Language, Identity, and Power in Modern India: Gujarat, c.1850-1960

This book is a historical study of modern Gujarat, India, addressing crucial questions of language, identity, and power.

It examines the debates over language among the elite of this region during a period of significant social and political change in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Language debates closely reflect power relations among different sections of society, such as those delineated by nation, ethnicity, region, religion, caste, class, and gender. They are intimat...