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1. INTRODUCTION
India has many "divides" revolving around ethnicity, language, religion, region, social identity, rural/urban, literate/illiterate, etc. Majority of her population lives in the rural areas. The rate of literacy for the entire country in 2001 was 65.2 %, with the highest literacy in Kerala above 90%, lowest literacy in Bihar less than 50%, rural literacy at 59%, urban 80%, males 76%, and females at 54%.
This position paper on Indian Languages and the Digital Divide, illustrates and describes the multilingual nature of Modern India, the challenges it has faced in language planning since independence from the British rule, and the challenges to the maintenance of language vitality in the context of digital divide, and the path ahead to bridge the divide.
I argue in this paper that even though information technology is a tool for empowering all the Indian languages and their speakers, the localization of software is only a small part of this process of empowerment. Also the paper recognizes the current uneven progress in the development of software in Indian languages as reality for the future too.
2. INDIAN MULTLINGUALISM
Modern India, as per the 1961 count, has more than 1652 mother tongues, genetically belonging to five different language families. Apart from them 527 mother tongues were considered unclassifiable at that time.
The 1991 Census had 10,400 raw returns and they were rationalized into 1576 mother tongues. They are further rationalized into 216 mother tongues, and grouped under 114 languages: Austro-Asiatic (14 languages, with a total population of 1.13%), Dravidian (17 languages, with a total population of 22.53%), Indo-European (Indo-Aryan, 19 languages, with a total population of 75.28%, and Germanic, 1 language, with a total population of 0.02%), Semito-Harmitic (1 language, with a total population of 0.01%), and Tibeto-Burman (62 languages with a total population of 0.97%).
It may be noted that mother tongues having a population of less than 10000 on all India basis or not possible to identify on the basis of available linguistic information have gone under 'others'. So, good number of "languages" recorded in the Indian Census could not be classified as to their genetic relation, and so are treated as Unclassified Languages.
The Indo-Aryan languages are spoken by the maximum number of speakers, followed in the descending order by the Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, and Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) languages.
Eighteen Indian languages, namely, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu are spoken by 96.29% of the population of the country and the remaining 3.71% of the population speak rest of the languages.
3. MULTILINGUALISM IN THE PAST CENTURIES - SHIFT IN THE PARADIGM
The concerns of the Indian languages during the 21st century are different from those of post-independence 20th century. The analyses of Indian multilingualism during the 19th and 20th centuries looked at it as a "problem" and tried to overcome this "problem." But, in the present century, because of the systematic language policy initiatives of the past half a century (that I am going to elucidate in the next section), we have begun to look at multilingualism as an asset, consider it as a "resource" and try to make use of this "resource" for language and social development. This shift in the paradigm is due to a number of inter-connected factors which are socio political, economical and even psychological not only for language but also for social development.
Indian multilingualism is unique in several ways, including the massive number of people involved in the use of multilingualism. The following are some of the important characteristics, besides the large number of people who practice multilingualism.
4. MULTILINGUALISM - STATES AND UNION TERRITORIES
India is divided into 24 States and 8 Union Territories as units of administration. Originally such territorial divisions into provinces or states were done mostly for administrative convenience during the British rule. Presidencies, states, or provinces came into being even as more territories were acquired by the British through various means and added to British India. As a result, the borders of such provinces cut across ethnic, religious, social, and linguistic lines. Even with the linguistic re-organization of the Indian provinces after the independence, most states remained multilingual as ever. However, in each of these linguistically re-organized states, there is at least one dominant majority linguistic group, often more than fifty percent of the total population of that state.
The table given below gives the percentage of majority language speakers in each Indian state and union territory according to the 1991 Census (Note that this refers to the number of states and union territories as on that date).
