Reimagining the Pedagogy of Hope: A Subaltern Perspective in Indian Context

This paper examines the ‘pedagogy of hope’ in the subtext of subalternity in the Indian context. This paper also involves the reimagination of the pedagogy of hope for Indian subalterns, which encompasses the scheduled castes, Scheduled tribes, and ethnic and religious minorities. Freireian's conception of hope deals with radical social change based on critical theory, he also considered hope to be an anchor to vitalize students’ faith and strengths for radical transformation. Similarly, Grioux considered hope to rejuvenate the ‘human agency’ to transform the world. In both of these conceptions, the imagination of ‘hope’ from the lens of the subaltern did not find a space. This paper demystifies the conception of ‘hope’ from the viewpoints of ‘Indian Subalterns’. As Grioux considered ‘hope’, mobilizing, this paper also deals with the mobilization of subalterns to gain equitable social order as advocated by radical democracy. This paper also argues that, with the teaching of educated hope the formation of contingent foundation for the Indian Subaltern groups is imperative for the achievement of equity.