14 Language debate in India

Priyanka M Gupta

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Language and Identity Politics

2.Language conflict and movements in India

3. Language debate in Post-Independent India

4. Linguistic Regionalism in India

5. Conclusion

Introduction

Linguistic Pluralism in India

“Language” means a system of mutually intelligible vocal symbols by which the members of a society communicate. “Written language” is a special kind of language. “Dialect” is the speech system of a regionally or socially defined group, marked by a combination of shared linguistic features (Friedrich, 1962:343). In a broader sense language plays an essential role in constructing a sense of identity. It serves as a medium of communication and expression of and for the masses, thereby instilling in them a sense of belongingness and oneness. India is one such country which is home to more than one billion population comprising of numerous major and minority communities with its own ethnocentric and distinctive profiles of spoken and written languages. On record, there are approximately 400 languages and more than 300 dialects spoken across twenty nine states and seven union territories of India. According to the 2001 linguistic survey census data report records approximately 6661 mother tongues of which Hindi is the predominant language spoken by about 41% of the population, followed by Bengali (8.1%), Telugu (7.2%), Marathi (7%) and Tamil (5.9%). However, despite such linguistic multifariousness, there exists a strong relationship between language and power. It’s important to deconstruct facts of how language and power reciprocally reproduce different magnitude of social hierarchies, political power, cultural and economic inequalities. As Sarangi (2009) argues that in order to gain insights into the problematic language question in India, we need to deeply probe into the structures of relationships between language, history, culture, ideology, power and economy and politics.

In this module, we will explore many debates on the issue of linguistic diversity in India. Likewise, how the politics of language plays an important role in shaping peoples’ identities in the Indian heartland. We will try and explore the strong inter‐ linkages between language and power that leads to nationwide linguistics regional conflicts and mass based social movements. We will also discuss how various linguistic groups in contemporary India demonstrate demands to acknowledge their linguistic uniqueness nationally as a matter of political and social privilege.

Language and Identity Politics in India

India is most famous for its social mosaic of diverse religious, linguistic and ethnic heterogeneities. This means this diversity also becomes a base of multiple social, cultural and political identities and has its roots in gender politics, sexual politics, ethnic politics, and religious interpretations, and sometimes a combination of one another. The question we need to ask is how have we successfully as a nation‐ state been able to survive with such diversity? More so, this question holds much relevance because when in the past attempts to homogenise diverse cultural practices in the name of national integration or cultural assimilation have failed it has often led to revolutionary revolts and agitations. Language has also been an attention‐grabbing source of identity for many in Indian society. Besides being a channel of communication, language has two major roles in society. It influences distribution of power and wealth, particularly in an under‐literate society. It also acts as emotional and cultural cement for the social compact (Ahire 2002). In the Indian context, language related issues have always remained under examined and has often been relegated to the margins especially in the process of nation building. For this reason, let us first briefly discuss the relationship between language and identity‐ politics in India.

Identity Politics is said to “signify a wide range of political activity and theorising founded in the shared experiences of injustice of members of certain social groups”. (Cressida, 2014) . It essentially means a demand for an identity based on differences rather than equality. As a political activity it is focused to signify a body of political underpinnings to attempt recovery of social groups striving for a sense of ‘selfhood’ which for long has been subjected to politics of exclusion and disintegration. Identity politics thus attempts to attain empowerment, representation and recognition of social groups by asserting the very same markers that distinguished and differentiated them from the others and utilised those markers as an assertion of selfhood and identity based on difference rather than equality. Language is one such essential source of attainting a distinguished sense of selfhood. Language can hardly be treated as a homogeneous entity. It means much more than simple a means of communication. It fundamentally contributes to the formation of social and political identities of similar people belonging to different communities. However we must also understand that it may not always necessarily unite people. Language successfully divides people as much as it unities. As a part of the macro dimension of the society, language plays a central role in defining peoples’ national, sub‐national and group identity.