STATES
State/Union
Territory
Majority language &
% of its speakers
Percentage of speakers of minority languages
Andhra Pradesh
Telugu
85.13
14.87
Arunachal Pradesh
Nissi/Dafla
23.40
76.60
Assam
Assamese
60.89
39.11
Bihar
Hindi
80.17
19.83
Goa
Konkani
56.65
43.35
Gujarat
Gujarati
90.73
9.28
Haryana
Hindi
88.77
11.23
Himachal Pradesh
Hindi
88.95
11.05
Jammu & Kashmir
Kashmiri
52.73
47.27
Karnataka
Kannada
65.69
34.31
Kerala
Malayalam
95.99
4.01
Madhya Pradesh
Hindi
84.37
15.63
Maharashtra
Marathi
73.62
26.38
Manipur
Manipuri/Meitei
62.36
37.64
Meghalaya
Khasi
47.45
52.55
Mizoram
Mizo/Lushai
77.58
22.42
Nagaland
Ao
13.93
86.07
Orissa
Oriya
82.23
17.77
Punjab
Punjabi
84.88
15.12
Rajasthan
Hindi
89.89
10.11
Sikkim
Nepali
60.97
39.03
Tamil Nadu
Tamil
85.35
14.65
Tripura
Bengali
69.59
30.41
Uttar Pradesh
Hindi
89.68
10.32
West Bengal
Bengali
86.34
13.66
UNION TERRITORIES
Andaman & Nicobar Islands
Bengali
24.68
75.32
Chandigarh
Hindi
55.11
44.89
Dadra & Nagar Haveli
Bhili/Bhilodi
68.69
31.31
Daman & Diu
Gujarati
21.91
78.09
Delhi
Hindi
81.64
18.36
Lakshadweep
Malayalam
84.51
15.49
Pondicherry
Tamil
89.18
10.82
Not only India as a whole is multilingual but also each State and Union Territory within India is equally multilingual. Linguistically India is made of many mini-Indias.
The number of multilingual population is also remarkable. They constitute 19.44% of the total population in India. The traditionally strong constituent of multilingual groups is further strengthened in modern times from one decade to another, as mobility within the country as well as the introduction of formal education in all parts of the country that insists on learning at least two languages until the end of high or higher secondary education. Although Kerala appears to be the most cohesive linguistic state with a single language, Malayalam, claiming the mother tongue status for nearly 96 percent of its population, bilingualism among this mother tongue group is equally good.
5. MAJORITY/MINORITY LANGUAGE RELATION
This "majority and minority language phenomenon" is only four and a half decades old. This is also the result of the creation of linguistic states, created to protect the interests of linguistic minorities and their languages. However, broadly there are two categories of minorities: some are both linguistic and religious minorities (Muslims are considered to be both religious and linguistic minorities.) and some others are only linguistic minorities.
Even among these two categories of minority groups, some of the minority groups considered minority within a state or union territory may be a majority group in another state or union territory. Their mother tongues may function as a major language elsewhere in the country (for example, the Telugu speakers settled in Maharastra are treated as a minority group in Maharashtra, but they are the majority group within Andhra Pradesh). There are also minority groups that are found only within a single state and thus always occupy a minority position (for example, Tulu speakers of Karnataka, whose native state is Karnataka).
Because of the creation of linguistic states, a new category of linguistic minorities is also being created in several states. Employment opportunities enable and encourage people to move from one linguistic state to another, especially towards the large industrialized cities such as Ahmedabad, Bombay, Calcutta, Bangalore, etc. And this migration results in the creation of newer linguistic minorities.
For example, recent accretion to the Malayalam-speaking population already living in Bangalore has created a large Malayalam speaking linguistic minority in that city. This trend of people from one linguistic group moving to areas of another linguistic group is bound to increase because of industrialization and the guarantee of the freedom of mobility ensured in the Constitution of India. We see a large number of migrants to these states from other parts of the country.
6. SCRIPTS DO NOT HAVE LANGUAGE BORDERS
Indian languages are written in more than 14 scripts. Normal convention regarding any script is that a language often uses the same single and specific script to render itself in the visual medium wherever it is spoken. For example, we all assume that the English language should be written with the normally accepted Roman script, and not in the Devanagari script. However, the pluralistic tradition of India has broken this kind of tradition for many centuries, and introduced the practice of using different scripts to write the same language and also using the same script to write different languages.
This practice is not frowned upon, and it continues unabated. The Devanagari script is used to write several languages. Kannada script is used to write Kannada, Kodagu, Tulu, Banjari, Konkani, Sanskrit, etc. Sanskrit is written using the Devanagari, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and many other scripts. Similarly Kashmiri is written using the Perso-Arabic, Sharada and Devanagari scripts. Sindhi in India is written both in the Perso-Arabic and Devanagari scripts. So, by tradition, script may not be a boundary wall between Indian languages.
