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A Marginalized Voice in the History of ‘Hindi’*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2013

AISHWARJ KUMAR
AISHWARJ KUMAR*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, UK Email: ak403@cam.ac.uk
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Abstract

This paper examines the history of ‘Hindi’1 as a modern Indian language in Bihar between 1850 and 1900. It looks beyond the North-Western Provinces, hitherto the focus of most studies of Hindi, and issues that were important here but not in Bihar like, for example, the ‘Hindi’-Urdu conflict. Instead, it looks at how the ways in which the history of ‘Hindi’ unfolded in Bihar and was distinct from that in other parts of North India. It demonstrates how the regional languages of Bihar were more crucial to the development of ‘Hindi’ in this region than standardized ‘Hindi’, at least until the early twentieth century. A prime focus in this paper is Sir George Abraham Grierson who postulated the theory of an independent ‘Bihari’ language and collected materials to support it. These materials reflect the continuing popularity of Bihari cultural traditions throughout the nineteenth century despite the avowed support for a standardized ‘Hindi’ by the colonial government and the intelligentsia of Bihar. They add a dimension to the historical development of ‘Hindi’ that was distinctive to Bihar. Focussing on this, this paper stresses the part played in the history of ‘Hindi’ by an agent whose voice was marginalized and later ignored or suppressed in canonical accounts of its development as a modern Indian language.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 5 , September 2013 , pp. 1706 - 1746
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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Footnotes

*

I am indebted to Professor C. A. Bayly for his help and suggestions on this paper. I would also like to thank Professor Rosalind O'Hanlon, Dr Francesca Orsini and Dr Subhadra Sanyal for their useful comments. I am grateful to Professor Sumit Sarkar and Professor Tanika Sarkar for reading an earlier draft and for their their valuable suggestions. I would also like to express my gratitude to Professor Shahid Amin, whose knowledge and guidance has been a constant inspiration.

References

1 I have used single inverted commas to indicate a ‘Hindi’ that was still in a fluid state in North India in the late nineteenth century and was still undergoing a process of change and transformation into a standardized language. Hindi without inverted commas refers to the language that came to be recognized by the Indian state after independence as a modern, standardized Indian language and one of the official languages of India.

2 Described variously as languages belonging to the class of Eastern Gaudian or Eastern Neo-Aryan languages by an earlier generation of scholars such as A. F. Hoernle (1841–1918) and George A. Grierson (1851–1941) respectively, Maithili, Magahi, and Bhojpuri are today regarded by many, including several language scholars, as independent languages in their own right and not as dialects of Hindi. See Cardona, George and Jain, Dhanesh (eds) (2003), Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge, London, pp. 477–478Google Scholar, 498–499, 516. In the late nineteenth century Grierson had also argued for the three languages of Bihar being distinct from ‘Hindi’. However, his use of the term ‘Bihari language’ and ‘Bihari dialect’ and reference to Bhojpuri, Maithili and Magahi as: (1) sometimes languages; (2) sometimes as part of a group of dialects constituting a distinct language (Bhojpuri, Maithili and Magahi) were referred to by Grierson in the same article as languages but also as dialects that belonged to the group constituting the Eastern Hindui language as opposed to the Western Hindui language, the basis of ‘book-Hindi’. See Grierson, G. A. (1880), A Plea for the People's Tongue, Calcutta Review, lxxi:141, 164–165)Google Scholar; (3) sometimes as the three dialectic forms of the ‘Bihari language’ (See Report by the Bengal Provincial Committee with Evidence taken before the Committee and Memorials addressed to the Education Commission, Calcutta, 1884, p. 273; and (4) sometimes as separate ‘dialects’ in the sense of a regional speech used in a limited area, none of which could be referred to another standard speech (See Grierson, G. A. (2005), Seven Grammars of the Dialects and Subdialects of the Bihari Language, Vol. 1 in Three Parts, Reprint edition, Kalpaz Publications, Delhi, pp. 1–2Google Scholar. [Part 1 (Introductory) was originally published in 1883]), may cause some confusion. By and large, however, when Grierson referred to all three or, any one of these three, above languages as ‘Bihari’ language(s)/dialect(s), he meant it as a descriptive term for a speech spoken in a certain part of the region known as Bihar and not as a subset of one pre-existing, standardized Bihari language. The logic behind this was that as Bengali was the language of Bengal, ‘Bihari’ was the ‘local name’ for the language of Bihar. One important difference though, needs to be noted here: there were three languages which qualified as ‘Bihari’ vernaculars, none a special dialect that had been accorded the status of a standard language at the time when Grierson was writing about them in the late nineteenth century. In contrast to this, a notion of a standard Bengali language as the main vernacular language of Bengal had been in vogue for a long time by this period.

