Recently Amit Shah, the home minister brought up the issue of Hindi to act as a link language among people speaking different languages in states. There was also a discussion in social media between Kannada actor Sudeep and Bollywood actor Ajay Devgan. The point made by Ajay Devgan was that Hindi is a national language implying (though un-stated) that it[Read More...]
These days there is a lot of enthusiasm in progressive liberal circles about the powerful presence of dissent in Indian traditional thought.Accompanied by head-shaking about the pernicious effect of Anglophilia and dominance of the Engish language in academic circles. Inordinately nettled at the saffron camp’s repression of liberal thinking in the name of pristine Indian tradition and at its hostile[Read More...]
When the British ordered the exclusive use of the Nagari script in school in 1880 to meet a Hindu demand in the state of Bihar, the Muslims howled. The Hindi-Urdu duel in the end exploded into Hindu-Muslim war. In free India, Hindi gained the national stature as a symbol of Hindu pride and spread nationwide like wildfire, partly thanks to[Read More...]
Pankaj Pushkar in conversation with Pramod Ranjan Pankaj Pushar: What has been your relationship with languages during your educational journey? How do you relate to different languages? Which language(s) do you use in your different activities? Pramod Ranjan: I was born into a family which spoke the Magahi language. I spent my childhood at my maternal grandparents’ place. My Nana’s[Read More...]
Scientific pursuit, struggles in the arena of production, and class-war making language dynamic and rich is related to the issues of the world around – nature and processes in nature, dialectics, basis and super structures and relation between these, power and powerlessness, class and class struggle. Whatever individual contribution in the universe of language is made, it’s ultimately the product[Read More...]
On the eve of February 21, International Mother Language Day, the afternoon was sunny, windless and frozen. The sun came up after a two-day winter snow storm. The snow was melting and I bundled up and decided to walk along the trails in my neighborhood to get a few minutes of sun. Above me the sunlight was pouring its yellow light[Read More...]
It was only from the year I was in Class 3 that we finally settled in Delhi. In the few years before that I had lived in many places in India and outside, like Ferozepur, Kartarpur, Yol Camp (Dharamshala), Boston and Kanpur, depending on where my father was studying, posted or teaching. My School vacations would usually be spent in[Read More...]
