Introduction:

A) Subaltern studies:
The Subaltern Studies Group (SSG) or Subaltern Studies Collective are a group of South Asian scholars interested in the postcolonial and postimperial societies of South Asia in particular and the developing world in general. The term Subaltern Studies is sometimes also applied more broadly to others who share many of their views. Their approach is one of history from below, focused more on what happens among the masses at the base levels of society than among the elite. The term "subaltern" in this context is an allusion to the work of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (18911937). Literally, it refers to any person or group of inferior rank and station, whether because of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or religion. The SSG arose in the 1980s, influenced by the scholarship of Eric Stokes, to attempt to formulate a new narrative of the history of India and South Asia. This narrative strategy most clearly inspired by the writings of Gramsci was explicated in the writings of their "mentor" Ranajit Guha, most clearly in his "manifesto" in Subaltern Studies I and also in his classic monograph The Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency. Although they are, in a sense, on the left, they are very critical of the traditional Marxist narrative of Indian history, in which semi-feudal India was colonized by the British, became politicized, and earned its independence. In particular, they are critical of the focus of this narrative on the political consciousness of elites, who in turn inspire the masses to resistance and rebellion against the British. Instead, they focus on non-elites subalterns as agents of political and social change. They have had a particular interest in the discourses and rhetoric of emerging political and social movements, as against only highly visible actions like demonstrations and uprisings

B) Social Movements:
Social movements are a type of group action. They are the large informal groupings of individuals or organizations to focus on specific political or social issues. In other words, they carry out, resist or undo a social change. Charles Tilly defines social movements as a series of contentious performances, displays and campaigns by which ordinary people made collective claims on others .[1] For Tilly, social movements are a major vehicle for ordinary people's participation in public politics.[2] He argues that there are three major elements to a social movement:[1]

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1. Campaigns: a sustained, organized public effort making collective claims of target authorities; 2. Repertoire (repertoire of contention): employment of combinations from among the following forms of political action: creation of specialpurpose associations and coalitions, public meetings, solemn processions, vigils, rallies, demonstrations, petition drives, statements to and in public media, and pamphleteering; and 3. WUNC displays: participants' concerted public representation of worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitments on the part of themselves and/or their constituencies. Sidney Tarrow defines a social movement as collective challenges [to elites, authorities, other groups or cultural codes] by people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interactions with elites, opponents and authorities. He specifically distinguishes social movements from political parties and advocacy groups.[3]

I)Old social Movements:

Movements for change have existed for many centuries. Most of the oldest recognized movements, dating to late 18th and 19th centuries, fought for specific social groups, such as the working class, peasants, whites, aristocrats, Protestants, men. They were usually centered around some materialistic goals like improving the standard of living or, for example, the political autonomy of the working class.

II) New social Movements:

The term new social movements (NSMs) is a theory of social movements that attempts to explain the plethora of new movements that have come up in various western societies roughly since the mid-1960s (i.e. in a postindustrial economy) which are claimed to depart significantly from the conventional social movement paradigm. There are two central claims of the NSM theory. First, that the rise of the post-industrial economy is responsible for a new wave of social movement and second, that those movements are significantly different from previous social movements of the industrial economy. The primary difference is in their goals, as the new movements focus not on issues of materialistic qualities such as economic wellbeing, but on issues related to human rights (such as LGBT rights or pacifism).

Social Movement Theories:

Sociologists have developed several theories related to social movements. Some of the better-known approaches are:

Collective behavior/collective action theories (1950s)

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Relative deprivation theory (1960s) Marxist theory (1880s) Value-added theory (1960s) Resource mobilization (1970s) Frame analysis theory (1980s) (closely related to social constructionist theory) New social movement theory (1980s) Political process theory (1980s)

A) Deprivation theory:
Deprivation theory argues that social movements have their foundations among people who feel deprived of some good(s) or resource(s). According to this approach, individuals who are lacking some good, service, or comfort are more likely to organize a social movement to improve (or defend) their conditions.[8] There are two significant problems with this theory. First, since most people feel deprived at one level or another almost all the time, the theory has a hard time explaining why the groups that form social movements do when other people are also deprived. Second, the reasoning behind this theory is circular - often the only evidence for deprivation is the social movement. If deprivation is claimed to be the cause but the only evidence for such is the movement, the reasoning is circular.[9]

