history that mostly favours the privileged and powerful. This research, using the framework of postmodern historicity and subaltern consciousness, critically analyzes how this treatment of history shows the “inadequacy of elitist historiography that follows directly from the narrow and partial view of politics to which it is committed by virtue of its class outlook.” (Guha 39) Through exploring the politics of silence in the novel embodied by the Dalit people, it finally shows how the self-imposed secrecy practised by this group in The Calcutta Chromosome reverses Western epistemology’s disregard for scientific and medicinal practices by the Orient and reclaims its role in history