Language Policy of the Governments of Independent India: Main Principles and Stages

This article examines the stages of India's language policy since the independence in 1947. Even during the drafting of the Constitution, the new government had to develop an ethnolinguistic policy, define its goals. Various forces that came to power had different visions of these goals and the means to achieve them. The country experienced both radical shifts in its language policy and several serious regional conflicts that arose along multiple ethnolinguistic lines. The first 15 years of independence were a time not only of active government implementation of language-related measures but also of a rethinking of its ideological tenets as a whole. This study draws on documents from various periods, reflecting the official policy of the central government and the actual linguistic situation in India. The focus is on the similarities and differences in the approaches of different political parties. The measures they implemented and the results achieved are also analyzed. Thus, the entire period of language policy in independent India is divided into stages, distinguished not only by the central government but also by the trends of language policy. The key features of each stage and the changes in approaches are traced in historical perspective. Each approach is assessed within the political context in which it existed. The late 19th and early 20th centuries were a period of significant changes in both the domestic politics of India and its foreign policy realities. These changes were reflected in the approaches of the country's main political forces to the language issue.