By – Poorvanshi Tyagi

Abstract

The Partition of 1947 finds its legacies in the geography, culture and traditions of India and Pakistan today. Partition memory plays an important role in shaping the Indian nation-state with respect to its imagined sense of belonging, homogeneity and national identity. The prominence of sanskritised Hindi and consequent erasure of persianised Urdu from the subcontinent created polarised linguistic and cultural identities in independent India. This article aims to examine the politics of language emerging around the time of Independence and how the Partition helped shape not just the reimagination of nation but also contemporary linguistic identities that followed. 

Introduction

India’s freedom struggle left a rather bitter aftertaste on the nation’s sensibilities, having been marked by bloodstains that are forever etched into Indian history. The horrors of the 1947 Partition carry remnants of a pre-Independence identity which has been shaped and moulded by the many conceptions of the Indian nation-state that surround us today. The Partition divided not just homes and families but also identities and cultures. Reports of division of financial assets, tables, chairs, instruments, and so on, represent a divided sense of belonging to the new-born nation.  The Partition produced a different sense of commonality and togetherness among the masses, posing a threat to the united threads that colonial India previously thrived on. The politics of language dissemination and division of linguistic identities which emerged in the period leading up to the Partition serve as a crucial symbol of reimagination of the nation-state. Hindustani as a language no longer invokes a sense of knowing among the Indian population, despite having been the commoner’s language in pre-Independence India. Hindustani, more than a language, has been discussed as a common idiom which served as a manifestation of India’s overlapping cultural, linguistic, and ethnic backgrounds as it combined Hindi and Urdu, among other regional languages. Hindustani, however, was soon to crumble under  the weight of growing Hindu-Muslim tensions and divided political assimilation of communities throughout the process of nation-building leading up to the Independence and its aftermath. Partition, henceforth, culminated also in the division of the common language -through the subsequent sanskritisation of Hindi and persianisation of Urdu. The politics of language in the subcontinent has both led by and formulated through divided loyalties and communal differences. The separation of Hindi and Urdu post-Partition is symbolic of the idea of national identity and homogeneity which India bears today.  

Constructing a Collective Unconscious : Language, Religion & Identity

Nationalism and the construction of a collective national identity were one of the challenges India faced post-Partition. The quest for a national identity is rooted in finding elements of purity, clarity, and homogeneity amidst a whirlpool of mixed and uncertain conditions. Ethnonationalist ideas begin to create us and them dichotomies on the basis of ethnicity, sex, class, religion, etc. Naturally, Hindus assumed the identity of ‘us’ against the backdrop of  Hindu-muslim riots during and before Partition. Thus, national identity converges with nativist religious identity to consolidate a strong ethnonational community which becomes the major element of the imagined nation.  Although Nehruvian perspectives on nationalism reveal a common sense of belonging to the land- secular in nature, ethnic and religious differences ultimately dominated the conception of the nation, nationalism and national identity in India. 

 Jungian studies hint towards the role of universal archetypes and primordial images in forming a collective unconscious. The idea of universality in Carl Jung’s theory postulates an inherent nature of collective identity, serving as a fundamental connection to all.  Contrary to Jungian studies, post-partition identity construction can be understood through social constructivism. Identity politics in India at the time of independence found its expression in selective social engineering, based not on natural primordials but on an imagined social construct connecting myths and imagined communities to facts of common origin. For instance, the separation of belongings, cultural and traditional resources during the Partition represent the social construction of the collective national identity that gradually comes to be accepted as natural inherent truths. 

Language and religion play an important role in the consolidation of national identity. The instrumentalisation, institutionalisation, reformation, as well as delegitimisation of language and religion help to shape ethnonationalist perspectives in nation-states. Language and religion share a complex interplay, of which language may represent a religion, or religion may have specific linguistic orientations. Islam, though a universal faith, is closely associated with the Arab world. Thus, Islam identifies with the Arabic language. The indispensable link between religion and language adds a layered perspective to our understanding of politics of language in the Indian subcontinent. 

The separation of Urdu and Hindi post-Independence traces its roots back to religious conflict. Urdu emerged in the Mughal era as an amalgamation of Hindavi and Persian. The undeniable patronage to Persian language and culture by Mughal rulers, of which most were practicing Muslims, finds its place in language politics at the heart of the Partition. Hence, Indian muslims come to be associated with the deep-rooted Mughal legacies of Urdu. Post-partition national identity overlapped with Hindu ethnonational communities. The us vs them dichotomy represented not only Hindus and Muslims but also their linguistic identification. Urdu which had previously served as a common sense of belonging to the subcontinent was gradually constructed as ‘the language of the Other’.  Urdu later emerged as the common language of Pakistan. 

The post-1947 language discourse in India favoured the sanskritisation of Hindi consistent with the marginalisation of Urdu from legislative and legal texts. The famous language debate from the Constituent Assembly highlighted the state of the common language, Hindustani, after Partition. The plea for declaring Hindi as the official language played out in tandem with Hindu ethnonationalism. In the wake of Ghalib’s centenary celebration, poet Sahir Ludhianvi wrote, “Jin shahron mein gunji thi ghalib ki nava barson, un shahron mein ab urdu benam-o-nishan thehri” [The cities echoing of Ghalib’s melodies have now trampled down on the traces of Urdu], suggesting the alienation the language faces in India despite its literary and cultural legacies. 

Conclusion

The present language discourse in India posits the Hindi-Urdu divide as an artificial one, due to its seemingly ambiguous separation. Hindi speech continues to preserve a multitude of Urdu words, posing, in general, no apparent threat to the Urdu language. Nonetheless, the identifiable disappearance of Urdu script as well as mannerism and/or vocabulary from the subcontinent has a history rooted in religious conflict, nationalism and identity politics. Today, projects like Rekhta and digital archives work towards preserving Urdu and its literary-cultural history. Language politics continues to grow, evolve and be reshaped in India. The Hindi-Urdu separation also reflect on current realties of multilingual conflicts in the region. The imposition of Hindi over other linguistic communities remind us again of an ethnonationalist project that seeks nativism and purity for its consolidation among mixed elements i.e., linguistic plurality in contemporary times. 

About The Author

Poorvanshi Tyagi is a second year student at Jindal School Of International Affairs,  O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s in Global Affairs and a diploma in Literature. She is a published poet and an avid reader. She is open to research opportunities in the field of education, sociology and cultural anthropology. Besides, she enjoys dancing and music.  

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