PEDAGOGY OF LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND CASTE

B. Venkat Rao

Abstract


India has many languages, and each language has produced its own appreciably rich cultural and literary histories. Thus, language is an integral part of literary lives. On the other hand, each of these linguistic communities was inhabited by many caste communities. Caste has been an intricate and unmistakable phenomenon in the social, religious, cultural, and political fabric throughout India. There is a dominant myth that Sanskrit, popularly known as a classical language, is the mother of all Indian languages. The pedagogy of the Sanskrit language has played a significant role in codifying and legitimizing (Brahmin) caste hierarchy in the name of sacred/classical texts/literature. Questions of caste, language, and literature are thus inextricably interwoven and complementary to one another. It is obvious that the Sanskrit language has worked in the service of creating and consolidating a caste-based hierarchy that arose from, among other things, through the work of philosophers and intellectuals of classical languages and their textual discourses throughout pre-colonial and postcolonial India.

Keywords


caste, India, languages, literary texts, Sanskrit, Dalit discourse

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejlll.v7i2.751

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