Nation Building: India

The language issue was addressed as soon as the country gained independence.

In 1921, the Indian National Congress reorganized its provincial units along linguistic lines. India's adminsistrative divisions at independence were based on British colonial (and to lesser extent Mughal) princely states, and seemingly arbitrary organizations.

The INC had the overwhelming majority in India's first constituent assemblies which framed India's Constitution. The Constitution was written in English. A Hindi version was only authorized in 1987. Conflicts between the two are to be resolved in favor of the English version.

Since Hindi was only spoken by 40% of the population, English continued to be used.

1950s Tamil separtist movement, not very violent, leaders soon joined government.1 Tamil Nadu rebellion in 1965 over forcing Hindi to be national language. English as secondary language was approved in 1967, the original plan was to have it phased out.

"Equally interesting was the preindependence nationalist movement's recognition of autonomy rights for language communities within a democratic federal constitutional system."2

The idea of organizing the entire territory into regional communities based on cultural identity and solidarity -- mostly expressed in terms of language -- seemed to make eminent sense in most parts of India with a territorial concentration of population associated with the major languages. Each of these regional language areas, however, also contained large minorities, some of which were connected to majorities in other states. In some small states, the population was highly fragmented in terms of language identity, but cultural ties or tribal affinity could be expected to offer some sort of base for political unity. In other words, even assuming all the reasonableness of language or cultural ties as a basis for forming autonomous communities, some significant ambiguities persisted. Despite the popularity of cultural autonomy claims, and the justifications advanced by cultural activists, such claims were rarely judged in terms of the problems of hegemonic domination and homogenizing propensities of the dominant groups.

States Created For Language Minorities

The States of Andhra, Maharashtra(by 1960), Gujarat(by 1960), Punjab(1966), Haryana (1966) were created based on these linguistic principles. Three more states were created in 2000, and it is not clear the process is over.3 The Great State of Jammu and Kashmir speaks Urdu officially, although only 1% of the population speaks that language, and 53% speak Kashmiri.4 These two states had been combined earlier to dilute the Muslim majority in Kashmir, which has now returned.

Internal Violence and Secession Movements

In Assam, using extensive violence, a movement forced Assamese as the only official language, alienating a large Bengali-speaking minority. The tribal communities in the hills of Assam have become States.5 In India, probably because of their conciliatory linguistic policies, the major internal insurgencies (Nagaland, Mizoram, Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir), although having a linguistic element, were "careful concoctions of elements of disaffection based on ethnicity, religion, territorial affinity, cultural distinctiveness, and language."6 Only the Kashmiri secession movement had a more than trivial language component, much more of a religious issue there.7