Language in India3

28/11/2010 Language in India
LANGUAGE IN INDIA
Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow
Volume 4 : 10 October 2004

Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Associate Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
HOME PAGE FIXING THE LANGUAGE,

FIXING THE NATION
Nandita Ghosh, Ph.D.
1. With the eruption of local and regional

separatist movements, the decade of
the 1980s in India was a period of
violence that questioned its viability as
a nation. Language conflicts between
communities became one of the central
issues under debate. In these debates,
journalists, writers, and fictional
characters bemoan the many futile
attempts of Indian leaders to promote
one national language that will imagine
AN APPEAL FOR SUPPORT a unified community of speakers who Send your articles
will perhaps articulate the nation. Their as an attachment
We are in need of support to
discussions revealed the way in which to your e-mail to
meet expenses relating to
such attempts get embroiled in what thirumalai@bethfel.org.
some new and essential
might be called the language fix: the
software, formatting of articles
national language, a unifying language
and books, maintaining and
of state, must be technologically
running the journal through
developed and authentically Indian. A
hosting, correrspondences,
paradox emerges in these debates with
etc. If you wish to support this
the supposed need for technology and
voluntary effort, please send
authenticity: although many Indian
your contributions to
languages have developed a scientific
M. S. Thirumalai
vocabulary, none can significantly
6820 Auto Club Road Suite
displace the power of English in its
C
privileged relations with technology. At
Bloomington
languageinindia.com/…/fixinglanguage1… 1/49
Bloomington
the same time, as a British import,
MN 55438, USA.
English is often perceived to be
Also please use the
inauthentic. I examine a body of fiction
AMAZON link to buy your
and journalism from the 1980s that
books. Even the smallest
engages in this paradox.
contribution will go a long way
in supporting this journal. 2. These works critique the government’s
Thank you. Thirumalai, Editor. attempts to resolve this paradox by
constructing a unified formula of
translation through the Three-
Language Formula. This formula
mandated that those in educational
institutions, media, industry, and
administration learn English and Hindi
as the two official languages; it also
provided for the optional learning of
Sanskrit, Urdu, or another regional
language. This formula was still
BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ
unsatisfactory because regional
AND DOWNLOAD
communities perceived their language
A LINGUISTIC STUDY to be in third place to English and
OF ENGLISH Hindi in importance and market value.
LANGUAGE The fictional and journalistic narratives
CURRICULUM AT THE I discuss accuse the government of
SECONDARY LEVEL IN creating this formula to control
BANGLADESH - A linguistic conflicts and to pay lip
COMMUNICATIVE service to multilingualism. What
APPROACH TO becomes evident through these
CURRICULUM narratives is that after failing to
DEVELOPMENT by standardize a national language, the
Kamrul Hasan, Ph.D. government attempts to standardize a
linguistic practice of translation by
COMMUNICATION VIA trying to control the way in which
EYE AND FACE in translation is to occur between
Indian Contexts by communities and to fix the value of
M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D. each linking language. Easy
translations, after all, would
COMMUNICATION consolidate the power of the ruling
VIA GESTURE: A middle class.
STUDY OF INDIAN
CONTEXTS by M. S. 3. The idea of an unproblematic
Thirumalai, Ph.D. translation lies at the heart of middle-
class ideology. Within the discursive
CIEFL Occasional realms of received paradigms and
Papers in Linguistics, categories of substantiated analysis,
Vol. 1 Antonio Gramsci and Partha
Chatterjee both provide insightful
Language, Thought analyses of the rise of middle-class
and Disorder - Some power in the twentieth century.
Classic Positions by
Classic Positions by Gramsci explains the relations between
M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D. intellectuals, bourgeois (middle-class)
hegemony, and the State. In his
English in India:
opinion, the intellectuals "are the
Loyalty and Attitudes
dominant group’s deputies" enabling
by Annika Hohenthal
"the ‘spontaneous’ consent given by
Language In Science the masses" to their dominance and
by M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D. disciplining those who resist (SPN 12).
Partha Chatterjee is greatly influenced
Vocabulary Education by Gramsci in his own formulations
by B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D. about a British-created, subordinate,
Indian middle class (Nation and its
A CONTRASTIVE Fragments 35).[1] In his opinion, this
ANALYSIS OF HINDI class facilitated colonial rule by acting
AND MALAYALAM as buffer between the British and the
by V. Geethakumary, Ph.D. masses; its middleness was crucial to
the nationalist project. As Chatterjee
LANGUAGE OF points out, it is true that this
ADVERTISEMENTS intermediary class, predominantly
IN TAMIL urban and upper-caste, inherited
by Sandhya Nayak, Ph.D. power from the British. It attempted to
move between differing linguistic-
An Introduction to
cultural spaces through a link language
TESOL:
in order to establish its own hegemony.
Methods of Teaching
English frequently functions as one of
English
the primary link languages for the ruling
to Speakers of Other
middle class because of its colonial
Languages
history, global currency, and
by M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
predominance in technology,
Transformation of administration, and communications.
Natural Language
4. By the mid-eighties, the Indian middle
into Indexing Language:
class expanded to include new groups
Kannada - A Case Study
and attempted to consolidate its
by B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
position within the nation. This
How to Learn expanding class provided a larger
Another Language? national audience for Indian writers in
by M.S.Thirumalai, Ph.D. English. It is during this time that the
English-language novel acquired a
Verbal Communication distinct identity. A number of writers
with CP Children living within India or in various
by Shyamala Chengappa, diasporas were published by foreign
Ph.D. presses and consequently enjoyed
and M.S.Thirumalai, Ph.D. metropolitan, global audiences. Anita
Desai’s In Custody (pub. 1984) is
Bringing Order perhaps the most visible internationally.
to Linguistic Diversity Partap Sharma’s Days of the Turban
- Language Planning in (pub. 1986) and Upamanyu
the British Raj by Chatterjee’s English August: An
Ranjit Singh Rangila,
Ranjit Singh Rangila, Indian Story (pub. 1988) circulate
M. S. Thirumalai, within a predominantly European and
and B. Mallikarjun Indian market. Mahasweta Devi’s
Imaginary Maps (Bengali pub. 1989,
English pub. 1995) has a special
REFERENCE MATERIAL
status. It has been translated into
Lord Macaulay and English by Gayatri Spivak and studied
His Minute on in most North American universities.
Indian Education
5. These novelists appropriate the
In Defense of tradition of literary realism in their
Indian Vernaculars fiction, a tradition that evolved in the
Against 18th and 19th centuries in Britain with
Lord Macaulay's Minute the rise of the middle class. In
By A Contemporary of accordance with this tradition, which
Lord Macaulay makes truth claims in its representation
of contemporary society, these
Languages of India, narratives are organized around
Census of India 1991 middle-class experiences that are
presented as quintessentially Indian.
The Constitution of India: The protagonists assume that their
Provisions Relating to middleness can enable them to speak
Languages for every group of the nation, an
assumption that gets disproved when
The Official they confront marginalized men and
Languages Act, 1963 women from other communities. What
(As Amended 1967) we see in the journalistic narratives is
similar to the fiction. Since these
Mother Tongues of India,
novels, newspaper reports, and journal
According to
articles are written in English, the
1961 Census of India
language often fails as the master code;
BACK ISSUES instead of linking different regions, it
reveals missing links in
FROM MARCH 2001 communication.[2] Some of these
writers, journalists, and fictional
FROM JANUARY 2002 characters participate in consolidating
middle-class power by universalizing
INDEX OF ARTICLES its worldview against a context of
FROM MARCH, 2001 secessionist violence, while others
- SEPTEMBER 2004 expose and deconstruct the hegemony
of this class.[3] These writers,
INDEX OF AUTHORS
journalists, and fictional characters are
AND THEIR ARTICLES
then recipients of the bourgeois values
FROM MARCH, 2001
associated with the liberal humanist
- SEPTEMBER 2004
vision of a modern nation. Each work
of fiction and journalism, therefore,
E-mail your articles and book- refracts through its medium the
length reports to process by which this vision of the
thirumalai@bethfel.org, or nation and a certain kind of middle-
28/11/2010thirumalai@bethfel.org, or Language in India
send your floppy disk class authority get challenged in the

