Language Politics, Elites and the Public Sphere

The bilingual relationship between English and the Indian vernaculars has long been crucial to the construction of ideology as well as cultural and political hierarchies. Print was vital for colonial literacy; it was thereby instrumental in initiating a shift in the relation between "high" and "low" languages. Here, Dr Naregal examines the relationship between linguistic hierarchies, textual practices and power in colonial western India. Whereas most studies of colonialism focus on India's "high" literary culture, this book looks at how local intellectuals exploited their "middling" position through such initiatives as the establishment of newspapers and of influential channels of communication.