Reviving India’s Forgotten Languages: Heritage, Identity and Revival

     Often, the power of sociolinguistics is ignored by many sociologists and other social forces, and it seems like politics is one of the forces that has been ignoring the power of language. While India is grappling with the problem of language segregation, we need to look for the historical ties of the language problem. Since time immemorial, we have been communicating with each other through many bridge languages, and there has been no lingua franca of the nation. The story starts when there were 16 Mahajanapadas. Where each Janapada had good diplomatic and business ties with each other and made sure that they made good trade and flourished together, the pertinent question that we are interested in is how they achieved this. The language wars today force us to revisit the older times, how the Indian community from Attock to Cuttack?

During the older times when the Mahajanapadas were active in trade, the trend of being multilingual was very common among the general populace of that time, even the king Krishnadevaraya was a multilinguistic/polyglot who spoke and had a working knowledge of many languages like Telugu, Kannada, Tamil etc. which says a lot about the language of the past and the way the kingdoms of the past conducted business across the length and breadth of the country, even during the flourishing Maratha and Gupta empire the trend to use multiple languages and keeping official translators was very prominent among the merchant class of the day. While the language dominance started from Maharashtra, among whom the beloved Raje Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was also a polyglot [1]. So, what seems to be a problem today when their icons whom the youth of India, today consider as their heroes, but somehow now they defiantly oppose and want to make sure that everyone speaks their language on the border of their state? Well, this has nothing to do with the culture but everything to do with the economic opportunity and prosperity of the nation.

Any language can become the lingua franca of the time, provided that there is an economic incentive in doing so. Today, English has become the de facto lingua franca of the time as maximum number or opportunity are with English and there seems to be a bias towards people who can read, write speak and understand the language very well, having said that, English slowly became the prime language of the globe partly because of the inquisitions, conquests and the brutal raj and partly because it was a common language everyone understood and spoke over time. The same goes with other languages, which i Hindi in this context. The opposition of the language comes because of the simple fact that the local populace of today seems to have equated the use of a language with the usurpation of their economic benefits. Let’s elaborate on that idea.

Heart of the conflict

               Let’s say that there are 2 people,, A and B, both are equally skilled and competent, bu, one knows English very well, for ease of understanding,, let’s say he speaks the so called Tharoorian English, while the other is very well acquainted in his local language of the region. Who do you think will get the job?... Well, both might get the job, but for sure the Tharoorian English chap has a better chance of attracting the global clientele, hence he might end up getting a better package. On the other hand, B might get a less valued clientele with a less aggregate package. Because of this, B gets offended and feels cheated and cries that his local identity has been affected, which later on struck a chord with the other such people who had undergone the same things, as this is a common phenomenon across the city/state. So, there is a class that has emerged that now believes that anyone who comes to their state ought to know their language and speak it. This stops the mass migration of high-skilled workers from all over the country; hence, leaving the company with has smaller pool to choose from. And among the available pool, the best available local resource would be recruited, which leaves a very competitive pool for companies. Leaving the company with a less competitive workforce that is demanding the same pay as an expert might have demanded for the same work. Which means that for the same price, the company could have hired an expert, but due to this manufactured hurdle, it is forced to recruit only locals. As a result, his profits are suffering, and in the long run, he might think of migrating his office to see a better deal. The heart of the problem is always economic disparity and loss of economic identity. One’s identity is linked to its ability to succeed economically, and that raises the question of cultural imposition.

The base of the whole Dravidian movement was also partially attributed to the language issue, when Hindi was supposedly dominant in the Dravidian regions, they saw it as a usurpation of their rights. The whole movement started when the papal class of the day (in the case of India, the brahmin class) established that they had monopolistic rights over Sanskrit and other superior languages. Which slowly took the position of the language of elite, and with that came economic prosperity, because everyone wanted a priest who can chant mantras and do karmakaand in Sanskrit, for there was a belief that only people who speak Sanskrit can take us to the mercy of god (its similar to the indulgence that was issued by the papal class in 11th centaury). They were seen as an agent or lawyer who would argue your case on your behalf in the court of moral law or religious law and get you granted a sure place in heaven after death, if you give them enough money and earn enough karma points. This led to the Sanskritization of the society, and slowly,y the lower sections of the society lost their inherited identity. Which led to this revolution of Dravidianism. A similar but less radical approach was adopted in the north, where there was a loss of identity among the lower caste of the society. On one hand, the Jatts, GurGurjar, and RathRathodesthe society flaunted their identity. Whereas the lower fraction’s identity was reduced to be used as a slur, so much so that even to this day, calling someone from the original caste name can be considered as an atrocity (under sc/ST atrocities act) against the individual.

As a result, to take back the narrative of one caste being dominant, the lower cast started movements to disassociate themselves from the trauma of the name, and started to use the caste name as a status symbol. like CHAMAR became a luxury brand[2] started by Sudheer Rajbhar[3].Slowly, the identity crisis and the trauma associated with the name got cleared, and now it’s a luxury brand, which is a desirable thing among the Western audience. One may ask what led to the change in stance with Sudheer and the use of language when the same identity is an issue, but the approach to solving it is different in both cases. While one society resorted to violence, the other took the most peaceful and meaningful path?  Well, the answer is in one word, “POWER.”One section of society had the power to build a narrative and the power of muscle, and the other had nothing other than the skill they had inherited. Hence, they capitalized on their skill; the only work they knew became their unique selling proposition (USP), which can change the very identity. If the community also had a similar power, i.e., muscle or money, maybe they would also have resorted to a similar approach.

