There is renewed brouhaha in the past few days on the topic of a unifying language for India, and whether Hindi is de facto, if not de jure, the national language. And as always, we have all sorts of voices adding to this cacophony. The usual suspects from either end of the spectrum (from “those who refuse to speak Hindi should be treated as foreigners” to “Hindi is a parvenu with a shallower history than almost any other Indian language”), and everything in between are out for their periodic airing under the Sun.
