Academic literature on the topic 'Khari Boli language'

AbstractThis paper charts the linguistic shifts in a popular iteration of the story of Lord Ram, commonly known as the ‘Radheshyam Ramayan’ (composed in the first quarter of the twentieth century), across four versions of the text published in the devanāgarī script, between 1939 and 1969. It argues that the author, Radheshyam Kathavachak, likely revised his text over the course of many years, in large part to bring its language closer to śuddh (pure) Hindi on the Hindi-Urdu spectrum—a labour that was in the service of the Hindi language movement, if not also Hindu nationalism. Whilst the language in the 1939 printing is a mixed register of Hindi-Urdu, by 1959, the language has undergone a process of ‘Sanskritization’. That is, much of the vocabulary of Persian and Arabic origin, and also much vocabulary associated with the Braj tradition, have been replaced with words from Sanskrit. The progressive editing of text also shows a deep concern for the standardization and occasionally, elevation of literary Hindi, and simultaneously, the correction of defects in meter and style. The example of Kathavachak's ‘many Radheshyam Ramayans’ offers insight into the timing and pace of the Sanskritization of Hindi letters, suggesting that for some, the process may have been more protracted and anguished than is often thought.

One of the major spheres in which the communal divide in India especially in the north has manifested itself is that of language, around the controversy over Hindi and Urdu. It raged in colonial Punjab as well, despite the fact that neither language was spoken over the larger part of it. In a sense, therefore, it was imported from the then North-Western Provinces (now UP), where the original dialect had given rise to a common language (Khari Boli, Hindustani) with two scripts, around which Hindi and Urdu came to be created as literary languages. Though Urdu remained in colonial times the main print and school language in pre-1947 Punjab, the language controversy continued to play a communally divisive role. In Punjab, the Arya Samaj was the main torchbearer for Hindi, with even nationalists like Lala Lajpat Rai in its camp.

While translation plays a vital role in bridging intercultural gaps, it struggles to convey the exact meaning of certain ideas due to the unique characteristics and structures inherent in each language and the underlying social context. This difficulty is pronounced when translating between the language pair Hindi and Urdu, which, despite both originating from Khari Boli, have diverged significantly under the influences of Hinduism and Islam. In an Indian social context, the Arabic-origin Urdu word Allah is often equated with the Sanskrit-origin Hindi word Ishvara. However, this translation is problematic and can cause confusion because the Hindu idea of the divine, Ishvara, is fundamentally different from the Islamic concept of Allah. Building upon the theory of Sanskrit non-translatability proposed by Malhotra and Babaji, this paper argues for the existence of cultural untranslatability in the domain of Urdu-Sanskrit translation. Using a case study approach for the terms Ishvara and Allah, the paper concludes that specific religious terms should not be translated and makes the case that preserving precise linguistic categories is essential for meaningful inter-faith engagement.

While translation plays a vital role in bridging intercultural gaps, it struggles to convey the exact meaning of certain ideas due to the unique characteristics and structures inherent in each language and the underlying social context. This difficulty is pronounced when translating between the language pair Hindi and Urdu, which, despite both originating from Khari Boli, have diverged significantly under the influences of Hinduism and Islam. In an Indian social context, the Arabic-origin Urdu word Allah is often equated with the Sanskrit-origin Hindi word Ishvara. However, this translation is problematic and can cause confusion because the Hindu idea of the divine, Ishvara, is fundamentally different from the Islamic concept of Allah. Building upon the theory of Sanskrit non-translatability proposed by Malhotra and Babaji, this paper argues for the existence of cultural untranslatability in the domain of Urdu-Sanskrit translation. Using a case study approach for the terms Ishvara and Allah, the paper concludes that specific religious terms should not be translated and makes the case that preserving precise linguistic categories is essential for meaningful inter-faith engagement.

