BULLDOZING PLURILINGUALISM AND ESTABLISHING THE MONOLINGUAL NATION-STATE IN HINDI-HINDU-HINDUSTAN

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BULLDOZING PLURILINGUALISM
AND
ESTABLISHING THE MONOLINGUAL
NATION-STATE
IN HINDI-HINDU-HINDUSTAN
To
The Honourable President,
The Republic of India
“I consider all our languages as national languages. They are
equally our national heritage. Hindi is one among them which, by

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virtue of its countrywide usage, has been adopted as the State
Language. It will be wrong to describe Hindi alone as the national
language and others as provincial languages. That would not be
seeing things in the right perspective.”
--- M. S. Golwalkar, 1957
Sub: Home Divided: Reconciling the polemic between Hon. Modi
and Amit Shah on Akhand Hindu Bharat’s Plurilingualism and
Monolingualism
Respected Ācāryā,
We, the adherents of the Saṅgh Parivār ideology and as the appellants for a
Dayabhaga Hindu Undivided Family (HUF), are proud enough to stand for a
homogenized, pasteurized, standardized, essentialist and uncontaminated
Hindu raṣṭra of Bhāratvarṣa.
As we are perplexed by the different statements made by the revered Hindu
personalities on the issue of language in the akhand Hindu Bharat⤡, therefore,
we wish to seek a solution from you.
In a nutshell, there are two contradictory groups within the Hindutvavadins on
the use of language(s) in India: some Hindu dignitaries (viz., Veer Savarkar, Shri
Amit Shah et al) have supported the monolingual Indian nation-state and on the
other hand, some Hindu scholars (viz., Guruji Golwalkar, Modiji et al.) have
subscribed the maintenance of the plurilingual ethos of akhand Hindu Bharat.
Due to this type of contradictory advice, we are unable to take a decisive
position regarding the use of language in the Indian context. Moreover, if the
excellent rapport between Modi-Shah duets is interrupted, if the home is
divided on the issue of language, the same should be amicably reconciled
without any hesitant dilemma or else the whole Hindutva-project will be
inevitably jeopardized. It will be like the two Yadavs, viz., late Mulayam Singh
Yadav and Lalu Prasad Yadav, quarrelling on the imposition of English and Hindi.
In the early nineties, at the eve of the introduction of the neoliberal economy,
Mulayam Singh Yadav started a movement called “Angrezi Hatao” (Banish
English), whilst after a year or so, Lalu Yadav promoted the movement “Angrezi
Le Aao” (Introduce English). Lalu Yadav wanted to introduce English since he

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thought: “Hindi is our mother, but English is a beautiful
prostitute.” (Bandyopadhyay, 1998⤡)
Analogically speaking, take the case of ‘Hirdu’ (Term coined by Ashok Kelkar⤡ by
enmeshing Hindi and Urdu), the reality of the “HUP” (Haryana, Uttar Pradesh,
Punjab) Region, where it is very difficult to distinguish between Hindi and Urdu.
For some members of the socio-linguistic tribe, Urdu is nothing but a language
which is syntactically similar to Hindi but it possesses a different script (script is
just like a cloth; one can write Bangla in Greek Alphabet, as S. K. Chatterji did in
his diary) and Arabo-Persian vocabulary.
However, the divide and rule policy of the Britishers had tried its best to draw a
dividing line in between these two languages with a goal to break the goal of the
country’s unity and the syncretic elements shared between the two religious
communities, viz., Hindus and Muslims. This path is thoroughly followed by the
Hindutvavadins to justifiably consolidate the Hindu rastra with the unifying
languages Hindi and Sanskrit.
It is to be noted that Kelkar⤡ (op. cit.) represented the state of affairs not in
genealogical fashion, but he followed “Wave Theory of Language Convergence”
(ibid., pp. 12-13). According to him, languages in the South-East Asian
subcontinent are like waves without distinct genealogical or chronological cause
and effect relations. The ripples of languages are inseparably overlapping each
other.
The testimonies of the two above-mentioned groups of Hindutvavadins on the
language issue are cited below:
A) PROPAGATORS OF MONOLINGUAL AKHAND BHARAT
 Without Sanskrit, India cannot be understood fully: RSS chief VIEW
HERE ⤡ (As reported on 20th July, 2019 ©India Today)
 Sanskrit should be made official language: Swamy VIEW HERE ⤡ (As
reported on 9th December, 2021 ©The Times of India)
 BJP Hindi Imposition Part RSS Agenda One Nation One
Language VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 15th April, 2022 ©NewsClick)
 ‘Hindu Rashtra’ draft proposes Varanasi as capital instead of
Delhi VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 13th August, 2022 ©The Hindustan
Times)
 Official language Hindi unites nation in thread of unity: Amit
Shah VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 14th September, 2022 ©The Times of
India)