3 Following the fall of the fortress of Odantapuri Bihar or ‘Hisar-e-Bihar’ at the hands of Bakhtiyar Khalji, the name Bihar was first used by the Turko-Afghans to designate all the areas surrounding it conquered by them, the inspiration behind ‘Bihar’ apparently being the many Buddhist monasteries (viharas) of the region. Although, the Afghan ruler Sher Shah Suri first laid the groundwork for the creation of a distinct administrative unit in the form of a separate suba (province) in Bihar, it was not until the time of Akbar in 1575 that such efforts came to fruition. The boundary of Bihar was later extended under Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb. But certain areas that are now part of Bihar, were once part of the separate suba of Bengal under the Mughals. See Diwakar, R. R. (1959), Bihar through the Ages, Orient Longmans, Calcutta, pp. 51Google Scholar, 55–59.

4 Ibid., pp. 626–630.

5 Part of the Gangetic plain in North India, the region of Bihar was situated between the drier Upper Gangetic Plain in what is today the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (known in colonial times first as the North-Western Provinces and later as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh) and the considerably more wetter, Lower Gangetic Plain in Bengal. Bihar included the districts of Saran, Champaran, Tirhut (split into Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur in 1877), Bhagalpur, Monghyr, Purnia, Patna, Gaya and Shahabad. See Yang, Anand A. (1998), Bazaar in India: Markets, Society, and Colonial State in Bihar, University of California, London, pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

6 See Orsini, Francesca (2002), The Hindi Public Sphere 1920–1940: Language and Literature in the age of Nationalism, Oxford University Press, Delhi, p. 2.Google Scholar

7 Despite King's acknowledgement of the linguistic variations and the autonomous sphere of activities in Bihar, it does not emerge as an area which merits separate and independent study. See King, C. R. (1994), One Language Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India, Oxford University Press, Delhi, pp.7–8.Google Scholar King deals with Bihar most explicitly in his discussion of the Devanagari and Kaithi scripts in this region but concerns himself neither with the issues related to the whole language situation in Bihar nor with the role of the regional languages of Bihar and their relationship with Hindi. See King, One Language, Two Scripts, pp. 72–74. Although the recent work of Hitendra Patel does examine the language question in Bihar, it remains confined to a very narrow discussion of the Hindi movement here and the role of the Hindi-Urdu conflict in shaping communalism in this region. See Patel, H. (2011). Communalism and the Intelligentsia in Bihar, 1870–1930: Shaping Caste, Community and Nationhood, Orient Blackswan, DelhiGoogle Scholar.

8 In their studies of Hindi even such rigorous scholars like F. Orsini and Alok Rai have tended to focus mainly on the North-Western Provinces. See Orsini, F. (2001), Print and Pleasure: Popular Literature and Entertaining Fictions in Colonial North India, Permanent Black, RanikhetGoogle Scholar, 2009; Rai, Alok (2000), Hindi Nationalism, Orient Longman, Delhi.Google Scholar

9 For a pioneering book of this class of works see Vedalankar, Shardadevi (1969), The Development of Hindi Prose Literature in the Early Nineteenth Century (1800–1856 A.D.), Lokbharti Publications, Allahabad, pp. 28–34Google Scholar. An exception to this is Vasudha Dalmia's examination of Hindi in the context of her study of Bharatendu Harishchandra. A finely nuanced study, it explains some of the complexities of the language situation in North India in great depth. See Dalmia, Vasudha (1997), The Nationalization of Hindu Traditions: Bharatendu Harischandra and Nineteenth-century Banaras, Oxford University Press, Delhi.Google Scholar F. Orsini's recent study of popular literature in North India is another fine exception and a desirable move in the right direction in the field of scholarship on Hindi and other North Indian languages. See F. Orsini, Print and Pleasure.