(preferably in Microsoft 1980s through the discursive field of
Word) by regular mail to: contested and conflicting languages.
M. S. Thirumalai This article then seeks to explore the
6820 Auto Club Road, Suite language fix by examining, in separate
C., sections of this paper, the paradox
Bloomington, MN 55438 inherent in the desire for a
USA. technologically developed linguistic
Contributors from South Asia code that will also be authentically
may send their articles to national. This paradox leads to the
B. Mallikarjun, creation of a linguistic formula that fails
Central Institute of Indian in its attempts to render each national
Languages, context perfectly transparent. This
Manasagangotri, failure makes visible subaltern subjects
Mysore 570006, India or e- that refuse to be inscribed within the
mail to middle-class discourse of the nation
mallikarjun@ciil.stpmy.soft.net and present their own narratives.
Your articles and booklength 6. One of the arenas in which missing

reports should be written links in the link language and the
following the MLA, LSA, or precariousness of middle-class
IJDL Stylesheet. authority get revealed is media debates
over the need for a technologically
The Editorial Board has the developed language. In these debates,
right to accept, reject, or most journalists support government
suggest modifications to the policy, which, in their opinion, has
articles submitted for been guided by the idea that a national
publication, and to make language possessing a technical
suitable stylistic adjustments. vocabulary can provide scientific
High quality, academic information which will facilitate rural
integrity, ethics and morals are and urban development.[4] Practically
expected from the authors and all of them either comment upon or
discussants. bemoan the fact that this need for
technology places English at an
advantage over all other Indian
Copyright © 2004 languages.[5] In their opinion, Hindi
M. S. Thirumalai cannot compete with English. It lacks
sufficient publications dispensing
advanced scientific and educational
information. Technically qualified
Indians read and write predominantly
in English. Efforts at developing a
technical vocabulary have ignored
word resources in dialects, created
"lifeless and impractical" words, and
inefficiently coordinated these between
various Hindi-speaking regions
(Mishra 23). As a result, "different
states use different words for the same
English word. Lack of uniformity in
usage is a bewildering fact of the Hindi
world" (Mishra 24). It is for such
reasons that these journalists declare
Hindi to be unable to face the multiple
challenges of modernity: " . . . it must
be emphasized that being able to buy
oranges on the railway platform [in
Hindi] does not equip one to . . .
‘cope with the modern world’ --
although such coping is theoretically
certainly possible in Hindi" (Masica
11). This is because "knowledge of the
kind of Hindi necessary for serious
discourse" is not being imparted in
India (Masica 10). They argue that
English can no longer be wiped out of
India. English-speaking Indians
"constitute the third largest pool of
trained, scientific manpower in the
world" (Masica 13).
7. The story of English in India is indeed

connected to the story of
modernization, technological change,
and middle-class power. Since the
industrial revolution in Britain, English
has had a privileged relationship with
science and technology. With the
expansion and consolidation of the
British empire in the two previous
centuries and America's position in the
world market in this century, English
has become the global language of
communication. British imperialism
exposed the subcontinent to the
technological discoveries wrought by
the industrial revolution and the
capitalist market economy. The British,
who used these technologies for
colonial governance, built much of the
modernizing infrastructure. Anticolonial
resistance and the national government
used the same technologies for
purposes of creating and controlling
modern India. English, associated with
such infrastructure and technology, has
been an integral part of Indian life since
1947. It is obvious from their
assumptions that these journalists
uphold Nehru's vision of technology,
industrialization, and scientific research
as tools for modernizing and
restructuring the nation. They see an
increased English usage as an indelible
part of such changes.
8. Lachman Khubchandani, a participant

in and metacommentator on these
debates, characterizes this modernizing
impulse within the journalists and the
nationalist bourgeoisie as a desire to
have their speech globally recognized
as technologically developed. In his
opinion, this desire arises from their
perceptions that indigenous languages
are deficient communications systems
not historically linked with technology
precisely because they feel their nation
is disadvantaged as a newcomer to the
global market (International Social
Science Journal 169). As part of the
ruling middle class in India, these
journalists certainly desire to compete
and survive in the global market. In
their desire to modernize and globalize,
they encounter English as the only
feasible language for modernization
because of its globally utilized,
technologically developed vocabulary;
yet, since the upper-middle class has
more access to English than do lower
classes, promoting English only
promotes their class interests. These
news/journal articles of the eighties
consciously or unconsciously reveal
these class interests at work in
consolidating power.
9. The novels also show English as the

global language of modernization and
technology at national and international
levels. In In Custody, Hindi is not a
well-funded, marketable subject at the
Lala Ram Lal College as compared to
biochemistry. Deven, the Hindi
lecturer, makes less money than his
former colleague Vijay Sud, who had
won a scholarship to study
biochemistry in Indiana, USA. In
Mirpur, Sud is the epitome of success,
"teaching in a state university, earning a
big salary, having a big house, doing
well" (185). Most other Hindi lecturers
in Deven's department feel that they
"took up the wrong subject" instead of
taking "something scientific, something
American" like physics, chemistry,
microbiology, or computer technology
with which they could "have a future"
(186). All of these subjects are
equated with the scientific and the
technological, capable of inducing
modernizing transformations in society.
It is not an accident that these subjects
are taught primarily in English, while
Hindi is not perceived in this novel to
be participatory in nation-building
activities.
10. However, by comparison to the

news/journal articles of the eighties, the
fictional works reveal deeper
contradictions in the phenomena
regarding the relations of English with
other Indian languages and technology.
Although English is indeed more
deeply entrenched in India and more
globally dominant than ever before, it
is also displaced at local and regional
levels by other languages. Such
displacements question the journalistic
assumptions discussed earlier in this
section about English’s special
relations with technology. By 1989,
most Indian languages develop their
technical vocabularies at local and
regional levels; commercial, media-
based, communicational, educational,
and industrial exchanges were
happening increasingly in the relevant
local language. The fictional texts
reveal some of these complexities.
11. In Imaginary Maps, certain English

words commonly used by most
Indians refer to the ways in which
everyday life has been transformed by
the technological innovation of the
railway system: "train," "junction,"
"billboard," "engine," "station," "driver,"
etc. These words have been
appropriated by the local languages of
Seora, Kuruda, and Pirtha villages
through a process of rewritten spellings
and vernacularized pronunciations.
Such words, borrowings from English,
also become part of the languages that
appropriate them. This is one of the
methods by which Indian languages
acquire a technical vocabulary to cope
with modernization. Similar
appropriations are evident in Days of
the Turban. In Jagtara, Balbir's
village, the official business of banking,
finance, and administration is
conducted in multiple exchanges
between English, Hindi, and Punjabi.
No one language has an especially
developed technological vocabulary
that can adequately convey the
complex requirements of modernity to
this rural community. Therefore, there
are missing links in all of these
languages. For example, the green
revolution in agriculture happens
through scientific farming, knowledge
of which is primarily available through
the English language. In Jagtara,
however, most farmers are either
illiterate or literate Punjabi speakers,
with some knowledge of Hindi and
little fluency in English. Information
about farm technology is available to
varying extents in Punjabi and Hindi;
both languages either create new
vocabularies to convey this information
or borrow and appropriate words
from English. In their conversations,
these farmers translate between
Punjabi, Hindi, and English; their
translations frequently break down
causing confusions in meaning. Perfect
links between cultures and languages
are not possible, nor is it possible to
have English link all regions through its
access to technology.
12. Under such conditions, the adivasi

subaltern is exploited because of a
complex of reasons. In "Pterodactyl,
Pirtha, and Puran Sahay" (Imaginary
Maps), the adivasis at Pirtha die of
food poisoning caused by the
contamination of herbs and roots with
insecticides. Harisharan, a government
official in Pirtha, reports to Puran, a
journalist, "We have not brought
scientific health care to the tribals. If
something happens beyond the limits
of their knowledge they think of
mysterious reasons, divine rage, the
witch's glance, and so on" (123).
Adivasis are unable to help themselves
because they do not know what
causes their deaths -- an ignorance
based on their inability to access a
language containing scientific
information. Scientific, legal, and
technological information is available to
some extent in most Indian languages
as well as English. Their own language
is not officially patronized in the same
way and therefore is subalternized not
only by English but also by Hindi and
other regional languages. Being
poverty stricken and lower caste, most
adivasis cannot afford an education in
any of these languages because it is
expensive. Class exclusions are
reinforced by language exclusions;
each feeds off the other. Their
exclusion from mainstream languages
incapacitates them from representing
their interests to government officials
and bargaining for the funds set aside
for their welfare.
13. It is not possible to argue that English

