From colonial Lahore, a flashback to when Urdu, Persian and Sanskrit were taught side-by-side

As India prepares for its 2027 national census, language has once again become a political flashpoint. Debates over mother tongues, medium of instruction and linguistic identity are intensifying, especially as census categories shape funding, education and cultural recognition.

Which languages will be counted? Which ones will be ranked, ignored or folded into others?

More than a century ago, in colonial Lahore, a different approach to language took shape. The Oriental College, founded in the 1860s, offered a model of higher education where Urdu, Persian, Punjabi, Sanskrit, and Arabic were taught side-by-side. Its founders believed in the existence of a multilingual public sphere.

This college developed curricula that revolved around teaching modern disciplines such as ethics and science in commonly spoken languages at a time when English-medium instruction was spreading.

This was not a romantic or backward-looking project. The College’s leaders saw multilingual education as a way to serve diverse communities, train future administrators and build civic life. Its journals and textbooks became platforms for debating grammar, literary style and the purpose of language itself.

Today, as census categories threaten to harden linguistic hierarchies, the history of Oriental College Lahore offers not a return to the past, but a reminder that pluralism once had institutional form.

The Origins of Regional language Education in...

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