State Formation and Sanskrit Language in Precolonial India

2016

Set against the backdrop of the linguistic states movement in the Telugu-speaking regions that would eventually come to form the state of Andhra Pradesh in 1956, this article explores Ambedkar's views on state formation as articulated during the worst periods of unrest. Apparently driven by language, the Andhra movement of the first half of the twentieth century was an exercise in the self-definition and empowerment of an increasingly self-conscious political community. Ambedkar viewed the demand for linguistically defined states as comparable to the Muslim League's demand for a separate Pakistan in the manifest desire for cultural recognition and self-determination. His proposed resolution against the potential threat to national unity posed by recognising language as a factor in state formation was twofold. One, he emphasised the idea of 'one state, one language' originally proposed by the States Reorganisation Commission, arguing that multiple states sharing a common language would be less likely to see themselves as a 'nation', with the added advantage that the majority-to-minority ratio would remain reasonable. Two, the language of administration should be common irrespective of the linguistic identity of the state, and that this should be English until Hindi became universally acceptable. As he saw it, the thoughtful implementation of such a solution that compromised on certain notions of the ideal could paradoxically facilitate the unity of the post-colonial republic, by recognising anxieties of minority groups, whether religious, linguistic or of another kind, and protecting them.

Language and the Making of Modern India, 2020

I have carried the early versions of this book with me as I have moved across the world and made my home in many different localities. And through these journeys, this book has been fed by numerous conversations and friendships. The book began its life as a PhD dissertation at the University of Minnesota. Under Ajay Skaria's guidance, an incredible mix of kindness and intellectual challenge, I learned to hone in on my central conceptual concerns for this project. Simona Sawhney's generous mentorship pushed me to find my academic voice. Her insightful yet cryptic questions have often shown me the promise of my own work when I failed to see it myself. I am also indebted to the

Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2024

Sociolinguists study the valorization of specific languages as a 'language ideology'. Contemporary nation-states frequently identify with and promote specific languages. Such linguistic nationalism is a language ideology, but not the only one. This article examines earlier millennia to uncover the dynamics by which imperial systems managed linguistic diversity and how and why they favored and disfavored particular languages and scripts. I analyze states and empires as coalitions of interest groups. I invoke the scribal masters of imperial chanceries and archives as one such group. I develop a heuristic framework (or "model") to understand the interactions of language and power that unfolded across West and South Asia. I begin with a great empire, the Persian, that did not employ its founders' ethnic speech but instead refined an older state language in governance. That choice entrenched an interest group that endured through a thousand years till displaced by Arab conquest after 660 CE. But a simpler 'New Persian' revived in the eastern Iranian lands. Turkish and Mongol conquest elites emerging from Inner Asia carried this language and its scribes into their growing domains in the Indian subcontinent. I then explain why the non-Persian Mughals in the 1550s selected Persian as their state language and rejected the constant pressure to use Urdu creole. Mughal rule left behind a tenacious Persian-writing elite that the early British empire employed. Finally, I explain the state processes behind the colonial-era decline of Persianate administration and the emergence of a new linguistic politics in colonial India.

LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION AND CONFLICT IN SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIA edited by Aditi Ghosh, Calcutta Univ. , 2022

The linguistic reorganisation of Indian states was an important milestone in postindependence India. Various aspects of the reorganisation have been studied by social scientists; these include the visceral linkage of the reorganisation with the colonial history of the region and colonial practices, the geography and geopolitical connotations of reorganisation, its implications for building nationalism, the relative significance of religion and language in the reformation of administrative units in India, language movements, constitutional provisions for linguistic minorities, and so on (e.g.

Language is "the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way" (Oxford Concise Dictionary). Identity means "the fact of being who or what a person or thing is" (Oxford Concise Dictionary). In this paper an attempt is made to explain how identity of different social groups in general and of North-East India in particular is associated with their linguistic aspects. Here, the spoken form is under consideration as it differs in case of even speakers of the same language.

2011

My research studies the relationship of language and national identity in postcolonial India, with a particular emphasis on the English language. Language politics in India has historically been polarizing, and is already the focus of a significant body of work. Research has focused especially on the trajectory and ramifications of the Hindi-Urdu (or Hindi-Urdu-Hindustani) controversy of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which interwove the discourse of nation and linguistic nationalism with that of religion and authentic “Indian-ness.” Discourses of language community and of resistance to linguistic hegemony have been the other major focal point of the existing repertoire, especially with respect to Tamil in south India. This theme has also been analyzed extensively in the context of the linguistic reorganization of states, where the question of national (dis)integration and the potential threat of separatism inherent in the official recognition of geographic and cultural bou...

On the importance of languages in the making of the nation in India-The way states were organised and reorganised on Linguistic lines

Journal of Anthropological Research, 2008

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