has a privileged relationship with
technology because it is inherently
techno-friendly or that it is the only
possible language for modernization.
Modernization has affected all Indian
languages in uneven and chaotic ways.
Most regional languages have
developed their own technical
vocabulary and are used by the local
media, industry, education systems,
and administration. English retains its
power because of its historical and
colonial positioning. However, each
language displaces and is displaced by
the other at every level of exchange in
the nation. Each displacement reveals
the missing links in the link languages;
neither English, nor Hindi or any other
language can completely represent
every communication between
different regions and locations. In these
missing links, middle-class power
fluctuates and middle-class pretentions
of speaking for the nation get ruptured.
14. The middle classes often perceive the

need for a national language to be
technologically developed, a
perception that makes them think of
English as the only suitable language
for modernization. This perception
contradicts their desire for authenticity
because, for many members of this
class, English is foreign and therefore
inauthentic. This contradiction allows
no single language to meet the
paradoxical requirements for
technology and authenticity. Conflicts,
premised upon this desire for
authenticity, have arisen over English,
Hindi, Urdu, and other languages in the
years following independence.[6] The
Three Language Formula, created by
the government to resolve these
conflicts, moves away from the idea of
a single national language to
acknowledge the multilingualism of
India. However, it also attempts to
predetermine the nature of translations
between linguistic contexts. These
attempts are fueled by an uneasy
middle-class ideology that assumes its
middleness can enable it to speak for
every context within the nation.
However, any link language used by
the ruling middle class debunks all
claims for authenticity while operating
between contexts because it becomes
at once authentic or inauthentic in these
translations.
15. The inherent contradictions in all

concerns for authenticity are well
illustrated by Homi Bhabha's concept
of hybridity. [7] Bhabha discusses the
deconstructive implications of spaces
outside of a pedagogical knowledge
that constructs itself as authentic,
rational, and universal. These hybrid
spaces exist between unequal,
antagonistic sites without clear cut
boundaries. In his opinion, any
utterance from such a space focuses
attention on the particular time and
place of a speaking subject, challenges
principles of rationality, revises settled
hierarchies, and institutes a dialogic
process that reveals how power is
constructed and the subaltern
marginalized. All languages operate
within this Bhabhaesque hybrid space
in India. They enter unequal,
antagonistic, identity-defining, dialogic
relationships with each other.
16. Indian English embodies such hybridity

because it is simultaneously
deconstructive and maintaining of
status quo. It is not quite foreign nor
quite indigenous. It is difficult to
eradicate because of its connection
with global capital and pan-Indian,
upper-middle-class power. Because of
its technological value, unifying-
fragmenting effects, and authentic-
inauthentic quality, it is the impossible
national language. Yet it is frequently
constructed as the only possible
language for modernity. English in
India disorients the authenticating
claims of every other language. It
reveals the powermongering desires
behind such claims. For example, the
second half of English August's title
refers to "an Indian story": "District
administration in India is largely a
British creation, like the railways and
the English language, another complex
and unwieldy bequest of the Raj. But
Indianization (of a method of
administration, or of a language) is
integral to the Indian story" (10). This
story is constituted by the prominence
of English existing in complex and
combative relations to other languages.
These novels and news/journal articles
attempt to talk about local and regional
experiences through the apparently
pan-Indian medium of English. Yet in
the act of translation, they confront the
untranslateable. English as the
mastercode is inadequate in conveying
local and regional cultures. This
untranslatability of English becomes a
topic of discussion for journalism as
well as a motivating problem for the
fiction.
17. In English August, the official national

discourse on the validity of English as a
link language in India is presented by
Srivastav, Agastya's boss. Srivastav, a
civil servant educated in Hindi, asserts
that English in India is not only useful
as an administrative tool but also
authentic by virtue of its usefulness. As
part of an expanding middle class, he
desires to use English to administer the
country, broker power, and share the
class privileges enjoyed by English
speakers: "the English we speak is not
the English we read in English books. .
. . Our English should be just a vehicle
of communication . . . how we speak
should not matter as long as we get the
idea across" (59). He desires that this
administrative language should be
absolutely transparent in order to
facilitate interegional translations of
culture, information, and resources.
Srivastav therefore upholds the validity
of Indian English because it represents
the hybrid influences that shape identity
politics in India within the postcolonial
context: "You are what you are, just as
English here too is what it is, an
unavoidable leftover. We can't be
ashamed of our past, no, because that
is to be ashamed of our present" (60).
He would like to accept the presence
of Indian English as an indelible part of
colonization without dwelling on the
complexities of its hybridity in order
that he can use English to link different
regions. However complete
transparency is impossible because
English is fractured from within; not
everyone speaks the same English.
18. The novel presents many instances

when English fails to link different
contexts. Agastya, the protagonist,
goes to St. Stephen’s College, a
colonial institution, where he studies
English literature. He and his friends
are the "English type[s]," or Indians " .
. . who speak English more fluently
than [they] speak any Indian language"
(23). When he is posted as a
government officer to Madna, a small
town in Central India, he is unable to
communicate intellectually with fellow
officers, who speak a different English
with a heavier vernacular accent.
Agastya's English professor, Dr.
Upadhyay, experiences a similar
redundancy; he complains of having to
teach Shakespeare and Conrad in
Hindi to uncomprehending students.
Dr. Upadhyay reacts to their
incomprehension by opining that
"English in India is burlesque" (24)
because it only poorly mimics an
authentic British English. He is unable
to accept the different kinds of English
his students speak. He homogenizes
the many Englishes spoken by different
classes in Britain. He is also unaware
that language at all times can only be a
mimicry of itself.[8] In contrast to
Agastya and Dr. Upadhyay, the
inhabitants of Madna, mostly farmers,
adivasis, local merchants, and
politicians, speak the "occasional tell
tale . . . English phrase" creating a
hybrid language that reshapes English
(18). In these acts, they challenge the
hegemony of Agastya's class power
and inhabit an in-between
Bhabhaesque space created by their
encounter with the modernizing effects
of postcolonial bureaucracy,
technology, and communication.
19. What is interesting about such

encounters is that these challenges do
not only occur between the middle and
the working class but within the middle
class itself. Agastya, Dr. Upadhyay,
Srivastav, and even some of the
Madnaites would broadly fall within
the middle class. This class is
obviously divided by differences in
lifestyles caused by income, rural and
urban contexts, and access to English.
Srivastava, Agastya, and Dr.
Upadhyay desire complete
transparency in English when
communicating outside their immediate
contexts because they feel paralyzed
by its failure as a link language;
questions of authenticity can only arise
within the context of missing links in
the link language. This hybridization of
English is therefore threatening.
Agastya characterizes this hybridity as
an "amazing mix . . . Hazaar fucked.
Urdu and American, a thousand
fucked, really fucked . . . nowhere else
could languages be mixed and spoken
with such ease" (1). Perhaps what is
truly "fucked" about such hybridization
is that it reveals what Spivak terms
"the deconstructive embrace of a
postcolonial identity" which unsettles
the hegemony of a certain section of
the English-speaking ruling class
(Imaginary Maps, xxxi). In contrast,
the "pure" idiom affected by the latter
through either a Sankritized Hindi or
the "purified" English that Upadhyay
desires reveals neocolonialist
exploitation in the middle-class desire
to appropriate resources to safeguard
power.
20. This fractured nature of identity politics