B) Marxist theory:
Derived from Karl Marx, Marxism as an ideology and theory of social change has had an immense impact on the practice and the analysis of social movements. Marxism arose from an analysis of movements structured by conflicts between industrial workers and their capitalist employers in the 19th century. In the twentieth century a variety of neo-Marxist theories have been developed that have opened themselves to adding questions of race, gender, environment, and other issues to an analysis centered in (shifting) political economic conditions. Classbased movements, both revolutionary and labor-reformist, have always been stronger in Europe than in the US and so has Marxist theory as a tool for understanding social movements, but important Marxist movements and theories have also evolved in the US. Marxist approaches have been and remain influential ways of understanding the role of political economy and class differences as key forces in many historical and current social movements, and they continue to challenge approaches that are limited by their inability to imagine serious alternatives to consumer capitalist social structures.

C) Mass society theory:

Mass society theory argues that social movements are made up of individuals in large societies who feel insignificant or socially detached. Social movements, according to this theory, provide a sense of empowerment and belonging that the movement members would otherwise not have.[10]

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Very little support has been found for this theory. Aho (1990), in his study of Idaho Christian Patriotism, did not find that members of that movement were more likely to have been socially detached. In fact, the key to joining the movement was having a friend or associate who was a member of the movement.

C) Social strain theory:

Social strain theory, also known as value-added theory, proposes six factors that encourage social movement development:[11] 1. Structural conduciveness - people come to believe their society has problems 2. Structural strain - people experience deprivation 3. Growth and spread of a solution - a solution to the problems people are experiencing is proposed and spreads 4. Precipitating factors - discontent usually requires a catalyst (often a specific event) to turn it into a social movement 5. Lack of social control - the entity that is to be changed must be at least somewhat open to the change; if the social movement is quickly and powerfully repressed, it may never materialize 6. Mobilization - this is the actual organizing and active component of the movement; people do what needs to be done This theory is also subject to circular reasoning as it incorporates, at least in part, deprivation theory and relies upon it, and social/structural strain for the underlying motivation of social movement activism. However, social movement activism is, like in the case of deprivation theory, often the only indication that there was strain or deprivation.

D) Resource mobilization theory

Resource mobilization theory emphasizes the importance of resources in social movement development and success. Resources are understood here to include: knowledge, money, media, labor, solidarity, legitimacy, and internal and external support from power elite. The theory argues that social movements develop when individuals with grievances are able to mobilize sufficient resources to take action. The emphasis on resources offers an explanation why some discontented/deprived individuals are able to organize while others are not. Some of the assumptions of the theory include: There will always be grounds for protest in modern, politically pluralistic societies because there is constant discontent (i.e., grievances or deprivation); this de-emphasizes the importance of these factors as it makes them ubiquitous Actors are rational; they weigh the costs and benefits from movement participation

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Members are recruited through networks; commitment is maintained by building a collective identity and continuing to nurture interpersonal relationships Movement organization is contingent upon the aggregation of resources Social movement organizations require resources and continuity of leadership Social movement entrepreneurs and protest organizations are the catalysts which transform collective discontent into social movements; social movement organizations form the backbone of social movements The form of the resources shapes the activities of the movement (e.g., access to a TV station will result in the extensive use TV media) Movements develop in contingent opportunity structures that influence their efforts to mobilize; as each movement's response to the opportunity structures depends on the movement's organization and resources, there is no clear pattern of movement development nor are specific movement techniques or methods universal

Critics of this theory argue that there is too much of an emphasize on resources, especially financial resources. Some movements are effective without an influx of money and are more dependent upon the movement members for time and labor (e.g., the civil rights movement in the U.S.).

