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17TH ISSUE
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Features

The identity politics of language and script

in South Asia
CARMEN BRANDT  

In many parts of the world, the writing system of a language hardly attracts any
political attention. For instance, most European languages are written in the same

script – the so-called Latin or Roman script – and neither English, French nor German
nationalists would today claim this writing system only for their own language, or
name it the English, French or German script. The predominantly monoscriptal
situation in present-day Europe (with some exceptions such as the Greek, Cyrillic,
Armenian and Georgian scripts) – owed to the education monopoly of the church
and the importance of the Latin language and script in the past – leaves little space
for identity politics surrounding writing systems. The strict separation of the
Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian language after the breakup of Yugoslavia based, among
other things, on diverging scripts – Cyrillic for Serbian and the Roman script for
Bosnian and Croatian – is an exception. By contrast, there is hardly any South Asian Multiscriptality
region where writing systems do not play the role of a demarcator between in Delhi.
languages, an identity marker, and/or an alleged stabiliser for small languages.

  The 'Bengali script’   

Although script hardly is a matter of discussion in Bangladesh, Bangladeshi, particularly Bengali

intellectuals too should spare a second thought not only to language politics in general but also to
script, when they are celebrating their legacy of the Bengali Language Movement and portraying
Bengali1 even today solely as a victim of other languages – initially Urdu, but more recently English
and Hindi. Already the fact that most Bengalis will refer to the script of their language exclusively as
the 'Bengali script', though it is used for many other languages as well, e.g. Assamese, Bishnupriya,
Chakma, Meitei, Santali, etc. gives a glimpse of the dominant role of the Bengali language in the
eastern part of South Asia. Whereas some of these languages had their own script or only an oral
 literary tradition until literacy was spread among its speakers, Assamese has,
like Bengali, a long literary tradition in this script which Assamese speakers
naturally refer to as the 'Assamese script'. In fact, the term 'Eastern Nagari'
seems to be the only designation which does not favour one or the other
language.

However, it is only applied in academic discourses, whereas the name

'Bengali script' dominates the global public sphere. Still, when the
International Organization for Standardization o cially declared this writing
Chakma in
system the 'Bengali script', the uproar among Assamese intellectuals came
Perso- Eastern
as no surprise.2 Certainly, the common name of this script is not owed to
Arabic Nagari as
any rightful entitlement based on historic developments. It is rather solely
script as well as in
an Chakma the result of the predominantly Bengali perception of this script caused by
identity script with the high demographics of Bengalis and, above all, writings of Bengali
marker Bengali linguists already during colonial times. While many Bengalis also tend to
in translation perceive other languages written in the same script (the Eastern Nagari) as
Calcutta. on a
inferior, since those languages are allegedly written only with 'borrowed'
Buddhist
letters, in other parts of South Asia some languages are actually written in
temple in
several scripts. Though one script for several languages is an issue di erent
Rangamati.
from several scripts for one language, the socio-political reasons and identity
formation processes behind the choice for one particular writing system have led to similar
hierarchical perceptions of the languages concerned. In some cases, the perceived hierarchy of a
language actually depends on the uniqueness of a script.

 The strengthening of Punjabi through Gurmukhi  


The most prominent example in this regard is the case of Punjabi and its
three scripts: Gurmukhi, Nagari3, and Shahmukhi (a variant of the Perso-
Arabic script). While Nagari is mostly used by Hindus in India today, if
they write in Punjabi at all, and Shahmukhi by Punjabi Muslims in India
and predominantly in Pakistan, it is particularly the Gurmukhi script
which has helped Punjabi to become a vibrant functional and literary
language. However, apart from being currently associated exclusively
with Punjabi, Gurmukhi owes its status to the formation of the religion
nowadays known as Sikhism. Following the example of other
contemporary (15th-17th century) religious movements – Bhakti and
Su sm – which heavily in uenced it (cf. Oberoi 1995), the preference for
religious teachings in local languages was a notable feature of Sikhism.
From today's perspective, Sikhism could have been subsumed under the
categories of Bhakti or Su sm as well had it not been for its holy book –
the Adi Granth – in which we nd hymns composed in several languages, The equation
for instance Braj Bhasha, Hindi, Persian and Sanskrit, but overwhelmingly of Gurmukhi
Sadhukkari, and only to a lesser extent Punjabi (Wessler 2009: 92). It was with Punjabi
Meitei
the Gurmukhi script, a modi ed Landa script otherwise used for business in a
handicraft Mayek on
purposes, chosen by the second Sikh Guru Angad (1504-1552), which
shop in Delhi an
helped this new religion to demarcate itself from other religious
demonstrates election
movements. Interestingly, even though the Adi Granth combines several
the
 languages, Punjabi – the native language of the overwhelming majority of importance campaign