10 See Cohn, Bernard (1997), ‘The Command of Language and the Language of Command’ in Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India, Oxford University Press, Delhi, pp. 16–56Google Scholar. Also see. S. Vedalankar, The Development of Hindi Prose, pp. 29–30.

11 The distinction between Hindi and Hindustani or Urdu can be traced back to the early years of the nineteenth century when Fort William College was founded in Calcutta and textbooks in two prose styles, identified separately as Hindustani and Khari boli Hindi, began to be published. At the same time as when the College was founded in 1800, amongst other departments the Department of Hindustani, headed by John B. Gilchrist, was also set up. Later in 1802 provision was also made for the appointment of a separate Bhakha (Braj bhasha) munshi. We first hear of the terms ‘Hindee Pandit’ or ‘Hindee Moonshee’ from this time when other Indian teachers were appointed in the Hindustani Department. The term Khari boli Hindi was explicitly used by teachers like Lalluji Lal, Sadal Mishra and Gilchrist in their Fort William College publications in 1803, 1805 and 1803 respectively. See S. Vedalankar, The Development of Hindi Prose, pp. 41–47.

12 Magahi is spoken in the districts of Patna, Gaya and Hazaribagh as well as in the western part of Palamau, parts of Monghyr and Bhagalpur in Bihar.

13 The areas in Bihar where Maithili is spoken include Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Bhagalpur, Saharsa, and Purnea. Covering the largest area, Bhojpuri is spoken in the western districts of Bihar such as Champaran, Saran, Shahabad, Palamau and Ranchi. It is also spoken outside Bihar in the Varanasi and Gorakhpur divisions of the state of Uttar Pradesh in India and also in Nepal. See Tiwari, Udai Narain (1960), The Origin and Development of Bhojpuri, The Asiatic Society, Calcutta, p. xxxiii.Google Scholar

14 See, for instance, the following five volume publication. Tripathi, Ramnaresh (ed.) (1986), Grama-Geet, Hindi-Mandir, PrayagGoogle Scholar.

15 The British colonial official G. A. Grierson's role in this field was a pioneering one. See, for instance, Grierson, G. A. (1886), Some Bhojpuri Folk-Songs, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 18 (2): 207–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 See Urainve, Akhtar (1989), Bihar men Urdu Zaban-O-Adab ka Irtiqa, 1204-1858, Taraqqi Urdu Bureau, Delhi, p. 156Google Scholar. Several scholars have pointed to the importance of Bihar as a major centre of Persian and Urdu culture in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. See, for instance, R.R. Diwakar, Bihar through the Ages, p. 715; Gopal, Surendra, Patna in the 19th-Century (A Socio-Cultural Profile), Naya Prokash, Calcutta, 1982, pp. 60–6Google Scholar.

17 Gopal, S. Patna, p. 70.

18 Diwakar, Bihar through the Ages, pp. 717–719.

19 Singh, Dhirendranath (1986). Adhunik Hindi ke vikas mein Kharagvilas Press ki Bhumika, Bihar Rastra Bhasha Parishad, Patna, pp. 82–97Google Scholar.

20 Urainve, Bihar men Urdu Zaban-O-Adab, p. 156.

21 Das, Narayan (ed.) (2002). Badmash Darpan (Teg Ali rachita), VaranasiGoogle Scholar. (Penned originally by Teg Ali, a contemporary of Bharatendu Harishchandra, an early, if not original, edition of the Badmash Darpan was published by the Varanasi based Bharat Jeevan Press in 1895.)

