Abstract
India is a nation of tremendous cultural diversity and a potential pluriverse in itself. The layered issue of linguistic integration is a very relevant one in realizing this potential. In this paper, I explore how the propagation of Hindi as the lingua franca of India creates feelings of resentment among other language groups through a field study conducted in the village of Ranekpar in Gujarat in January 2020. While Hindi imposition has been met with stiff resistance from non- Hindi speaking communities, English seems to retain its popular status as a language of power and opportunity, despite being occasionally spurned as an oppressive colonial legacy. The paper seeks to highlight the various reasons behind the selective acceptance of English as a link language in India by examining existing literature on the complex language issue, and by comparing the subjective attitudes towards Hindi and English gathered during the localized study. I locate this work within the larger discourse of linguistic hegemony, which has been one of the major focal points of the existing repertoire of post-colonial studies in India.
Keywords
Hegemonic imposition; plurality; linguistic integration; lingua franca
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/pluriversal.2020.015
Citation
Sridhar, J.(2020) Linguistic Integration in India: A Persistence of Hegemony, in Leitão, R., Noel, L. and Murphy, L. (eds.), Pivot 2020: Designing a World of Many Centers - DRS Pluriversal Design SIG Conference, 4 June, held online. https://doi.org/10.21606/pluriversal.2020.015
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Linguistic Integration in India: A Persistence of Hegemony
India is a nation of tremendous cultural diversity and a potential pluriverse in itself. The layered issue of linguistic integration is a very relevant one in realizing this potential. In this paper, I explore how the propagation of Hindi as the lingua franca of India creates feelings of resentment among other language groups through a field study conducted in the village of Ranekpar in Gujarat in January 2020. While Hindi imposition has been met with stiff resistance from non- Hindi speaking communities, English seems to retain its popular status as a language of power and opportunity, despite being occasionally spurned as an oppressive colonial legacy. The paper seeks to highlight the various reasons behind the selective acceptance of English as a link language in India by examining existing literature on the complex language issue, and by comparing the subjective attitudes towards Hindi and English gathered during the localized study. I locate this work within the larger discourse of linguistic hegemony, which has been one of the major focal points of the existing repertoire of post-colonial studies in India.