Since Indian traditions greatly depended upon the oral transmission, and since there were certain barriers imposed in both secular and religious contexts restricting the imparting of education, the spread of literacy was rather sporadic in the past, and the need to reduce the emerging languages to writing was not achieved in several languages in the past.
As a result, many potential languages remained as oral languages without developing scripts of their own. So, we have mass illiteracy to tackle and hundreds of languages and dialects waiting to get rendered in writing. In this context, gradually an unwritten convention was being developed since independence. Whenever an unwritten language was to be given a script, the Devanagari script was sought to be the first choice. If this was not acceptable or possible, the script of the dominant regional language of the state or union territory where the unwritten language was spoken, would be recommended. However, in practical circumstances such conventions are not really and fully practiced. Sometimes both conventions are adopted or else as in Nagaland Roman script is also used to write some tribal languages. Another example, Rabha language uses Assamese script in Assam, in Meghalaya Roman script, and in West Bengal the Bengali script.
Apart from these there are some of the minor scripts used in India (Singh K.S 1993). They are:
MINOR SCRIPTS
Sl.No.
Name of the Script
Name of the State/U.Ts.
Name of the communities
1.
BAITAL NAGARI
Rajasthan
Jaga/Brahm Bhatt
2.
BALTI
Jammu and Kashmir
Broq-pa
3.
BODHI
Himachal Pradesh Jammu and Kashmir Sikkim
Beda, Bodh
Bodh, Champa, Gara, Mon
Bhotia
4.
BURMESE
Tripura
Mag/Magh
5.
HINGNA
Arunachal Pradesh
Khamba
6.
MEITEI-MAYAK
Manipur
Meitei
7.
MON
Arunachal Pradesh
Khampri
8.
OL CHIKI
Bihar
West Bengal
Santal
Santal
9.
TAKRI/TANKRI
Himachal Pradesh
Gaddi Rajput, Pajiara, Seok
10.
TANA/THANA
Lakshadweep
Manikfan, Raveri, Thakru,
Thakrufan
11.
TIBETAN
Arunachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh
Sikkim
West Bengal
But Monpa, Dirang, Monpa,
Kalaktang Monpa, Monpa
Lishpa, Zakhring/Meyor
Khampa
Bhotia, Lepcha
Lepcha, Sherpa
12.
U-CHHEN
Sikkim
Tebetan
13.
U-MED
Sikkim
West Bengal
Druk-pa/Dukpa, Tibetan
Druk-pa/Dukpa
7. SHARING OF LINGUISTIC FEATURES ACROSS LANGUAGE FAMILIES
One of the major linguistic discoveries of the previous century relating to Indian languages is the identification of common linguistic features across language families. Among others, we may cite Bloch's article "India and South East Asia as a Linguistic Area," (Bloch 1934), and Emeneau's work "India as a Linguistic Area" (Emeneau 1956).
This sharing of linguistic features by the languages across the language families was facilitated by their coexistence for centuries together, and also by the continuing interaction of the people who speak these languages on a day-to-day basis. While Sir William Jones' declaration in 1786 of the genetic relationship between Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages revolutionized the philological studies, the fact that Indian languages (those of the Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian families) have some fundamental similarities among them was known to the Indian grammarians for centuries. A nineteenth century missionary to India, Rev. William Campbell, built his ideas of language planning and development for Indian vernaculars on this assumption. Campbell wrote in 1839,
Whatever may be the difference in the languages, they all belong to the same great family; similar laws regulate the idiom, construction, style, and various kinds of composition, which prevail in the dialects of the north and the south; when you describe one art of India, you have, in many respects, described the whole; the manners, the customs, and the habits of the people, with trifling variations, correspond from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas; and their superstition, in all its great lineaments, is exactly the same. Whether, therefore, their present literature was originally written in Sanscrit, or in some other languages, the Vedas, the Shasters, the Pooranas, and all their classical writings are to be found in all the principal tongues of India, and are as well understood in the one as in the other (Campbell 1839)8. SOME SHARED FEATURES
Some of the shared linguistic features across language families are as follows:
- Presence of a series of retroflex consonants that contrast with dentals sounds.
- Two to three degrees of 'you'.
- Widespread lexical borrowing.
