We are at a new juncture in the politics of language and statehood. First, there is great pressure for so-called linguistic states like Andhra and Maharashtra to be broken down further. Many of the arguments calling for the creation of new states like Telangana and Vidarbha make sense in light of the realities of these regions. But granting them recognition will involve modifying the 1956 vision. Rather than thinking of states along linguistic lines, we will have to commit to the proposition that not even all the South Indian states will bear the hallmark of a linguistic logic. Languages often need political recognition in a state to flourish. Just think of the appalling state of Urdu simply because it fell through the disjuncture between geography and language. But this is not a premise that should for ever stand in the way of new political and administrative possibilities.

But the second challenge is more complex. The reorganisation of states along linguistic lines also gave some momentum to identifying language with ethnicity: the issue was no longer simply the preservation of Kannada, or resisting the imposition of Hindi, but the whole political fashioning of a Kannadiga identity; Maharashtra went through a similar process during the seventies and eighties. This process can manifest itself in the often meaningless politics of renaming. After all when a culture begins to bother about so much names, there is a real suspicion that all that might be left to the politics of that language is names. But increasingly, this alignment is restricting the choices of citizens: many states, for instance, require university professors to be proficient in the native language to be eligible for increments, in some states there is a periodic assault on English language schools, and the possibility of Tamil-Kannada tension remains more than remote. This is where it is important that we draw the right lessons from 1956.

... contd.