Linguistic Conflict and Language Movements in India

In the United States of America, one of the popular approachs to understand multiculturalism and diversity is through the salad bowl view which means‐ 1)Creating of a national identity by recognizing diversities as central pressure points that promote and celebrate national integration. 2). Reliance on democracy to resolve conflicts, which means upholding the interest of the masses in a true democratic manner by giving them their right to express, and accept their demands (Klob, 2009)

In the Indian context, the question of language conflict was handled with a similar approaches and strategies. Realistically, these strategies have failed miserably to tackle the problem of language policy in India. In principle, despite such policies for inclusion of linguistic minorities some groups remain discontented, either because their distinctiveness is not recognized, or if recognized, not given equal treatment. If multi‐cultureless is a notable fact in India and linguistic diversity is boasted as a part of cultural heritage then why is it that in the past as well as today the state continues to deal with language as an obstacle in its successful functioning? What is the basis of emergence of language movements in India?

The Linguistic movement in India dates back to the 19th century of the pre colonial era in Orrisa (present day Odisha). It is one of the best examples to understand formation of states on linguistic basis in pre‐independent India. Language provided the base for the growing nationalist movement in Orissa during this period. The common people particularly the intelligentsia resisted Oriya being replaced or dominated by other languages like Bengali, Telugu and Hindi. The Orissa intelligentsia strove for a regional, linguistic and cultural identity for themselves. Finally in the year 1936 the Orrisa state came into being under the Orrisa Province as the first Indian state formed on linguistic basis due to the efforts of Madhusudan Das. At this point, let us try and understand the social and political reasons that lead to linguistics conflicts and movements (Acharya, ____)

King (2008) raises a very prominent question‐what are the components that lead to language conflicts and what makes language a dominating political concern? He offers us the following indexes that may lead to language based conflicts across the world –

1. The existence of more than one language or dialect competing for political, economic, and cultural ‘‘space” often leads to conflict. Thus, the more the number of languages the greater is the likelihood of language becoming a worrisome political issue for that nation‐state. In fact, this is particularly true for countries which are grappling with the question of what the national language should be.

2. There must be social differences that correlate with language. These social differences include class in general and caste in particular and perhaps most generally “ethnicity”. In contemporary usage it’s the most conveniently used elastic cover term for anything that sets one segment of the society apart from the ‘other’. When language is linked to that Otherness as a badge of iconic identification, then we have located a potential focal point of linguistic conflict.

3. There is a strong co‐relation between language and economic prosperity. While well‐to‐do countries like Belgium can have major language problems normally the generalization holds that the better‐off the country, the greater the likelihood that language will not be a major political problem.

4. History and awareness of history are peculiarly relevant to the augmentation of linguistic conflict. If a culture is inclined to “remember” slights from the past those slights easily grow into language grievances.

After Independence, the framers of the Indian Constitution had a back breaking task to perform‐ the task of ensuring that linguistic diversity is withheld in the Constitutional Assembly. For this purpose, they had to put together a Constitution that not only preserved political unity, but also acknowledged and promoted cultural and linguistic diversity. Agnihotri (2015) argues that the Constitutional Assembly of independent India which held its first meeting in 1946 and last in 1950 poorly failed in understanding the complex issue of language right from its genesis, particularly when they tenaciously debated about the language question only in terms of language of the judiciary, national/official language, languages to be recognised in the eighth schedule linguistic, etc. They hardly appreciated multilingualism, as something which essentially constituted the essence of India and was characterised by fluidity of this linguistic and ethnic diversity, cannot be represented by forming linguistic states suggesting each area may have only one single medium of instruction. Much of the debates on linguistics issues in the assembly centered on the linguistic division of India which the Nehruvian government never fully rejected. Thus in order to tackle with the issue of linguistic diversity the Constitutional Assemble made the following constitutional provisions‐

1) The Eighth Schedule

The Eighth Schedule enclosed a list of languages and placed it in the Eighth Schedule of it. Initially this schedule consisted of 14 languages, today it consists of 22. These languages enjoy the same official status including English. At the time the constitution was enacted, inclusion in this list meant that the language was entitled to representation on the Official Languages Commission, and that the language would be one of the bases that would be drawn upon to enrich Hindi, the official language of the Union. However with time, the Government of India has come under obligation to take measures for the development of these languages, such that “they grow rapidly in richness and become an effective means of communicating modern knowledge.”