When it comes to language and literature, the richness of a culture can only be comprehended via reading and listening. Brahmi is believed to have been responsible for the script of all northern Indian languages except for Urdu. The result of a lengthy and tedious process. There are currently over 200 different languages and dialects spoken throughout India. Some are extensively employed, while others are only found in a single location of the country or planet. Only twenty-two of these amendments has made it into the text of our country's founding constitution. In addition to Braj Bhasha, Avadhi who is spoken in the Oudh region, Bhojpuri, Magadhi, and Maithili which is spoken in Mithila, Rajasthani who is spoken in Rajasthan, and Khadi Boli which is spoken around Delhi. A substantial number of people speak Hindi in its various forms. Another script, known as Brahmi, was also established in the region during this period and was used throughout India and the rest of South Asia at the same time. Even though historians, archaeologists, and epigraphists have been interested in Brahmi Script for centuries, the script's varied forms, structures, and typographical peculiarities as an alphabet have been mostly overlooked and never examined. Within the scope of this paper, we shall look at the origins of the Brahmi script as a type of logography. Historical appreciation for the distinct anatomical symmetry and phonetic logic of the Brahmi script exists. This has led some outsiders to think that it is an import, yet a consensus has developed over time. "Brahmi" is no longer thought to be a stolen script, but rather an Indigenous one that developed over time. Brahmi is a typographic entity that is basic yet graceful, bold yet lyric, distinct yet easy to recall, symmetrical with decent legibility even when scaled-down, and generally easy to recognise when touched on with closed eyes as a typographic entity. Brahmi is a typeface with a wide range of distinct features. This study investigates the history of the Brahmi script as a logographic element.

Статья посвящена исследованию одного из базовых категорий, наряду с категорией пространства, категории времени, нашедшей отражение в текстах хакасских героических сказаний «Алтын Арыг», записанного от популярного народного сказителя Хакасии С. П. Кадышева (1885-1977), «Ай Хуучин» и «Айдолай», записанного от сказителя П. В. Курбижекова (1910-1966), «Хара Хусхун», записанного от сказителя П. В. Тоданова и текстов тувинской богатырской сказки «Хайындырыңмай Багай-оол» (Смелый, Бедовый, от хайындырар – действовать, творить), соединяющий в себе черты эпического и сказочного повествования. Кроме того, тувинский материал был извлечен из статьи М. В. Ондар, который посвящен анализу стандартных фраз, отражающих время в текстах тувинских героических сказаний. Актуальность исследования связана с возрастающим интересом к месту и роли временных (темпоральных) идей в форме национальной лингвокультуры. Известно, что пространство и время как фундаментальные свойства бытия определяют специфику ментальности этнического коллектива, обусловливают уникальность временных и пространственных планов жизнедеятельности. В каждом языке существуют свои средства выражения и своя система способов выражения временных представлений.Целью статьи является выявление и описание многократно повторяющихся стандартных фраз, отражающих время в текстах героических сказаний хакасов и тувинцев. Исследование проводилось в рамках антропоцентрической парадигмы знаний, естественной точкой отсчета которой является представление о человеке и о языке в человеке. В результате исследования выявлены и проанализированы временные репрезентанты фольклорных текстов хакасского и тувинского языков в сравнительном плане; определен состав темпоральной лексики в героических эпосах хакасского и тувинского языков; определены как традиционные темпоральные, так и актуальные для языка героического эпоса номинаторы.Полученные результаты исследования могут найти применение при чтении лекционных курсов по хакасскому и тувинскому языкам на филологических факультетах вузов, при составлении учебно-методических пособий, словарей, а также при сравнительно-типологических исследованиях. The article is devoted to one of the basic categories, along with the category of space, the category of time, as reflected in the texts of the Khakass heroic tales of Altyn Aryg, recorded by S. P. Kadyshev (1885-1977), a popular folk singer of the Khakassia Republic; Аy Khuuchin and Aydolay, recorded after the narrator P. V. Kurbishekov (1910-1966); Khara Khuskhun, recorded after the narrator P. V. Todanov; and texts of the Tuvan heroic tale Khaiyndyryngmai Bagai-ool (Bold, Daring, from haiyndyrar ‘to act, to do’), combining the features of