22 See for details about Bharatendu's and his contemporaries’ literary activities V. Dalmia, The Nationalization of Hindu Traditions.

23 Sinha, Sahab Prasad (1890). Bhashasaar, Kharag Vilas Press, Bankipur, pp. 88–93.Google Scholar

24 See Report of the School Inspector of Behar Circle to the Commissioner of Patna and Bhagalpur, Patna, 1873, p. 619.

25 Ghosh, Papiya (2008). Community and Nation: Essays on Identity and Politics in Eastern India, Oxford University Press, Delhi, pp. 1–4.Google Scholar

26 DrGopal, (1991). ‘Ram Rahim: Punarmulyankan’, in Poddar, Ram Prasad (ed.). Parishad patrika: Janamshati Visheshank, Patna, pp. 69–70Google Scholar.

27 General Department, Education, Letter no. 190, State Archive, Patna, 1875, p. 2.

28 Born in 1856 in the district of Balia in the Bhojpuri speaking area of Eastern United Provinces, Ramdeen Singh, who later in life became a teacher, grew up in a literary environment at home in the house of his maternal grandfather, an educated man with literary abilities who was himself a poet, keen to give Ramdeen a good education. See Jha, Hetukar, Singh, Dhirendranath and Gopal, Surendra (eds) (1996), Babu Ramdeen Singh rachita Bihar Darpan, Darbhanga, pp. vi–viiiGoogle Scholar. Also see D. Singh, Adhunik Hindi, pp. 95–97.

29 See for how Hindi was introduced in the courts in Bihar King, One Language Two Scripts, pp. 72–75.

30 Diwakar, Bihar through the Ages, pp. 744–745.

31 Dvij Patrika, No. 8, 1891, p. 13.

32 Singh, D. Adhunik Hindi, p. 93.

33 See for details about Bhudev's life Bandyopadhyaya, Brojendranath (1974), Bhudev Mukhopadhyaya, 4th edition, Bangiya Sahitya Parishad, KolkataGoogle Scholar.

34 For the history of this major press in Bihar see Singh, Adhunik Hindi.

35 Chakravarti, Babu Biresvar (1886). Sahitya-Sangraha, The Bihar Bandhu Press, Bankipur, pp. iii–iv.Google Scholar

36 Grierson's view on the distinct identity of the languages and literature of Bihar is discussed in more detail later (see in particular footnote 78) in this paper.

37 Report by the Bengal Provincial Committee, pp. 408–11.

38 Grierson's rationale for supporting Bihari is discussed in more detail later (see especially pp. 30–32) in this paper.

39 Mukherji, Radhhika Prasanna (1880). A Few Notes on Hindi, J. G. Chatterjea & Co's. Press, CalcuttaGoogle Scholar. The article Mukherji was reacting to in this work was: G. A.Grierson (1880), A Plea for the People's Tongue, pp. 151–168.

40 Grierson wrote another article in which he responded to Mukherji's criticism. See Grierson, G. A. (1881), Hindi and the Bihar Dialects, Calcutta Review, lxxiii: 146, 363–377.Google Scholar

41 Report by the Bengal Provincial Committee, pp. 46–47.

42 See Ayyappa Paniker, K. (1997), Medieval Indian Literature: An Anthology, Vol. I, Sahitya Akademi, Delhi, pp. 152–157.Google Scholar

43 Babu Ramdeen Singh rachita Bihar Darpan, p. xiv. See also Yang, Bazaar India, p. 70.

44 Dvij Patrika, 1891, 10, p. 3.

45 Ibid., 7 and 8, p.13.

46 Singh, Kumar Gangadeen (1942). Jainti-Smark-Granth, Patna, p. 433Google Scholar.

47 Practically nothing is known about Indian intellectuals who supported the use of Bihar's own regional languages, particularly in schools in Bihar, rather than ‘Hindi’. The scholar Rahul Sankrityayan and Udai Narayan Tiwari (linguistics expert with specialist knowledge of Bhojpuri), are amongst the few people who are known to have supported Bihar's own vernaculars particularly in the early twentieth century. See footnote 51. Grierson's role in advocating the cause of ‘Bihari’ languages was singular and is dealt with in greater detail (see particularly pp. 30–32) later in this paper.

