Standardising the Standards

In the two responses to "Gandhi and the Standardisation of Gujarati" (EPW, 1 August 2009), one points out that the author lacks basic knowledge on standardisation of a language and makes a faulty assessment of the link between Gujarati and Sanskrit. The second argues that the author ignores the fact that Gandhi's mediation addressed the current needs of the time and that since Sanskrit is the fountainhead of all Indo-Aryan languages, Gujarati's linkage with it is inevitable.