an epic and fairy-tale narratives. In addition, Tuvan material was also taken from the article by M. V. Ondar, which is devoted to the analysis of standard phrases reflecting the time in the texts of Tuvan heroic tales. The relevance of the research is connected with the growing interest in the place and role of temporal ideas in the form of the ethnic linguistic culture. It is known that space and time as the fundamental properties of being determine the specifics of the mentality of an ethnic group, determine the uniqueness of time and spatial plans of life. Each language has its own means of expression and its own system of means of expression (temporal) representations.The purpose of this article was to identify and describe repetitive standard phrases that reflect the time in the texts of heroic tales of the Khakass and Tuvan people. The study was conducted within the anthropocentric paradigm of knowledge, the natural starting point of which is the idea of man and language in man. As a result of the research, temporary representatives of folklore texts of the Khakass and Tuvan languages in comparative terms were identified and analyzed; the composition of temporal vocabulary in the heroic epics of the Khakass and Tuvan languages was determined; both traditional temporal and nominators relevant to the language of the heroic epic were defined.The results of the study can be used in lecture courses in the Khakass and Tuvan languages at philological faculties of universities, in the preparation of teaching aids, dictionaries, as well as in comparative typological studies.

The Medieval India saw a great advancement in the progress of Indian language and literature. Persian and Arabic are the most important literary works of the Afghan period. Hindi literature also made a significant progress during this period. Braj bhasha and khari boli Begun were usage in literary compositions. This article attempt to examine that there are many scholars and theologians who contribute in the growth of literature. Malik Mohammad Jayasi and Surdas are the most famous figure from this period.

This article takes the linguistic space of North India during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and tries to see how a nationalistic linguistic ideology that was shaping up at that time, creating Hindi and Urdu linguistic communities, used gender as a tool to portray and assert a masculinist vision of language and nation. It involved not just censoring certain representations of women and their cultural spaces, but also using the issue of ‘vulgar’ representations as a premise to marginalize certain languages and their literature. The article looks at the colonial ideology that worked as an enforcer for the nationalists to work towards achieving what they felt as a sanitized and moral form of literature and culture. The linguistic ideology that accompanied these revisions was of projecting Hindi (Khari Boli) as a national language while limiting spaces of other languages, such as Braj, Urdu and Bhojpuri, in the region, by criticizing either their use of sexual imagery or by stereotyping them in a gendered way. This article investigates the arguments of nationalist writers and highlights their masculinist and patriarchal ideas in their bid for the new national language.

What we wear signals our membership within groups, be theyorganised by gender, class, ethnicity or religion. Simultaneously our clothing signifies hierarchies and power relations that sustain dominant power structures. How we dress is an expression of our identity. For Veblen, how we dress expresses wealth and social stratification. In imitating the fashion of the wealthy, claims Simmel, we seek social equality. For Barthes, clothing is embedded with systems of meaning. For Hebdige, clothing has modalities of meaning depending on the wearer, as do clothes for gender (Davis) and for the body (Entwistle). For Maynard, “dress is a significant material practice we use to signal our cultural boundaries, social separations, continuities and, for the present purposes, political dissidences” (103). Clothing has played a central role in historical and contemporary forms of political dissent. During the French Revolution dress signified political allegiance. The “mandated costumes, the gold-braided coat, white silk stockings, lace stock, plumed hat and sword of the nobility and the sober black suit and stockings” were rejected as part of the revolutionary struggle (Fairchilds 423). After the storming of the Bastille the government of Paris introduced the wearing of the tricolour cockade, a round emblem made of red, blue and white ribbons, which was a potent icon of the revolution, and a central motif in building France’s “revolutionary