E) Political process theory:

Political process theory is similar to resource mobilization in many regards, but tends to emphasize a different component of social structure that is important for social movement development: political opportunities. Political process theory argues that there are three vital components for movement formation: insurgent consciousness, organizational strength, and political opportunities. Insurgent consciousness refers back to the ideas of deprivation and grievances. The idea is that certain members of society feel like they are being mistreated or that somehow the system is unjust. The insurgent consciousness is the collective sense of injustice that movement members (or potential movement members) feel and serves as the motivation for movement organization. Organizational strength falls inline with resource-mobilization theory, arguing that in order for a social movement to organize it must have strong leadership and sufficient resources. Political opportunity refers to the receptivity or vulnerability of the existing political system to challenge. This vulnerability can be the result of any of the following (or a combination thereof):

Growth of political pluralism Decline in effectiveness of repression Elite disunity; the leading factions are internally fragmented A broadening of access to institutional participation in political processes

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Support of organized opposition by elites

One of the advantages of the political process theory is that it addresses the issue of timing or emergence of social movements. Some groups may have the insurgent consciousness and resources to mobilize, but because political opportunities are closed, they will not have any success. The theory, then, argues that all three of these components are important. Critics of the political process theory and resource-mobilization theory point out that neither theory discusses movement culture to any great degree. This has presented culture theorists an opportunity to expound on the importance of culture. One advance on the political process theory is the political mediation model, which outlines the way in which the political context facing movement actors intersects with the strategic choices that movements make. An additional strength of this model is that it can look at the outcomes of social movements not only in terms of success or failure but also in terms of consequences (whether intentional or unintentional, positive or negative) and in terms of collective benefits.

F) Culture theory:
More recent strains of theory understand social movements through their cultures - collectively shared beliefs, ideologies, values and other meanings about the world. These include explorations into the "collective identities" and "collective action frames" of movements and movement organizations. Culture theory builds upon both the political process and resourcemobilization theories but extends them in two ways. First, it emphasizes the importance of movement culture. Second, it attempts to address the free-rider problem. Both resource-mobilization theory and political process theory include a sense of injustice in their approaches. Culture theory brings this sense of injustice to the forefront of movement creation by arguing that, in order for social movements to successfully mobilize individuals, they must develop an injustice frame. An injustice frame is a collection of ideas and symbols that illustrate both how significant the problem is as well as what the movement can do to alleviate it, "Like a picture frame, an issue frame marks off some part of the world. Like a building frame, it holds things together. It provides coherence to an array of symbols, images, and arguments, linking them through an underlying organizing idea that suggests what is essential - what consequences and values are at stake. We do not see the frame directly, but infer its presence by its characteristic expressions and language. Each frame gives the advantage to certain ways of talking and thinking, while it places others out of the picture.

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Important characteristics of the injustice frames include: Facts take on their meaning by being embedded in frames, which render them relevant and significant or irrelevant and trivial. People carry around multiple frames in their heads. Successful reframing involves the ability to enter into the worldview of our adversaries. All frames contain implicit or explicit appeals to moral principles.

In emphasizing the injustice frame, culture theory also addresses the freerider problem. The free-rider problem refers to the idea that people will not be motivated to participate in a social movement that will use up their personal resources (e.g., time, money, etc.) if they can still receive the benefits without participating. In other words, if person X knows that movement Y is working to improve environmental conditions in his neighborhood; he is presented with a choice: join or not join the movement. If he believes the movement will succeed without him, he can avoid participation in the movement, save his resources, and still reap the benefits - this is free-riding. A significant problem for social movement theory has been to explain why people join movements if they believe the movement can/will succeed without their contribution. Culture theory argues that, in conjunction with social networks being an important contact tool, the injustice frame will provide the motivation for people to contribute to the movement. Framing processes includes three separate components: Diagnostic frame: the movement organization frames what is the problem or what they are critiquing Prognostic frame: the movement organization frames what is the desirable solution to the problem Motivational frame: the movement organization frames a "call to arms" by suggesting and encouraging that people take action to solve the problem

