Understanding the Modern Indian Nation State

The book under review on linguistic politics in India born out of a happy marriage of anthropology and history is a very well planned and carefully organized textual commentary giving an account of use and misuse of the labels language and mother tongue for political purposes. The book is divided into six chapters on each of which there are copious endnotes488 in number spreading over 36 pages giving us numerous links and references to related works, ideas, information and arguments. Besides the notes, it has an elaborate bibliography (pages 25569) that draws from resources like periodicals, private papers, archival materials, pamphlets, glossaries and manuscripts available in the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, India Office Library London, Royal Asiatic Society, newspaper houses, some district collectorates, and Chennai based Government Oriental Manuscripts Library on the one hand, and from a truly large number of published sources on language, politics and ideology.

At the end, we get an eleven page long index with 400 items where Lisa Mitchell has included language labels, names of authors and relevant texts, details of political movements and names of their leaders, initiators and martyrs for the cause, important place names including district labels as well as technical terms and cultural items that need tracking and elaboration. In both thematic treatment and organization, this is one of the best I have seen in the general area of language planning and language problems in the recent times. It is not surprising, therefore, that the book should receive the Ed Dimock Prize in Indian Humanities from the AIIS, and advance praise from eminent social scientists.