These languages are‐

Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu Bodo, Santhali, Maithili and Dogri.

Of these languages, 14 were initially included in the Constitution. The Sindhi language was added in 1967. Thereafter three more languages viz., Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali were included in 1992. In 2004, Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali were added. (Constitution of India)

At present, there are demands for inclusion of 38 more languages in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution. These are:‐

Angika, Banjara, Bazika, Bhojpuri, Bhoti, Bhotia, Bundelkhandi Chhattisgarhi, Dhatki, English, Garhwali(Pahari), Gondi, Gujjar/Gujjari, Ho, Kachachhi, Kamtapuri, Karbi, Khasi, Kodava (Coorg), Kok Barak, Kumaoni (Pahari), Kurak, Kurmali, Lepcha, Limbu, Mizo (Lushai), Magahi, Mundari, Nagpuri, Nicobarese, Pahari (Himachali), Pali, Rajasthani, Sambalpuri/Kosali, Shaurseni (Prakrit), Siraiki, Tenyidi and Tulu.

2) State Reorganization Act, 1956

On December 15, 1952, the fifty‐eight‐day fast of the linguistic state activist Potti Sriramulu culminated dramatically in his death in the city of Madras (today known as Chennai) (Mitchell,2009). His fast‐unto‐death protest demanded the formation of a separate Telugu‐speaking administrative territory within the newly independent India with Madras city as its capital. His dissatisfaction with the arbitrary administrative regions established under British colonial rule and inherited by the new nation after the departure of the colonial government in 1947 and his frustration with the marginalization of concerns raised by speakers of Telugu within the existing multilingual state, drew on the larger movement for a linguistically defined Telugu province launched forty years earlier. Soon reports of violence, processions, destruction of railway property, stoppage of trains, and looting began to circulate. Just four days later, in response to this widespread dismay Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru read by journalists, politicians, and historians alike as irrefutable evidence of the collective will of the people, by declaring the formation of a new Telugu linguistic state within the Indian nation.

The new state was to be known as Andhra state and was to be created from the uncontested Telugu‐speaking districts of the existing Madras state. Four years later additional Telugu‐speaking districts from the neighbouring state of Hyderabad were added, and the name of the state was changed to Andhra Pradesh. (Mitchell, 2009) Before independence in 1947, the Congress was committed to redrawing state boundaries to correspond with linguistics. After Sriramulu’s death, in August 1953, Nehru appointed the States Reorganization Commission (SRC), with Justice Fazi Ali, K.M. Panikkar and Hridaynath Kunzru as members, to objectively examine the entire question of the reorganization of the states in India .The SRC dwelled for nearly two years withstanding protests, agitations and violent clashes from the masses demanding statehood like Andhra Pradesh on linguistic grounds. However, the SRC surveyed the problems involved in redrawing state boundaries, it did view language as an important, although by no means the sole, factor for such reorganization of states. Other factors, such as economic viability and geographic realities, had to be taken into account as well. Finally the Act came into effect on November 1, 1956, and state boundaries were reorganized and new states and Union territories were created or dissolved. In regard to linguistic reorganization, along with the birth of Andhra Pradesh some of the principal changes of 1956 were as follows‐ a)Mysore was enlarged by absorption of the Kannada speaking areas of Hyderabad, Madras and Bombay, b)Bombay became a bilingual state one of the largest in the union by adding two Marathi speaking areas, Marathwada region of Hyderabad and Berar of the Central Province and Berar along with Gujrathi speaking states of Saurashtra and Cutch c)Central Provinces were renamed Madhya Pradesh with three other Hindi speaking states, Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh and Bhopal (Schwartzberg 2009, 160‐161) .