surrounding hybridity is also evident in
the journalistic discourse of the
eighties. For some journalists writing at
the time, the idea of an Indianized
English is desirable because English
helps them translate their cultural
capital across the country. Shyam
Ratna Gupta lists the different forms of
English: "kitchen-butler English" as
used by domestic servants; the school
or college version replete with regional
overtones, sloppy grammar, and a
debased curricula; professional English
which is jargonized but communicates
effectively; and literary English which is
competitive and influenced by
advances in print technology
(Hindustan Times 9). N.
Krishnamurthy provides a narrative of
the progressive appropriation of
English in India, making it unique and
valid.[9] Khushwant Singh celebrates
how Hindustani and English borrowed
words from each other, which were
"pressed into shape to form Indian
English" (Hindustan Times 9). Singh
provides examples of Indian poets like
Gieve Patel, Keki N. Daruwallah, and
Nissim Ezekiel who use this fusion of
languages in their poetry. Similarly,
K.D. Sethna argues that the native
tongue cannot always be defined in
terms of nationality (Mother India
651-71).[10] He claims that Indians
can successfully write in English
because "The English language is the
most composite in the world. . . . It
has the capacity to assimilate
everything, it can take any hue of
thought, shade of suggestion, glow of
feeling, pattern of experience and turn
them into truly English effects -- that is,
effects achieved with perfect adequacy
by English words" (659). When he
promotes the concept of the essential
adaptability of English to any culture to
justify its validity in India, he ignores
the fact that all languages are
adaptable and that English is a global
language because of British and U.S.
imperialism. Raja asserts: "If we can
use English with some confidence why
should we not speak in English? If we
feel that we are at home in English,
why should we not write in English?"
(Mother India 374) Gupta,
Krishnamurthy, Raja, and Sethna write
for different newspapers. Khushwant
Singh is also a novelist in English who
has helped the nationalist
reconstruction of English as an Indian
product. These middle-class journalists
write for different sections of the
middle class but share each other's
assumptions about the process of
Indianization of English.
21. This process can best be explained

through Bakhtin's idea of "the dialogic
orientation of a word among other
words" (The Dialogic Imagination
275). According to Bakhtin, any
linguistic utterance takes "meaning and
shape at a particular historical moment
in a socially specific environment"
(276). In Bakhtin's terms, the word in
any language exists in a "difficult to
penetrate" "elastic environment" made
up of other, alien words (276). When
any word is used to express an idea or
describe an object, it encounters other
words about the same idea or object,
which then become "overlain with
heteroglot social opinion," "charged
with value," and "open to dispute." In
this dialogic interaction with this
tension-filled environment, the word
gets into "complex interrelationships"
with other words, "merges with some,"
and "recoils from others." The word
and utterance in any language shape
themselves in this dialogic process. In
colonial and postcolonial India, English
words and phrases became part of
other Indian languages precisely
through this dialogic interaction. The
process was creative, inventing a new
form of English and reinfusing Indian
languages with new vocabulary and
meaning.
22. This Bakhtinian process of hybridity is

also filled with violence and
displacements between languages,
causing misgivings among other
journalists of the eighties. A. Naseer
Khan considers English to be a foreign
import for it is not widely spoken by a
majority of Indians and cannot "pull
out [from] under our feet the carpet of
our past heritage, particularly the
carpet of a composite culture"
(Seminar, 34). He is supported by
R.G.K., who declares that English
damages the psyche, hinders progress,
and creates a hybrid culture that is
derivative in nature (Times of India
/Sunday Review, V). Both Khan and
R.G.K. are obviously influenced by the
notion that English not only creates
class distinctions among Indians but
also represents impure western values
that threaten to corrupt and erase an
authentic Indian self. They feel that
non-English speakers are unable to
translate themselves outside of their
contexts; hence, such a language
prevents them from competing
adequately for the resources of the
nation. Khan and R.G.K. attempt to
construct a monolithic idea of
Indianness that is defined against
foreign domination. However, this
image gets fractured at several levels:
first, when confronted with the hybrid
Anglo-Indian identity, created by the
interaction between British and Indian
culture; second, when confronted with
the Muslim identity, created through
Islamic invasions of the Middle Ages;
and third, when confronted with
scheduled castes and tribes who are
not considered to have pure Aryan
ancestry.
23. In the novel English August,

Agastya's hybridity makes visible the
fractured nature of identity politics in
which these journalists get embroiled.
His mother is Goanese, a culture once
colonized by Portugal and now
associated with a non-Hindu, minority
Christian identity much like Anglo-
Indians. Agastya's name is Sanskrit,
based on a forest-dwelling sage in the
Hindu epics Ramayana and
Mahabharata. However his friends
change his name to August because
they discover his secret wish that he
were an "Anglo-Indian, that he had
Keith or Alan for a name, that he
spoke English with their accent. From
that day his friends had more new
names for him, he became the school’s
‘last Englishman,’ or just ‘hey English’
(his friends meant ‘hey Anglo’ but
didn't dare) and sometimes even
‘Hello Mother Tongue’"(2). As a
mother tongue connotes the essentialist
desire to claim a language as belonging
to one's ethnic identity, so also with
Agastya's Sanskrit name. Such a
desire is parodied and displaced by
August's desire for Anglo-Indian
identity.
24. As with English, the conflict over Urdu

or Hindi is also rooted in a desire for
authenticity. In the novel In Custody,
the condition of the Urdu department
is even worse than that of the Hindi
department. It is small and precarious,
"there on sufferance merely" (103). It
is linked with "Muslim ideas" and
"Muslim toadies" (145). Nur, the
Muslim Urdu poet, mocks Deven, the
Hindu Hindi lecturer, in a fit of rage at
the condition of Urdu in post-
independence India.
What is the matter?
Forgotten your Urdu?
Forgotten my verse?
Perhaps it is better if you
go back to your college
and teach your students
the . . . safe, simple Hindi
language, safe
comfortable ideas of cow
worship and caste and
worship of Krishna. . . .
Why such treatment for
Urdu, my friends?
Because Urdu is
supposed to have died, in
1947. . . . But Hindi --
oh Hindi is a field of
greens, all flourishing. . . .
(56)
Hindi is obviously associated with the

Hindu god Krishna, also the mythical
hero of the epic Mahabharata, as
well as with the Hindu tradition of
vegetarianism associated with cow-
worship and eschewing beef-eating.
These associations are further tied up
with Sanskrit, the classical language of
Aryans, also constructed as the
repository of Indian culture. Desai's
novel reveals how Urdu is nostalgically
associated with the courts of nawabs
during Muslim rule of the Middle Ages
in India.
25. Such fictional revelations have their

counterpart in the 19th- and 20th-
century Hindu nationalist
historiography, which frequently
narrativized the Middle Ages as the
time of foreign invasions and
categorized Muslims as foreigners.
According to Partha Chatterjee, Indian
nationalists in the late 19th and early
20th centuries needed "to claim for the
Indian nation the historical agency for
completing the project of modernity.
To make that claim, ancient India had
to become the classical source of
Indian modernity, while the ‘Muslim’
period would become the night of
medieval darkness" (The Nation and
its Fragments 102). The politics of
religious identities create linguistic
identities; Urdu is Arabized to be
primarily associated with Muslims even
though linguistic differences between
Hindi and Urdu are minute. [11] In the
novel, we see the impact of such
divisive politics in the
postindependence Urdu community;
most Urdu speakers are poor, living in
run-down neighborhoods, and easy
targets of violence. Nur, the Urdu
poet, dejectedly states, "The defeat of
the Mughals by the British threw a
noose over its [Urdu's] head, and the
defeat of the British by the Hindi-
wallahs tightened it" (42). This
metaphor of death by hanging and the
extended conceit of detention and
sentence expresses Nur's frustration at
his marginalization in India. The Urdu
department in Deven's college is
poorly funded; his request for money
to tape Urdu poetry is met with
hostility by the administration. Murad,
the publisher of an Urdu journal,
complains of his inability to pay
printers' and distributors' bills and of
shrinking readership and subscriptions.
Deven has to teach Hindi to pay bills.
Clearly, Urdu suffers in the novel
because it is linked with an Islamic
culture associated with the Middle
Ages, especially since Urdu is not as
old as Sanskrit.
26. The idea that what is older is more

authentic is based on a search for
origins, which, according to Benedict
Anderson, is a typical yet
contradictory quality of nationalism.
He states that most nations create
immemorial and somewhat arbitrary
pasts, which validate present
conditions of belonging and settled
relationships (Imagined Communities
14). In this sense, claiming the past
and searching for origins are modern
phenomena. Dating India's past back
to the mythological histories of Aryans
is to the advantage of Hindi speakers,
many of whom are upper-caste,
middle-class Hindus. Hindi, with its
roots in Sanskrit, is constructed as the
most authentic language. Urdu,
connected to Muslim culture, is
constructed as less authentic and more
foreign. English, introduced only in the
last two centuries by the British is, in
comparison to Hindi or Urdu, the least
authentic and most foreign. Any search
for origins claiming and constructing
the past also makes distinctions
between the foreign and the
indigenous.[12] In the 19th century,
middle-class nationalists deliberately
homogenized internal differentiations
among Indians in order to organize
anticolonial resistance. Similarly, such
internal differences post independence
are deliberately essentialized to
enhance upper-caste, middle-class
Hindu power and alienate Muslim
group identity. Tensions between Urdu
and Hindi refract the contending
dialogic forms of discourse shaping
India-as-nation.
27. In Custody reveals these contending