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 VD Savarkar’s language purification project was a precursor to
creating a ‘Hindu language’ VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 31st August,
2020 ©Scroll)
 "Hindi Imperialism": Opposition Slams Amit Shah's National
Language Pitch VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 8th April, 2022 ©NDTV)
 What RSS said about Hindi as a national language 50 years ago VIEW
HERE ⤡ (As reported on 29th June, 2020 ©The Hindustan Times)
This type of bulldozing plurilingual nation state and metamorphosing it as a
monolingual state is nothing but a derivative as well as mimicry of European
imagination of monolingual, monocultural, mono-religious Nation State—
according to the opponents of linguistic imperialism (a la Phllipson, 1992⤡). As
a purvapaksa (opponents’ views), we must first represent them and then nullify
those claims by introducing the concept of monolingual, mono-religious Akhand
Bharat with a view to achieve the Hindu Rastra.
B) PROPAGATORS OF PLURILINGUAL INDIAN STATES
 SC rejects plea to declare Sanskrit as national language VIEW
HERE ⤡ (As reported on 2nd September, 2022 ©The Times of India)
 Linguistic imperialism: BJP pronouncements on promoting Hindi spark
outrage VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 3rd June, 2022 ©The Frontline
 PM: Consider use of local languages in courts, will help access to
justice VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 1st May, 2022 ©The Indian Express)
 PM Modi Backs Regional Languages, Discusses Ways To Solve Delay
In Justice VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 15th October, 2022 ©NDTV)
In this vexed context, as the Hon. PM and the Hon. HM’s views on language
issues are totally different, we are seeking your kind suggestion for maintaining
the Hindu community’s linguistic homogeneity.

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For doing so, we must represent the purvapaksa arguments. Before going to
perform that, we have to share the views of John Abraham Grierson’s dilemma
in demarcating the difference between “language” and “dialect”. Following
Chomsky (Language and Mind, 1968/72 ⤡ ; Syntactic Structures, 1957⤡), it is to
be noted that this difference is merely a socio-political construct and has nothing
to do with structural pattern of languages/dialects as all languages are
biologically created by the species beings—all homo sapiens sapiens can create
and comprehend internalized language per se by their innate algorithm—
infinite sets of sentences out of finite sets of words. This biological endowment
of species-being entails that the concept of ‘classical’ or regional languages is
nothing but social constructs or historical a priori. However, that is another issue
to be discussed elsewhere as we are going to concentrate now on the topic of
arbitrary varieties of Externalized Languages, which are under the control of
socio-political and economic norms. To elaborate this issue, let us cite
from Grierson’s magnum opus, The Linguistic Survey of India VIEW HERE ⤡
“…another difficulty was finding of the local name of a dialect. Just as M.
Jourdian did not know that he had been speaking prose all his life, so the average
Indian villager does not know that he (sic) has been speaking anything with a
name attached to it. He (sic) can always put a name to the dialect spoken by
somebody fifty miles off, but, as for his (sic) own dialect--- ‘O, that has no name.
It is simply correct language’, it thus happens that most dialect names are not
those given by speakers, but those given by neighbours, and are not always
complementary.” (1903:19)
“In the course of survey, it has sometimes been difficult to decide where a given
form of speech is to be looked upon as an independent language, or as a dialect
of some other definite form of speech. In practice it has been found that it is
sometimes impossible to decide the question in a manner which will gain
universal acceptance. The two words ‘language’ and ‘dialect’, are in this respect,
like ‘mountain’ and ‘hill’.” (1903:22)
The difference that disturbed Grierson, the dichotomy of language-dialect, is
nothing but a problem of extra-linguistic politico-administrative categoremes/
order of things/ historical a priori born out of European concept of linguistic
nation state in the context of the Guttenberg revolution, the mimicry of which
is followed still now by the colonized people, who have Black Skin with White
Masks (a la Frantz Fanon, 1952). VIEW HERE ⤡.

