An Analytical Survey of Rethinking Postcolonialism in India and Thailand: Achievements and Failures in the Global South
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Abstract
This article is an analytic survey of a debate on the rethinking of postcolonialism and its critical method that has been developed by Indian and Thai scholars through academic texts. The article argues that postcolonialism has succeeded in the field of academics practically and ideally because it still stands as an alternative for understanding Indian and Thai societies and their complex phenomena culturally and historically. Some Indian and Thai scholars have played a crucial role in criticising national or ethnic culture and historical knowledge that are portrayed by the coloniser and local nationalists and elite within their own societies. However, postcolonialism has failed in India and Thailand in terms of politics, economics, and social fields because both Indian and Thai scholars lack operation of political and economic resistance, which has led them to solve the dilemma of academic literary and everyday life practice in the postcolonial phenomenon itself. To be fair, their operational sphere is based on the literary texts which present critical scholarly thought on culture and history. Hence, postcolonialism has not been completely achieved but is a liminal zone of contesting a meaning of culture and history that differs from the sense of national or ethnic culture and history composed by the group of essentialists in both the Indian and Thai contexts.
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