Sikhs – written in Gurmukhi “became the single most important factor in of script and poster.
language for
the preservation of Sikh culture and identity […]” (Singh 2004: 81f.).    
Sikh identity.
Though today Punjabi is for the larger part spoken in Pakistan, only in
India does it enjoy a vibrant status as a functional and literary language. We can only speculate
about what the present situation of Punjabi in South Asia would have been without the introduction
of Gurmukhi. But, judging from today's situation of Punjabi in Pakistan, where it lacks o cial
recognition and support, we can at least get a glimpse of a possible scenario. Sabiha Mansoor (1993:
126f.), for example, points out that Punjabi students tend to neglect their mother language, which
many consider to be inferior to Urdu. In India, by contrast, besides the eminent role language and
script play for Sikhs, another important step for establishing Punjabi as a vibrant functional
language was its declaration as an o cial language of the newly created state of Punjab in 1966.
Without Gurmukhi, Punjabi would have run the risk of being categorised as a dialect of Hindi; the
language of the Hindus in this region has actually been o cially classi ed as a dialect of Hindi, not
the least because of their preference for Nagari, or at least for non-use of Gurmukhi.

 The rise of Hindi and decline of Urdu in India 

The problematics of language subsumption and delimitation are

perhaps most apparent in the case of Hindi and Urdu, called by many
scholars one language with two scripts (cf. King 1994) – Urdu in a
variant of the Perso-Arabic script and Hindi in Nagari.4 The separation
of these twin languages can be traced back to the 19th century, a time
when the emergence of nationalism in South Asia led to new symbols
for real and imagined communities. The Perso-Arabic script, the

dominant script for the language known until then under several terms
– for instance Hindi, Hindustani and Urdu – was identi ed as foreign

Chakma in
and Muslim, whereas the Nagari script served the demands of a

Chakma, Meitei Mayek resurgent Hindu elite in search of an authentic 'Indian' identity,
Eastern in an including recourse to a past constructed on the basis of a discourse
Nagari and advertisement, heavily in uenced by Sanskrit-based Orientalist visions, which led also
Roman Imphal. to the rejection of other scripts such as Kaithi, which was considered to
script,
be not sophisticated enough.
Rangamati.
 

The introduction of Nagari and conscious production of Hindi literature in this script has led to the
decline of Urdu as a functional and literary language in India. In December 2010, the Urdu poet
Javed Akhtar told me that though recurring Urdu literature hypes among urban elites – made
possible by printing Urdu texts in Nagari – still ensure Urdu poets respect and income, the role of
Urdu is on a continuous decline in India. My discussion with a young Muslim woman in Bombay on
the present status of Urdu in India hit the nail on the head. She proudly stated that Urdu was her
mother language, but later on confessed that she cannot read any Urdu literature. Like many other
better o Urdu speakers, her parents preferred sending her to a Hindi medium school, while only
overwhelmingly poor Urdu speakers fall back on Urdu medium schools in India. In this way, Urdu is
of course still kept alive in its region of origin but rather on a spoken than written level, since poor
students of Urdu medium schools hardly author any literature or use this language for
administrative purposes.
   The threat of Urdu as a national language 

