When India invited representatives to the G20 summit in September 2023 for dinner, “President Bharat”, rather than “President of India”, which may appear to the world to be a simple case of post-colonial course correction.
After all, the word “India” is loanword ——Place names given by outsiders. In this case, the name comes from the British who ruled the subcontinent from 1858 to 1947, violent period of colonialism It later became known as “British rule”.
On the other hand, “Bharat” means “India” in Hindi so far The most spoken language in the country.Along with English, Hindi is one of the two languages spoken in India constitution of indiaas well as versions in each language.
Therefore, “Bharat” may appear to be a reasonable and non-controversial alternative to the term designated long ago by outsiders – similar to how In Swat, Zimbabwe and Burkina Faso The country names of the colonial names “Swaziland”, “Rhodesia” and “Upper Volta” were updated respectively.
But the use of “Bharat” caused outcry Protests by political opponents from the south, some Muslims and Hindu conservatives, reflect ongoing tensions between language, religion and politics in India.
two different language families
My book with linguists Julie Teitel Andresen“Languages in the World: How History, Culture and Politics Shape Language,” covers the linguistic history and politics of India.
Hindi is the most spoken language in India, but its use is largely restricted to a certain region of the country, which linguists refer to as “hindi belt”, a vast region in northern, central and eastern India where Hindi is the official or main language.
Around 1500 B.C., a group of outsiders from Central Asia—now known as Indo-Aryans – began migrating and settling in what is now northern India.The language they spoke eventually became Sanskrit. As these groups of speakers separated from each other and dispersed across northern India, the Sanskrit they spoke changed over time and became unique.
Most of the languages spoken in northern India today—Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, and Gujarati, among others—have their roots in this history.
But the Aryans were not the first people to inhabit the Indian subcontinent. Another group, the Dravidians, were already living in the area at the time of the Aryan migrations.they may have been The original inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization in northern India. Over thousands of years, the Dravidians migrated to the south of the subcontinent, while the Aryans fanned out across the north.
Today, the Dravidian number About 250 million people. Dravidian languageFor example tamil, telugu and Malayalamhave no historical relationship and bear few linguistic similarities to the Indo-Aryan languages of the north.
Dravidians reject Hindi
By the end of Indian rule in 1947, English had become the language of the elite and was used in education and government. As the new nation of India came into being, Mahatma Gandhi advocated the use of a single Indian language to unite the disparate regions and for many years advocated for Hindi, This sentence has been widely circulated in the north.
But after independence, opposition to Hindi grew in the Dravidian-speaking south, where English is the most popular lingua franca.For Tamils and other Dravidian groups, Hindi is associated with the Brahmin caste and many believe Marginalized Dravidian Languages and Cultures.
To many southerners, Hindi is viewed as a foreign language like English.To prevent tensions from spreading, India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, supported the language in the constitution adopted in 1950 Allow the government to continue to use English For a limited time.
In the South, however, violence has persisted for years around areas considered “peaceful”. unfair promotion of hindi. Only when Indira Gandhi, Nehru’s daughter and India’s third Prime Minister— Promote English codificationAlong with Hindi, it became an official language in the constitution.
Today, the Constitution of India Recognizes 22 official languages.
Nationalists push for an official language
Partition of India in 1947 — corresponding to the breakup of British India — led to the creation of Pakistan, which was created to bring together the majority Muslim areas of the colonial state. An independent India was created, including most non-Muslim areas.
Today, roughly 97% of Pakistan’s population is Muslim.In India, Hindus account for about 80% of the population, and Muslims account for about 14% – More than 200 million people.
This is where modern domestic politics comes into play.
“hinduism” is a brand of far-right Hindu nationalism that emerged in the 20th century in response to colonial rule, but in Prime Minister Modi and his bjpor the Bharatiya Janata Party.
As a political ideology, Hindu nationalism should be distinguished from Hinduism as a religion.It proposes ideas aimed at promoting Hindu hegemony and Widely considered anti-Muslim.
such a policy is to promote Hindi as the only official language of India. Speaking at a meeting of the Parliament’s Official Languages Committee in 2022, Bharatiya Janata Party Home Minister Amit Shah said”, “When citizens of various countries speak other languages and communicate with each other, Indian languages should be used. “
For Shah, “the language of India” and Hindi were one and the same.
suppress urdu
Muslims in India speak the languages of their community (which includes Hindi), as do Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Christians.
However, making Hindi the national language may be seen as part of a wider political project that could be characterized as anti-Muslim. This is why the political opposition opposes the use of "barat,” even though many Muslims are themselves Hindi speakers.
These politics become clearer in the context of the BJP’s attempts Limit the use of Urdu – a height mutual intelligibility Hindi- in indian public life.
Although Urdu and Hindi are very similar, their differences have immense religious and ethnic significance.
Hindi is written in Devanagari script and has strong cultural ties to Hinduism, while Urdu is written in Persian Arabic and has strong ties to Islam. Hindi borrowed from Sanskrit to create new words, while Urdu borrowed from Persian and Arabic to re-emphasize its connection with Islam. Although Hindi is dominant in India, Urdu is the official language of Pakistanand English.
The presence of “Bharat” in official government correspondence is therefore likely to reopen old wounds for Muslims, even for conservative Hindus in southern Dravidian parts of the country who might otherwise support Modi and the BJP.
While an official name change is unlikely in the near future, “Bharat” is likely to continue to be a rallying cry for right-wing nationalists.
For them, the politics of reconciliation language of Nehru and Indira Gandhi has become a thing of the past.
Philip M. Carter is a professor of linguistics and English, florida international university.
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