Author: Alok Rai
Publisher: Orient Longman
Year: 2001
Language: English
Pages: 138
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8125019790
Description
This tract looks at the politics of language in India through a study of the history of one language - Hindi. It traces the tragic metamorphosis of this language over the last century, from a creative, dynamic, popular language to a dead, Sanskritised, depersianised language.
This work shows how this transformation of the language was tied up with the politics of communalism and regionalism. Rai seeks to save Hindi from the politics of Hindi nationalism. If Hindi has to realize its inner potential and become a national language of communication, argues Rai, then it has to emancipate itself from its own repressed history. It can only do this through a critical return to its troubled past. In returning to that past, Rai hopes to create the possibilities of a new future.
This is a powerful tract, written with emotion and passion, sparkling with wit and ideas. It persuades us to rethink the questions of National Language, and reflect on the tangled links between language, identity and politics.