Solution

So, how can we solve the language conundrum now? India and the states are at the cusp of either making huge progress or just collapsing on the lines of these petty issues. Over time and with conditions evolving, India has chosen its lingua franca of the time. It may sound very nasty to many of us, but a lingua franca is something that naturally develops over time. In the past, it was Sanskrit, later Prakrit, then with time,,e Urdu or Hindavi took the place. Some time later, other languages took the place due to the authoritative regime’s imposition an most of the administrative work, which was undertaken in these languages or due to their popularity. Later in the past due to the brutal Raj, English took the central stage of being the dominant language of the time. Today, since the dominant class understands Hindi and has adapted to the conditions, willingly or unwillingly, it has taken the space of the lingua franca of the society, or maybe the dominant language of the day..So to speak. But the point is majority speaks and understands this language. 

 

Period	Approx. Years	Lingua Franca	Domain of Influence	Notes
Early Vedic Age	c. 1500–1000 BCE	Vedic Sanskrit	Religious, elite	Limited to the priestly class, oral tradition preserved the Vedas. Not spoken by commoners.
Later Vedic & Janapada Era	c. 1000–600 BCE	Prakrits, Vedic Sanskrit (elite)	Local courts, trade	Regional Prakrits (like Ardhamagadhi) gained ground for practical communication.
Mahajanapada to Mauryan Era	c. 600–200 BCE	Magadhi Prakrit, Ardhamagadhi	Governance, Buddhism	Ashoka’s edicts used Magadhi; spread through Buddhist missions.
Gupta Empire	c. 320–550 CE	Classical Sanskrit, Prakrits	Administration, literature, and religion	Sanskrit re-emerged as a formal/elite language, used for inscriptions, poetry, and law.
Early Medieval Period	c. 600–1200 CE	Apabhramsha, Sanskrit, Persian (in NW)	Local communication, early literature	Apabhramsa evolved regionally into early forms of Hindi, Gujarati, and Marathi.
Delhi Sultanate	c. 1206–1526 CE	Persian, Hindavi	Administration, literature, inter-community contact	Persian was used in courts; Hindavi developed among commoners, Sufis.
Mughal Empire	c. 1526–1707 CE	Persian, Hindustani	Administration, culture, trade	Persian remained dominant; Hindustani grew in northern cities and markets.
Late Medieval South India	c. 1300–1700 CE	Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi (regional)	Literature, trade	Regional lingua francas emerged in the South; trade ports used multilingual pidgins.
Maratha Empire	c. 1674–1818 CE	Marathi, Persian (residual), Hindustani	Governance, military	Marathi is dominant in administration; Hindustani is for northern expeditions.
Colonial Era (British Raj)	c. 1858–1947 CE	English, Hindustani	Administration, education, markets	English was used officially; Hindustani became popular among the masses.
Post-Independence Era	1947–1991	Hindi (attempted), English, regional languages	Mixed domains	Hindi pushed via 3-language formula; English retained as link language.
Liberalization Onward	1991–2025	English, Hindi, regional languages	Tech, education, jobs	English dominant in elite/economic sectors; Hindi in media, films; regional languages resilient.

 

The relation is clear, everything that has to do with language war is connected to the economic perspective of the time, the lingua franca is established either by the power of economic might, or evolves naturally depending on various variables. In every time period, the language has shaped the society and the kind of attitude the society has had. To say that the lingua franca was established by force would be an injustice to the invisible force that compels one to learn the language, which in this case might be the monetary incentive of learning a language. The fight today with regard to the language of the state has less to do with identity when it comes to Kannada and Marathi. But, somehow, the narrative shifts to identity when it travels down south in Tamil Nadu. But it’s always the economic incentive or power consolidation when it comes to language. The simple fact that the same Tamilian who fights vehemently about his Dravidian identity inside India, when he is in other states and accepts and learns the imposition of Hindi, and accepts English as its primary language in all the educational institutes. When travelling out of his/her home, s/heaccept a different identity without any issue, but things look different in regional politics, and the politicians also seem to keep the issue burning because of its political incentive in terms of votes. The simple solution to this is to increase the base of the economic pie of India, instead of making superficial changes in the administration and imposing things.

When the economic pie is bigger and no one is fighting for survival, automatically, people will find one less reason to blame. Till now, Telangana remains cosmopolitan butt the day the economic pie in Telangana also reduces,  language identity will take control just as it did in the rest of the states. Over time, India has seen the domination of many languages, but the core of that domination has always remained anchored around power or economic might. The day India understands that it needs to progress economically on the ground, which is an increase in quality of life and an increase in purchasing power parity (PPP) of an individual, all these problems will slowly ebb away.

---

[1] “Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj: A Multilingual Indian KinKing House of Polyglots, accessed May 25, 2025, https://www.houseofpolyglots.in/blog/chhatrapati-sambhaji-maharaj-a-multilingual-indian-king.

[2] “CHAMAR – Official Store,” accessed May 25, 2025, https://chamar.com/.

[3] “Who Is Sudheer Rajbhar of Chamar Studio, Whom Rahul Gandhi Met in Mumbai?,” The Indian Express (blog), March 7, 2025, https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/who-is-sudheer-rajbhar-chamar-studio-rahul-gandhi-mumbai-9873300/.