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Keeping in mind this fuzzy zones of the arbitrary difference between “language”
and “dialect” (“defeated peripheral” language, within the prison house
of linguistic imperialism⤡, i.e. centre-periphery relationship, the speaker is
captivated), let us look into the the inner domain of Indian plurilingualism with
a little bit of history of language policies under the Raj. Therefore, we have
prepared the following working document for your kind perusal on the
Archaeology of Indian plurilingualism.
We sincerely hope that you will dissolve our embarrassing perplexities.
Thanking you in anticipation,
Yours Obediently,
Dr. Debaprasad Bandyopadhyay
Mrs. Rupa Bandyopadhyay
Mr. Akhar Bandyopadhyay
  
(“For the happiness of the many, for the welfare of the many”)
COPY TO:
1. THE HONOURABLE PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA
2. THE HONOURABLE HOME AFFAIRS MINISTER OF INDIA
3. THE HONOURABLE SARSANGHCHALAK, THE RASHTRIYA
SWAYAMSEVAK SANGH (RSS)
--

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BULLDOZING PLURILINGUALISM
AND
ESTABLISHING THE MONOLINGUAL
NATION-STATE
IN HINDI-HINDU-HINDUSTAN
Debaprasad Bandyopadhyay ⤡
0. INTRODUCTION
It can be roughly said that the ‘historical’ basis of the language
movements or the demands for linguistic identity in India is mainly caused
by a political decision of the British Government in 1837. That is to
introduce different vernacular tongues in administration instead of
Persian or Sanskrit.
One of the crucial differences with Europe and India (as it stands today,
as a well-defined geopolitical area) is that India has the experience of
oppression and exploitation by the deployment of anatomo-bio-politics (a
la Foucault) of deterministic positive science. Keeping in mind such vital
differences, let us explore the “development” of linguistic states following
the Eurocentric paradigm of well-defined territories based on some
modular forms such as language, religion etc.
1. BRIEF ARCHEOLOGY OF THE PLURILINGUALISM: FROM
THE COLONIAL PERIOD TO THE CONTEMPORARY
SCENARIO

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PHASE-I
 At first, when the Europeans came here in India they did not adopt
the policy of intervening in the realm of native culture in spite of the
instigation by the Evangelist religious philosophers. Stokes
(1959⤡) noticed that this was the phase of Mercantile Capitalism. One
could carry on their business without bothering about the construction
and appropriation of the colonized according to the colonizers’ norm.
PHASE-II
 A crucial change occurred in 1793, when the indigenous land was
commercialized by the implementation of the Permanent Settlement
of land, i.e. land was to be measured from the standpoint of
demography. At this time, as Foucault pointed out, State and Statistics
was equated as a part of Bio-politics⤡.
 In 1813, it was decided in the English Parliament that the project of
legitimate control over the native culture should be taken up by
introducing Industrial Capitalism along with Christianity.
 In 1837, it was decided by the British Government to introduce
different vernacular tongues in administration instead of Persian or
Sanskrit.
 At this time and for the first time in India, the language-
consciousness arose with the equation of land and language, both of
which were to be well defined, well determined by erasing the
indeterminacy, fuzziness of boundaries, as it existed before the
introduction of Nation State. (Kaviraj,1992⤡, Chatterjee,
1993⤡, Khuchandani, 1997⤡)
 The concept of Nation State, as Benedict Anderson (1983⤡) pointed
out, is a result of the print capitalistic imagination made available by

