ABSTRACT

By focusing on India as a linguistic region, the Survey was at odds with the colonial state’s conceptualisation of India, in which religious and caste differences were key in its understanding of Indian society. The Survey also played a crucial role in the consolidation of regional languages. Its vocabulary of language and cultural rights was a prelude to the more extensive definition and expression of these rights in the Indian Constitution and the creation of linguistic states in India after Independence, and its volumes encapsulated in preliminary form some of the key language issues which the successor states to the British Raj faced after 1947. Some of the Survey’s narratives are detachable from its rigorous linguistic imperatives, and together with aspects of Grierson’s other texts these contributed to the way in which some nationalists appropriated and reshaped languages, making them religiously charged ideological symbols of particular versions of India. However, there were distinctive elements in Grierson’s political position on India, which partly stem from his Anglo-Irish background. This distinguishes him from other religious nationalists. Moreover, Grierson’s political stance does not necessarily invalidate the Survey’s findings. Instead, we can see an interplay between Grierson’s openness to epistemological uncertainty and his re-working of one form of Indian religious nationalism.