Habermas:
A) Background:
Jurgen Habermas was born in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1929 and studied at universities in Gottingen, Zurich, and Bonn. He became assistant to Theodor Adorno at the Institute for Social Research in 1959 and later was a professor at Heidelberg and Frankfurt, retiring as a professor in 1994. His writings are a contemporary approach to critical theory and these writings are supra disciplinary in that they combine philosophy and sociology with other forms of social theory. While his books and articles are generally regarded as difficult to read, being an a certain Germanic intellectual tradition. The central concern of Habermas is similar to that of the earlier critical theorists with modernity, rationality,

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autonomy, freedom, and human happiness, and how these are connected as societies c hange. The scope of his analysis is very broad, so that he attempts to develop an overall social theory, founded on some basic assumptions and developing a comprehensive analysis of in the individual and interaction, social institutions and structures, and forces of change and development in societies. The analysis of Habermas provides one way of linking agency and structure, and combining these within an overall theory of historical change and evolution.

B) System and Life world:

Habermas has developed an elaborate theoretical social system, perhaps with Parsons as a model. While much of this is complex, one part of this approach is that of system and life-world, and colonization of the life-world by the system. This is analogous to the dominance of commodity exchange of Marx or to Webers rationalization, but provides a new way of integrating agency and structure. Ritzer notes that the system is the domain of formal rationality, while the life-world is the site of substantive rationality. The colonization of the life-world, therefore, involves a restatement of the Weberian thesis that in the modern world, formal rationality is triumphing over substantive rationality and coming to dominate areas that were formally defined by substantive rationality. The life-world is the area of communicative action, where active subjects are, and where social interaction and communication take place. This site is where daily activities occur, in families, in peer groups, and in informal discussions and meeting places. Here "speaker and hearer meet, where they reciprocally raise claims that their utterances fit the world and where they can criticize and confirm those validity claims, settle their disagreements, and arrive at agreements" (Habermas, quoted in Ritzer, p. 549). It is practical and substantive rationality organized to meet practical ends and being related to values that characterizes the actions of people in the lifeworld. In this sphere, it is important for communication to be free and open, and rationality here means listening and debating, so that "understanding, or a rational method of achieving consensus, is based ultimately on the authority of the better argument" . The system is the set of institutions that exist that are based not so much on the viewpoint an experiences of acting subjects, but on the perspective of others. These involve the growth of institutions and structures, economy and exchange, and formal rationality. These are the realm of power, whereby some are able to develop means of exercising power over others and dominating them. Educational institutions, workplaces, and political institutions are part of the system. Initially, in traditional societies, life-world and system may be identical in which the taken-for-granted lifeworld is highly encompassing. People mix only with others who share the same lifeworld, so they are always able to communicate with each other and have no reason to become self-conscious about the structure of shared experience.

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This is similar to Simmels traditional society or Durkheims society with mechanical solidarity. For Habermas, two developments take place over time. First, the various parts of the life-world become more differentiated, so that the culture, social, and personality patterns and relationships become separated. Ritzer notes that "engaging in communicative action and achieving understanding in each of these themes leads to the reproduction of the life-world through the reinforcement of culture, the integration of society, and the formation of personality" . This aspect of Habermas is very much like the theory of Parsons, with Habermas using much the same systems as does Parsons. Second, the system, or these systems increasingly become detached from the life-world as the cultural and social structures become more distant from people. These structural patterns increasingly come to dominate people and in the language of Habermas "they exercise more steering capacity over the life-world" (Ritzer, p. 550). Instead of consensus achieved through substantively rational communication and discussion, these structures develop a formal rationality which may not be based on common understandings. This one-sided rationality develops a logic of its own and the systems become increasingly separated from the life-world of people. Note the similarities here to Webers view of rationalization, Durkheims anomie, or Marxs alienation. The result of this is that the system colonizes the life-world. While both lifeworld and system are essential parts of society, the detachment of the two is associated with domination of the system over the life-world. Language and communication is required to maintain social interaction, and this becomes the primary basis on which consensus is reached in modern societies. The difficulty is that it becomes difficult to carry this on in a complex and highly differentiated society. As a result, economic and political systems emerge which provide a means of communication, but through exchange and money in the case of the economy, and power in the case of politics. The requirements associated with such systems tend to be those of formal rationality, and these come to determine the dynamics of the system. The result is a deforming of the life-world as the system increasingly colonizes more and more aspects of the life-world. "Communication becomes increasingly rigidified, impoverished, and fragmented, and the life-world itself seems poised on the brink of dissolution". The solution to these problems is to end the colonization and the detachment of the two. This is where communication, consensus, and social movements can play a role.