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Europe and the Americas. One has to choose and imagine their
community from certain modular forms like language or religion.
 By this derivative imagination (Chatterjee, 1993⤡), the linguistic-
nation-state boundaries are solidified and scheduled in the
Independent Indian constitution. (Khubchandani, 1997⤡)
 The newly evolved language-communities that could afford to
invest in the outputs of the Gutenberg revolution had the privilege to
achieve the prestige of standard language. Cf. The term “standard”
was taken from the vocabulary of industrialized society, where the
concept of prototypical “standard tool” is used. (Bandyopadhyay,
1997⤡)
 Apart from these enlisted 22 official languages in the Eighth
Schedule of the Indian Constitution (there is no ‘national language’ of
India⤡; in the case of all official deliberations, the tribhasha/three
language formula⤡, as formulated in 1968, is used, viz., English, Hindi
or any regional language), there are also “other” privileged languages,
which are included in the list of Sahitya Akademi. There are 100 plus
languages in which newspapers are published; almost 67 languages
are used in primary education; NLM decided to use 80 languages for
promoting literacy; AIR uses 23 languages and 146 dialects for
transmitting or broadcasting its programs1. Apart from that, multi-
lingual community schools have also been initiated in the last decade
of the last century, multi-lingual classrooms are also initiated by the
NCERT. Mainly, it was initiated by a linguist, Ramakant Agnihotri⤡.
 The problems are with the outcasts or marginalized groups who are
not enlisted as “Scheduled language” in the 8th schedule of the Indian
constitution. The question is, are these peripheral linguistic
communities not scheduled?

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 All the deprived linguistic areas outside any of the above lists
(especially out of the eighth schedule of the Indian Constitution) are
all movement-prone zones. They also need their Formal Elaboration of
Social Hierarchy (henceforth FESH; Dasgupta, 1993⤡) and
Sanskritization (Srinivas, 1966⤡) or maintain Sunflower Syndrome
(Singh, 1987) or Sagina Mahato Syndrome2.
 The immediate result is “Drain of Languages". (Bandyopadhyay,
1998⤡) This notion of “Drain of language”, which is analogous to
“Drain of wealth” supplements the notion of “Sunflower Syndrome”.
The case of language-drain, where one selected variety is “developed”
as THE National or standard Language.
 Mediators as language-managers try to encash such discontent by
instigating insurgency depending on the module of language.
 However, as Gandhi and Thakur pointed out, there is an
impenetrable, uncontaminated “inner domain” (for detailed
discussion: (Chatterjee, 1993⤡; Nandy, 1994⤡; Bandyopadhyay,
1998⤡) that preserves its essential character of grassroot plurilingual
ethos in spite of such appropriation from above.
 Therefore we need “planning from below” or decentralized
planning (Bandyopadhyay, 1996a⤡ ), i.e. “no planned planning”
(Khubchandani, 1997⤡) imposed from the above to sustain such
plurilingual ethos. The prescription of Hindi/English monolingualism
can only be supplemented by such plurilingual option. How this can be
implemented in the realm of education as well as in decentralized
politics with the maintenance of relay-network was discussed by
Bandyopadhyay, 1997a⤡, 1997b⤡ and Agnihotri, 1997⤡. As a Post-
Formalist, we do not subscribe to the solidification of language by
resorting to the enumerated monolingual option.

