Language as a Tool of Minority Politics: Urdu, in Bihar, India, 1951–1989

Sajjad, Mohammad

doi:10.1080/13602004.2014.911970

Cited by 3 publications

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“…Thus, Mohammad Sajjad has noted the role of Muslim politics of making Urdu as a second official language 29 of Bihar and its connectivity with public opportunity structure as well as of Bihar government's policy of bringing more and more lower caste Muslim groups within the ambit of government's reservation policies in facilitating the formation of a middle class within the Muslim community. 30 The oil boom of 1970s in the Gulf tremendously helped in expanding the export market of these lower caste Muslim entrepreneurs. Gradually along with children of Ashraf (upper caste Muslims), they began to participate in the domain of higher education that resulted in producing doctors, engineers and other professionals.…”

Section: Formation Of Muslim Middle Class In North Indiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Emergence of Muslim Middle Class in Post-Independence India and its Political Orientations

Alam¹

2015

Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs

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This paper attempts to understand the process of formation of middle class in the Muslim community of India since independence and its emerging political orientations. It questions the popular, rhetorical but hegemonic discourses that tend to portray the "perpetual underdevelopment and dalitinization of the Muslim community" and argues that section of the Muslim community, despite obstacles and challenges, like any other community, has been beneficiary of India's economic growth over the years. While reflecting on the process of formation of Muslim middle class in post-colonial period in India, the paper takes a differentiated view of community, identifies the social and regional variations of formation of Muslim middle class and highlights its main aspirations and orientation and its relationship with the dominant (Hindu) middle class and the Indian state.

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Section: Formation Of Muslim Middle Class In North Indiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Emergence of Muslim Middle Class in Post-Independence India and its Political Orientations

Alam¹

2015

Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs

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“…The division of the Indian union into different states was done largely on the basis of regional languages. Language as a political tool has dominated its perceptions and usage in the Indian society [2,3]. As a corollary of this domination of political significance, certain other aspects of the languages of India have received scant attention, more so in the academia, with only a few notable and relatively recent exceptions.…”

Section: Opinionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whither those Unheard Voices? Neglected Languages of India

Chithrangathan

2018

GJAA

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Linguistic minorities and strategic mobilisation in eastern India: Bengali-Biharis during the era of linguistic territorialism (1935–57)

Bhattacharya

2023

The Indian Economic & Social History Review

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This article analyses how linguistic minorities in the province of Bihar navigated the era of linguistic territorialism, when mainstream political organisations and figures within India largely agreed that specific linguistic communities ‘belonged’ in particular regions. Indian scholarship has tended to focus on the mechanisms that brought about the linguistic reorganisation of states in India, therefore, concentrating largely on the ways in which territory and language became intrinsically connected. This article will examine the link of language and belonging with regard to a ‘community’, which demanded that states remain linguistically and culturally heterogenous. It focuses on the section of Biharis that identified Bengali as their ‘mother-tongue’ and tracks the transformation of Bengali politics within the province/state during the transition from colonial rule to independence. It explores the ways in which narratives of historical Bengali settlement were deployed for different reasons across this period, and argues that Bengalis in Bihar conceptualised the ordering of the Indian nation in a way that was inherently different from mainstream understandings of how the country should be ordered during this period. Bengali-Bihari figures and publications deployed rhetoric that attached much greater value to territorial belonging than to linguistic or cultural belonging. This article demonstrates that contrary to common assumptions, there were large groups of people who conceptualised India not just as a linguistically heterogenous nation, but one that consisted of linguistically heterogenous states that protected minority linguistic communities.

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Language as a Tool of Minority Politics: Urdu, in Bihar, India, 1951–1989

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Emergence of Muslim Middle Class in Post-Independence India and its Political Orientations

Emergence of Muslim Middle Class in Post-Independence India and its Political Orientations

Whither those Unheard Voices? Neglected Languages of India

Linguistic minorities and strategic mobilisation in eastern India: Bengali-Biharis during the era of linguistic territorialism (1935–57)

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