In contrast, Urdu plays a dominant and dominating role in Pakistan, even though it is spoken
natively by less than eight percent of its population – primarily by the so-called Muhajirs, i.e.
descendants of people who migrated to this part of South Asia from Urdu-speaking regions of India,
predominantly during the partition of 1947. The condition of Punjabi hinted at above applies with
slight deviations also for other languages in Pakistan: Balochi, Brahui, Pashto, Saraiki, Sindhi, etc.
The neglect of these languages for administrative purposes, education, and literature is mainly
caused by the exclusivist language policy of the Pakistani state, which leaves little space for other
languages (cf. Ayres 2009). On the one hand, Urdu serves as a lingua franca in multilingual Pakistan
but, on the other hand, it also degrades other languages due to the lack of o cial recognition and
public support for these on a national level.
Not only does the language Urdu play an omnipresent role in Pakistan but also its script. Apart from
English and thus the Latin alphabet in public space, Pakistan today can be considered a
monoscriptal country, though several languages in this region were written also in other scripts
before 1947, e.g. Punjabi and Sindhi. The adoption of the Perso-Arabic script, a writing system which
often has an identity strengthening function for Muslim communities, is also observed in several
Indian regions where it was for a while applied by Muslims for languages written otherwise in scripts
of South Asian origin, for instance Malayalam and Tamil. But whereas for languages in India the
Perso-Arabic script plays only one role besides other scripts, which has led to bi- or multiscriptal
situations such as for Konkani5, in Pakistan it has wiped out almost all other writing systems.
Attempts to similarly dispose of the Eastern Nagari script – the so-called 'Bengali script' – in then
East Pakistan were made in the beginning of the 1950s (cf. Umar 2000: 89f.). Actually, the strong
resistance of Bengali intellectuals and politicians against Urdu as the sole national and functional
 language in Pakistan was one factor that had led to this idea. Since the replacement of Bengali by
Urdu seemed to be beyond reach, the introduction of the Perso-Arabic script for Bengali could have
added at least a 'Muslim' identity marker and given all languages in the newly established Pakistan a
homogenous look.6 Unsurprisingly, the long and strong literary tradition of Bengali in the Eastern
Nagari script and the resistance of people in  then East Pakistan made this impossible.

  Meitei and the revival of its old script  

However, in the past, the Eastern Nagari script itself has played a similar role in the east
and northeast of South Asia. Apart from languages which had only an oral literary
tradition and whose speakers have adopted this writing system often voluntarily, there
are also cases in which the Eastern Nagari was enforced on languages that already had a
literary tradition in their own respective scripts. A more recent example is Sylheti, a
language which was dominantly written in Sylheti Nagari and only after 1971 degraded to
the status of a dialect (cf. Kershen 2005: 147) for the sake of a greater Bengali identity in
independent Bangladesh. Not only was Sylheti's status as a language challenged, but its
speakers were also discouraged from using its script which as a result is hardly in use
today. Conversely, the attempt of Bengali administrators during British colonial times to
introduce Oriya education in Orissa only in Eastern Nagari ultimately failed. While the
Urdu,
misperception of many Bengali and British scholars during the 19th century that Oriya is Hindi
only a dialect of Bengali supported the endeavour to introduce the 'proper' script for this and
'dialect' – similar to the introduction of Eastern Nagari for Sylheti –, Assamese and English
Bishnupriya were and are even today by many considered to be dialects of Bengali in
Lucknow.
 because they historically share the same writing system with Bengali. Speakers of the
latter language are spread over several Indian union states in the northeast of India and Bangladesh
but are mainly settled in multilinguistic Manipur where Bishnupriya has also only a minority status.

