This chapter shows the fragility of macro-level power in India with respect to language policies. In common with states that became independent after the end of colonialism, India had initially planned to follow a 'one nation-one language' policy and devised a policy that would make Hindi the only official language of India. However, this policy had to be abandoned because of opposition from non-Hindi-speaking states, and India had to adopt a policy of de facto official multilingualism. This chapter investigates the extent to which the official multilingualism policy is practised in India, and the place of minority languages in India's legislation on language use. The key finding is that, except in the domain of law, the needs of minority languages are considered in all policy domains examined in this book. Moreover, the section on textual analysis shows that the use of languages other than Hindi and English is made mandatory in certain statutes through the usage of shall instead of may.
See Full PDF See Full PDF[first published in 2012 with the French version] This article makes a case against treating lesser-known languages as points on a scale that ranges from the neediest communities to the least needy. My argument refers to factors that become salient during the transition form a modern order of nation-states to an unsettled dynamism involving heterogeneous spaces. Under the exigencies and anxieties of globalization, the experiences become traumatic and call for urgent efforts to formulate and address what are experienced as vital issues on the ground. For clarity, I briefly present first the view I oppose, calling it ARSA (the Aid Recipient Spectrum Approach). I then outline the alternative I advocate, ILCEA (the Inter-Local Community Empowerment Approach). Once these have been introduced, the Language Policies in India section situates the problem with respect to India; the ARSA section discusses how the consensus both in India and elsewhere has swung towards ARSA; the final section focuses on ILCEA, considers some reasons for wishing to turn the tide and proposes ways of bringing this about. The article situates issues of indigenous peoples in the context of the subnationalisms associated with the major languages of India. A French version of this article appeared in _Droit et Cultures_ 63:143-160 in 2012 ('La politique linguistique et les langues indiennes moins répandues'). It is available online at https://journals.openedition.org/droitcultures/2955
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Minority Languages in India
India's multilingual polity is a laboratory of language policies. Its political and cultural context, however, privileges some major languages, whereas minority language speakers and members of smaller communities often feel discriminated against by the current language policy of the Union and the States. Many such languages have definitively disappeared, and several more are on the brink of extinction. Is this the inevitable price to be paid for economic modernization, cultural homogenisation and the multilingual fabric of India's society at large? This book is an effort to map India's linguistic minorities and to assess the language policy of different government levels towards these communities. Starting from considering linguistic rights as a component of fundamental human rights, codified in a number of international covenants and in the Indian Constitution, this would require everyone’s right and opportunity to learn, to use and to develop his mother tongue. Taking into consideration the experiences of minority language protection in Europe, the publication is intended as an appraisal of the extent to which language rights respected in India' multilingual reality.
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Dominated Languages in the 21st Century: Papers from the International Conference on Minority Languages XIV
The present paper deals with the status of linguistic minorities in India and tries to give an overview of the problems plaguing Indian language policy regarding minority languages. India represents a unique case in the current global linguistic scenario, as it is the only country in the world with 23 official languages (2 official cross-regional languages and 21 official regional languages). Despite this fact, minority languages in India cannot be regarded as well protected, as obvious from the high number of languages listed as ‘endangered’ by UNESCO. The paper looks into the various forms of domination and subordination that dictate the language policy and influence the various language communities in India, including linguistic minorities. Moreover, it undertakes an analysis of the various kinds of language conflicts prevalent in the Indian linguistic situation and examines whether the language conflicts emanate from group-specific dominance and unequal status ascriptions, and secondly, whether language is simply a secondary feature in conflicts that are mainly socially, economically and politically motivated. Lastly, the paper addresses the aspect which it sees as a highly questionable part of Indian language policy, i.e. the principle of ‘rationalization’, a method developed by the Government of India to take account of the number of ‘languages’ in India, but which has been widely criticized as a ‘reductionist’ policy because through the process of ‘rationalization’, smaller and minority languages are categorized as ‘dialects’ or ‘variants’ of the so-called major languages and are thus deprived of their own independent status and identity.
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This article explores India's linguistic diversity from a language policy perspective, emphasizing policies relevant to linguistic minorities. The Kumaun region of Utterakhand provides a local, minority-language perspective on national-level language planning. A look at the complexity of counting India's languages reveals language planning implicit in the Indian census. The more explicit status planning involved in the naming of official languages is explored in the Indian Constitution. An overview of India's language-in-education policies for languages to be taught and languages to be used as media of instruction further illustrates status and acquisitions planning affecting India's linguistic minorities. The Indian example informs and stretches the language planning frameworks used to analyze it, adding status-planning goals of legitimization, minimization, and protection. Finally, the question of what actually happens in education for linguistic minorities opens up a conversation about the pluralistic language practices common in multilingual contexts beyond the implementation of official language and education policies.
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