Language has become a recurring issue in Indian politics — be it the debates over language policy under the NEP (National Education Policy), speeches on Hindi Diwas or the recent renaming of primary school English-medium textbooks in Hindi by the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT). The renaming of NCERT textbooks has been criticised by the Kerala education minister, who called it “sabotaging the linguistic diversity of our country”. The NCERT, however, justified its actions, saying that the new names of the books are taken from Indian ragas and musical instruments like Sarangi, Poorvi, Mridang — aligning with Indian culture. On the face of it, one may ask: What’s in a name? If the curriculum being taught is in the English language, which the students have opted for, then what is the issue?
German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer remarked that one cannot separate language from thoughts and understanding. Names define our identities. To speak is to translate thoughts into words, culture into language. Hermeneutic philosophy understands language as dialogical, continuously developing through interaction. This perspective cannot be reduced to information transmission. Rather, it emphasises the importance of dialogue, a central element of Indian philosophical traditions of Darsana and Mimansa, which thrive on critique and commentary.
So, keeping the Indian tradition of discourse and argumentation in mind, we must promote cooperative federalism and benefit from the rich multilingual resources. All Indian languages — whether of Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, Austro-Asian, or Tibeto-Burman origin — are a repository of knowledge. Linguistic diversity has always been a defining feature of our democracy. The Constituent Assembly debates are a testimony to the long discussions and deliberations for safeguarding the pluralistic features of Indian society, even in the face of a partition on religious grounds. Federal principles were enshrined in the Constitution to promote and preserve the multilingual-multicultural ethos — a departure from the Western model of a nation-state, wherein the dominant language sets the norm. India set an example for other linguistically plural states to adopt an alternative model that celebrates cultural-linguistic diversity.
Thus, “unity in diversity” became the foundational mantra of the Indian Constitution. In fact, India proved Western predictions – that Indian democracy was deemed to fail – wrong by adopting the policy of federal power-sharing. Moreover, since the days of coalition politics, India has experienced stronger federal relationships that accommodate diverse views.
Like Spain, Croatia, Nigeria, South Africa, Wales, Canada and recently the US, India too, faced contests over language. It took years of policymaking, negotiations, conflict management, strategic plans and compromises to maintain peace. Constitutional distribution of power between the Centre and states, linguistic reorganisation of the states, fulfilling various demands for state-formation based on cultural-linguistic uniqueness, inclusion of the fifth and sixth Schedules to protect the rights of indigenous communities, the three-language formula, mother-tongue education, along with single citizenship and a unified judiciary, all were designed to keep India together.
All these efforts made multilingualism the backbone of our democracy. Now, it is being tapped by international companies to build large language models. Rather than disturbing our linguistic harmony by renaming textbooks, we need to strengthen intra-state ties, especially with respect to the Opposition-ruled ones, if we want to flourish in the field of artificial intelligence, which feeds on the multiplicity of languages. While it is debatable whether India’s federalism has fared well, the fact that it has survived so far with all its flaws shows that the accommodation of diversity has worked better than forced assimilation. We must learn from our own past.
The writer teaches Political Science at JNU
