Humiliation rarely arrives as spectacle. It is rarely dramatic enough to announce itself as oppression. More often it appears in subtle gestures—interruption, correction, dismissal—small incidents that reveal the invisible hierarchies structuring intellectual life. Over time these incidents accumulate and produce something deeper than momentary embarrassment. They shape the conditions under which certain people are heard and others are disciplined into silence.

The exchange between myself and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak during her lecture at Jawaharlal Nehru University became a public controversy, discussed widely in newspapers and on social media. But the fascination with the incident itself risks missing what it exposed about the structure of academic discourse.

The discussion was framed as a matter of tone and etiquette. Some saw it as a problem of student incivility; others interpreted it as a generational misunderstanding. Yet beneath these surface explanations lies a deeper issue about who has the authority to define legitimate speech in the university.

Spivak’s famous essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” posed a powerful question that reshaped postcolonial theory. Her argument suggested that the subaltern’s speech cannot be fully recognized within dominant structures of representation. The subaltern may speak, but the institutional frameworks through which speech becomes intelligible prevent that voice from being heard.

My experience in that seminar hall led me to a related but slightly different proposition: the problem is not simply that the subaltern cannot speak. The problem is that the academy is uncomfortable when the subaltern speaks without adopting the language of the ruling intellectual class.

Elite universities operate through an aesthetic of speech that appears neutral but is in fact deeply political. The ideal speaker in academic discourse speaks calmly, cites canonical texts, pronounces every name correctly, and expresses disagreement through carefully moderated critique. This style is commonly described as civil discourse.

Yet civility is not merely a moral value; it is also a class code. Pierre Bourdieu argued that linguistic legitimacy is determined by symbolic power. Speech becomes legitimate not simply because of what is said but because of who is speaking and from where.

Those who have been socialized within elite educational environments acquire these linguistic codes almost unconsciously. They know how to speak in seminars, how to frame questions politely, and how to signal intellectual sophistication through references and vocabulary. Those who lack this training often appear out of place. Their speech may be direct rather than carefully hedged, their questions impatient rather than ceremonially respectful.

In such moments, the institution reacts quickly. The speech is labelled uncivil.

The exchange during the lecture turned, at least superficially, on the pronunciation of W. E. B. Du Bois. Pronunciation in academic spaces is rarely just a technical matter. It is one of the many subtle markers through which intellectual authority is signalled. Correct pronunciation demonstrates familiarity with the canon of global theory and signals belonging to a particular intellectual community.

But pronunciation can also function as a mechanism of gatekeeping. When a name is mispronounced, the correction often appears pedagogical. Yet it also performs another function: it reminds the speaker of their distance from the intellectual elite. The conversation shifts from the substance of the question to the competence of the person asking it, and the hierarchy of the room is quietly reaffirmed.

The deeper issue revealed by such moments concerns the way intellectual traditions construct the figure of the other. Modern social theory has long been concerned with the problem of otherness. Thinkers such as Edward Said and Frantz Fanon demonstrated how Western knowledge systems historically produced the colonized world as an object of study.

The process was simple but powerful: first the other was defined, then the other was studied, and finally the other was governed. Knowledge about the other became a technology of rule.

Postcolonial scholarship emerged partly as a critique of this process. The Subaltern Studies collective attempted to recover the voices of marginalized groups who had been erased from colonial historiography. Yet even this project contained a paradox.

The subaltern often appeared within academic writing primarily as a research subject. Scholars analysed subaltern consciousness, subaltern resistance, and subaltern discourse. The subaltern became a central category of theoretical reflection. But the production of theory remained largely within elite institutions.

The subaltern was spoken about. He was interpreted, analysed, represented. Rarely was he positioned as the theorist himself. This asymmetry reveals a deeper problem within knowledge production: the power to define the other is itself a form of domination.

To define someone as the subaltern is already to place oneself outside that category. Whoever defines the other acquires authority over the other.

Colonial administrators defined native populations through ethnographic reports and census categories. These classifications later became instruments of governance. Modern academia operates through a similar, though subtler, dynamic. Intellectual elites define categories such as caste, marginality, and subalternity, which then circulate within scholarly discourse.

The result is a strange situation in which marginalized groups become objects of knowledge while elite scholars retain the authority to produce theory.

When intellectual elites use sharp or even abusive language, their rhetoric is often interpreted as intellectual passion. Philosophers and theorists have long engaged in aggressive polemics against their opponents, yet their language is rarely described as vulgar.

But when someone from a marginal social position speaks with anger, the reaction is very different. The speech is labelled uncivil and the focus shifts from the substance of the argument to the tone of the speaker. Linguistic judgments reflect social hierarchies; the legitimacy of speech depends not only on language but also on the authority of the speaker.

When marginalized individuals attempt to participate in academic discourse, their speech may not conform to the refined conventions of the seminar room. Their questions may be direct, impatient, even confrontational. Such speech is easily interpreted as abusive.

But what appears as abuse may in fact be the consequence of structural exclusion. When individuals feel that their voices are not recognized within established channels of discourse, their speech often emerges in forms that disrupt those channels.

This is why I have sometimes expressed the argument provocatively: if the subaltern cannot speak, he will abuse. The statement is not a celebration of incivility but a sociological observation about the relationship between recognition and expression. When legitimate avenues of speech are restricted, language often returns in forms that violate the norms of politeness.

Anger becomes the grammar of exclusion.

If universities genuinely wish to democratize knowledge, they must confront a difficult question. It is not enough to theorize the subaltern. Institutions must create conditions under which the subaltern can speak without being disciplined into the linguistic norms of elite discourse.

Listening in this sense requires more than patience. It requires recognizing that the authority to define the other has historically been monopolized by intellectual elites. True democratization of knowledge would require relinquishing some of that authority and acknowledging that theory itself can emerge from locations outside the traditional centres of academic power.