- Presence of echo word constructions and onomatopoeic forms.
- Reduplication process of different grammatical categories such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.
- Compound verb forms.
- Conjunctive particle.
- Sentence structure - flexibility of word order though finite verb usually comes in the last position.
The geographic boundaries drawn on the basis of languages, or linguistic boundaries, or linguistic spread are recent phenomenon in some sense, and are of just about four and a half decades. We should also recognize that the linguistic consciousness and identities of a variety of major linguistic groups in the country was a cultural and cognitive reality, but not a political reality until the linguistic re-organization of the Indian states.
Another interesting aspect of this scenario is that the people, who live in villages and towns that lie in the political boundaries of two or more linguistically re-organized states, may continue to use the same grammar of their own language with different vocabularies drawn from another language of the border to communicate among themselves and with the groups across the border.
Such examples are not restricted to so-called tribal areas such as the areas in and around Bastar district, or in Manipur Hills, but are very common among the speakers of "cultivated or literary" languages such as Marathi, Telugu, Kannada, and Tamil, etc. Even with the wider reach and access of the audio and video media now, such behaviors across these boundaries may be obscured but not totally lost.
9. SHARING OF LANGUAGES
For ages, India has been a multi/bilingual mosaic. References to the use of a variety of languages with their own phonological accent and grammatical inflections are found in such ancient texts as Natya Sastra, and Manu Smriti. Dialectical variations in the speech behavior of characters were ably exploited for various dramatic and aesthetic purposes by Kalidasa in his plays.
Multilingualism in India has been so built that every language or dialect under the Indian sun always had some role to play. No doubt that many languages and dialects were despised and looked down upon for example consider the distinction between Deva Bhasha and Paishachik bhashas, and some were even banned and banished, but, somehow, bilingualism survived. People always had some pride in their own languages and dialects, and were ready to show their loyalty by assigning some roles or the other mostly central to their languages and dialects.
Wherever bilingualism has evolved in India, because of given socio-political and demographic reasons, it always has remained vibrant. People acquire bilingualism in these contexts from their early childhood. They do not have to go to school to learn to use two or more languages.
10. RECENT MIGRANTS
The attitude of the recent migrants, from one state to another, stands in contrast to that of the earlier migrants. The recent migrations take place under a different canvas. These migrants arrive as individuals or families, not as whole communities. These are more often job seekers, and perhaps would go back, or would like to go back to where they came from. They are aware of their linguistic rights enshrined in the Indian constitution. Means of communication between the migrant families or individuals and their original linguistic group are easily available. Reading materials are easy to get. Radio and TV programs are easy to access. Continuity is somehow ensured. With continuity come the linguistic and social identities. When some families settle down and take roots in a different linguistic environment, they still continue their language loyalties. The strong loyalty transfer that we notice in the populations that migrated a few centuries ago is conspicuous by its absence in the recent migrants.
11. SPONSORED BILINGUALISM
Bilingualism relating to English is a different category altogether. It is a sponsored, institutional arrangement. It is driven by formal necessities, not an acquisition in early childhood. Perhaps this explains the ambivalent attitude of Indians in general to English. They seem to like it; they seem to want it as a part of their life and career, even as they declare it to be a "foreign" language.
Many families in urban areas, however, want their children to acquire English as their "first" language. This trend is getting popular even in rural areas. (William Campbell, an ardent supporter of Indian vernaculars and a committed opponent of Macaulay's Minute, actually foresaw this possibility clearly in his "prophetic" book , British India, published in 1839. See chapters 26 and 27). If this continues, say, for the next fifty years, we may see a different kind of bilingualism emerging in the country, one in which ethnic and religious identity may not play a crucial part.
Yet another sponsored bilingualism in the making relates to Hindi. There is bound to be some competition between Hindi and English to occupy the Indian bilingual space. It is hard to visualize the contours of this competition right now. But, if we go by the historically proven Indian mindset, Indian socio-political conditions will evolve some functional separation between the two and keep both the languages within the bilingual space.
12. A CENTURY OF RECORDED BILINGUALISM
For more than one hundred years, the Census of India reports have been taking notice of the bilingual situation in India. Bilingualism is often taken as a given fact. Bilingualism is also used as a denominator of the movement of various populations from one region or province to another. Bilingualism figures are often used to make political claims and seek privileges in administration, education, mass communication, and other departments of public life in general. Educational policies of the states are guided by these figures. However, the quality of bilingualism or the level of bilingualism often remains unspecified in linguistic terms in these claims.