With the committee’s recommendation the four‐fold distribution of states as provided under the original Constitution was done away with and, it divided the country into 14 states and 6 union territories under the States Reorganization Act 1956. The states were Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Bombay, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Madras, Mysore, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The six union territories were Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Laccadive, Minicoy and Amindivi Islands, Manipur and Tripura (ibid). Since the late 19th century, language movements in India have raised issues of script reform, language purism, standardization of a language or a dialect, Sanskritization and/or Romanization of the script, and the official recognition of a language. (Sarangi 2009:11)

Important Language Issues in Post independent India.

Sanskrit as the National Language

The relationship between language and nationalism has always been a challenging one, particularly in post colonial India when the struggle for national identity is dominated by Hindu centric cultural practices. The discussion on Sanskirt draws our attention to the troubling linguistic undercurrents faced by India during the nationalization process. In October 1956, the Government of India decided to appoint a commission called the Sanskrit Commission to evaluate the status of Sanskrit in post independent India. It also financed publications, cultural events and national level broadcastings in order to promote Sanskrit as a national language. The report of the commission openly argued for a change in pedagogical practices in schools to promote the study of Sanskrit as a part of cultural heritage of India thereby urging the birth of modern India without compromising with its ancient past. For the problem of linguistic division of state, the commission offered a solution of supplying the nation with a Sanskrit diet by making its teaching mandatory in schools. The idea was by restoring Sanskrit back to its status, the nation too would be restored. (Rammasawamy 2009, 1999) The question we need to pose is that what pushed the custodians of the nation state to label an ancient language which is rarely spoken by the people as a national language? What is the correlation between Sanskrit and Nationalism? The answer lies in using Sanskrit to ensure citizenship to the people. As Agnihotri (2015) argues, the need to propose the use of Sanskrit as a national language arouse out of some kind of misplaced patriotism and ignorance about language development. Although Nehru was in favor of all work being carried out in Indian languages he was also convinced that any language that losses contact with the masses dies over time. He was in support of making English as a language of the masses over Sanskrit and appealed for making it more reachable to the masses thereby breaking the English –speaking class elitist monopoly. In 2014, Narendra Modi led BJP government has made fresh impositions by making Sanskrit compulsory in all CBSE schools of India with the rational of India losing its linguistic cultural heritage in the age of globalization to foreign languages like French and Spanish. This order by the HRD ministry was critiqued by various sections of the civil society and was seen as yet another attempt to enforce Hindu culture on the heterogeneous Indian population. (TOI,2014)

English v/s Hindi‐ The Debate of Official Language of India

Drawing from Ghose (1993) one could argue that language plays a very important role in constructing narratives of nations especially when a nation is free from colonial rule. While looking at the issue of language policy as a means of nation building we often have conflicting views to address between two contending groups‐ the proponents and opponents of English as a ‘popular’ language of progressive India. One must comprehend the evolving and changing relationship amongst various social groups in politics in India when it comes to the issues of language politics. Going back in history, under the Nehruvian government, apart from several disagreements over linguistic states as mentioned above, there were serious disputes over the national language policy as well. The unresolved question of what should be the national language of India continues to haunt the Indian state till date. Should it be Hindi because we are a Hindu nation where Hindi speaking population is the largest? Or should we continue with the colonial legacy and make English as our national mode of communication? Since 1918 Gandhi was in strong favour of ‘Hindustani’ being the language of interaction with the colonials. His rationale was that English‐speaking Indian men have enslaved India and he argued that until Hindi was given its national status ‘all talks on Swaraj were useless’. Even Jawaharlal Nehru in 1937, wrote that though English would continue to play an important role, the masses could grow culturally and educationally in their own languages. Dr B R Ambedkar opposed the idea too by insisting to have ‘No Article’ for resolving language question as he feared clashes amongst the masses if any one language based on majoritarianism was chosen over the others. (ibid)

