Language, Emotion, and Politics in South India The Making of a Mother Tongue [Paperback]

What makes someone willing to die, not for a nation, but for a language? In the mid-20th century, southern India saw a wave of dramatic suicides in the name of language. Lisa Mitchell traces the colonial-era changes in knowledge and practice linked to the Telugu language that lay behind some of these events. As identities based on language came to appear natural, the road was paved for the political reorganization of the Indian state along linguistic lines after independence.

[M]akes a brilliant intervention in the study of language and modernity by critically interrogating the concept of the 'mother tongue' . . . brims with interesting and provocative ideas that extend beyond its immediate focus. . . .a fascinating and ambitious project.Vol. 82, No. 4, 2009Edward Cameron Dimock, Jr., Prize in the Indian Humanities, American Institute of Indian StudiesThe aim of 'Language, Emotion, and Politics in South India' is to show how the specific history of Telugu-language politics can shed new light on general questions of importance to researchers in a variety of fields who are concerned to understand the processes that have led speakers of particular languages to see themselves as having a separate history, literature, politics, and identity . . . [An] ambitious and creative work.Feb 2010

Lisa Mitchell is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and History in the Department of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

[O]riginal and persuasive . . . This lucid and engaging work will appeal to South Asianists as well as to other scholars interested in the history of language and literacy.Dec. 2009The study subtly identi
es links that all too often appear lost in the haze of un-critical activism. For that reason, along with its readable and forceful prose, this book makes a lasting contribution to knowledge and offers a valuable addition to any reading list on modern South Asian history.Mitchell's study successfully demonstrates that 'The story of colonilãÏ