community”. But in the aftermath of the revolution divided loyalties sparked power struggles in the new Republic (Heuer 29). In 1793 for example anyone not wearing the cockade was arrested. Specific laws were introduced for women not wearing the cockade or for wearing it in a profane manner, resulting in six years in jail. This triggered a major struggle over women’s abilities to exercise their political rights (Heuer 31).Clothing was also central to women’s political struggles in America. In the mid-nineteenth century, women began wearing the “reform dress”—pants with shortened, lightweight skirts in place of burdensome and restrictive dresses (Mas 35). The wearing of pants, or bloomers, challenged gender norms and demonstrated women’s agency. Women’s clothes of the period were an "identity kit" (Ladd Nelson 22), which reinforced “society's distinctions between men and women by symbolizing their natures, roles, and responsibilities” (Ladd Nelson 22, Roberts 555). Men were positioned in society as “serious, active, strong and aggressive”. They wore dark clothing that “allowed movement, emphasized broad chests and shoulders and presented sharp, definite lines” (Ladd Nelson 22). Conversely, women, regarded as “frivolous, inactive, delicate and submissive, dressed in decorative, light pastel coloured clothing which inhibited movement, accentuated tiny waists and sloping shoulders and presented an indefinite silhouette” (Ladd Nelson 22, Roberts 555). Women who challenged these dress codes by wearing pants were “unnatural, and a perversion of the “true” woman” (Ladd Nelson 22). For Crane, the adoption of men’s clothing by women challenged dominant values and norms, changing how women were seen in public and how they saw themselves. The wearing of pants came to “symbolize the movement for women's rights” (Ladd Nelson 24) and as with women in France, Victorian society was forced to consider “women's rights, including their right to choose their own style of dress” (Ladd Nelson 23). As Yangzom (623) puts it, clothing allows groups to negotiate boundaries. How the “embodiment of dress itself alters political space and civic discourse is imperative to understanding how resistance is performed in creating social change” (Yangzom 623). Fig. 1: 1850s fashion bloomersIn a different turn is presented in Mahatma Gandhi’s Khadi movement. Khadi is a term used for fabrics made on a spinning wheel (or charkha) or hand-spun and handwoven, usually from cotton fibre. Khadi is considered the “fabric of Indian independence” (Jain). Gandhi recognised the potential of the fabric to a self-reliant, independent India. Gandhi made the struggle for independence synonymous with khadi. He promoted the materials “simplicity as a social equalizer and made it the nation’s fabric” (Sinha). As Jain notes, clothing and in this case fabric, is a “potent sign of resistance and change”. The material also reflects consciousness and agency. Khadi was Gandhi’s “own sartorial choices of transformation from that of an Englishman to that of one representing India” (Jain). For Jain the “key to Khadi becoming a successful tool for the freedom struggle” was that it was a “material embodiment of an ideal” that “represented freedom from colonialism on the one hand and a feeling of self-reliance and economic self-sufficiency on the other”. Fig. 2: Gandhi on charkha The reappropriating of Khadi as a fabric of political dissent echoes the wearing of blue denim by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) at the 1963 National Mall Washington march where 250,000 people gather to hear Martin Luther King speak. The SNCC formed in 1960 and from then until the 1963 March on Washington they developed a “style aesthetic that celebrated the clothing of African American sharecroppers” (Ford 626). A critical aspect civil rights activism by African America women who were members of the SNCC was the “performance of respectability”. With the moral character of African American women under attack (as a way of delegitimising their political activities), the female activists “emphasized the outward display of their respectability in order to withstand attacks against their characters”. Their modest, neat “as if you were going to church” (Chappell 96) clothing choices helped them perform respectability and this “played an important performative role in the black freedom struggle” (Ford 626). By 1963 however African American female civil rights activists “abandoned their respectable clothes and processed hairstyles in order to adopt jeans, denim skirts, bib-and-brace overalls”. The adoption of bib-and-brace overalls reflected the sharecropper's blue denim overalls of America’s slave past.For Komar the blue denim overalls “dramatize[d] how little