The state language of Manipur, Meitei (also Meiteilon and since 1992 o cially
Manipuri), is another prominent example of a language adopting the Eastern Nagari
script. Though there is a lack of details about how the Eastern Nagari script replaced
the original Meitei script – the so-called Meitei Mayek – we know at least that this
process must be related to the spread of Vaishnavism among the Meiteis. According to
Meitei Mayek lobbyists I have interviewed recently, the local Meitei king declared
Vaishnavism as the o cial religion in the rst half of the 18th century after he was
converted by a Bengali Vaishnava from Sylhet. In order to establish the new religion
and wipe out the old one, many temples of the local religion Sanamahism and most of
its manuscripts written in the Meitei Mayek were destroyed and new writings related to
Vaishnavism in Eastern Nagari introduced. Though Vaishnavism was already practised
much earlier in this region and the introduction of the Eastern Nagari must have been a
more complex process, this simpli ed narrative of Meitei Mayek supporters today, Emblem of
which seemingly serves the instigation of patriotic feelings among Meiteis, is the
widespread. Chakma
King o ce
The Eastern Nagari script plays a dominant role for Meitei and had replaced the Meitei
in
Mayek almost completely. Only since the 1930s, with the emergence of Meitei Rangamati.
nationalism, has this script been experiencing new attention. Meitei nationalism not
only centres around native traditions, but is also fed with sentiments against other groups which are
considered to be a threat to Meitei culture. While some ethnic groups in Manipur – so-called 'hill

tribes' – are often portrayed as being culturally inferior to Meiteis and thus considered to be no
danger to the nationalist agenda, the Bengali language, its writing system, and the Bengali people
and their culture and religions seem to be the main targets of Meitei nationalists. Though this
actually re ects the same concerns many other groups in the east and northeast of South Asia have,
the movement against Eastern Nagari, in this case self-evidently labelled the 'Bengali script', serves
to make such fears very visible.

Since script became an important identity marker for the Meiteis in the 20th
century, various agents had been trying to re-establish the old script, but
until recently with little success. Only in April 2005 was the revival of the
Meitei Mayek accelerated when militant lobbyists burnt down the central
library of Manipur in Imphal in order to emphasise their demand to
introduce this script o cially. Nearly 145,000 books, written mostly in
Eastern Nagari, were destroyed. The government knuckled under and
acceded to the demands only one month later and, most importantly,
introduced the Meitei Mayek in textbooks for rst and second graders in
2006 (Singh 2011: 28). Since then, textbooks in the Meitei Mayek for the next
grade are introduced every year, which has produced a generation of
Meiteis that can read their language only in the Meitei Mayek, whereas their
older relatives have command only over the Eastern Nagari script. Although
the spread of the Meitei Mayek among the population is thus still very
limited, the visual impression one gets when visiting Imphal, the capital of
 Meitei Meitei Manipur, is very di erent: the Meitei Mayek can be seen on almost every
and Mayek
signboard, advertisement or publication. After talking to several shop
English and
owners the reason for this became obvious: they are afraid that their
on a shop Eastern
signboards otherwise will be destroyed by Meitei Mayek lobbyists.
signboard Nagari
in Imphal on a Though there are Meiteis not linked to these militant activists who are eager
signboard to learn the Meitei Mayek, I have met as well many Meiteis who show no
in Imphal. interest at all to learn this script. Among other reasons, this lack of interest

seems to be owed to the circumstance that there are hardly any publications
in the Meitei Mayek – for instance only one newspaper – most books, newspapers and magazines
are still printed in the Eastern Nagari script having the Meitei Mayek only on the front page as a
visual identity marker. But regardless of the attitudes of Meiteis towards the Meitei Mayek today,
with the help of government support the fate of the Eastern Nagari for Meitei seems to be sealed.

  Chakma and its revived script  

Chakma constitutes a similar case: many of its speakers take pride in an old script,
though the majority can neither write nor read it since Chakma is today predominantly
written in Eastern Nagari. Although George Abraham Grierson classi ed Chakma as a
Bengali dialect in his Linguistic Survey of India in 1903 (Grierson 1968: 321), this
publication is a cornerstone for the revival of the Chakma script, since he provided an
overview of the writing system to which Chakma traditionalists refer overwhelmingly to
this day. However, besides diverse attempts to introduce Chakma in its own script
(actually closely related to the Burmese writing system) in various schools run by NGOs
in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, the only government institution already active in
implementing this script is the Tribal Cultural Institute (also ÿz`ª b„-‡Mvôxi mvs¯‹…wZK