The way the details of bilingualism and tri-lingualism are arrived at, in surveys such as the Census enumerations, is also noteworthy.
In the Census, names of two other languages known to the respondents in the order of proficiency are recorded. Here, the names of languages, other than the one recorded as the mother tongue, is elicited by asking the respondent about the other languages known to him or her. These may be Indian or foreign languages. If the respondent knows only one language, the name of that particular language only is recorded. If the respondent has knowledge of more than one language, the names of two languages in the order of proficiency, self-assessed by the respondent, are recorded. These two languages are recorded one after the other. Between these two languages, that language in which the respondent can, according to his claim, comprehend, speak and communicate is recorded first, and the other language as the second item. The individual need not know reading and writing in these languages. It is enough if he speaks and communicates in these two languages. However, the number of languages thus recorded will not exceed two.
Naturally evolved bilingualism coupled with bilingualism evolving through schooling has become a big language resource, and it is exploited mainly by the mass media for enhancing its reach across the population. What is needed is a more in depth linguistic study of bilingualism as a linguistic idea. While figures are very important, qualitative features of bilingualism as a linguistic idea yet to be studied.
Sharing of Languages - Speakers of Major Languages 1991 Census
Sl. No
Languages
Total Number of speakers
Bilinguals
Trilinguals
% of Bilinguals
% of
Trilinguals
1
Assamese
130,79,696
19,78,990
16,71,331
15.1302
12.7780
2
Bengali
69,595,738
58,42,675
32,66,779
8.3951
4.6939
3
Gujarati
40,673,814
53,94,439
47,14,942
13.2626
11.5920
4
Hindi
337,272,114
2,70,74,421
1,00,65,191
8.0274
2.9842
5
Kannada
32,753,676
52,12,152
26,60,215
15.9131
8.1218
6
Kashmiri
56,693
15,246
18,751
26.8922
33.0746
7
Konkani
1,760,607
5,19,715
7,86,601
29.5190
44.6778
8
Malayalam
30,377,176
27,99,555
59,65,126
9.2159
19.6368
9
Manipuri
1,270,216
1,41,773
2,78,443
11.1613
21.9209
10
Marathi
62,481,681
92,05,446
79,70,448
14.7330
12.7564
11
Nepali
2,076,645
4,09,437
4,17,651
19.7162
20.1118
12
Oriya
28,061,313
18,94,755
25,79,154
6.7521
9.1911
13
Punjabi
23,378,744
34,00,361
54,12,133
14.5466
23.1498
14
Sanskrit
49,736
19,456
6,204
39.1185
12.4738
15
Sindhi
2,122,848
7,41,797
6,05,242
34.9434
28.5108
16
Tamil
53,006,368
87,86,309
11,44,532
16.5759
2.1592
17
Telugu
66,017,615
81,68,683
54,82,348
12.3734
8.3043
18
Urdu
43,406,932
1,12,25,024
52,67,456
25.8955
12.1350
Sharing of languages by the minor language speakers is illustrated in Annexure I.
The number of bilinguals is on the increase from Census to Census. Their national average is: 1961- 9.70; 1971- 13.04%; 1981- 13.34%; 1991- 19.44%. Some of the important results of the multilingual picture of India emerging from the 1991 Census is that in case of major languages, 18.72% are bilinguals and 7.22% are trilinguals and the bilinguals among minor languages are 38.14% and the trilinguals are 8.28%.
Significantly among major language speakers, spread of bilingualism in English is more(than in Hindi) - 8% as second language, 3.15% as third language where as the same in Hindi is 6.15% and 2.16%.
