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398. Hegemony, Revolt and Selfhood (Masterclass: 2 of 3)
G N Devy
Speaker
The Masterclass Hegemony, Revolt and Selfhood: India’s Encounters with Languages explores three defining moments in India’s linguistic journey: the arrival of Sanskrit, Persian, and English. Each language came from beyond India’s borders, gained a foothold, and extended its influence across diverse cultures, communities, and tongues. Their dominance shaped not only communication but also identity, politics, and thought. Thus, becoming inseparable from the larger story of India itself.
These lectures will trace how each language consolidated its power, how resistance took form, and how new voices emerged in the process. Strikingly, in every encounter, it was not the imperial language that endured, but the languages rooted in the soil (the desa, the nadu) that reshaped and redefined the cultural landscape.
As we step into an uncertain digital future, this series asks whether India’s linguistic resilience will once again carry it forward, as it has so often before.
Decline and Transformation
Sanskrit reigned for millennia, Persian for centuries, English for decades. Yet, none endured unchallenged. Each gave way to the resilient desi-bhashas, rooted in the land and people. This lecture traces the rise, fall, and transformation of languages in India, and what these shifts reveal about power and imagination.
In this episode of BIC Talks, G N Devy delivers a masterclass. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in Sep 2025.
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Speaker
G N Devy
G. N. Devy is one of India’s foremost scholars of literature, culture, and languages. Over the past four decades, he has authored or edited more than a hundred volumes across literary criticism, linguistics, anthropology, education, and history. His writings, widely translated into major Indian languages, include After Amnesia (1992), Of Many Heroes (1997), Nomad Called Thief (2007), The Question of Silence (2016), Mahabharata: The Nation and the Epic (2012), and India as a Linguistic Civilization (2024). Devy founded the Bhasha Research Centre in Baroda (1996) and the Adivasi Academy at Tejgadh (1999), and conceived the landmark People’s Linguistic Survey of India, which mapped 780 living languages in 50 multilingual volumes. He has held senior professorships at leading institutions including MS University of Baroda, NCBS–TIFR, and Somaiya Vidyavihar University. Recipient of the Padma Shri, Sahitya Akademi Award, Prince Claus Award, SAARC Foundation Award, and Linguapax Award, he is also Senior Honorary Fellow of the Asiatic Society of Mumbai.
