Nationalism, Language, and Identity in India

Nationalism, Language, and Identity in India PDF

Author: A P Ashwin Kumar

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2019-08-21

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 100057668X

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This book examines linguistic nationalism in India. It focuses on the emergence of language as a marker of identity by analysing themes such as Linguistic Reorganization of States, nationalism, philology, and linguistic identity. Formulating a novel conception of doxastic nature of community experience, the author presents a theory about nationalism as a cultural phenomenon by studying the constraints of western theological apparatuses that limit our understanding of it. The book looks at how an ecclesiastical notion of community is at the heart of the debate around linguistic and national identity – something that is redefining politics the world over. This volume will be useful for scholars and researchers of political studies, political sociology, sociology, historical linguistics and cultural studies.

Language and the Making of Modern India

Language and the Making of Modern India PDF

Author: Pritipuspa Mishra

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-01-16

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 1108425739

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Explores the ways linguistic nationalism has enabled and deepened the reach of All-India nationalism. This title is also available as Open Access.

The Language of Secular Islam

The Language of Secular Islam PDF

Author: Kavita Datla

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2013-01-31

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 0824837916

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During the turbulent period prior to colonial India’s partition and independence, Muslim intellectuals in Hyderabad sought to secularize and reformulate their linguistic, historical, religious, and literary traditions for the sake of a newly conceived national public. Responding to the model of secular education introduced to South Asia by the British, Indian academics launched a spirited debate about the reform of Islamic education, the importance of education in the spoken languages of the country, the shape of Urdu and its past, and the significance of the histories of Islam and India for their present. The Language of Secular Islam pursues an alternative account of the political disagreements between Hindus and Muslims in South Asia, conflicts too often described as the product of primordial and unchanging attachments to religion. The author suggests that the political struggles of India in the 1930s, the very decade in which the demand for Pakistan began to be articulated, should not be understood as the product of an inadequate or incomplete secularism, but as the clashing of competing secular agendas. Her work explores negotiations over language, education, and religion at Osmania University, the first university in India to use a modern Indian language (Urdu) as its medium of instruction, and sheds light on questions of colonial displacement and national belonging. Grounded in close attention to historical evidence, The Language of Secular Islam has broad ramifications for some of the most difficult issues currently debated in the humanities and social sciences: the significance and legacies of European colonialism, the inclusions and exclusions enacted by nationalist projects, the place of minorities in the forging of nationalism, and the relationship between religion and modern politics. It will be of interest to historians of colonial India, scholars of Islam, and anyone who follows the politics of Urdu.

Language as Identity in Colonial India

Language as Identity in Colonial India PDF

Author: Papia Sengupta

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-11-15

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 9811068445

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This book is a systematic narrative, tracking the colonial language policies and acts responsible for the creation of a sense of “self-identity” and culminating in the evolution of nationalistic fervor in colonial India. British policy on language for administrative use and as a weapon to rule led to the parallel development of Indian vernaculars: poets, novelists, writers and journalists produced great and fascinating work that conditioned and directed India's path to independence. The book presents a theoretical proposition arguing that language as identity is a colonial construct in India, and demonstrates this by tracing the events, policies and changes that led to the development and churning up of Indian national sentiments and attitudes. It is a testimony of India's linguistic journey from a British colony to a modern state. Demonstrating that language as basis of identity was a colonial construct in modern India, the book asserts that any in-depth understanding of identity and politics in contemporary India remains incomplete without looking at colonial policies on language and education, from which the multiple discourses on “self” and belonging in modern India emanated.

Language, Identity, and Power in Modern India

Language, Identity, and Power in Modern India PDF

Author: Riho Isaka

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-10-28

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1000468585

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This book is a historical study of modern Gujarat, India, addressing crucial questions of language, identity, and power. It examines the debates over language among the elite of this region during a period of significant social and political change in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Language debates closely reflect power relations among different sections of society, such as those delineated by nation, ethnicity, region, religion, caste, class, and gender. They are intimately linked with the process in which individuals and groups of people try to define and project themselves in response to changing political, economic, and social environments. Based on rich historical sources, including official records, periodicals, literary texts, memoirs, and private papers, this book vividly shows the impact that colonialism, nationalism, and the process of nation-building had on the ideas of language among different groups, as well as how various ideas of language competed and negotiated with each other. Language, Identity, and Power in Modern India: Gujarat, c.1850–1960 will be of particular interest to students and scholars working on South Asian history and to those interested in issues of language, society, and politics in different parts of the modern world.

Language Conflict and Language Rights

Language Conflict and Language Rights PDF

Author: William D. Davies

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-08-09

Total Pages: 451

ISBN-13: 1108655475

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As the colonial hegemony of empire fades around the world, the role of language in ethnic conflict has become increasingly topical, as have issues concerning the right of speakers to choose and use their preferred language(s). Such rights are often asserted and defended in response to their being violated. The importance of understanding these events and issues, and their relationship to individual, ethnic, and national identity, is central to research and debate in a range of fields outside of, as well as within, linguistics. This book provides a clearly written introduction for linguists and non-specialists alike, presenting basic facts about the role of language in the formation of identity and the preservation of culture. It articulates and explores categories of conflict and language rights abuses through detailed presentation of illustrative case studies, and distills from these key cross-linguistic and cross-cultural generalizations.

Hindu Nationalism and the Language of Politics in Late Colonial India

Hindu Nationalism and the Language of Politics in Late Colonial India PDF

Author: William Gould

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2004-04-15

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9781139451956

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In this book William Gould explores what is arguably one of the most important and controversial themes in twentieth-century Indian history and politics: the nature of Hindu nationalism as an ideology and political language. Rather than concentrating on the main institutions of the Hindu Right in India as other studies have done, the author uses a variety of historical sources to analyse how Hindu nationalism affected the supposedly secularist Congress in the key state of Uttar Pradesh. In this way, the author offers an alternative assessment of how these languages and ideologies transformed the relationship between Congress and north Indian Muslims. The book makes a major contribution to historical analyses of the critical last two decades before Partition and Independence in 1947, which will be of value to scholars interested in historical and contemporary Hindu nationalism, and to students researching the final stages of colonial power in India.

Nationalism in India

Nationalism in India PDF

Author: Debajyoti Biswas

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-09-13

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1000452778

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This book offers interdisciplinary perspectives on nationalism in India and examines the ways in which literary-textual representations intervene in debates regarding Hindu, Muslim and other forms of Indian nationalism. The book interrogates questions of nationalism and nationhood in relation to literary and cultural texts, historic-linguistic contexts and new developments in queer nationalism and ecological nationalism. It adopts a nation-wide emphasis, including chapters on Northeast India and other regions that have been historically underrepresented in studies of Indian nationalism. Moreover, the volume explores a rich variety of literary works by various writers over the past two centuries that have created, enshrined and contested ideas pivotal to the development of Indian nationalism. Located in a range of disciplines, contributors bring extensive expertise in Indian literature, language and culture to the question of nationalism. The chapters challenge many of the accepted ideas on nationalism and critically examine the politics behind such nationalisms. Moving beyond an approach to Indian nationalism based exclusively in the historicist-political paradigm, this timely book challenges established ideas in Indian nationalism and critically examines the politics of nationalisms in terms of textual representations. The book will be of interest to researchers working on South Asian studies, including Indian culture, history, literature and politics.