Bbw÷wUDU) in Rangamati which has developed textbooks, a font and keyboard. The
Hindi,
revival of the Chakma script must be seen in the context of a widespread trend among
Urdu and
ethnic minority groups – often so-called 'Adivasis' – in the whole of South Asia for whom English in
script serves today not only as an important identity marker, but also as a demarcator front of
from dominating languages, and as an alleged stabiliser.7 But contrary to, for instance, the Bara
Meitei and its script, which are heavily backed by the government of Manipur, similar Imambara
in
e orts for minority languages in Bangladesh seem to be naïve.
Lucknow.
Though the National Education Policy of 2010 states that ‘[m]easures will be
taken to ensure the availability of teachers from ethnic groups and to
prepare texts in their own languages so that ethnic children can learn their
own indigenous languages’ (Ministry of Education 2010: 15), such measures
are yet to be implemented, and matters do not look promising. Besides those
for the Garo, Marma, Sadri and Tripura languages, textbooks for Chakma
and, above all, in Chakma script too are planned to be introduced in 2015.8
However, the goal behind the introduction of these textbooks is not the
preservation of these languages or their scripts; these measures aim at
reducing the high rate of early dropouts among ethnic minority children and
increasing their chances of catching up with higher education in Bengali.
Eastern
Thus their mother language is to serve only as a bridge medium during the Nagari
rst few years of pre-school and primary education. The future of minority at the
languages in Bangladesh is thus not automatically ensured. airport
 After talking, for instance, to several Chakmas and Santals, I in
Calcutta.
realised that though their own languages and in the case of
Chakma, script is indeed an important identity marker, especially
poor members of these communities are very much aware that
Bengali and its script is unavoidable for social upward mobility,
and hence, they often favour education in Bengali. It is apparent
that the economic and political realities in Bangladesh leave
hardly any space for cultural and linguistic heterogeneity. Thus
the role of Bengali in Bangladesh today, as well as in the rest of
east and northeast South Asia in the past, can easily be compared
to that of Hindi and Urdu – dominating languages which Meitei in
contribute to the decline of other languages and writing systems Meitei
in their respective regions of political power. Mayek
and
 
Eastern
  Notes      Nagari
at the
 1)   This article, written in English, uses English language names as a
Manipur
matter of course, not those of the original language, thus ‘German’ and
University
not ‘Deutsch’, ‘French’ and not ‘Français’, ‘Greek’ and not ‘Elinika’,
library.
‘Armenian’ and not ‘Hayeren’, ‘Georgian’ and not ‘Kartuli’, etc. – and
therefore also ‘Bengali’ and not ‘Bangla’.
 2)  Also in the Unicode, this script is listed only under 'Bengali', while the two graphically deviant characters
for Assamese are referred to as 'Bengali letter ra with middle diagonal', for ৰ(ra), and 'Bengali letter ra with

 lower diagonal', for ৱ(va), instead of 'Assamese letter ra' and 'va'.
 3)  Also referred to as 'Devanagari'. The usage of the term 'Nagari' follows authors like King (1994) and Rai
(2001). The main reason for preferring Nagari over Devanagari is that, though Devanagari is used in
manuscriptology to di erentiate this Northern script style from the Southern Nandinagari, in modern
terminology the term deva (Sanskrit 'god, godly') has been applied to nagari, the name form previously
common , to impute a divine aura to this script (because of the nearly exclusive Western Orientalist use of
Nagari to print Sanskrit) and hence a status of superiority in relation to other scripts in India.
 4)    In addition to the diverging scripts, the vocabulary of Hindi and Urdu vary at the formal level. Hindi
prefers words of Sanskrit origin, while Urdu draws extensively from Perso-Arabic and, in sporadic cases,
Turkic sources. However, in daily life, speakers of both languages might not even realise that they speak two
'di erent' languages.
 5)   Konkani is the o cial language of the Indian union state Goa, but is also spoken in other parts of India
and even Pakistan. Depending on the dominant writing system of the region or the religion of its speakers it
is written in the Latin, Perso-Arabic or Nagari scripts, or the scripts otherwise used for Kannada and
Malayalam.
 6 )  Interestingly, Ayub Khan proposed to write all Pakistani languages, also Bengali and Urdu, in the Latin
script following the example of the introduction in 1928, under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, of the Latin alphabet
for Turkish (until then written mainly in the Perso-Arabic script). Unsurprisingly, this attempt, which can be
perceived as the secularisation of language standing in strong contrast to the dominant state identity of
Pakistan based on Islam, ultimately failed.
 7)   For other examples of script revival and invention, e.g. Santali, in this context see Brandt (2014).
 8)     Interestingly, Santali was dropped from this plan after controversies between Santals preferring the
 Eastern Nagari script and those lobbying for the Latin alphabet emerged. This actually portrays the divide
inside the Santal community along religious lines – between those who practise the traditional Santal religion
and/or Hinduism, and Christians respectively.