48 Singh, D. Adhunik Hindi, pp. 93–127.

49 Ibid., pp. 189–196.

50 More than once Grierson referred to the fact that Biharis, no matter what their caste, class or age, spoke their own local Bihari dialects at home with only a small section of the educated in Bihar being able to converse in ‘Hindi’, and that too after having learnt it especially in addition to their own mother tongue. Thus, for example, the Kayasthas who initially opposed the adoption of the Kaithi script in court and the introduction of the Bihari languages in Bihar, because they along with the Muslims had traditionally depended on government service for their livelihood, wherein for quite a while the Persian language and Persian character were used, continued to speak in ‘Bihari’ in their own villages and at home. Even such elite families such as the Raja of Darbhanga spoke to their relatives in one of the regional languages of Bihar. See Grierson's testimony in Report by the Bengal Provincial Committee, p. 273. Also see Grierson, G. A. (1899), ‘Preface to the First Edition’, A Handbook to the Kaithi Character, 2nd revised edition, Thacker, Spink and Co., Calcutta, pp. v–vi.Google Scholar

51 Rahul Sankrityayan (1893–1963) was one of the few intellectuals whose views about the language issue in Bihar were similar to that of Grierson. Born in Azamgarh district in what was then called the North-Western Provinces, he spent many years in Bihar at different points in his life and knew Bhojpuri well. Like Grierson Sankrityayan too supported the use of Bhojpuri rather than Hindi as a medium of instruction in schools in Bihar. See Tiwari, The Origin and Development of Bhojpuri, p. xxvi.

52 Thomas, F. W. and Turner, R. L. (1943). George Abraham Grierson, 1851–1941, Humphrey Milford Amen House, E. C., London, pp. 5–7.Google Scholar

53 Naithani, Sadhana (2001a). ‘Prefaced Space: Tales of the Colonial British Collectors of Indian Folklore’ in Giudice, Luisa Del and Porter, Gerald (eds). Imagined States: Nationalism, Utopia and Longing in Oral Cultures, Logan, Utah, pp. 64–65.Google Scholar

54 Amin, Shahid (ed.) (2005). A Concise Encyclopaedia of North Indian Peasant Life, Being a Compilation from the Writings of William Crooke, Reid, J. R. and Grierson, G. A., Manohar, Delhi. p. 30.Google Scholar

55 Naithani, Sadhana (2001b). British Colonialism in the Oral Folk Narratives of Nineteenth-Century India, Folklore, 112 (2): 183–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56 According to Grierson there were two expressions prevalent in Eastern India. One was theth boli and the other was khari boli. Explaining theth as ‘genuine’ or ‘pure’, Grierson described theth boli as ‘the unmixed speech of the lower orders’ and referred to the fact that it was known as ‘ganwari boli’ or ‘rustic speech’. See Grierson, Hindi and the Bihar Dialects, p. 364.

57 Grierson, Seven Grammars, p. 1.

58 Grierson collected different stories and songs from different parts of Bihar and published them in journals like the Indian Antiquary, North India Notes and Queries. However, he always printed these in the Devanagari script unlike some of his other contemporaries who always used the Roman script for this purpose. For instance, he published the story of ‘Alha Udal’ in the Indian Antiquary in Devanagari and then went on to explain specific points relating to the usages of Bhojpuri in it. See Grierson, G. A. (1885a). The Song of Alha's Marriage: A Bhojpuri Epic, Indian Antiquary, XIV (August), 209–227Google Scholar.

59 See for a discussion of the differences between the Bengali and Oriya written hands from that of the Modh, Gujarati, Kaithi and Mahanjani hands, Grierson, A Handbook to the Kaithi Character, p. 3.