13. LANGUAGE POLICY
The Language Policy of India relating to the use of languages in administration, education, judiciary, legislature, mass communication, etc., is pluralistic in its scope. It is both language-development oriented and language-survival oriented. The policy is intended to encourage the citizens to use their mother tongue in certain delineated levels and domains through some gradual processes, but the stated goal of the policy is to help all languages to develop into fit vehicles of communication at their designated areas of use, irrespective of their nature or status like major, minor, or tribal languages. The policy is accommodative and ever-evolving, through mutual adjustment, consensus, and judicial processes. The accommodative spirit may be dim at times, and the decisions vacillating and fidgety, but this spirit was continuously prevalent from the early days of the struggle for independence from the British rule. This was seen as a necessity in nation-building. Political awareness or consciousness relating to the maintenance of native languages has been very high, both among the political leadership and among the ordinary people who speak these languages. The language policy of the country is elucidated in its Constitution, implemented through various executive orders that have been issued from time to time and the judicial pronouncements since 1950. These have directed the way the languages are used in various domains.
14. LANGUAGE CLUSTERING
The Constitution of India listed fourteen languages Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu, into its Eighth Schedule in 1950. Since then, this has been expanded thrice, once to include Sindhi, another time to include Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali, just this month the third time to include Bodo, Santhali, Maithili and Dogri. The 100th Constitution Amendment which added four more languages - Bodo, Maithili, Santhali and Dogri into the Eighth Schedule was supported by all the 338 members present in the Parliament. It has been stated that the claims of 33 more languages for inclusion are under consideration. This list is open-ended and has become a tool to bargain and gain benefits for the languages. Once a language gets into this club, its nomenclature itself will change, status will change, and it will be called Modern Indian Language (MIL), Scheduled Language (SL), etc.
This Schedule has emerged as the most important language policy statement. It clusters thousands of written and unwritten languages and dialects into two broad categories of Scheduled and Non-Scheduled languages. Though historically, it is not possible to find any rationale to cluster the Indian languages into these categories, the languages of the Eighth Schedule are not normally treated on par with Non-Scheduled languages(Mallikarjun 1986). The languages of the Schedule have preferential treatment, and the languages listed in this schedule are considered first for any and almost every language development activity, and are bestowed with all facilities including facilities to absorb language technology initiatives of the government. It is needless to mention that the Technology Development in Indian Languages (TDIL) did not, and under present circumstances would not percolate beyond these languages.
The second kind of clustering is at the level of mother tongues into "languages." Though 114 languages are arrived at by the Census Office, many of these languages are not independent and individual entities as such. Within these, there are many mother tongues/languages/dialects. The group of "languages" is formed by clustering of the populations of many mother tongues under an umbrella called "language." For example, Hindi is a cluster of more than 45 mother tongues, which include Awadhi, Banjari, Bhojpuri, Braj Bhasha, Bundelkhandi, Chambeali, Chattisgarhi, Garhwali, Haryanvi, Kangri, Kulvi, Labani, Magahi, Maithili, Marwari, Mewari, Pahari, Rajasthani, Sadri, Sugali, etc.
The varieties of Hindis combined to form the Hindi of post-independence era helped in the unification of the Hindi-speaking population for demographic purposes (statistical majority), and not for the development of communicative pan-Indian Hindi as envisaged by the framers of the Constitution. Due to the expansion of media network in the past decade, pan-Indian Hindi is developing mainly through the audio-visual mass media. The Hindi thus developed has a greater impact on non-Hindi speaking states. This could lead to a position where pan-Indian Hindi assumes some of the functions of non-Hindi major Indian languages. A secondary globalization process, thus, may help Hindi, and may not help the other major Indian languages (Mallikarjun 2003).
15. THE NOTION OF MOTHER TONGUE
"Mother tongue" is a concept that we all appear to understand very well and take for granted. "Mother tongue" is a very important concept or construct within the Constitution of India. Several important provisions within the Indian Constitution revolve around this concept or construct. Decisions regarding the medium of instruction and other official language policies depend on the interpretation of this concept or construct. More often than not, mother tongue becomes more of a political idea than a linguistic construct or concept. Mother tongues are elevated to some superhuman and divine status, and are worshipped literally. Also, mother tongue becomes a rallying point for groups of people to unite and express their solidarity more as a political entity.
First and foremost, a language policy statement in any multilingual set up is expected to be about 'What should constitute a mother tongue for her citizens?' The first answer to this question in independent India for educational purposes is found in the Provincial Education Ministers resolution (1949) and in the Central Advisory Board of Education approved statement that "The mother-tongue will be the language declared by the parent or guardian to be the mother-tongue." But, till date no clear-cut definition/description of the characteristics of what constitutes a