Linguistic Imperialism and Politicization in India

The Constitution of India was framed with the provision that the official language of the Union would be Hindi in Deva Nagari script.

- DR SHADAB AHMED

Boasting as one of the oldest civilizations of the world, contemporary India is home to a multitude of regional and local dialects under the paternity of English and maternity of Hindi. The Indian linguistic culture assimilated various languages and dialects throughout centuries as it came with her invaders, conquerors and imperialist masters who established empires, kingdoms and dominions. No other contemporary culture other than India can gasconade the meticulous particularization of rich language systems, be it Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic or Tibeto-Burman.

The continuous invasions of India warranted that any particular language will not be overwhelmingly dominant. Indian linguistic diaspora got aesthetically refined since the Aryanization and subsequent Rajputization of Indian plains as well as the successive Genghisid-Timurid influence adopting Persian and Urdu as well. Indian court, inter-regional and social languages have evolved from Classical Vedic Sanskrit to Prakrit, Apabhramsa, Arabic, Brajbhasha, Persian, Urdu, Hindi and finally, Anglo-English.

Broadly speaking, Hindi displaced Sanskrit, Persian displaced Hindi and Anglo-English displaced Persian. Anglo-English transitioned to English and became the lingua franca of the intellectual elite.