A Comparative Analysis Of Language Policies In Pre-Colonial And Colonial Indian Subcontinent: Continuity, Disruption, And Imperial Imposition

Abstract

This study examines the colonial change in language policy in the Indian subcontinent, especially the changing of pre-colonial functional multilingualism, where language was primarily used by the Muslim rulers (Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire), to the use of English that was imposed by the British and which continues to have postcolonial legacies in Pakistan. The language policies prior to the colonial intervention were based on the neutrality of administration and cultural pluralism. Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit were linked to administration, cultural pluralism, religion, and philosophy. This system, manifested in royal orders, in the Ain-i-Akbari, and in Tanakhiri-i Firoz Shahi, was pragmatic status planning with central power combined with regional compromise. The coming of the British colonial rule was an epistemic and political breakthrough to actively institutionalized English as the language of higher learning, government, judicial systems, and elite constitutions motive was to devalue the already designed language system. (Macaulay, 1835; Dispatch, 1854). This was not a simple change but it was a form of cultural assimilation, social stratification, and epistemic violence that produced an Anglicized intermediate class. The theoretical framework of the analysis is based on an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis that integrates the Language Policy and Planning (LPP) Theory, Historical Institutionalism, Sociolinguistic Stratification Theory, Linguistic Imperialism, and Postcolonial Continuity Theory. These structures allow considering the designs of the policy, the language positioning of institutions, the educational paradigms, and the continuities of the long term.