Describe dynamics of cultural and linguistic plurality in South Asia.

 South Asia is also the hub of enormous linguistic diversity unlike many other continents and peoples. Like other diversities, India happens to be the country with the most diverse language base in the region. Though majority of Indians has Hindi as their mother tongue with varying dialects rooted in Hindi and Sanskrit, a large part of its population speaks languages other than http://Hindi.In this context, what is most amazing is the fact that India is home to languages like Sanskrit and Tamil that are considered as part of the earliest linguistic inventions in the world. It is therefore not surprising that almost all parts of the country are witness to its rich linguistic diversity. So, while northern and central parts of India are home to Hindi speakers with some pockets of Punjabi and other regional dialects, its southern states have linguistic distinction in terms of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Likewise, if western states speak languages like Marathi, Konkani and Gujarati, the inhabitants of eastern part are mainly speakers of Bengali, Assamese, Nepali and Odiya languages. (Subbarao: 2012)Remarkably, most, if not all, of these languages are extremely rich in having not only their own scripts but also a body of literature. The 8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution lists as many as 22 official languages.

In addition to India, many other South Asia countries are also the theatre of linguistic plurality though not of the scale found in India. For instance, Pakistan’s linguistic diversity is quite noticeable with important languages like Punjabi, Urdu, Pashto, Sindhi and Saraiki having large number of speakers. But for the rest of the countries, their linguistic diversity is confined to just two to three languages spoken by their people and recognised by their governments. That way, Sri Lanka recognizes Sinhala and Tamil as its official languages which are also spoken by a substantial number of its population. In Afghanistan, Pashto and Dari are the important languages spoken by majority of its population. Though Nepal also has a number of languages having good speakership, Nepali is recognised as the official language and is spoken and understood by majority of its people. The official language of Bhutan is Dzongkha having its native tradition of literary creation though some other languages also exist in the country. In Maldives, while Dhivehi is the official language and is spoken by a large number of its population, Arabic and English are also used by some people. Bangladesh is the only monolingual country of South Asia where more than 98% of its population speaks Bengali.

The linguistic plurality of South Asia owes its genesis to the distinct civilisational traditions from which the people draw their lineage and continue to abide by that. Thus the major linguistic traditions from which various languages of South Asia arose include Indo-Aryan, Indo-European, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Austronesian, Indo-Iranian, Tibeto-Burman and Indo-Arabic, among others. The linguistic diversity has obviously helped in the creation of a rich treasure trove of literary traditions in these countries. However, language has also been the basis for much of political turmoil and reshaping of political boundaries in the region. While India’s policy of managing its linguistic plurality has been the creation of linguistically homogenous states and constitutional recognition to certain other languages, the other countries which could not give due recognition to linguistically diverse populations faced political upheavals. For instance, long drawn civil war in Sri Lanka was primarily rooted in its linguistic plurality. So much so that Pakistan’s inability to manage its language problem eventually led to its partition and creation of Bangladesh as an independent nation in 1971.

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