dialogic forms of discourse in the
national bourgeoisie's deliberate
attempts to separate Urdu from Hindi
and to authenticate the latter at the
expense of the former; these actions
expose their attempts to fix the ways in
which the two languages will interrelate
and be utilized by the national
community. Yet the fictional text also
reveals other ways in which these
languages relate and are used by their
communities of speakers. Murad
assures Deven that Urdu has future
prospects with its international
audience in countries like Russia, Iran,
Iraq, Malaysia, and Sweden. This
audience creates a demand for Nur's
poetry, which is submitted for the
Nobel Prize in literature. We can see
how this future is already a part of the
present when lines of ethnic/religious
identity get crossed in the teaching,
reading, composing, and publishing
activities that take place both in Urdu
and Hindi. Deven is a Hindu lover of
Urdu poetry. Both he and Siddiqui
collaborate from the Hindi and Urdu
departments to record Nur's poetry.
Deven becomes the custodian of Nur's
unpublished work: "he had imagined he
was taking Nur's poetry into safe
custody, and not realized that if he was
to be the custodian of Nur's genius,
then Nur would become his custodian
and place him in custody too. This
alliance could be considered an
unendurable -- or else a shining honor.
Both demanded an equal strength"
(203). At the end of the novel, Deven
and Nur share a reciprocal relationship
that shows Hindi and Urdu speakers
relate in multiple ways outside the
parameters established by nationalist
discourse. These relationships
challenge the boundaries set by the
government-sponsored Three
Language Formula, which, through the
discourse on authenticity, seeks to
standardize and subordinate plural
linguistic identities under upper-caste,
middle-class Hindu power.
28. Some of the commentators in the

eighties deliberately uncloak the
premises of such power when they
present a narrative of Hindi's and
Urdu's shared history.[13] They refer
to a time in Indian history when
differences between the two languages
were minimal, when these languages
were utilized equally by Hindus,
Muslims, and other religious
communities, and when they were not
as politically charged as they have
been since the 1950s. These scholars
assert that these languages became
contested territories after partition,
representing specific communities
which were struggling to define their
positions within India. Urdu was
delinked from other Indian languages.
They feel that these distinctions
between languages are unhistorical and
inexpressive of living speech. They
point out that Sanskrit is not the root
of every linguistic community in India
unless it rediscovers its mixed roots
with Urdu. These scholars contribute
to debates on authenticity by
problematizing relatively recent
constructions of Hindi as
authentic/Hindu/Indian and Urdu as
inauthentic/Muslim/ foreign. They
reveal how the desire for essentialized
identities ignores the ambivalent nature
of language and how vocabulary is
built over time in response to cultural
needs and in relation to other
languages.[14] Both Hindi and Urdu
have evolved by molding themselves to
each other and to the culture; the
relations between the two languages
once again defy the sterile possibilities
laid out by the Three-Language
Formula.
29. Ultimately, all arguments favoring

authenticity, whether it is that of
English or Hindi, promote the idea of a
single national language or a unified
linguistic formula of translation that will
tie the nation together. Whether
English functions as the de facto
language of power or Sanskritized
Hindi is chosen as the official language,
these languages work to legitimize
upper-caste, middle-class Hindu
power within India. It is this class that
has the most access to English and
also claims Sanskrit, the classical
language of Aryans, as its heritage. It is
also this class that inherited power
from the British. Distinctions between
what is indigenous/authentic and
foreign/inauthentic are constructed as
part of the "fix" into which language
debates have frozen and have
contributed to the fundamentalist
rhetoric of the BJP and the
secessionist violence of the 1980s.
Yet, if one reasons within this
framework, it is possible to find most
languages, including Sanskrit, foreign
and therefore inauthentic since they
were introduced to the subcontinent
through foreign invasions at some point
in Indian history. Only the Austric and
Dravidian languages, spoken by tribal
populations, date back to the earliest
indigenous inhabitants. These
languages, however, lack prestige,
receive no funding, and are spoken by
only the most subaltern communities.
The language "fix" then attempts a
solution that makes a fixture of the
problem.
30. Since the 19th century, Indian leaders

have perceived a national language to
be a unifying mechanism against the
potentially divisive linguistic pluralism
of India and a homogenizing tool
enhancing development where
heterogeneity signals
underdevelopment.[15] However, in
multilingual India, promoting any
language over others aggravates inter-
community tensions.[16] The
government formulated the Three-
Language Formula to control linguistic
conflicts and pay lip service to
multilingualism. With this formula, it
attempted to standardize a linguistic
practice of translation by attempting to
control the way in which translation
was to occur between different
communities and fix the value of each
linking language. Easy translations
would consolidate and centralize State
power. However, the novels and
news/journal articles under discussion
reveal the failures of such translations.
No one language is completely able to
express the other. Not one, but several
hierarchies have emerged in which
different languages compete for power
with, displace, and are displaced by
each other in differing regions.
Recalling the title of Desai’s novel,
while the language formula attempts to
safeguard the rights of each language
by acting as a custodian, the languages
take each other into custody by
holding each other hostage in an
attempt to safeguard their own power.
Power fluctuates between different
speakers and listeners; middle-class
protagonists often find themselves to
be relatively powerless. New alliances
are formed between newly visible
subjects.
31. The novels reveal how all languages in

India are combative and create divisive
linguistic groups. Since 1947, Hindi
has been the official national language.
By the 1980s, many official documents
and broadcasts in the national media
are in Hindi. Hindi is used by different
classes in most North,West, and
Central Indian homes. The Hindi film
industry in Bombay enjoys a pan-
Indian audience; in fact, Desai's
English novel, In Custody, is filmed in
Hindi. In Desai's novel, Hindi is the
"vegetarian monster" displacing Urdu
from its pre-independent position as
official language (55). Urdu, despite
not being regionally concentrated,
cannot function as a unifying official
language. Its demonization by Hindi
speakers divides Mirpur, the town in
which Deven lives, into warring
factions. Celebrations of Moharram (a
Muslim festival) and Holi (a Hindu
festival) often cause riots that are
solemnly reported in local newspapers
as evidence of the inability of both
communities to live within a national,
secular culture. With such factionalism,
Hindi cannot unify the nation. Neither
can it completely displace the currency
of Urdu. The story suggests that, if in
the previous centuries Urdu functioned
as the elite language of administrators
and literateurs, after 1947 it is still
used, to a lesser extent, by educated
elites like Nur.
32. Urdu retains its currency in several

countries and eleven Indian states,
including fifty-six Indian universities.
Hindi is also displaced by the power of
English, even though the latter does not
enjoy as wide a currency. Most South
Indians resent the hegemony of Hindi
but accept English as a link language.
In all the fictional works under
consideration, English is undoubtedly
the language of power. Its speakers
are upper caste and upper-middle
class, occupying prestigious and
powerful jobs. In In Custody,
although Hindi is mandatory for
fulfilling degree requirements in the
Mirpur University curriculum, most
jobs are available through knowledge
of English. Therefore, most students
are bored: "they shouted, ‘why should
we waste our time learning Hindi when
we can pick up some useful skills that
will help us find employment? . . .
Hindi does not help get you
employment.’ ‘Then why did you take
it up?’ Deven asked. ‘For a degree.
We must have degrees, sir,’ they told
him plainly" (182-183). These students
feel alienated from the circle of
privilege when forced to learn Hindi. In
Days of the Turban, Balbir's English
education beckons him away from
farm work to white-collar jobs in
cities: "Here I am, able to quote
Byron, Shelley, Keats, Kalidas,
Tagore, . . . and what am I being made
to do? The chafing chores of a
peasant!"(10). The references to
Victorian and Indian poets point to the
cultural capital Balbir has accrued:
literary refinement, anglicization,
cosmopolitanism, and distance from
manual labor -- values he wishes to
market for a privileged urban lifestyle.
In these instances, English divides its
speakers from the non-speakers into
disparate worlds of wealth and
poverty.
33. In the fiction, the underclass may be

