Epistemic Violence and Subalterns

The God of Small things is rife with examples of terms from our Spivak reading. Like Epistemic Violence and how it is in a way applied to the untouchables and how the society treats them. The perfect example of this is Velutha, at every turn he is treated like crap, just like all the untouchables are. Another Spivak term that is shown throughout the book is “subaltern.” The whole Indian culture is a subaltern to the British because they were once a British colony and it will probably take decades more before they recover or find their identity again. Even more than that you have examples of subaltern in the characters too; Velutha for instance is a subaltern to the whims of society, he has no rights it would seem.

So far this has been a rather sad book, but it does make one think about the caste system and India in general, or even post-colonialism. Often people don’t think of these things because we don’t deal with them in our everyday life.