INDIAN STATES LANGUAGE POLICIES: GENESIS OF CHALLENGES FACED BY HINDI AND ITS FUTURISTIC IMPLICATIONS

The paper starts with defining what language is and what linguistic consciousness means in the context of the theoretical work done by Edmund Husserl in understanding the intentionality of a language. The issue of mother tongue language is also elucidated, especially in the context of the Westphalian nation-states that emerged in the Western European countries. This Westphalian Treaty played a pivotal role in creating one nation, one official language discourse which has been thoroughly defunct in multi-lingual, socio-politically complex realties of the Indian State. While explaining how English was made the official language and the reasons behind it during the British Empires reign in India, the paper excavates the conflicts that took place in the narrow social base of English, Hindi and Hindustani. While explaining the historical genesis of the Hindi language, both in terms of negotiation and mutual co-dependence, the emergence of Vernacular language of Hindustan is discussed in detail. As the paper describes the presence of various kinds of Hindi in the socio-political complex realm of Indias national identity, it also elucidates why Hindi continues to survive, in spite of the anti-Hindi agitations. The contribution of organisations in this process are also debated. Towards the end, the paper tries to frame the genesis of Hindi and the natural conflict that it entails in the domination of minority languages, by tracing the language policies of the Indian constitution and thus, explaining why these challenges would continue, thereby marking key futuristic projections.