The English Language and the Indian State: Raag Darbari to The White Tiger

Abstract

Through a study of the history of language legislation in India and through critical analyses of key textual moments in Shrilal Shukla's Hindi novel, Raag Darbari (1968) and Aravind Adiga's English novel, The White Tiger (2008), I demonstrate that the English language occupies an unexpectedly critical role with respect to the nation-state where it is at once foundational and detrimental to its logic. In its willful appropriation, English in India signals a triumphant detachment from India's colonial history even as it seeks to forge global affiliations elsewhere. It is the constant slippage of English between the world and the nation that variously consolidates and critiques the idea of the nation-state.