Politics of Language

Sadhna Saxena Kamal Mahendroo Two decades of experience in voluntary sector work involving non-formal and formal education and development-related programmes brought home to the authors the many insidious ways in which language and literacy are political LANGUAGE and literacy are political in more insidious ways than the newspapers and our politicians would lead us to believe. What we would like to say about this stems from our own two decades of experience in voluntary sector work, particularly in the eastern part of Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh. We have no formal grounding in linguistics, sociology or other social science discipline. However, we are encroaching upon the territories of experts to share our deep concern and uneasiness. Our work involved non-formal and formal (middle school science) education and development- related programmes with various sections of the rural and district town population. Our voluntary group and institution (Kishore Bharati) looked upon education as a tool for conscientisation, with a professed aim of helping the rural poor organise and stand up for their rights.