#167 Sare Jahan Se Achha..

Programming Note: Anticipating The Unintended will be on a 3 week break. We will send you select pieces from our archives during this period. Normal service will resume from May 15. <br/><br/>India Policy Watch #1: Hindi Hain Hum...<br/><br/>Insights on burning policy issues in India<br/><br/>- RSJ<br/><br/>There&#8217;s that oft-quoted line of sociolinguist Max Weinreich that goes &#8216;a language is a dialect with an army and navy&#8217;. Like many facetious remarks, it isn&#8217;t scientific, but it sounds great. Also, there&#8217;s a kernel of truth in it. The only reason a particular dialect races ahead of others and transcends a threshold to turn into a language is when it is backed by political patronage and the power of the state. Examples abound.<br/><br/>The version of Hindi that&#8217;s official in India today, for instance, wasn&#8217;t the kind that was spoken by anyone even two hundred years ago. Many in India find this hard to believe. But it isn&#8217;t too difficult to prove. Read any text or literature that was popular in north India before the 19th century, and you will find the language bears no similarity to the official Hindi of today. The great texts of 16th century India will help you with this. Ramacharitmanas by Tulsidas was written in Awadhi, Surdas used Brij bhasha and Guru Granth Sahib is an eclectic mix of languages ranging from Sindhi, Lahnda, Persian and Brij bhasha. The first works that bear a strong resemblance to the Hindi of today appeared in 1870-80s when Bharatendu sought to popularise a combination of Awadhi and Brij with a generous sprinkling of tatsam words from Sanskrit while stripping away the Urdu words. This project gained political support in the late 19th century when there was Hindu revivalism in the air. The decimation of the Mughal empire was complete and with it went the state patronage of Farsi and Urdu. There was desire then to find a purified version of the Hindustani language that preceded the Delhi Sultanate. Bharatendu filled this gap and his efforts were