brutalized by its inability to access the
power available through English, but it
also becomes visible in the gaps
established by the inability of the
English language to translate its
experiences. In fact, no language can
adequately translate meanings from
another. In the miscommunication that
follows, power fluctuates between
established groups of speakers. The
adivasis of Jompanna (English
August), Seora, Pirtha, and Kuruda
(Imaginary Maps) can speak mostly
only in their own dialect. When
communicating, these residents
pressure visitors and administrative
personnel to learn the local language.
Srivastava, a high-ranking official in
Madna, tells Agastya, a Block
Development Officer in Jompanna,
"Yes, you'll face the problem of
language in Madna. They [the local
inhabitants] can't even speak Hindi
properly. . . . You see, in North India
and Bengal and other places, everyone
can follow Hindi. . . . And now
everything from the State government
comes in the regional language" (15-
16). But Agastya is an urban, upper-
class Indian who can speak English
and Bengali fluently and Hindi haltingly;
he needs interpreters to help him
understand the adivasis. In these acts
of translation, no one is precisely able
to understand the other; urban,
middle-class power gets decentered
and hitherto marginalized subjects
become visible. For example, Puran, a
journalist who travels to Pirtha, is
stunned by the fact that adivasis have
no word in the Ho language for
exploitation because nothing within
their societies remotely resembles the
indignities they suffer from mainstream
culture. This lack represents meanings
that cannot be recovered; Puran is
confronted by the dilemma of the
untranslatable. At best his report
reveals the residues of translation, the
excess that cannot be communicated in
English, Hindi, or Bengali. In
Imaginary Maps, Mahasweta Devi
debunks the patronizing arrogance of
officials towards local dialects by
deliberately interspersing the latter with
formal Bengali in the style of a political
harangue. Educated Bengali is spoken
by middle-class urban dwellers who
are in league with the seats of power in
central government. Devi's technique
not only reveals how formal Bengali
oppresses local dialects but also
indicates local resistance to such
power. Devi's readers are also middle-
class intellectuals and artists who she
hopes will transcend class interests to
bond with the oppressed. It is obvious
that neither Hindi nor English can
successfully displace the currency of a
regional language in a specific region.
34. As these novels show, languages are

divisive not only because they are
combative but also because they are
internally fragmented. In English
August, Srivastav -- a civil servant
educated in Hindi who is part of an
expanding middle class -- desires to
use English to administer the country,
broker power, and share the class
privileges enjoyed by Agastya: "the
English we speak is not the English we
read in English books. . . . Our English
should be just a vehicle of
communication . . . how we speak
should not matter as long as we get the
idea across" (59). Srivastav desires
that the administrative language be
different from the literary and
journalistic language with which
Agastya has fluency. Srivastava wants
this language to be absolutely
transparent in order to facilitate
interregional translations of culture,
information, and resources. However
complete transparency is impossible
because English is fractured from
within; not everyone speaks the same
English. His English is different from
and has less market value than
Agastya's because Srivastav speaks
with a heavier vernacular accent. So
diction, accent, and fluency determine
class privileges. Fragmentation
happens within every language,
creating warring groups who cannot
communicate. Hindi, the other official
language, also divides the country.
Agastya's Hindi in English August is
less fluent than that of his fellow Hindi-
speaking officers. Also, the adivasis
speak a broken Hindi quite different
from Agastya's because it is inflected
by the syntactical structure of the Ho
language. These differences cause a
clash of cultures resulting in the
psychological violence of governmental
authority, Agastya's alienation, and his
consequent withdrawal from his work
environment.
35. The combative relations between

languages are also evident in the
discord between journalists in the
1980s. Several news and journal
reports assert that English functions as
the de facto national language because
it affects law courts, communications,
government documents, and higher
education.[17] These reports note that
English is widespread and deeply
entrenched: its words and phrases
exist independently in most Indian
languages; English-educated Indians
form a powerful national middle class
with international influence; and "The
trend . . . of sending one's child to an
English medium school has become a
veritable stampede" (Masica 9). In
short, they believe, it is difficult to live
without the mediation of English. But it
is this very entrenchment that makes
other journalists assert that English
does not unify the country as the lingua
franca but divides it into the privileged
and underprivileged: "the continued
ascendancy of English divides the
nation into elites, who possess the
authority to make laws, and those who
are subjects of these laws" (Handa
13).[18] This faction claims that
English is dominant in India only
because it is the property of the elite;
through advertisements, the English
media present an urban lifestyle
inaccessible to most of the country.
English-language newspapers are
relied upon to bring international news
their readers, who are treated
differently than Hindi language readers.
36. Journalists who espouse the cause of

Hindi bemoan its lack of funding and
shrinking publications as well as anti-
Hindi agitation by non-Hindi
speakers.[19] They declare that most
newspaper owners' attitude to Hindi is
non-serious, unlike their attitude to
English journalism:
A majority of the Hindi

dailies in the Capital are
run by the business
houses whose first
commitment lies
elsewhere and not to the
publication of
newspapers. . . . Hindi,
for them, is merely an
obligation, a burden, and
is to be discharged rather
unwillingly or indifferently
depending on the mood
of the ruling party.
Despite wider circulation
and better financial
performance, the same
management would deny
the facilities,
remuneration, pages, and
manpower to Hindi
journals, which would
place them at par with
the English publication
from the same house.
(Yadav 41)
As a result of these institutional

problems, they suggest, Hindi
journalism suffers from a diffused
readership, an absence of a cultural
pivot, indifferent political leadership,
and poor editing skills. Most pro-Hindi
agitators themselves lapse into English,
strengthening its persistent hegemony.
These journalists express anxiety and
nostalgia because, as Hindi-speakers,
they experience themselves as second-
class citizens. They write in English out
of necessity in order to reach a
powerful middle-class audience.
However, they are also members of
the English-speaking middle class; their
critique of the hegemony of English
becomes ironic because it is facilitated
through the medium of English. These
journalists all belong to the middle
class, write in English, and benefit from
the privileges of an English education.
They do not argue for extending the
privileges of English among the lower
classes nor are they able to suggest
practical viable alternatives to the
hegemony of English.
37. However, English is not the only

language that is hegemonic. Several
articles in Volume 332 of Seminar,
Link (Khullar 37-38), Advance
(Khullar 20-27), and Economic and
Political Weekly (1410)[20]
elaborate on how Urdu has suffered
with the promotion of Hindi as the
national language: decreased funding;
disappearing schools; declining number
of teachers; poor printing facilities;
curricula that drop Urdu, the
government’s decision in 1958 to
declare Urdu a dialect of Hindi; its
linkage with the Muslim community,
even though all Muslims do not speak
Urdu, and with predominantly poor,
illiterate or semi-literate speakers, who
cannot promote the language. They
point out how the pro-Hindi lobby
within the government prevents the
promotion of Urdu.[21] From their
underlying assumptions, it is apparent
that Urdu’s association with Islam and
the demonization of Indian Muslims
complicates Urdu-Hindi relations. The
government's failure to promote Urdu
has been quoted, in the 1980s, as an
instance of its pro-Hindu sentiments by
Islamic parties in Kashmir demanding
secession from India. Such demands
are paralleled by a corresponding
Hindu fundamentalism, demonizing
Indian Muslims, with the rise of the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
38. The tension between Indian languages

can be clarified in terms of Bakhtin's
idea of the centripetal and centrifugal
forces within language (The Dialogic
Imagination 259-272).[22]
Centripetal forces are the historical
processes of centralization and
unification, resulting in a unitary
language, while the centrifugal,
heteroglossic forces of decentralization
stratify language into dialects and
socio-ideological groups in every
epoch, community, or nation. The
desire within the national leadership for
a unifying national language or at least
a uniform method of translation, such
as the Three Language Formula, can
be seen as a product of centripetal
forces. But a unitary language does not
exist within India; Hindi, the official
language, would claim such privileges if
it were not displaced by English. Both
Hindi and English are further displaced
by and displace regional languages in a
phenomenon that Bakhtin terms
heteroglossia. These heteroglossic or
centrifugal forces of decentralization
not only create hierarchies between
languages but stratify these from
within, causing each language to
fragment. In these mutual acts of
displacement and stratification,
different socio-ideological groups enter
into combative relations to acquire and
safeguard power. These combative
interactions merely highlight the
contradiction inherent in desiring a
unifying language or language formula.
39. Decolonization not only involves the