Works of Offe,Melucci and Touraine:

This section presents a brief overview of the work of Offe, Melucci and Touraine.All three authors display strong commonalties in their stress on the specific nature of 'advanced capitalist industrial' (Offe), 'post-industrial' (Touraine) or 'highly differentiated' (Melucci) societies. Claus Offe calls on Foucault who espouses an "...even more radical version of the 'dispersed' nature of power and powerlessness that can no longer be attributed to any central or fundamental causal mechanism" to explain what he calls the 'broadening', 'deepening' and 'irreversible' forms of social control which render institutions powerless and cause

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the blurring of class divisions in late-modern European societies. These processes have the effect of making formerly localised problems applicable at a broader level as flexibility enhances the possibilities for finding solutions through non-institutional channels. This leads diverse groups to experience first-hand, by means of a 'spillover' effect, the once specific concerns of class. A second outcome is the deepened experiencing of deprivation caused by bringing closer the formerly distinct realms of the controlling institution and that of the private or individual. Finally, it has been starkly recognised that social and political institutions (most notably the Welfare State) are no longer able to cope with global threats and their resultant deprivations. Problems of this nature (environmental decay, military technology, severe poverty) are deemed irreversible because of the state's incapacity to provide solutions for them despite its continued control over social life. Protest is thus directed against states' success (rather than their failure) in promoting economic, the factor responsible for the desensitisation brought about by the wielding of such enhanced power. Claus Offe places a strong emphasis on the explication of the 'newness' of New Social Movements. He accomplishes this through the development of two prototypes of collective action: the 'old paradigm' social movements and the emergence of a 'new paradigm'. Offe links the structural transformations necessary for bringing about these observed shifts to the emergence of a type of actor who reflects changing concerns in the domain of class. Western 'old' paradigm social movements were at their most prominent post-1945, in a period defined by the liberal-democratic structures of the free market economy and its required flip-side - social security - and by the predominance of party-politics. Offe argues that this period witnessed a lesser degree of social and political conflict than before or immediately since insofar as "collective bargaining, party competition, and representative party government were the virtually exclusive mechanisms of the resolution of social and political conflict. All of this was endorsed by a 'civic culture' which emphasised the values of social mobility, private life, consumption, instrumental rationality, authority, and order and which de-emphasised political participation" . Offe characterises new movements as non-institutional. He does not imply that these alternative forms of collective action have completely replaced the 'old' paradigm. Rather, he argues, the two compete and at the time of writing, he foresees the success of the 'new' paradigm as based on its ability to form alliances with the old Left against the project of neoconservatism. Aside from having the advantage of hindsight and the knowledge that he largely bases his analysis on the case of Germany, Offe's emphasis on the changing nature of class structure is integral to understanding NSM emergence. Offe sees NSM politics as rooted in the concerns of the 'new middle class' made up of highly educated, economically secure individuals many of whom work in the field of 'personal-services'. This body characterises the membership of issue-based movements such as peace, ecological, women's and civil-rights associations. It is joined by members of 'decommodified' groups (students, the unemployed, housewives etc.) described as 'trapped' in highly authoritarian and often exclusionary regimes of social control yet with a significant amount of free time for