had been accomplished since Reconstruction” and the overalls were practical to fix from attack dog tears and high-pressure police hoses. The blue denim overalls, according to Komar, were also considered to be ‘Negro clothes’ purchased by “slave owners bought denim for their enslaved workers, partly because the material was sturdy, and partly because it helped contrast them against the linen suits and lace parasols of plantation families”. The clothing choice was both practical and symbolic. While the ‘sharecropper’ narrative is problematic as ‘traditional’ clothing (something not evident in the case of Ghandi’s Khandi Movement, there is an emotion associated with the clothing. As Barthes (6-7) has shown, what makes ‘traditional clothing,’ traditional is that it is part of a normative system where not only does clothing have its historical place, but it is governed by its rules and regimentation. Therefore, there is a dialectical exchange between the normative system and the act of dressing where as a link between the two, clothing becomes the conveyer of its meanings (7). Barthes calls this system, langue and the act of dressing parole (8). As Ford does, a reading of African American women wearing what she calls a “SNCC Skin” “the uniform [acts] consciously to transgress a black middle-class worldview that marginalised certain types of women and particular displays of blackness and black culture”. Hence, the SNCC women’s clothing represented an “ideological metamorphosis articulated through the embrace and projection of real and imagined southern, working-class, and African American cultures. Central to this was the wearing of the blue denim overalls. The clothing did more than protect, cover or adorn the body it was a conscious “cultural and political tool” deployed to maintain a movement and build solidarity with the aim of “inversing the hegemonic norms” via “collective representations of sartorial embodiment” (Yangzom 622).Fig. 3: Mississippi SNCC March Coordinator Joyce Ladner during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom political rally in Washington, DC, on 28 Aug. 1963Clothing in each of these historical examples performs an ideological function that can bridge, that is bring diverse members of society together for a cause, or community cohesion or clothing can act as a fence to keep identities separate (Barnard). This use of clothing is evident in two indigenous examples. For Maynard (110) the clothes worn at the 1988 Aboriginal ‘Long March of Freedom, Justice and Hope’ held in Australia signalled a “visible strength denoted by coherence in dress” (Maynard 112). Most noted was the wearing of colours – black, red and yellow, first thought to be adopted during protest marches organised by the Black Protest Committee during the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane (Watson 40). Maynard (110) describes the colour and clothing as follows:the daytime protest march was dominated by the colours of the Aboriginal people—red, yellow and black on flags, huge banners and clothing. There were logo-inscribed T-shirts, red, yellow and black hatband around black Akubra’s, as well as red headbands. Some T-shirts were yellow, with images of the Australian continent in red, others had inscriptions like 'White Australia has a Black History' and 'Our Land Our Life'. Still others were inscribed 'Mourn 88'. Participants were also in customary dress with body paint. Older Indigenous people wore head bands inscribed with the words 'Our Land', and tribal elders from the Northern Territory, in loin cloths, carried spears and clapping sticks, their bodies marked with feathers, white clay and red ochres. Without question, at this most significant event for Aboriginal peoples, their dress was a highly visible and cohesive aspect.Similar is the Tibetan Freedom Movement, a nonviolent grassroots movement in Tibet and among Tibet diaspora that emerged in 2008 to protest colonisation of Tibet. It is also known as the ‘White Wednesday Movement’. Every Wednesday, Tibetans wear traditional clothes. They pledge: “I am Tibetan, from today I will wear only Tibetan traditional dress, chuba, every Wednesday”. A chuba is a colourful warm ankle-length robe that is bound around the waist by a long sash. For the Tibetan Freedom Movement clothing “symbolically functions as a nonverbal mechanism of communication” to “materialise consciousness of the movement” and functions to shape its political aims (Yangzom 622). Yet, in both cases – Aboriginal and Tibet protests – the dress may “not speak to single cultural audience”. This is because the clothing is “decoded by those of different political persuasions, and [is] certainly further reinterpreted or reframed by the media” (Maynard 