INDIA: THE LAND OF MANY LANGUAGES. AND MANY NATIONS

India has 780 living languages. They belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 75% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 20% of Indians. Other languages belong to the Austroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kadai, and a few other minor language families and isolates. India (780) has the world's second highest number of languages, after Papua New Guinea (839), where every tribe has a language of its own, which is quite similar to areas such as the Naga Hills where the terrain and cultures resulted a different language beyond every ridge line.

The language issue in India overrides, and has overridden, all other divisions based on ideology at the empirical level. Modern India’s fault lines are where the colours change. These faultlines are compounded by differing genetic histories.

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Unveiling the "Real Majority" of India

Unveiling the "Real Majority": Divya Dwivedi’s Critique of the Hindu Majority Narrative * In contemporary Indian discourse, the notion of a "Hindu majority" is often taken as an unassailable fact, with official statistics frequently citing approximately 80% of India’s population as Hindu. This framing shapes political campaigns, cultural narratives, and even national identity. However, philosopher and professor at IIT Delhi, Divya Dwivedi, challenges this narrative in her provocative and incisive work, arguing that the "Hindu majority" is a constructed myth that obscures the true social composition of India. For Dwivedi, the "real majority" comprises the lower-caste communities—historically marginalized and oppressed under the caste system—who form the numerical and social backbone of the nation. Her critique, developed in collaboration with philosopher Shaj Mohan, offers a radical rethinking of Indian society, exposing the mechanisms of power t...

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