@narne_kumar06 That could never happen if most Telugus were a part of Madras. Anyway call is not to retain Madras. It is for even smaller states. That is not A state for Telugus, Tamils, Kannadigas etc. - but multiple states for each. All states will have some linguistic minorities - that is…
@narne_kumar06 …unavoidable. But no need to unite all peoples of A language as ONE state. That confers a new political identity which isn’t rooted in historical reality and is a risk for the continued development of nationalism - that is the Indian identity as the primary identity. There are…
@narne_kumar06 .:two historical factors that prevented language from being a primary source of identity in our history - both of which are fraying now. One is that state provided mass education was not a reality earlier. Which meant that several local dialects had much more salience. Hence a…:
@narne_kumar06 …language was a skill, not A homogenous identity. In modernity primary education becomes a state imperative and whether it is govt or privately provided there is standardisation of a “language”. That creates the basis for a political consciousness on the basis of that “language”
@narne_kumar06 The second phenomenon was jAtis. jAti provided a counter force to “unity” on the basis of language. And in that sense made the civilisational unity more possible. That coupled with the so called Sanskrit/ “Brahminical” culture that acted as the cosmopolitan culture for….:
@narne_kumar06 ….Bharat. Again with modernity, these two phenomena will reduce in salience. Given this we need new axes of unity (across India) and “disunity” (to retain heterogeneity within states to prevent linguistic identity becoming the primary political axis). You can’t roll back….:
@narne_kumar06 ….modernity. So the most practical solutions are 1. Smaller states so that there is no single state for a language - that creates a good axis of disunity and revives cultural heterogeneity within people of a “language” and 2. Civilisational revival so that the common Hindu….
@narne_kumar06 ….culture acts as a uniting force - that doesn’t necessarily need to be “Brahminical” (though there will be that too) but also common festivals including relatively new forms of worship (Ganesh Chaturthi processions from Tilak’s time spreading across India) etc.
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