creation of imagined communities
through the workings of print
capitalism, as Benedict Anderson has
suggested, but also through the
appropriation of a common language
to lend passion and purpose to the
community so imagined. The dissent
over which language is to be so
selected points to the existence of
multiple imagined communities, each of
which engage in combative interactions
with one another in an attempt to stake
a claim on the nation. The different
class factions are engaged in a
symbolic struggle, one aimed at
imposing the definition of the social
world that is best suited to their
interests. Symbols, according to Pierre
Bourdieu, are instruments of
knowledge that make possible a
consensus on the meaning of the social
world, which contributes to the
reproduction of the social order (166).
Language belongs to the symbolic
field; the choice of a national language
becomes a crucial issue when the
dominant middle class, whose power
rests on economic capital, aims to
impose the legitimacy of its dominance
through the continued currency of
English in India. The statutory choice
of Hindi further complicates the
problem because it ostensibly
empowers the Hindi-speaking North
and Central Indian states that then
dominate the legislative process. A
large part of the middle class comes
from these regions. The further
subordination of Urdu, regional, and
tribal languages creates a hierarchy,
which becomes a site for the struggle
for dominance and control of
resources and power in India. The
novels and the news reports under
discussion reveal how the language
"fix" is a part of the problem causing
tensions between communities in the
eighties. Combative interactions
between linguistic communities assist
the democratic process by unsettling
the sites of middle-class power,
ultimately creating more space for
minority and marginalized discourses
to emerge.
Notes
1. Chatterjee calls this class the petit
bourgeoisie, stretching from clerks to
lawyers, doctors, and landowners.
Back
2. The status of Imaginary Maps as a

work of translation is relevant in light
of this dialogic interaction between
languages. Originally written in Bengali,
it was translated into English by Spivak
and read worldwide. The deliberate
experiments Spivak makes with
English in representing the Bengali
dialect are creative and valid in their
own terms, much like Indianized
English. The translated text takes on its
own identity independent of the
Bengali original. Back
3. This article, written as it is by an

English-educated member of this class,
also falls under the same constellation
of ideological features but seeks to
investigate the premises of middle-
class power. Back
4. These journalists’ assumptions are

supported by the prevailing
international scholarly opinion. For
example, Ayo Bamgbose, the African
theorist, states that an increased flow
of information in developing nations in
Asia and Africa makes expert
knowledge available where needed
and provides a forum for leadership
and decision making (Language and
the Nation 39). Bamgbose surveys
the relationship between language and
national development in several
multilingual African countries to show
how language facilitates literacy and
communication, which impacts directly
on the socio-economic development of
a nation. Back
5. Sharada Venkataraman (Hindu 24),

Shyam Ratna Gupta (Hindustan
Times 9), Colin Masica (CIEFL
Bulletin 13), Lachman M.
Khubchandani (International Social
Science Journal 169), K.K. Mishra
(Link 23-24), "Not by Demand
Alone" (8). Back
6. This desire for an authentic language

that will encapsulate the national
identity is shared by the leadership of
many nations in the late 19th and 20th
centuries. According to Joshua
Fishman, the "essence of nationality is
reflected in the continuous use of
language over a period of time," which
he terms the "vernacular" (45). The
vernacular is used by the "protoelites"
of a nation as an "authenticating tool
for modernization, political
consolidation, and mass consensus at
social change" (42-43). Fishman
writes that in order to satisfy demands
for authenticity, the national leadership
of a developing nation will often select
a particular language, as the
vernacular, for official use. This
becomes "an intrinsic part of the birth
of national consciousness among the
populace" (57). Back
7. See Bhabha's article "Postcolonial

Authority and Postmodern Guilt"
(Location of Culture 56-68). Back
8. Of particular relevance to my argument

is Homi Bhabha's article "Of Mimicry
and Man: The Ambivalence of
Colonial Discourse." Bhabha argues
that colonial discourse seeks to stamp
its own image on the colonized, to
create a reformed, recognizable Other.
This image is almost but not quite the
same as the colonizing power; the
colonized other mimics the colonizing
self with a difference within the
sameness. This mimicry becomes a
mockery of the colonizer, exposing the
double standards inherent in colonial
rule. The effect of this mimicry is
disturbing for in "normalizing" the
colonial subject, colonial authority
alienates its own language of liberty
and produces another knowledge of its
norms. The discourse of post
Enlightenment English colonialism
therefore cannot be anything other than
a mimicry of itself. Dr. Upadhyay, the
colonized other, educated in the
"civilizing" culture of his colonial
masters, can only hanker for a
language that can unproblematically
reflect its own authenticity. He is
unaware that he himself becomes a site
for the splitting of colonial discourse;
his nostalgia becomes a sign of his split
desire. Back
9. This is an extract from his article,

"Growth of Inglish in India" published
in Hindu on December 3, 1985. He
formulates the four stages through
which English became "Inglish," that is,
increasingly popular and Indianized.
The first is the transportation phase
(1600-1800) covering the power
struggle between British and Indian
rulers for control over land,
commerce, and communications.
English was introduced for training civil
servants to spread British culture.
During this period, only the upper class
had access to it. However, domestic
servants working in upper class
households picked up some
rudimentary terms. The second stage is
between 1850 to 1900, when English
was Indianized. During this time, all
Indian universities used English as a
medium of instruction. Poets, writers,
and activists like Tagore and Gandhi
used English with an Indian flavor.
English was institutionalized during the
third phase (1900-1950) when it was
frequently used by the Swadeshi
movement to communicate with the
rest of the country, British officials, and
other parts of the world. The identity
stage (1950 and after) was the final
stage in the appropriation of English in
India when, according to
Krishnamurthy, the need for building a
modern nation has led to the use of
Indian words, expressions, accents,
tones, and cultural values in the English
spoken by Indians. This brand of
"Inglish" has flourished with the growth
of newspapers and magazines in India
(19). Back
10. Sethna is the editor of Mother India, a

journal published on a monthly basis
from 1960 onwards in Bombay and
funded by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Trust. The title of this journal is
significant because it is based on an
Indian mystic, Sri Aurobindo's vision
of India as a mother. This vision also
ties in with the nationalist construction
of India as the motherland demanding
devotion, loyalty, and self sacrifice of
its citizens/children. This idea of the
mother is also essentialist in nature
where India is often seen as an
embodiment of the mystical east as
opposed to the material west,
assumptions that inform Sethna’s
orientalist ideas of English in India.
Back
11. The theorist Itamar Even-Zohar

asserts that the linguistic diversity
between the two languages has been
invented by concerned communities of
speakers since independence in order
to effect this difference (Nationalism
and Modernity: A Mediterranean
Perspective 130-131). Even-Zohar
argues that language conflict occurs
only when there is an ideological
conflict among different groups, such
as Hindus and Muslims, within a
nation. Then everything linguistic
becomes a burning issue for the
conflicting parties, including the most
minute details of language structure
that would otherwise have interested
only a small group of specialists. In the
case of Hindi or Urdu, spelling,
pronunciation, grammatical
declinations, word order, and
vocabulary may all become semiotic
carriers of identity promoted or
rejected by different groups (127).
Back
12. Chatterjee claims that even before

independence, the national imaginary
asserted its freedom from colonial
domination by distinguishing between
the outer/foreign and inner/indigenous
domains of the nation (The Nation
and its Fragments 6-11). Since
1947, distinctions between the outside
and inside became internal
differentiations with certain kinds of
Indians (Hindu, majority, upper-caste)
on the inside and others (non-Hindu,
minority, lower-caste) on the outside.
However, Chatterjee is incorrect in
assuming that precolonial identity was
not as internally differentiated as
postcolonial identities. Back
13. "Kaif" (Research Bulletin Arts

