Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

The discourse of inequality and exclusion often glosses over the linguistic contours of the problem focusing largely on class, caste, religion, and gender. In multilingual societies, however, the analysis of hegemonic structure of society necessitates inclusion of a linguistic dimension as well. In India especially the interface of language with other social constructs lends a non-linear character to inequality which is sustained and perpetuated by education among other things. Given the language choices available and prevalent pedagogical practices, a large segment of students have been deprived of their academic entitlements for a long time. The problem can be attributed to colonial history of the country as well as to more recent neo-liberal context. The paper discusses the issues and challenges faced by those students in higher education, who are not comfortable with English. The reference points are linguistic ethos of the society, pedagogical practices in school education and higher education, and state policies and provisions. The paper further examines to what extent the academic regime of our society in general and University in particular is fulfilling academic needs of linguistically underprivileged students.
Though the focus of the paper is Hindi, the situation is no different for many other Indian languages too.