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PHASE-III
 What we have seen under Print Capitalism is the hegemonic
coercive selving of “other” varieties under the one umbrella, viz. Under
the umbrella of Hindi (in fact, khari boli and bazaar Hindustani are
foregrounded to brand a language called Hindi), almost 52 languages
are incorporated (1991 census onwards) ignoring the question of
Linguistic Human Right as proposed by UNO. The UN International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted by the UN General
Assembly in 1966 makes international law provision for protection of
minorities. Article 27 states that individuals of linguistic minorities
cannot be denied the right to use their own language. ⤡
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or
Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities was adopted by the UN
General Assembly in 1992. Article 4 makes "certain modest obligations
on states". It states that states should provide individuals belonging to
minority groups with sufficient opportunities for education in their
mother tongue (Bandyopadhyay, 2001⤡), or instruction with their
mother tongue as the medium of instruction.
 However, now we are witnessing a gradual switch over from Print
Capitalism to Electronic Capitalism (Bandyopadhyay, 1998b⤡), in
which the plea for the Linguistic Human Right for every decentralized
unit is sanctioned by the multinationals, if not by the Government of
India in the domain of mass media as it would be helpful to penetrate
the “inner domain” as well as to enhance the globalized market
economy.
 Thus “localization in globalization” (Bandyopadhyay, 1998b⤡; See
also Bandyopadhyay, 2006⤡) is possible according to the motto of
Post-Industrial society (Daniel Bell, 1999 ⤡), where non-standardized
non-prototypical commodities are produced according the demand of
local markets (Non-Fordian production) by deploying computerized
workshop-based non-Taylorian division of labour.

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2. THE INNER DOMAIN OF INDIAN PLURILINGUALISM
In the Sanskrit drama, it is found that Dusmanta and Sakuntala continued
their loving communication in spite of their language-difference. It is also
to be noted that, in spite of at least five or six varieties used in the drama,
the audience still enjoyed the message of the dramatic performance. In
this connection, Prof. Ramakrishna Reddy gave an example from his own
experience (personal correspondence). In his native remote village in
Andhra Pradesh, adjacent to Tamil Nadu, the farmer speaks in Tamil, the
landowner speaks in Telugu, and no one bothers about their language-
identity. My own experience is also the same in Kuppam, a hamlet of
Andhra Pradesh, where the Dravidian University is situated. People are
carrying this plurilingual ethos without spending a single paise. This may
be referred to as the shadow economics of plurilingualism.
Apart from this FESH (Formal Elaboration of Social Hierarchy)-ified desire
to be like 'the other', i.e. the mediator’s domain, there is an inner domain,
which I did not explain. What is the "inner domain" (as termed by Partha
Chatterjee op cit.) or "hidden self" (as termed by Ashis Nandy op cit.) of
Indianness? Is it not an instance of essentialism?
To explain the concept of an impenetrable inner domain of the
geopolitical boundary of India, we need to understand a special reading
of our History. Rabindranath Thakur noticed long ago that despite the
repeated attack and counter-attack by the superordinates, the so-called
"little tradition" of India preserved its essential character. Let us
understand this essential undisturbed inner domain of Indian
plurilingualism that cannot be compared with the European experience of
solidified monolingual state.
D.P. Pattanayak⤡ observed, "If one draws a straight line between
Kashmir and Kanyakumari and marks, say, every five or ten miles, then
one will find that there is no break in communication in any two