103). Nevertheless, there is “cultural work in creating a coherent narrative” (Yangzom 623). The narratives and discourse embedded in the wearing of a red, blue and white cockade, dark reform dress pants, cotton coloured Khadi fabric or blue denim overalls is likely a key feature of significant periods of political upheaval and dissent with the clothing “indispensable” even if the meaning of the clothing is “implied rather than something to be explicated” (Yangzom 623). On 21 January 2017, 250,000 women marched in Washington and more than two million protesters around the world wearing pink knitted pussy hats in response to the remarks made by President Donald Trump who bragged of grabbing women ‘by the pussy’. The knitted pink hats became the “embodiment of solidarity” (Wrenn 1). For Wrenn (2), protests such as this one in 2017 complete with “protest visuals” which build solidarity while “masking or excluding difference in the process” indicates “a tactical sophistication in the social movement space with its strategic negotiation of politics of difference. In formulating a flexible solidarity, the movement has been able to accommodate a variety of races, classes, genders, sexualities, abilities, and cultural backgrounds” (Wrenn 4). In doing so they presented a “collective bodily presence made publicly visible” to protest racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, and xenophobic white masculine power (Gokariksel & Smith 631). The 2017 Washington Pussy Hat March was more than an “embodiment tactic” it was an “image event” with its “swarms of women donning adroit posters and pink pussy hats filling the public sphere and impacting visual culture”. It both constructs social issues and forms public opinion hence it is an “argumentative practice” (Wrenn 6). Drawing on wider cultural contexts, as other acts of dissent note here do, in this protest with its social media coverage, the “master frame” of the sea of pink hats and bodies posited to audiences the enormity of the anger felt in the community over attacks on the female body – real or verbal. This reflects Goffman’s theory of framing to describe the ways in which “protestors actively seek to shape meanings such that they spark the public’s support and encourage political openings” (Wrenn 6). The hats served as “visual tropes” (Goodnow 166) to raise social consciousness and demonstrate opposition. Protest “signage” – as the pussy hats can be considered – are a visual representation and validation of shared “invisible thoughts and emotions” (Buck-Coleman 66) affirming Georg Simmel’s ideas about conflict; “it helps individuals define their differences, establish to which group(s) they belong, and determine the degrees to which groups are different from each other” (Buck-Coleman 66). The pink pussy hat helped define and determine membership and solidarity. Further embedding this was the hand-made nature of the hat. The pattern for the hat was available free online at https://www.pussyhatproject.com/knit/. The idea began as one of practicality, as it did for the reform dress movement. This is from the Pussy Hat Project website:Krista was planning to attend the Women’s March in Washington DC that January of 2017 and needed a cap to keep her head warm in the chill winter air. Jayna, due to her injury, would not be able to attend any of the marches, but wanted to find a way to have her voice heard in absentia and somehow physically “be” there. Together, a marcher and a non-marcher, they conceived the idea of creating a sea of pink hats at Women’s Marches everywhere that would make both a bold and powerful visual statement of solidarity, and also allow people who could not participate themselves – whether for medical, financial, or scheduling reasons — a visible way to demonstrate their support for women’s rights. (Pussy Hat Project)In the tradition of “craftivism” – the use of traditional handcrafts such as knitting, assisted by technology (in this case a website with the pattern and how to knit instructions), as a means of community building, skill-sharing and action directed towards “political and social causes” (Buszek & Robertson 197) –, the hand-knitted pink pussy hats avoided the need to purchase clothing to show solidarity resisting the corporatisation of protest clothing as cautioned by Naomi Klein (428). More so by wearing something that could be re-used sustained solidarity. The pink pussy hats provided a counter to the “incoherent montage of mass-produced clothing” often seen at other protests (Maynard 107). Everyday clothing however does have a place in political dissent. In late 2018, French working class and middle-class protestors donned yellow jackets to protest against the government of French President Emmanuel