India has a history of sub-nationalist and regionalist movements that have drawn on language and associated cultures. Over the years, there have been movements in various states, for instance Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Karnataka, which have pushed for primacy for the state language in public spaces. Support for the use of local language over any other language, thus, may be considered an expression of linguistic sub-nationalism. In the earlier section, we looked at how people identify themselves in the context of regional and national, in this section we explore whether people hold a preference in the languages that are used in public spaces. Question 57 in the questionnaire is as follows and the respondents were asked to choose between local language and ‘Any Language’: “Some people feel it is acceptable to speak in any language in public places while others feel that people should speak only in the local language in public places. What is your opinion on this issue?”
Figure 3B.9: Preference for Local Language versus Any Language in Public Spaces
Over half of the respondents (55 per cent) feel that any language can be used in public spaces whereas 45 per cent of the respondents support the use of the local language (Figure 3.B.9). One might expect that a stronger preference for one’s regional identity may drive preference for local or regional language as well. However, as the next figure shows, there is large variation across the states and this does not entirely match entirely with the predominant identity in the state.
While eight of the 12 states show considerable support for the use of any language in public spaces, in five states — Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram, Assam, Punjab and West Bengal — a majority of the respondents prefers the use of the local language (Figure 3.B.10). Interestingly, of the five states that support the use of local language, only Jammu and Kashmir and Mizoram record a large preference for regional identity, that
Figure 3B.10: Preference for Local Language versus Any Language in Public Spaces (by State)
The preference for the use of the local language finds lesser support in urban centres, compared to rural areas as seen in (Figure 3.B.11). Nevertheless, a majority of both urban and rural respondents support the use of any language in public spaces. The support for local language among rural respondents seems to match with the results seen earlier (in Figure 3.B.2), where a higher share of rural respondents had identified as ‘More regional’.
Figure 3B.11: Preference for Local Language versus Any Language (by Rural-Urban)
However, do urban and rural respondents hold differing attitudes in different states? Is the support for the use of the local language in rural areas consistent across the states? Figure 3.B.12shows the support for the use of any language among rural and urban respondents in the states. While a larger share of urban respondents in most states do not have a preferred language, five states — Kerala, Nagaland, Tripura and Assam — show striking results. In these states, a greater proportion of rural respondents support the use of any language in public spaces. While the difference in support between urban and rural respondents is just 4 percentage points in Tripura, the same is as high as 20 percentage points in Kerala. This result is extremely interesting as it questions the age-old trope of cosmopolitan urban areas as a melting pot of cultures and language from various
The trend in Delhi must be viewed in a different light because as the National Capital Territory (NCT), it is fundamentally an urban area. According to the 2011 census, 97 per cent of the Delhi population consists of urban dwellers whereas only a small 2.5 per cent is considered rural. However, the support for the use of the local language is extremely low in NCT among both rural and urban respondents..
Figure 3B.12: Preference for Any Language (by State and Rural-Urban)
Figure 3.B.13, shows some clear results and some mixed results when viewed in
conjunction with self-identification as regional or national in Figure 3.B.4. There is a clear preference for the use of the local language among Sikhs (59 per cent) and a greater share of Hindus and Christians do not have any preferred language for public spaces. The result for Christian respondents is interesting since over half of the Christian respondents have identified themselves as ‘More Regional’. Another fascinating result is with respect to the Muslim community. While half of the Muslims respondents prefer the local language, the other half do not hold any such preference.
Figure 3B.14: Preference for Local Language versus Any Language (by Education Level)
Figure 3B.15: Preference for Any Language (by State and Education Level)
The general trend in literacy, as seen in Figure 3.B.14, shows a monotonic decline in preference for local language and an equal increase in support for the use of any language in public spaces. However, state-wise disaggregation of this result, as seen in Figure 3.B.15, shows a lot of variation across the states. While the support for the use of any language in public spaces increases with education in most states, five states — Assam, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Uttarakhand - show a different trend. Unlike other states, in Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, greater education seems to lead to a rise in respondents who feel that local language should be used in public spaces. West Bengal and Tripura, on the other hand, pose an entirely different trend in preference. In Tripura, the support for the use of any language in public spaces declines with primary education and matriculation and then increases among the college educated. The trend is West Bengal points toward greater support the use of any language among those educated to matriculation but shows considerably lower support
Nation is an identity, both political and emotional, and nationalism is an ideology which defines a loyalty or a sense of affection of the citizens towards its nation. The idea of both nation and nationalism has always been discussed and debated in India over the decades, but over the past few years it has been brought centre-stage and widely debated by various political parties, political observers and citizens. People are now divided into two groups– nationalists or anti-nationalists - based on their attitudes and perceptions towards private and public practices.
A closer look at the nature of the nationalism debate reveals issues centred around the idea of ‘conservative-nationalism’ and closely located to the idea of religious nationalism. The concept of religious nationalism is related to the idea that one religion and its practices are superior to other religions and the polity should be run according to the beliefs and ideology of the majority religion.
In the past three or four years, the country has some violent incidents based on issues such as - a ban on consumption of beef, publicly assaults for not saying ‘Bharat Mata
ki Jai’ (Hail Mother India), for not standing for the national anthem, and attacks and
lynchings in the name of cow protection. This section seeks to see the pattern of people’s position on these issues.
We asked a few sets of questions in our survey which revolve around the issue of
nationalism. People were asked to give their opinion on whether the government should punish people who don’t say Bharat Mata ki Jai at public places, consume beef or cow meat, don’t stand for the national anthem or engage in religious conversion. The result of the survey directs towards the regional and inter-community variations in people’s shared opinion on these issues. For instance, Indian States having a significant population of national religious minorities don’t support punishment whereas States in the Hindi heartland overwhelmingly support punishment for the aforesaid positions. To measure these variations, this section tries to present people’s opinion on these issues from all sampled States and from different castes and communities.