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consecutive points of the scale. The communication disrupts only when the
gaps are larger.”
However, the problem is excellently managed, as apart from the
uninterrupted in-group communication, people innovate unique
Language for Wider communication (LWC) for out-group interaction.
Some of these languages are pidgins (in contemporary linguistics, such
pejorative terms are not used) like Nagamese, Sadari, Halabi etc. And
some are regionally marked out group languages like Assamese, Tamil,
Oriya, Kannada, Marathi etc., and some other are languages of diffusion
belt (Gujarati, Malayalam, Bangla, Punjabi, Telugu etc. cf. Srivastava,
1983).3
To understand this state of affairs, I want to cite an encouraging example
given by P.B. Pandit (1975) ⤡. A Gujarathi Businessman (spice-merchant)
who speaks kacchi apart from his mother-tongue and uses a variation of
Marathi to converse with veg-sellers who have migrated from Kolaba
region; he seldom reads newspapers in English; he goes to see Hindi films
with his family; to converse with the Anglo-Indian Suburban Railway
employees, he switches over to Bazaar Hindustani or a typical mixed
Hindi; last of all, he uses Konkani, Gujarati and Marathi for his own
business purpose. U. N. Singh (op cit.) also mentioned the same type of
speech habit of a Rajput in Medieval India. This Rajput spoke Harauti in
his domestic environment; educated himself in Sanskrit for religious
purpose; he switched over to Brajabhakha for writing poetry and went
through philosophy in Prakrt.
The question is: Are all these unique phenomena of a polyglot or is it
applicable to all the inhabitants of South-East Asia?
Ignoring this type of spontaneous grassroots plurilingualism with
immense scope of convergence, Indian Administration is now trying to
solidify monolinguistic states, though Historians like Sudipto Kaviraj, (op
cit.) Partha Chatterji (op cit.), and linguists like L. M. Khubchandani (op

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cit.) pointed out the many indeterminacies and fuzziness in our national
geo-political boundaries due to the synergy of mutuality of
understanding.
If this is the case of the Indian (rather to say, “South-East Asian”)
plurilingual reality, how can we successfully execute monolingual state by
imposing/introducing H/Archaic (i.e., Sanskrit) or/and Hindi, which itself
is a politico-administrative umbrella term for almost 52 apparently
perceptible linguistic varieties (tukre tukre gangs of native speakers).
APPENDIX
Against Speed Capitalist Communication Logistics: Mahatma
Gandhi’s (1915) Views:
“Reader: Very well, then. I shall hear you on the railways.
Editor: It must be manifest to you that, but for the railways, the English could
not have such a hold on India as they have. The railways, too, have spread the
bubonic plague. Without them, the masses could not move from place to place.
They are the carriers of plague germs. Formerly we had natural segregation.
Railways have also increased the frequency of famines because, owing to facility
of means of locomotion, people sell out their grain and it is sent to the dearest
markets. People become careless and so the pressure of famine increases.
Railways accentuate the evil nature of man: Bad men fulfil their evil designs with
greater rapidity. The holy places of India have become unholy. Formerly, people
went to these places with very great difficulty. Generally, therefore, only the real
devotees visited such places. Nowadays rogues visit them in order to practise
their roguery.
Reader: You have given a one-sided account. Good men can visit these places as
well as bad men. Why do they not take the fullest advantage of the railways?
Editor: Good travels at a snail's pace - it can, therefore, have little to do with the
railways. Those who want to do good are not selfish, they are not in a hurry,
they know that to impregnate people with good requires a long time. But evil
has wings. To build a house takes time. Its destruction takes none. So the
railways can become a distributing agency for the evil one only. It may be a
debatable matter whether railways spread famines, but it is beyond dispute that
they propagate evil.