Macron. It began with a Facebook appeal launched by two fed-up truck drivers calling for a “national blockade” of France’s road network in protest against rising fuel prices was followed two weeks later with a post urging motorist to display their hi-vis yellow vests behind their windscreens in solidarity. Four million viewed the post (Henley). Weekly protests continued into 2019. The yellow his-vis vests are compulsorily carried in all motor cars in France. They are “cheap, readily available, easily identifiable and above all representing an obligation imposed by the state”. The yellow high-vis vest has “proved an inspired choice of symbol and has plainly played a big part in the movement’s rapid spread” (Henley). More so, the wearers of the yellow vests in France, with the movement spreading globally, are winning in “the war of cultural representation. Working-class and lower middle-class people are visible again” (Henley). Subcultural clothing has always played a role as heroic resistance (Evans), but the coloured dissent dressing associated with the red, blue and white ribboned cockades, the dark bloomers of early American feminists, the cotton coloured natural fabrics of Ghandi’s embodiment of resistance and independence, the blue denim sharecropper overalls worn by African American women in their struggles for civil rights, the black, red and orange of Aboriginal protestors in Australia and the White Wednesday performances of resistance undertaken by Tibetans against Chinese colonisation, the Washington Pink Pussy Hat marches for gender respect and equality and the donning of every yellow hi-vis vests by French protestors all posit the important role of fabric and colour in protest meaning making and solidarity building. It is in our rage we consciously wear the colours and fabrics of dissent dress. ReferencesBarnard, Malcolm. Fashion as Communication. New York: Routledge, 1996. 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Chapter 3 further examines Dwivedi’s visually oriented strategies to establish literary authority amidst resistance, especially from critics who publicly decried his brand of poetry as crude, and from poets who continued to publish in Braj Bhasha. Dwivedi’s response was pragmatic: he attempted to bring sophistication to Khari Boli poetry through a cultivated association with art; and he modelled poetry that adhered to a modified agenda. He authored and commissioned a series of image-poems, poetry inspired by and published alongside paintings by Ravi Varma (1848–1906) as well as other contemporary artists. Dwivedi’s limited use and sanction of Braj Bhasha’s linguistic and literary influence in these image-poems did not match his agenda in cartoons and prose. Such maneuvers defined the very substance of modern Hindi poetry in the early twentieth century and established Khari Boli as the language of modern Hindi literature.

Chapter 2 examines Dwivedi’s programmatic essays, focusing on his construction of literature as a culturally embedded category of national consequence. His theorization of Hindi literature as broadly inclusive in its definition and function, though faced with some criticism from his peers, serves an immediate need: to stimulate the growth of a national body of literature. At the same time, historical and linguistic parameters and a prioritized plan of literary production reify the notion of a modern category oriented towards a narrowly constructed national collective that seeks to establish its sovereign identity via literature in only Khari Boli Hindi. Dwivedi’s prose prescribes a project of literary self-determination that privileges Indian literary activity with this variety of Hindi as the preferred lead language of the emergent nation, with all the risks that such restriction entails.

Imre Bangha locates the source of what would later become the literary idioms associated with the Hindi heartland—Brajbhasha, Avadhi, Khari Boli, and so on—in Maru-Gurjar, an idiom originating not in the Gangetic plain but in western India, particularly the lands of modern Gujarat and western Rajasthan. Bangha argues that it was this literary language, originally cultivated by Jains beginning in the late twelfth century, that eventually spread to the lands known as madhyadeś, where in the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it developed into the forms that we now associate with Brajbhasha and Avadhi. Bangha also reveals that the linguistic and literary evidence for this connection has been apparent for some time, but modern Hindi literary historiography, taking nationalism as its organizing principle and embracing a strict sense of religion as one of the significant boundaries of literary culture, has been largely unable to see it.