60 Grierson, Some Bhojpuri Folk-Songs, pp. 207–267.

61 Grierson, Seven Grammars, p. 5.

62 Ibid., p. 7.

63 Ibid., p. 1.

64 Cardona and Jain, ‘General Introduction’ in The Indo-European Languages, pp. 18–19.

65 Grierson, ‘Preface to the First Edition’, pp. v–vi.

66 That Grierson was well aware of the huge number of people who spoke the Bihari languages and keen to protect their interests is evident when he said, ‘Let us think that the welfare of 17 millions of Bihar alone is at stake, and set to work at once’. See Grierson, Plea for the People's Tongue, p. 167. For Grierson's criticism of the Bengal Government's policy of imposing the foreign language of ‘Hindi’ upon millions of Bihari speakers which very few spoke or understood, see Report by the Bengal Provincial Committee, p. 274.

67 Thomas and Turner, George Abraham Grierson, p. 3.

68 Ibid., p. 11.

69 Grierson, Seven Grammars, p. 1.

70 Ibid., pp. 1–2.

71 Grierson, Some Bhojpuri Folk-Songs, p. 209.

72 Grierson first arrived in Bihar in 1877 from whence he decided to specialize in studying the regional languages of Bihar. Transferred to Patna in 1880 where he first served as Inspector of Schools and then as Joint Magistrate of Patna, he received the opportunity to tour Bihar and study its local village school system, managing to amass much information from other officers working in this field as well. The material he collected helped him compile two works on Maithili, one a grammar and the other a chrestomathy and vocabulary. In 1881 Grierson was called upon by the Bengal Government especially to put together the grammars of all the so-called dialects of Bihar. See Report by the Bengal Provincial Committee, p. 273.

73 Grierson also collected and published the following stories in the following journals. (1) Grierson, G. A. (1878). The Song of Manik Chandra, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, xlvii: iii, 135–238Google Scholar; (2) Grierson, G. A. (ed.) (1884a). The Song of Bijai Mal, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, liii: Sp. No, 94–150Google Scholar; (3) Grierson (1885a). The Song of Alha's marriage; (4) Singh, Narayan and Grierson, G. A. (eds) (1885b). The battle of Kanarpi Ghat, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, liv:1, 16–35Google Scholar; (5) Grierson, G. A. (ed.) (1885c). Two versions of the song of Gopi Chand, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, liv:1, 35–55Google Scholar.

74 Grierson, Some Bhojpuri Folk-Songs, p. 210.

75 Grierson, G. A. (1900). Alha, Kharag Vilas Press, Bankipore, pp. 2–3Google Scholar.

76 Grierson, Some Bhojpuri Folk-Songs, pp. 209–210.

77 Ibid., p. 211.

78 Grierson argued for the separateness of the Bihari languages in several places. In his view ‘the whole genius of Hindi’ was ‘different from that of the Bihar dialects, and they could never, by any possibility, assimilate to it’. Grierson maintained that just because the Bihari languages and ‘Hindi’ shared many common words, it did not make them the same language. See Report by the Bengal Provincial Committee, p. 274.

79 Grierson's publication of folk songs from Bihar and Bhojpuri ballads, particularly those connected to Alha and Rudal, the legendary heroes from Bundelkhand, bear testimony to this. See, for example, (1) Grierson, G. A. (1884b), Some Bihari folk-songs, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 16:2, April, pp. 196–246CrossRefGoogle Scholar; (2) Grierson, Some Bhojpuri Folk-Songs and (3) Grierson, Alha.