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movement activity. Such alliances are said to cut across traditional class conflict and resist class-specific themes, favouring either highly universalist issues on the one hand, or strongly particularist ones on the other. The predominance of the 'new middle class', albeit that they act in alliance with the above-mentioned 'decommodified' groups in NSMs, is crucial to Offe's understanding of structural change. He recalls the observations of mass behaviour in early psychologising theories, described as irrational and arising from disaffection and exclusion .Within such accounts it was impossible to conceive of either the elites or the core groups of society participating in a challenge to the institutions of the state. This was seen as a reaction against transformations brought about by the process of modernity to which such groups were deemed central. This supposition was negated early on by Gramsci , who claimed that key players in civil society belong either to the hegemonic bloc or are resolutely counter-hegemonic in their consciousness. Along these lines and in complete contrast to theorists of 'deviant' mass behaviour, Offe's 'new middle class' actors are neither disaffected nor peripheral to the concerns of mainstream politics nor are they economically marginal. Actors' self-awareness of their social status is central to Offe's pinpointing of the 'new middle class'. The process of selfunderstanding embarked upon by the members of this new class - straddling traditional class divides - "ultimately determines one's ability to free oneself of the dominant ideology, overturn the institutional forms of hegemony, create new associational forms, and thereby act in counter hegemonic terms". Offe, in agreement with Touraine and Melucci, sees structural transformation as key to understanding the increased role of a 'new middle class' in New Social Movement politics. The favouring of structural as opposed to 'functionalist' arguments in the theorising of NSMs, he argues, indicates a commitment to theories for social movements as opposed to the latter's tendency to mere description. Thus, Offe recognises that a discussion of collective action that is ignorant of structure disregards the significance of shifting power relations in all social phenomena and especially in those that prioritises human agency in situations of social and political conflict. Alberto Melucci's stress on the primacy of structure makes use of a rather different language to that employed by Claus Offe. Whilst Offe speaks in the language of institutions giving the reader an overview of the historical processes, post-1945, that saw the rise and demise of state centrism in the domain of social life, Melucci prioritises information and communication as fundamental to structural transformation. In this way, while Offe's accounts resonate for many students of western European national societies, Melucci may say more about the 'globalisation' of knowledge pervasive at multiple levels and in different contexts. Like Touraine, Melucci's prioritisation of what he terms, 'identitisation' in the commitment of actors to movements, strongly locates subjective human agency in its structural and political contexts. Melucci prioritises the production and processing of information in contemporary societies as crucial to the understanding of changing

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paradigms in collective action. Information is constituted as the key resource of a 'planetary' world denoted by its pluralisation, "the pluralisation of languages, pluralisation of perspectives, pluralisation of theoretical standpoints". This multiplicity creates the need to access knowledge because the very plurality of 'complex' societies also raises the risk of being confined to one domain. This immediately reduces the chances of survival in a society which has become 'highly differentiated'. In Melucci's terms, social movements of newly 'identitised' actors contribute to avoiding this. Therefore, "the movements of the 1970s and the 1980s were the last signs of the transition from movements as political actors to movements as media" . Melucci's emphasis on the acquisition of information in the evolution of movements, their functioning and their role in society as the conveyors of this vital knowledge stems from his view of the "systemic forms of the development of power as an issue that is very problematic within contemporary societies" .Such a perspective recognises the uneven nature of power relations that are diffused throughout social life and that cannot be embodied in a single, impenetrable locus. This Foucauldian standpoint is translated into Melucci's insistence that in spite of subordination "people, in their own ways, were able to use the space of their own power to act against and to act for. Seen in relation to the structural transformative effects of social movements that such appropriations of the power spaces may have, Melucci considers movements to constitute "that part of social life where social relationships have not yet crystallised into social structures, where action is the immediate carrier of the relational texture of society and its meaning. They are therefore, at least for me, not only a specific sociological object, but a lens through which many problems can be addressed Melucci attributes a significant role to social movements in their capacity to affect change upon institutional and political structures in both direct and indirect ways. He sees 'everyday networks' as being the spaces in which public confrontations are prepared in the self-reflexivity of negotiation. Nevertheless, social movements have been directly implicit in broadening the boundaries of the political and changing the nature of participation and representation, often by providing new institutional personnel. Indirectly, social movements have contributed to both a change in organisational life and to the acceptance of new languages, such as the languages of ecology and gender, as intrinsic to institutions. These effects are not wholly welcomed by Melucci who views the focus on organisation and the domain of the institutionally political as being a rather narrow outcome of NSM activity. The work of Alain Touraine has focused explicitly on the conjoining of structural and cultural concerns. He has sought to build a theory to frame the structural and cultural dimensions of the contemporary western societies where collective action is played out. He has also developed an actiontheoretical analysis of the conflictual processes of identity formation in actors. He, therefore, examines the reflexive processes that sustain social movement agency through the development of norms in the realm of identity and focuses on the democratisation of society and on the centrality of