Thus the national language debate became intense with each passing day. Though Nehru was in favour of Hindi, he himself was not a Hindi fanatic as he was fairly comfortable with English as a language of communication for official purposes and did not want to expel it fully (Ghose,1993). Finally after much contemplation and three years of debating, the assembly arrived at a compromise and ‘national language ‘was replaced by ‘official language’. 14 regional languages were given the status of official language of India along with Hindi, and English would continue as another official language for 15 years. This language policy was not well digested by the other members of the assembly who were from the Southern and Eastern states of India; they expressed their disgust fearing Hindi imperialism in India particularly knowing that in these states seeds of linguistic separation were already sown. The next debate was about the Constitution being in English or Hindi. Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India wanted the Constitution in Hindi as against English which was rejected by Nehru as translation of the constitution would be best under the guidance of expert translators and not by members of the Assembly. In 1955, the Official Languages Committee was appointed to speed up the work of changing over to Hindi as the only official language of the country. This led to agitating responses from the South Indians as they feared that Hindi as a national language would bleak their chances of making it in the All India services. (Ghose 1993, 214‐222) Finally in 1963 the Official Language Act was introduced in the constitution to accommodate the interests of all linguistic communities and to allay the fears of the Non‐Hindi speaking states where English would remain the official language of India further than its 15 years tenure. (ibid)

Anti – Hindi Movement in South India

In 1925, Periyar flagged the famous Self Respect movement to categorically challenge and cast off Brahmanic hegemonic practices in the South to uphold the interest of the non Brahmans in particular. In 1944 he renamed it Dravida Kazhagam with fresh objectives that included absolute rejection of everything related to North Indian culture that dominated over the south like the Aryans, Hindi, Hinduism and Sanskrit. The anti‐Hindi emotion was furthered with the demand of Dravidastan ‐ a Tamilian land that would espouse Tamilian language and cultural history in the political and social spheres. In 1937, after winning the elections in the Madras Presidency, Indian National Congress’s leader Rajaji introduced Hindi language teaching in secondary schools of Madras. Soon he issued a government order making teaching of Hindi in more than 100 schools compulsory in his Presidency (Ram, 1974). This was opposed by Periyar and A. T Pannerselvam who staged a state wide protest against such an order. The anti‐ Hindi movement demonstrated protests against the Brahmins as the protesters believed that the Brahmins were making Sanskrit and Hindi universal in the subcontinent by imposing it legally on the masses. The agitation was marked by black flag demonstrations, anti‐Hindi conferences, besieging of schools teaching Hindi and long fasts by the Tamil speaking population. According to the government records, by 1939 a total of 1,198 protesters were arrested for such anti‐Hindi demonstrations including women. Finally in October 1940, the Madras provincial government was placed under Governor’s Rule and Periyar called off the agitation when the Governor issued a press notice withdrawing the order of Hindi as a compulsory subject and making it optional instead. Once again in 1946, the anti‐Hindi movement emerged with great magnitude in post independent India when the Congress government urged all the states to make Hindi compulsory in schools. In accordance to this order, the Congress Government in the Madras Presidency, made Hindi mandatory from the academic year 1948‐49. This heightened the anti Hindi sentiment and Periyar was at the forefront in the movement. After much agitation and resistance from the masses, the order was withdrawn and Hindi was made optional in the following academic year. (ibid)