Punjab University 114), Iqbal Khan
(Times of India 5-6), Mohammed
Peer (Guru Nanak Journal of
Sociology 138-149), K. K. Khullar
(Advance 20-27), and Amrit Rai (A
House Divided 285-289). They agree
that both languages evolved around
1000 AD during the Prakrit-
Apabhransa stage with the
establishment of the first Muslim
dynasty in India. Spoken in the
bazaars of Delhi, these scholars
believe Hindi/Urdu was at first one
language which developed initially in
Golconda and Bijapore, in the Deccan
Plateau, before it came to North India.
This common language was variously
called Dakani, Gurjari, Khari Boli, and
Hindavi, and contained a mixture of
Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, and Brij
Bhasha. It grew as a response to the
need for communication between
Persian conquerors and their Indian
subjects for 600 years, when both
Hindu and Muslim poets and
preachers wrote in this language. Rai,
Peer, Khan, and Khullar state that this
mixed language, now called
Hindustani, split into Urdu and Hindi
since the 17th and 18th centuries with
the breakup of the Mughal empire,
when Muslims and Hindus became
concerned about preserving their
separate identities. The British used
these divisions to maintain their power
by polarizing the Hindus and Muslims -
a polarization accentuated by the
communal politics of Jinnah and the
Muslim League that split the Indian
subcontinent into India and Pakistan.
Back
14. I am using this word with particular

reference to Homi Bhabha's
introduction to Nation and Narration
where he focuses on this turbulent and
ambivalent nature of language and
connects it to a similar quality within
the nation(1-7). He believes that
nations are ambivalent in their
transitional histories and conceptual
indeterminacy. This ambivalence is
reflected in national boundaries which
determine those included and excluded
- a process producing unpredictable
forces of political antagonism. Bhabha
asserts that like national discourse,
language is also ambivalent. This
quality in language enables us to
understand how the nation when
narrated can turn boundaries into in-
between spaces through which the
meanings of cultural and political
authority are negotiated; the "other" is
therefore never outside the nation but
emerges forcefully within indigenous
cultural discourse. Bhabha's insights
are valuable for understanding the
language problem in India where much
of the mutual demonizing of Urdu,
Hindi, and English speakers emerges
from this in-between space within the
nation in which all ambiguously
experience themselves as self and
other. Back
15. This choice seems to endorse Pierre

Bourdieu’s argument that these needs
for a unifying language of state "create
specific conditions of language use,"
generating a "conflict-ridden historical
process" from which a "particular set
of linguistic practices emerges as
dominant" (Language and Symbolic
Power 5). However, not all of
Bourdieu's ideas apply to India. If, as
he says, the process of state formation
creates conditions for a "unified
linguistic market dominated by the
official language," this language would
be the most privileged (48). Back
16. Nehru was unable to retain Hindi as

the only official language as per the
Official Languages Act in 1963; he
had to amend it in 1967 to retain
English as the associate official
language. He also linguistically
reorganized states and discouraged
any demand for special languages
unless these had popular support.
Nehru's policies proved to be
unpopular. Language riots broke out in
Madras in 1950, and in Andhra
Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, and
Punjab through the 60s and 70s, which
partly fueled the rise of militant
separatist movements in the 1980s.The
Nagpur Conference of 1920 , the
Nehru Committee in 1923, the
Calcutta Congress in 1937, and the
Congress Party manifesto in 1945-46
provided the groundwork for Nehru's
policies. See Suman (Seminar on
National Integration and
Communal Harmony 165-167).
Back
17. Shyam Ratna Gupta (Hindustan

Times 9), Sharada Venkataraman
(Hindu 24), Colin Masica (CIEFL
Bulletin 7-14) and Raja (Mother
India 374-76). While Gupta, Raja,
and Venkataraman openly espouse
English as an extension of their class
privileges, Masica adopts the stance of
a disinterested scholar without an
agenda. Back
18. Anjuli Gupta (Hindustan Times 9)

and R.L. Handa (Missing Links in the
Link Language 13). They seem to
take recourse to a nationalist discourse
that sets itself up against foreign
influences, which they construct as
antinational and undemocratic. Back
19. Rajendra Yadav (Link 40-42), M.K.

Tikku (Hindustan Times 9), and
K.K. Mishra (Link 23-24). Back
20. This volume of Seminar, a monthly

magazine, published several articles by
A. Naseer Khan (30-34), Khaliq
Anjum (35-36), Raj Bahadur Gaur (),
Akhilesh Mithal (), Mohammed Hasan
(14-16), Hasan Abdullah (17-19),
Gopi Chand Narang (22-25), and I.K.
Gujral(26-29). Back
21. These journalists list the number of

activities undertaken by the
government to ostensibly promote
Urdu: creation of Urdu professorships,
awarding of prizes to Urdu writers, its
inclusion as an Indian language under
Schedule VIII of the Constitution, the
holding of two All India Conferences,
and the conducting of several signature
campaigns and official commissions. In
their opinion, despite these activities,
the government discourages large scale
institutionalization of Urdu at primary
and secondary school levels. Attempts
to promote Urdu as a second official
language in the 1970s by Mrs. Gandhi
and the state governments of Bihar,
Uttar Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh
were foiled in 1984 by the anti-Urdu
lobby on grounds that this would
encourage separatist tendencies
between Hindus and Muslims. In their
opinion, this government antipathy
actually encourages Muslim parents to
send their children to learn Urdu at
parochial schools, breeding orthodoxy
and separatism. Back
22. According to Bakhtin, language, a

"social phenomenon," is a "verbal-
ideological world" comprised of
centripetal and centrifugal forces (The
Dialogic Imagination 259).
Centripetal forces result in a unitary
language which Bakhtin elaborates to
be "a system of linguistic norms" which
are not only grammatical rules but also
"ideologically saturated" with a "world
view"; such a language creates "within
a heteroglot national language" the
"firm, stable nucleus of an officially
recognized language" (271). Every
individual or collective utterance
participates in the unitary language (in
its centripetal, unifying forces) and
partakes of social/historical
heteroglossia (centrifugal, stratifying
forces). The living, shaping
environment of any utterance is
"dialogized heteroglossia," anonymous
and social, as well as concrete and
specific as individual utterance (272).
This stratification and heteroglossia
"widen and deepen as long as language
is alive and developing" (271-2). Back
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Originally published in JOUVERT 5: 3,

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28/11/2010 Language in India

Volume 4 : 10 October 2004

HOME PAGE FIXING THE LANGUAGE,

1. With the eruption of local and regional

send your floppy disk class authority get challenged in the

Your articles and booklength 6. One of the arenas in which missing

7. The story of English in India is indeed

8. Lachman Khubchandani, a participant

9. The novels also show English as the

10. However, by comparison to the

11. In Imaginary Maps, certain English

12. Under such conditions, the adivasi

13. It is not possible to argue that English

14. The middle classes often perceive the

15. The inherent contradictions in all

16. Indian English embodies such hybridity

17. In English August, the official national

18. The novel presents many instances

19. What is interesting about such

20. This fractured nature of identity politics

21. This process can best be explained

22. This Bakhtinian process of hybridity is

23. In the novel English August,

24. As with English, the conflict over Urdu

Hindi is obviously associated with the

25. Such fictional revelations have their

26. The idea that what is older is more

27. In Custody reveals these contending

28. Some of the commentators in the

29. Ultimately, all arguments favoring

30. Since the 19th century, Indian leaders

31. The novels reveal how all languages in

32. Urdu retains its currency in several

33. In the fiction, the underclass may be

34. As these novels show, languages are

35. The combative relations between

36. Journalists who espouse the cause of

A majority of the Hindi

As a result of these institutional

37. However, English is not the only

38. The tension between Indian languages

39. Decolonization not only involves the

2. The status of Imaginary Maps as a

3. This article, written as it is by an

4. These journalists’ assumptions are

5. Sharada Venkataraman (Hindu 24),

6. This desire for an authentic language

7. See Bhabha's article "Postcolonial

8. Of particular relevance to my argument

9. This is an extract from his article,

10. Sethna is the editor of Mother India, a

11. The theorist Itamar Even-Zohar

12. Chatterjee claims that even before

13. "Kaif" (Research Bulletin Arts

14. I am using this word with particular

15. This choice seems to endorse Pierre

16. Nehru was unable to retain Hindi as

17. Shyam Ratna Gupta (Hindustan

18. Anjuli Gupta (Hindustan Times 9)

19. Rajendra Yadav (Link 40-42), M.K.

20. This volume of Seminar, a monthly

21. These journalists list the number of

22. According to Bakhtin, language, a