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Reader: Be that as it may, all the disadvantages of railways are more than
counterbalanced by the fact that it is due to them that we see in India the new
spirit of nationalism.
Editor: I hold this to be a mistake. The English have taught us that we were not
one nation before and that it will require centuries before we become one
nation. This is without foundation. We were one nation before they came to
India. One thought inspired us. Our mode of life was the same. It was because
we were one nation that they were able to establish one kingdom. Subsequently
they divided us.
Reader: This requires an explanation.
Editor: I do not wish to suggest that because we were one nation we had no
differences, but it is submitted that our leading men travelled throughout India
either on foot or in bullock-carts. They learned one another's languages and
there was no aloofness between them. What do you think could have been the
intention of those farseeing ancestors of ours who established Setubandha
(Rameshwar) in the South, Jagannath in the East and Hardwar in the North as
places of pilgrimage? You will admit they were no fools. They knew that worship
of God could have been performed just as well at home. They taught us that
those whose hearts were aglow with righteousness had the Ganges in their own
homes. But they saw that India was one undivided land so made by nature. They,
therefore, argued that it must be one nation. Arguing thus, they established holy
places in various parts of India, and fired the people with an idea of nationality
in a manner unknown in other parts of the world. And we Indians are one as no
two Englishmen are. Only you and I and others who consider ourselves civilized
and superior persons imagine that we are many nations. It was after the advent
of railways that we began to believe in distinctions, and you are at liberty now
to say that it is through the railways that we are beginning to abolish those
distinctions. An opium-eater may argue the advantage of opium-eating from the
fact that he began to understand the evil of the opium habit after having eaten
it. I would ask you to consider well what I had said on the railways.”
-- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi,
Chapter 9, Hind Swaraj (1915⤡)
Though, we are not subscribing to Gandhi's view on the pre-existence of nation-
state in this territory; however, we are ready to subscribe to the negation of
fossil-fuel-dependent anti-green super-speedy logistics in the midst of the

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climate crisis. Padayatra is far more important to build horizontal mutual
intelligibility in communication.
(For detailed discussion, cf. The Pre-Colonial Imagined
Boundaries VIEW HERE⤡)
However, our appeal is to deploy the metaphoric bulldozer to erase each and
every type of plurality. This is nothing but a linguistic terrorism⤡!
ENDNOTES
1. D. P. Pattanayak told the author (personal correspondence) an excellent
narrative of Johnny Walker’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Convocation
Lecture.
Walker jokingly said that in the Akashvani, it is not the declaration ‘Radio Mein
Hindi Suniye’ (Listen Hindi in Radio), rather, ‘Hindi mein Radio Suniye’ (Listen
Radio in Hindi).
2. Singh, U.N. 1987. “On Some Issues in Indian Multilingualism” in Singh, U.N.
and Srivastava, R.N. ed. Perspective in Language Planning (pp. 153-165).
Kolkata: Mithila Darsan.
Singh, U.N. 1990. “bohubacOnik bhaSaporikOlpona”. “Pluralistic Language
Planning”. Jijnasa, Vol. XI: 3. (pp. 302-317)
Singh, U.N. 1992. On Language Development and Planning: A Pluralistic
Paradigm. New Delhi: M.M. Pub.
 Sagina Mahato is a story of a factory worker, written by Gour Kishore
Ghosh, in 1969. Sagina, as a popular leader of the workers, was
selected by the then Communist Party to become an official,
bureaucratic leader of the workers. This socio-economic upliftment
alienated him from the workers’ lived experiences. This type of FESH
disrupted the workers’ movement. At the end of the story, he was
murdered (or committed suicide) for not being a participant of the
grassroots workers’ movement. This kind of FESH or Sanskritization is
metaphorically referred to as “Sagina Mahato Syndrome”. This story
was adopted into a bilingual film by Tapan Sinha in the year
1970⤡. One song (Lyricist: Majrooh Sultanpuri; Composer: S.D.
Burman; Singers: Kishore Kumar, Pankaj Mitra) from this movie can

17
depict the entire syndrome: “Sala Mein to Sahaab Ban Gaya” ⤡. The
first few lines of this song reads:
“Hey fucker: I have become a sahib!
See how dashing I look,
Look at my suit
Gaze at my boot,
As if I have become a white-skinned Londoner!”
3. Srivastava, R.N. 1983. The Communication Role of ‘Out-Group’ Languages
of India. Indian Journal of Linguistics. Vol. X. (pp. 89-98)
SEE ALSO:
 LANGUAGE MOVEMENTS