Discursive history of the English language has been vital to analysing ‘the postcolonial condition’ in the Indian subcontinent, with a broadly overarching emphasis on how English is a ‘usurper language’. Simultaneous to this, however, there exists a hitherto understudied history featuring subaltern, ‘organic intellectuals’ from the lower castes. Not only does this ‘subaltern history of English’ exhibit a more positive affect toward the English language – by invoking its emancipatory potential in an economy of deeply casteist vernacular languages – but it also complicates multiple assertions that the postcolonial apparatus has so far held as a priori. Jotirao Phule’s Slavery/Gulamgiri (1873) is one of the foremost examples of such a position; its preface, which lucidly announces this seemingly unique position, is quite possibly the first explicitly political treatise written in the English language in the history of the subcontinent. This paper highlights the enormous shifts that take place in our understanding of the history of English – and (post)colonial modernity – if we were to (aptly) classify Phule’s preface as a key text in the history of ‘Indian writing in English’. Subsequently, it is argued that Phule’s work crystallizes into a radically alternate – and far more egalitarian – conception of ‘world literature’ contra Tagore’s well-known idea of visva sahitya.

英语的话语历史对于分析印度次大陆的“后殖民状况”至关重要，其中广泛强调英语是“高级语言”。然而与此同时，迄今仍存在着未被研究的历史，其特征是来自下层阶级的次要的“有机知识分子”。这种“英语的次世代历史”不仅对英语产生了更积极的影响-通过在经济深厚的种姓白话语言的经济中激发其解放潜力-而且使后殖民主义迄今被认为是一种“后代”装置变得更加复杂。先验的。Jotirao Phule的奴隶制/ Gulamgiri（1873）是这种立场的最重要例子之一；它的序言很清楚地宣布了这一看似独特的立场，很可能是该次大陆历史上第一个用英语写的明确的政治论文。本文强调了我们对英语历史以及（后）殖民现代性的理解所发生的巨大变化，如果我们要（恰当地）将普乐的序言归类为“印度英语写作”历史上的关键文本。随后，有人认为Phule的工作结晶成一种完全替代的-并且更加平等-的“世界文学”的概念反对泰戈尔的著名的想法维斯瓦sahitya。