A short history of the official counting of India’s languages (1901–2011)

Ayesha Kidwai

doi:10.30842/30346800.2026.2.1.3

Authors

Ayesha Kidwai Jawaharlal Nehru University Author https://orcid.org/0009-0009-7527-3285

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30842/30346800.2026.2.1.3

Keywords:

Linguistic Survey of India, Census Language Tables, decoloniality, India’s linguistic diversity, Hindi

Abstract

This study investigates the persistent ambiguity surrounding the count of mother tongues in postcolonial India by tracing a century of enumeration history. It argues that the post-1971 Census shifted from identifying distinct languages to utilising “language labels”, a methodology that obscures rather than illuminates linguistic diversity. Deviating from the common perception that this practice is a colonial holdover, the paper demonstrates that the Linguistic Survey of India era censuses were actually more attuned to the country’s pluralistic reality. Instead, the current impulse toward minimising is identified as a strategic instrumentalisation of Constitutional provisions.

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