 References  

  *  Alyssa Ayres; ‘Speaking Like a State: Language and Nationalism in Pakistan.’ Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009.
 *  Carmen Brandt; ‘Script as a Potential Demarcator and Stabilizer of languages in South Asia’, in: Hugo C.
Cardoso (ed.): ‘Language Endangerment and Preservation in South Asia.’ (Language Documentation &
Conservation Special Publication 7.) Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press: 78-99, 2014.
 *  G. A. Grierson (ed.): ‘Linguistic Survey of India, vol. 5; Indo-Aryan Family: Eastern Group, pt. 1: Specimens
of the Bengali and Assamese Languages.’ Repr. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1968.
 *   Anne J. Kershen : ‘Strangers, Aliens and Asians: Huguenots, Jews and Bangladeshis in Spital elds 1660-
2000. (British Politics and Society.)’ London/New York: Routledge, 2005.
 *   Christopher R. King,1994: ‘One Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North
India.’ Bombay: Oxford University Press.
  *    Sabiha Mansoor 1993: ‘Punjabi, Urdu, English in Pakistan: A sociolinguistic study.’ Lahore (et al.):
Vanguard Books.
  *    Ministry of Education, 2010: ‘National Education Policy.’ Government of the People's Republic of
Bangladesh.
 *   Harjot Oberoi 1995: ‘The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity, and Diversity in the Sikh

 Tradition.’ 2nd impr. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

 *   Alok Rai 2001: ‘Hindi Nationalism.’ New Delhi: Orient Longman.
 *   Harimohon Thounaojam Singh 2011: ‘The Evolution and Recent Development of the Meitei Mayek Script’,
in: Hyslop, Gwendolyn; Morey, Stephen; Post, Mark W. (eds.): ‘North East Indian linguistics, vol. 3.’ Delhi:
Cambridge University Press: 24-32.
 *   Pashaura Singh, 2004: ‘Sikh Identity in the Light of History: A Dynamic Perspective’, in: Singh, Pashaura;
Barrier, N. Gerald (eds.): Sikhism and History. New Delhi (et al.): Oxford University Press: 77-110.
 *   Badruddin Umar, 2000: ‘Language Movement in East Bengal’. Dhaka: Jatiya Grontha Prakashan.
 *   Heinz Werner Wessler 2009: ‘Ādigranth’, in: Arnold, Heinz Ludwig (ed.): ‘Kindlers Literatur-Lexikon, vol. 1:
A-Bak,’ 3rd edn. Stuttgart & Weimar: J.B. Metzler: 92-93.

CARMEN BRANDT is a lecturer cum research fellow at the South Asia Section of the Institute for Oriental
Studies, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, since 2007. Apart from teaching Bengali, Hindi
and other courses, she is the author of Educating Santals: The Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Joypurhat
(Bangladesh) and the Issue of Cultural Alienation. Carmen has written her PhD on the perception of itinerant
communities in Bengal in ctional and non- ctional sources. She is also interested in the media landscape of
Bangladesh and India and focuses in her recent research project on the socio-linguistic and political
dimensions of script in South Asia.

All photographs taken by the author.

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