In 1950, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) was founded after a breakaway from Dravida Kazhagam under the leadership of Annadurai. He was a skillful orator and his appeal to the masses to promote Tamil language had far reaching impacts. Over time the DMK became a popular party amongst the masses in Madras and it began to stage infinite protests and organized several anti‐Hindi conferences to resist the imposition of Hindi language by the Constitution. So much so, the DMK observed 13th October 1957 as ‘anti‐Hindi’ Day and challenged the rational of numerical superiority of Hindi speaking people in the country as the basis of it being chosen as a national language. After the death of Nehru in 1964, fear gripped the followers of the anti‐ Hindi movement as the next Prime mister Lal Bahadur Shastri was strongly in favor of Hindi as a national language. In 1965, the state once again ordered the replacement of English by Hindi on 26th January. To this several Tamil students’ organizations reacted violently and more than 30,000 students staged protests opposing this order. This clash went out of control and riots broke out in different parts of Tamil Nadu. Several agitators committed suicide by consuming poison and immolating themselves. As per records, nearly 500 people lost their lives in this movement. Under the Prime minister‐ship of Rajiv Gandhi, the New Education Policy was introduced which provided opening of Navodya schools where Hindi would be compulsory. The ADMK opposed this compulsion and as a result Tamil Nadu is the only state in India that does not have Navodya schools. The final glimpse of the anti‐Hindi movement was seen in 2014, after the BJP came into power. As stated in The BJP came out with a order saying all government employees and officials across ministries, departments, corporations and banks having official accounts on social networking sites should use Hindi. This created a controversy whereby Tamil Nadu chief minister, Jayalalithaa argued that such a policy was against the Official Language Act. The order was later withdrawn after much contemplation by the government due to political pressure exerted by other states (Business line, 2014). The impact of the anti‐Hindi movement was tremendous. It helped in retaining the status of English as an official language of India. These agitations marked the beginning of an inclusive approach towards language planning by encouraging the use of bilingualism officially as well as restoring the language of the minorities.

Hindi‐Urdu controversy

The Hindi‐Urdu controversy dates back to the nineteenth and twentieth century medieval Muslim Invasions in India, and the resulting synthesis of the Indo‐Persian language that emerged which came to be known as Urdu. However, sources claim that the excessive Persianization of Hindi which was originally the official language for both Hindus and Muslims, led to a drastic spilt of both communities. Further with the coming of the East India Company, Persian was replaced with English as the official language of India and other vernaculars. The Hindi‐ Urdu conflict in India was a byproduct of the Hindu‐ Muslim religious conflict in India. The divide and rule policy of the British further perpetuated the bitterness between the two communities. The Hindi Sahitya Sammelan and the establishment of the Banaras Hindu University were the basis of the Hindi language movement against Urdu. Madan Moham Malviya, the centre figure of the movement was convinced of using classical Hindi and Sanskrit as a medium of instruction in schools and colleges. In 1968, a Hindi advocate Babu Shiv Parshad accused Muslim rulers of coercing Hindus in to learning Persian. He denounced the British Government, accusing them of destroying Hindu Nationality by forcibly converting Hindus into semi‐ Mohammadeans. He demanded the official language in court be made Hindi from Urdu because Urdu stood as a symbol of the Indo‐Persian culture. Hence, when that culture was attacked in North India, Urdu became the centre of focus (King , 1992). There were remarkable differences between both Urdu and Hindi scriptures which made the Hindi‐Urdu controversy an intractable one. While both scripts had identical grammar and vocabularies, they focused and heightened the differences between Indo‐Perisan and Hindu cultures. Hence the influence of Sanskrit and Arabic and Persian were poured separately into Hindi and Urdu, ignoring the overlapping discourses in everyday dialogue. This artificial segregation resulted in a highly Sanskritzed Hindi and a highly Persianized Urdu, which aided the rivalry in Hindu and Indo‐Persian cultures from each other. (ibid)

Linguistic Regionalism in Maharashtra

Language equally plays a crucial role in the growth and promotion of regionalism in India. One of the best examples of linguistic regionalism is the struggle led by the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti which resulted in the creation of unified Maharashtra in May 1960. Although the Samiti leadership had talked about the development of Marathi language and culture and employment issues of the Marathi speaking people, they could not evolve a comprehensive agenda for the same. The Chief Minister of Unified Maharashtra in May 1960, Yashwantrao Chavan spelled out his vision for the development of the state and development of the Marathi language. He also expressed the need to run the administration of the Maharashtra state in Marathi language instead of English. Chavan established a number of relevant institutions such as Bhasha Sanchalanalay. (Directorate of Languages), Sahityaani Sanskruti Mandal (Board for Literature and Culture), Vishwa kosh Nirmiti Mandal (Board for Marathi Encyclopedia) and Vidyapeeth Grantha Nirmiti Mandal (Board for the Creation of University Level Reference Books) (Pawar, 2015)