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culture. In order to develop a global perspective on the relevance of social movement activity to the ensemble of social and political processes, Touraine believes in identifying the common cultural field in which opponents compete, resisting accounts that are filtered through the prism of the identity of particular groups. Similarly, groups whose action centres wholly on the self-understanding of their identity or culture may not be described as social movements. "A social movement [...] is a collective action aiming at the implementation of central cultural values against the interest and influence of an enemy which is defined in terms of power relations. A social movement is a combination of social conflict and cultural participation" . Unlike both Offe, whose focus is on the overcoming of class divides, and Melucci, for whom the understanding of differentiation and multiplicity, not least cultural, is crucial to the understanding of contemporary struggles for the control of information, Touraine sees the relationship between culture and movements as problematic. Whilst Offe generally ignores it and Melucci tends to embrace it, Touraine has difficulty in attributing collective struggles in the domain of culture to the Subject as social movement. Therefore, while identity remains key, as it does for all three, Touraine's conceptualisation of this identity remains entangled with the notion of the subject as individual. So, "the individual asserts him or herself as a subject by combining desire with empathy, without surrendering the temptation to identify one with the other, as that would reduce the I to the Ego, which is effectively its antithesis". Thus, the 'Subject as social movement', or the struggle to "transform the relation of social domination that are applied to the principal cultural resources" is a commitment or responsibility that enables the Subject to surpass her tendencies to egoism. Such claims are consistent with Touraine's resistance to the argument that supports the increased individualism of contemporary society and the hegemony of consumerism. Although he does not negate such claims, he proposes a collective ability to resist the advent of a totalising individualism: "The modern world...increasingly abounds with references to a Subject. That Subject is freedom, and the criterion of the good is the individual's ability to control his or her actions and situation, to see and experience modes of behaviour as components in a personal life history, to see himself or herself as an actor. The Subject is an individual's will to act and to be recognised as an actor" Unlike Melucci's proposal of the possibility for social action in the spaces of diffused, yet uneven power, Touraine's equation of the Subject and alternative modernity with the choices of the individual to act de-emphasises the role of power in collective struggles. He sees as a "perversion" view that subjectivation (the engendering of the Subject) necessarily entails subjectification (or the creation of subjects). For this reason, Touraine's theorising of social movements as the birth of the Subject presents some fundamental problems for the development of a theory of collective social action which is grounded in the realities of asymmetric power. The centrality of the 'Subject' and the relegation to the sidelines of the 'subject' hinders the possibility of applying Touraine's perspective on social movements to the domain of today's 'particularist' movements that start from a position of

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marginality. The universalisation of Subject possibilities inherent in his theory encumbers the student who reads Touraine on multiculturalism[6] and remind us of the importance of theoretical clarity in writing about diverse movement forms[7]. Conclusion on NSM: Each author approaches the subject from an angle that cannot escape the strong influence of national constraints - German, Italian and French - on the evolution of the "special type of social conflict" that is entailed in collective action. Despite this, all three make justifiably strong inferences as to the nature of NSM action on a global (western) scale. Revisiting these theoretical contributions helps to clarify the problems created for social movements as a field of study by the contemporary changes in the nature of movements labelled NSMs.

Subaltern Historiography:
The Subaltern School of historiography emerged in the 1980s. From its inception it resulted into a major transition in South Asian historiography and posed a vigorous challenge to existing historical scholarship. It was largely by its relentless postcolonial critique that Indian history came to be seen in a different life. Indian History had thus found a new approach that was so critically needed. The Nationalist and the Cambridge Schools became the focus of their criticism due to their elite based analysis of history. They also contested the Marxist School due to the fact that their mode of production based narratives has a tendency of merging inevitably into the nationalist ideology of modernity and progress. Moreover the Subalterns rightly pointed out that the Marxist found it really difficult to accept the ideology of caste and religion as crucial factors in Indian History, which to them was somewhat backward and degrading. They were thus, according to the Subalterns, totally unable to gather vital historical data from lived experiences of various oppressed classes, which were submerged in religious and social customs. The Subaltern Historians originally started as an Indian version of History from below approach of the west. They were also influenced by the British Marxist Historians. The term Subaltern came from the writings of Antonio Gramsci and is referred to the subordination in terms of class, caste, gender, race, language and culture.

