The surest means to get people to pick up pitchforks, set things on fire, and generally make a mess of things is not religion, not politics, but language.
Take India’s Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, for instance. He has taken one look at the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and declared war — not against poverty, not against corruption, but against Hindi. “We will not tolerate Hindi colonialism replacing British colonialism,” he posted on social media recently.
He sees the three-language policy as an underhand attempt to shove Hindi down the throats of non-Hindi speakers, much like an overenthusiastic grandmother force-feeding her grandkids. And who can blame him?
South Asians, it appears, are more loyal to their language than religion. The roots of most separatist movements on the Indian subcontinent lie in the language issue.
While religious differences have certainly contributed to social divides, it is language that more often acts as a catalyst for political fragmentation, shaping identities, and solidifying the demand for autonomy or independence.
A Linguistic Time Bomb: Jinnah’s Gift to Pakistan
When created in 1947 by the departing British, Pakistan was composed of two wings – East and West Pakistan – separated from each other by 2,500 km of Indian territory. To cobble the country together in a more robust way, Pakistan's first president Mohammed Ali Jinnah announced at a mammoth public meeting in Dhaka on 19 March 1948 that Urdu, a language spoken by West Pakistanis, would be the national language of Pakistan. He could not have done a better job of wrecking his country’s integration.
Urdu was a language most Bengalis couldn’t speak, let alone sing love songs in. The Bengali tempers were now stretched, and their soul shuddered at Jinnah’s decision.
They rose as one man against this imposition. Agitating masses filled the streets of East Pakistan for six years till the government reversed course and gave Bengali the status of a state language in 1954.
All the pious talk by West Pakistanis about common religion had not cut any ice with the Bengalis. The flimsy bond tying the two halves of Pakistan was now a tangled knot, and in 1971, the Bangladeshis cut it with a bayonet.
The Art of Forcing Hindi (And Failing Miserably)
India, never one to lag behind in self-inflicted trouble, had its own linguistic fireworks. In 1937, the Congress-led government of Madras Presidency under C Rajagopalachari thought it would be a splendid idea to make Hindi compulsory in schools. Periyar and the Justice Party (a predecessor to the Dravidian movement) strongly opposed this move, seeing it as an attempt to erase Tamil identity. The resistance led to widespread protests, arrests, and a strong anti-Hindi sentiment. Intense opposition forced the government to backtrack in 1940.
But the Hindi enthusiasts were persistent. When India’s Constitution came into force in 1950, Hindi was anointed the official language, with English hanging around as a backup plan for 15 years.
As the 15-year transition period for replacing English with Hindi approached its end in 1965, the Central government prepared to enforce Hindi as the sole official language.
This sparked violent protests in Tamil Nadu, led by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which had emerged as a major political force under CN Annadurai. Students and activists took to the streets, leading to self-immolations, police firings, and numerous deaths.
As a schoolboy in Delhi, I recall how enraged Tamil protesters took to the streets at night, painting over Hindi signboards with a vengeance.
Eventually, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri had to assure them that English would stay, thus saving the country from another linguistic catastrophe.
The anti-Hindi movement propelled the Dravidian parties to power in Tamil Nadu, and since then, every attempt to sneak Hindi back in has been met with staunch resistance.
Sri Lanka’s Language Lesson: How Not to Do It
While India and Pakistan had perfected the art of language-induced chaos, Sri Lanka was eager to prove otherwise. In the 1960 elections, Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the world’s first woman to become prime minister and promptly set about finishing what her husband had started — making Sinhala the sole official language and kicking Tamil to the curb.
Tamils, not amused with this new arrangement, responded with protests, civil disobedience, and eventually, a full-scale civil war that lasted nearly three decades. The government’s attempt at forced linguistic assimilation had backfired spectacularly.
Bhutan’s Language Experiment: Now You See It, Now You Don’t
Even the peaceful kingdom of Bhutan wasn’t immune to linguistic upheaval. In an effort to create national unity, the government made Nepali the second official language, much to the delight of its large Nepali-speaking population. But then, in the 1980s, it decided to reverse course by banning Nepali in schools and forcing everyone to wear traditional Bhutanese attire.
The result? Riots, mass evictions, and an exodus of Nepali-speaking Bhutanese. When governments fiddle with language, things tend to end badly.
Europe and Beyond: Mother Tongue or Mother Trouble?
Unlike religion, which allows for multiple interpretations and overlapping beliefs, language establishes distinct boundaries between groups. When a linguistic community feels marginalised or dominated by another, separatist sentiments take root. This pattern is evident not only in South Asia but across the world.
In the ongoing Catalan independence movement in Spain, its language – Catalan – has been at the core of its nationalist aspirations.
The movement for an independent Quebec in Canada is another instance where language, rather than religion, has been the primary force behind separatist sentiments.
In Belgium, the Dutch-speaking Flemish and the French-speaking Walloons have spent more time fighting over language than governing.
The Kurds, scattered across Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria, have long sought independence - not because of religion, but because the suppression of their language makes them feel like strangers in their own lands.
Even the Russia-Ukraine war can trace its roots back to language. The Russians spent centuries suppressing Ukrainian, and when Ukraine, after independence in 1991, finally had a chance to hit back, they de-Russified everything. The Russian-majority Donbas region, feeling culturally orphaned, launched a separatist movement, which soon turned into a full-fledged war.
Moral of the Story? Leave language alone.
It's simple: if you want peace, leave language alone. Let people speak what they want, write what they want, and curse in whatever tongue they please.
Because if history has taught us anything, it is that trying to force a language on an unwilling population is like trying to make a cat take a bath — it won’t end well for anyone involved.
(Akhil Bakshi, an author and explorer, is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and Explorers Club USA, and Editor of ‘Indian Mountaineer’. He is also the founder of Bharatiya Yuva Shakti, an organisation that ensures good leadership at the village level. He tweets @AkhilBakshi1. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)