An Idiom for India

Lahiri, Madhumita

doi:10.1080/1369801x.2014.994545

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 8 publications

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“…2 A concerted political effort that promoted the principles of self-sufficiency and indigeneity, known as the Swadeshi movement, had taken hold by the 1910s, in the wake of which "Hindi" became an increasingly popular choice for "national language". This "Hindi" however was essentializing and ambiguous as a tag, and referred less to the language as it was used and more to a mythologized version with a glorious past and idealized present, and strong Hindu proclivities (King 1994;King 2001;Dalmia 2003;LaDousa 2007;Ahmad 2008;Lahiri 2016). English too was considered in the ongoing discussions due to its status as the inter-regional link language of the educated classes, but it was only occasionally endorsed because of how foreign it was to the largely unlettered masses.…”

Section: Complex Politics Of Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Language of power or “fringe language”?: English in postcolonial India, 1946–1968

Bharadwaj¹

2017

International Journal of the Sociology of Language

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India’s “official language controversy” spanned over two decades from 1946 to 1967, during which the proposal to replace English with Hindi met with resistance from various quarters. However, the inter-regional ethno-linguistic politics of India came together with the developmental vision for an industrialized postcolonial democracy to ensure its validation and continuance in as a co-official language of the republic. My analysis identifies a widespread perception, among supporters as well as detractors of English in India at the time, that the “international”/“foreign” credentials of the language made it an instrument of change across various regional, religious, caste, class, and ethnic communities. The language came to be reframed during this period due to the coming together of India’s colonial past and its distinct regional and community histories with the views of leading public figures. Perhaps most surprising, however, is the complex part played by a “hybrid” minority constituency in public debate: the mixed race Anglo-Indian community, in dissociating from the former “home” country of England re-defined itself and its relationship with the new republic, and ultimately served as a catalyst in reframing the language as not merely international or colonial, but as Indian.

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Section: Complex Politics Of Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Language of power or “fringe language”?: English in postcolonial India, 1946–1968

Bharadwaj¹

2017

International Journal of the Sociology of Language

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Songs by Ballot: Binaca Geetmala and the Making of a Hindi Film-Song Radio Audience, 1952–1994

Alonso¹

2022

BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies

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Binaca Geetmala was a weekly countdown or hit parade radio programme that ranked Hindi film songs by order of popularity, first based on listeners’ requests and later on record sales. The programme aired from 1952 until 1994 and is arguably one of the longest lasting and most influential radio programmes in the world. Drawing on a variety of sources, including listeners’ diaries, correspondence from listener radio clubs and interviews with broadcasters and devoted listeners, I trace Geetmala’s four-decade ‘melodious journey’, charting the programme’s central role in making Hindi film songs – the leading popular music in the Indian subcontinent. I make two interrelated arguments. First, I argue that through its popularity charts, Geetmala cultivated an understanding of Hindi film songs as ‘the music of the common people’ and made partaking in film song’s so-called ‘commonness’ the very attraction of the programme. Here, I consider how this fascination with ‘commonness’, with measuring popularity, and with individuals’ participation in the process, relates to the larger political culture of independent India’s first decades, including the experience of universal suffrage. Second, I argue that by encouraging alertness to ever-changing popularity lists and by developing specific terminology, Geetmala effectively transformed ordinary radio listeners into discerning Hindi film-song experts.

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Print for the People: Tagore, China, and the Bengali Vernacular

Lahiri

2018

Comparative Literature

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Whereas most modern South Asian vernacular literatures emerged in concert with nationalism, Tagore moved Bengali literature to its contemporary colloquial form even as he became ever more critical of Indian nationalism. This essay follows Tagore’s anti-nationalist and pan-Asianist predilections, considering his transformations of Bengali towards an increasingly vernacular literature in concert with those of Chinese literature. The essay focuses on Tagore’s 1901 story “Nastanirh,” known in translation as “The Broken Nest,” and contextualizes it within Tagore’s Bengali writings on Bengali literature. These writings are framed with respect to Tagore’s Anglophone ruminations on language while in China, as well as his interactions with Chinese linguistic reformers such as Hu Shi. Tagore’s 1917 dichotomy between the language of books (পুঁথির ভাষা) and that of speech (মুখের ভাষা) maps intriguingly onto early twentieth-century Chinese vernacularization debates and offers a transnational method for the study of vernacularization that decenters European models.

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An Idiom for India

Cited by 5 publications

References 8 publications

Language of power or “fringe language”?: English in postcolonial India, 1946–1968

Language of power or “fringe language”?: English in postcolonial India, 1946–1968

Songs by Ballot: Binaca Geetmala and the Making of a Hindi Film-Song Radio Audience, 1952–1994

Print for the People: Tagore, China, and the Bengali Vernacular

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