Concept of Subaltern Historiography:

Ranajit Guha is undoubtedly the most famous name among all Subaltern Historians. His Elementary Aspects of Peasants Insurgency in Colonial India is

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considered to be the most powerful example of Subaltern historical scholarship. By returning to the 19 th Century peasants insurrection in Colonial India he offered a fascinating account of the peasants insurgent consciousness, rumours, mystic visions, religiosity and bonds of community. In this interesting account, Guha attempted to uncover the true face of peasantsexistence in colonial India. In one place he pointed out that the peasants were denied recognition as a subject of history in his own right even for a subject that was all his own. Elitist historiographies were unable to put the peasants conditions and their insurgency in correct perspective as they could not go beyond limitations that were characteristic of their historiographical schools. He claimed that there existed in colonial India an autonomous domain of the politics of people that was organized differently than the politics of the elite.This in a sense summed up the entire argument put forward by Subaltern historians. Peasant uprisings in Colonial India, he argued reflected a separate and autonomous grammar of mobilization in its most comprehensive form. The Landlords, the money lenders and the Colonial Government officials formed a composite apparatus of dominance over the peasants. Their exploitation according to Guha was primarily political in character and economic exploitation, so upheld and stressed by the other schools, mainly the Marxist, was mainly one of its several instances. The Subaltern Studies began in the beginning of 1980s. It aimed promoting, as the preface declared, the study and discussion of the subalternist themes in South Asian Studies. The principle aim was to rectify the elitist bias found in most of the academic works in South Asian Studies. Guha believed that the politics of the subalterns did not constitute an autonomous domain, for it originated from elite politics nor did its existence depend on the latter. Subordination in its various forms has always been the central focus of the Subaltern studies. But throughout the years the whole concept of subalternity underwent various shifts. But inspite of these shifts, one aspect of the Subaltern Studies has remained unchanged. It is an effort to see and rethink history from the perspective of the Subalterns and to give them their due in the Historical process.

Subaltern Politics:
The decade of the 80s assumes a special significance due to the fact caste, gender, and religion became important reference points in history writing, subaltern history in particular understood the need to document the lives of all the oppressed people, like peasants and workers, tribals and lower caste women and dalits, whose voices were seldom heard before in history. It is necessary to note that the rise of the subaltern historiography in the decade of the 1980s conceded with that of the Dalit Movement. This movement questioned the basic assumption of Brahminism as well as various historical schools. Including the subalterns, historians have noticed that subaltern studies is used as a blanket term for communities inside it. But each of these communities under this massive all inclusive umbrella possess a different vision of history and a distinct approach to it. So it is not surprising that the historians of Dalit communities do not hesitate to dismiss Subaltern school as elite or non-Dalit. For example, Gandhi was the voice of the Dalits inspite of not being a Dalit himself. Ambedkar and Mayavati are the Dalits articulating the protest of Dalits.

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Conclusion on Subaltern:
Subaltern school has no doubt made great contribution in the realm of Indian historiography. But nevertheless, it is not totally free from shortcomings. Sumit Sarkar in his famous essay The Decline of the Subaltern in his book Writing Social History states; Subaltern studies does not happen to be the first Indian historiographical school whose reputation has come to be evaluated primarily in terms of audience response in the west. For many Indian readers, particularly those getting interested in postmodern trends for the first time. The sense of being with it strongly conveyed by Subaltern Studies appears far more important than any possible insubstantiality of empirical consent. Yet some eclectic borrowings or verbal similarities apart, the claim (or ascription) of being postmodern is largely spurious, in which ever since we might want to deploy that ambiguous and selfconsciously polysemic term.

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