In 1966, against this background the birth of Shiv Sena took place in Bombay in order to fight for the rights of the Marathi speaking people in Maharashtra particularly in Bombay. The declining importance of Maharashtrians in the political economy of the city of Mumbai was a matter of serious concern even before the arrival of Shiv Sena. Through campaigns such as the campaign for Marathi signboards on shops and other establishments, or the campaign for renaming the city of Bombay as Mumbai, the campaign for the use of Marathi in the business of the government and judiciary the Shiv Sena strongly emphasized on the use of the Marathi language in public places. In 2006, the Maharashtra Navnirmaan Sena (MNS) came into existence with a similar agenda. MNS was more violent in its approach especially when in 2008 it physically abused many north Indian taxi drivers and auto rickshaw owners along with hawkers and food vendors blaming them to be thriving at the cost of the Marathi speaking people living in erstwhile Bombay(TOI, 2008). For the same purpose MNS chief Raj Thackeray is facing a trial in the court of justice for causing such linguistic vandalism and almost breaking the city into a riot like situation.

Breaking the English‐speaking class Hegemony

As Sheth (2009) rightly states, language debate must be situated in the contemporary politics of social change whereby language issue lies more in the nationwide democratization of English as a preferred mode of communication than simply being forcefully used as a hegemonic weapon by the political class represented by the selected elites of India. Post independence, the English‐ speaking intelligentsia controlled the all –India services and professions and were known to be the educational‐haves and dominated those who knew only regional languages. As products of colonial education this section of population exercised a considerable level of elitism by representing the English speaking class. It was the English language speaker verses the vernacular or those who spoke the regional bhasha. So along with class and caste lines, English language also subsequently became a relevant basis of stratification in India. If we analyse further, this language division was a cultural division too. As the English speaking class envisaged itself as English in taste, modern in approach and civilised in living, the non English speaking and the educational have‐nots due to such discrimination increasingly began to politically strengthen and mobilise themselves on grounds and further demanded replacement of English with regional languages. This demand besides from being able to preserve their regional and ethnic culture also was important to ensure preservation of jobs in government office which would bring social and economic prosperity for that state (Ghose 1993).

Language is closely related to culture and therefore to the customs of people. Besides, the massive spread of education and growth of mass literacy can only occur through the medium of the mother tongue. The Official Language Act was amended and the three language formula was introduced in 1968 in the National Policy Resolution. It stated that education in schools of Hindi speaking states must be provided in three languages namely Hindi, English and one of the regional/local languages. And in non‐Hindi speaking states, schools shall teach regional/local language, English and Hindi. It enabled states to conduct public service examinations in regional languages as well. This formula was suggested as an attempt to slow down the process of Hinduization of the south and other non‐Hindi speaking states. They devised it in order to encourage and preserve linguistic diversity by providing linguistic minorities a means to acquire link languages and also to guarantee them the right to education in their own mother tongue.

Conclusion

According to a baseline survey of Indian languages in 2013 by the People’s Linguistic Survey of India, the country has lost nearly 250 languages in the last 50 years. The whipping of languages calls for serious attention of the state to ensure that the linguistic diversity of the country is retrieved. Language development as a part of the nationalization mission in India should be more inclusive and representative of all the sections of the society speaking languages and dialects exclusive to their little cultural traditions. Besides, there is a growing concern to understand in the age of globalisation how local cultures are being easily absorbed. This is true particularly in the case of English as being a compulsive allay of the new middle class in India. English continues to be a symbol of cultural capitalism in the global world and thereby brings a ‘new linguistic order, combining both globalization and localization of languages globally (Sarangi 2009, 36). What is imperative is to resist this global hegemony and look for avenues to promote, spread and maintain linguistic heterogeneity especially in a country like India where language is more than a mere vehicle of communication for the masses. It is more about access over resources, interests and more importantly the right to choose from many. Some of the upcoming major challenges for the language debate in India include the relationship between language and caste, language and gender and newer forms of linguistic nationalism and conflict especially those unfolding in the North eastern part of India.

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