80 Grierson, Some Bhojpuri Folk-Songs, p. 209.

81 Ibid., p. 209.

82 In Grierson's view ‘popular in the best sense of the term’ meant ‘that which is known and loved by all, literate and illiterate alike. . .’. See Grierson, G. A. (1920), The Popular Literature of Northern India, Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, 1: 3, 87–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

83 Grierson, Some Bihari Folk-Songs, pp. 196–204.

84 Ibid., pp. 196–204, 212.

85 Grierson, Some Bhojpuri Folk-Songs, p. 212.

86 Gauna is an old custom in Bihar, still followed in some places today, whereby a ceremony is performed to mark the occasion when a young married girl having reached puberty and ready for consummation of marriage, leaves her maternal home to join her husband and live regularly with him in his house. Fallon refers to this term in his dictionary. See Fallon, S. W. (1879), A New Hindustani-English Dictionary, Reprinted edition, Uttar Pradesh Urdu Akademi, Lucknow, p. 1015.Google Scholar

87 Grierson, Some Bhojpuri Folk-Songs, p. 228.

88 Amongst some of the reasons Grierson cited for regarding ‘Hindi’ an imposition in Bihar were that: (1) the people of Bihar spoke only their own languages at home and with each other (See Grierson, Letter by G. A. Grierson to the Commissioner of Patna, 9 March 1885, Education Report, Basta no. 102, Patna, 1885, Un-paginated document.); (2) Only the educated understood Hindi in Bihar and even for them it was a ‘foreign’ language which they had to learn specially (See Grierson, Some Bhojpuri Folk-Songs, pp. 207–208).

89 Grierson firmly asserted that, ‘The matter, no doubt, is different in the North-West Provinces, west of Benaras; for there, Hindi may fairly claim to be the vernacular of the country; but it is not, never was, and never can be, the vernacular of Bihar’. See Grierson, ‘Preface to the First Edition’, pp. v–vi.

90 According to Grierson Hindi was a language that had been recently invented by the government and therefore should not under any circumstances be the official language of either the ‘cutcherry or the school-house’. See Grierson, A Plea for the People's Tongue, p. 163. Grierson felt that it would be wrong for the government to promote primary education in ‘Hindi’ in Bihar because as he said very forcefully at the time of providing evidence to the Education Commission, ‘The vernacular recognized and taught in the schools of Bihar is not the dialect of the people. It is not even cognate to the dialect of the people’. By ‘vernacular’ Grierson meant here, what to him was the artificially constructed ‘Hindi’ language. See Report by the Bengal Provincial Committee, p. 273.

91 Grierson, A Plea for the People's Tongue, p. 167.

92 Grierson, Letter by G. A. Grierson to the Commissioner of Patna, Un-paginated document.

93 Ibid.

94 Ibid.

95 For a discussion of the conflict over scripts in North India see King, One Language, Two Scripts, pp. 72–75; Alok Rai, Hindi Nationalism, pp. 17–49.

96 Grierson, Seven Grammars, p. 19.

97 Published originally in 1881 and subsequently again in 1899, Grierson's manual was aimed explicitly at colonial officials to help them read more effectively a cursive Kaithi hand. See Grierson, A Handbook to the Kaithi Character, p. v. For his earlier references to issues related to scripts in Bihar see Grierson, A Plea for the People's Tongue, p. 151 and also Hindi and the Bihar Dialects, pp. 364–365.

98 Grierson's private papers, MSS EUR/E223/32.

99 In the introduction to his manual on Kaithi, Grierson referred to what action the Bengal Government had already taken vis-à-vis various scripts in Bihar: the Urdu character had been abolished from all official documents, with the Devanagari script replacing it in print and Kaithi in handwritten documents. See Grierson, A Handbook to the Kaithi Character, p. 1.

100 Mukherji, Radhika. A Few Notes on Hindi, p.3.

101 Ibid., p. 5. [These views of Mukherji were also quoted in a government document wherein his whole work was reprinted. See for this Report by the Bengal Provincial Committee, 1884, pp. 399–408.]

102 Ibid., pp. 5–6.

103 Ibid., p. 6.

104 Ibid., pp. 6–7.

105 Servan-Schreiber, Catherine (1999). The Printing of Bhojpuri Folklore, South Indian Folklorist, 3:1, 87–89.Google Scholar