From Hegemony to Governmentality

Postcolonial studies in India have a rich tradition. Since the late 1980s, many theoretical innovations have been deployed in these analyses. The objective of this article is to uncover some of the limitations of the theoretical fields deployed to analyse postcolonial societies within the discourse of postcolonialism in India. I will narrate the transition from the discursive field constituted by hegemony and its related concepts to the field constituted by a version of governmentality and critique these deployments. This critique, like all critiques, is based on a particular query. I am primarily interested in the question: how far does this deployment allow or shut out the subversive potential of actors within the postcolonial structure?