Hindi: The ‘national language’ that marginalises its own

Two centuries of discourse around language and identity in India have culminated in Hindi emerging as a nationalist symbol – as the language of the Hindu nation. Nearly 150 years ago, the essayist Pratapnarayan Mishra coined the slogan “Hind, Hindu, Hindi”, an early articulation of the majoritarian refrain “Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan”. It is, therefore, unsurprising that such a language would encounter regional resistance.

The languages that Hindi now seeks to dominate in its role as the Hindu language exceed it in literary maturity and historical depth. The history of Hindi extends back no more than two centuries. This is why, particularly in the context of South India, Hindi often appears as a language of imposition and cultural zealotry.

Consequently, every Hindi speaker who steps beyond their regional or linguistic comfort zone is viewed with suspicion. In academic settings, this suspicion intensifies – at times, being manifested as outright rejection or resistance towards Hindi speakers.

However, this ignores a deeper truth: students and scholars who enter higher education through Hindi do not do so from positions of privilege. More often than not, they are women, Dalits, the rural poor, or working-class families from small towns for whom the only real choice was between under-resourced Hindi-medium schools and...

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