Kaithi, Caste & Politics

[Guest guest]

ymalaiya wrote:

>It seems that I had not given "Kaithi script" enough thought before.

>Some people apparantly have, besides Sushil Srivastava, (a

>Professor of history). [...]

 

The Kaithi script was in wide use. Without the baseline like Nagari,

and more like the Gujarati script. Emigrants from the North India

(Bihar, ...) to Surinam, Guyana, ... used the Kaithi script as well.

 

Interstingly, John Gilchrist who wrote grmmars and dictionaries for

the Hindi language recommended the Kaithi script rather than

Devanagari. See the GoI website mentioning this:

http://shikshanic.nic.in/cd50years/u/47/3Y/473Y0601.htm

"In another letter dated March 21, the same year, John Christ

(then posted at Monghyr) opposed the adoption of Devnagari script and

advocated Kaithi which, according to the writer, was "the character

of the mass of the people in which they transacted their ordinary

business and used it in the writing of their sacred books. It is

simple in its formulation."

 

(I think John Gilchrist is mis-spelled as John Christ).

An excellent article detailing the role of John Gilchrist in shaping

the Urdu/Hindi in the 19th century British colonial regime is in

the Net. R. Raley, A Teleology of Letters; or, From a "Common Source"

to a Common Language

http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/containment/raley/raley.html

 

http://www.virginia.edu/soasia/symsem/kisan/papers/concepts.html

"Colonial rule linked each language to a distinct written form, to a

region, and in some cases to 'race' or religion. In Bihar, for

example, in the 1870s, Hindi written in Kaithi script had been

proposed as the standard. Persian script was also proposed, in the

interests of consistency, in 1876. 49 According to Grierson, Kaithi

was used from Bihar to Gujarat 'alongside the more complete and

elegant Devanagari'; 'Practically speaking, the former may be looked

upon as the current hand of the latter, though epigraphically

it is not a corruption of it as some think'. 50 Sir Steuart Bayley,

then Commissioner in Patna, declared Kaithi to be 'more suitable to

the wants of the people' (a significant choice of criterion), though

he agreed that the Nagri script was sometimes used by zamindars. "

 

A simpler Kaithi script, with less conjuncts, was abandoned by

the colonial regime and Hindu elites in favor of Nagari script,

mainly used for writing Sanskrit texts. May be the idea was

if Urdu is in Persian script, then "Hindi" must be in Sanskritic

Nagari script. The opposite is true in Pakistan, they abandon

Punjabi language and its script and go towards urdu in persian script.

Once, I believe, prof. Rajesh Kochhar mentioned Punjabi Hindus

leaving that language. Are Sikhs (only?) favoring Gurmukhi script?

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan

[Guest guest]

>A simpler Kaithi script, with less conjuncts, was abandoned by

>the colonial regime and Hindu elites in favor of Nagari script,

>mainly used for writing Sanskrit texts.

 

Does quality, sophistication, progress/advancement, have no place in

this argument? Are conspiracy theories the only answer? Is Sanskrit

a "brahmin conspiracy" over praakrit?

[Guest guest]

Whatever the caste affiliations of Kaithi in north India, there does

not seem to have been such caste differences in the use of Modi

verses Nagari in the Marathi area. To my knowledge, Nagari

was used to write Sanskrit as well as Marathi literary works like

the works of Dnyaaneshvar (as the name is pronounced in

Marathi). Modi was used for business documents, letters, court

documents etc. Right up to my grand-farther's generation, Modi

was used in our family (a Brahmin family) for correspondence.

Since a large number of users of Modi were Brahmins of

Maharashtra, the replacement of Modi by Nagari cannot be

attributed to caste differences. I believe it has something to do

with ease of typesetting Nagari verses Modi, and the urge to

standardize the use of script across the board in the newly

emerging educational system under the British administration. It

is not that Modi was never used in printed materials. I have an

official Sanad regarding the Deshpande-Watan granted by the

district collector Mr. James Waddington to my great-grand-father

in the year 1884. This government document is printed in

English and Modi. I even have attempted printed text-books for

Marathi using Modi. However, there may be a point to Valerie's

comment that uniformity of script promoting ease was probably

one of the motives of the British administration. It would be nice

to dig up old debates over script in Maharashtra from the 18th

century British colonial documents. One of the issues in favor of

Nagari may have been the exact representation of vowel length.

Modi does not distinguish between short and long vowels.

Best,

 

Madhav Deshpande

 

INDOLOGY, "naga_ganesan" <naga_ganesan@h...>

wrote:

>

> ymalaiya wrote:

> >It seems that I had not given "Kaithi script" enough thought

before.

> >Some people apparantly have, besides Sushil Srivastava, (a

> >Professor of history). [...]

>

> The Kaithi script was in wide use. Without the baseline like

Nagari,

> and more like the Gujarati script. Emigrants from the North

India

> (Bihar, ...) to Surinam, Guyana, ... used the Kaithi script as well.

>

> Interstingly, John Gilchrist who wrote grmmars and

dictionaries for

> the Hindi language recommended the Kaithi script rather than

> Devanagari. See the GoI website mentioning this:

> http://shikshanic.nic.in/cd50years/u/47/3Y/473Y0601.htm

> "In another letter dated March 21, the same year, John Christ

> (then posted at Monghyr) opposed the adoption of Devnagari

script and

> advocated Kaithi which, according to the writer, was "the

character

> of the mass of the people in which they transacted their

ordinary

> business and used it in the writing of their sacred books. It is

> simple in its formulation."

>

> (I think John Gilchrist is mis-spelled as John Christ).

> An excellent article detailing the role of John Gilchrist in

shaping

> the Urdu/Hindi in the 19th century British colonial regime is in

> the Net. R. Raley, A Teleology of Letters; or, From a "Common

Source"

> to a Common Language

> http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/containment/raley/raley.html

>

>

http://www.virginia.edu/soasia/symsem/kisan/papers/concepts.h

tml

> "Colonial rule linked each language to a distinct written form, to

a

> region, and in some cases to 'race' or religion. In Bihar, for

> example, in the 1870s, Hindi written in Kaithi script had been

> proposed as the standard. Persian script was also proposed,

in the

> interests of consistency, in 1876. 49 According to Grierson,

Kaithi

> was used from Bihar to Gujarat 'alongside the more complete

and

> elegant Devanagari'; 'Practically speaking, the former may be

looked

> upon as the current hand of the latter, though epigraphically

> it is not a corruption of it as some think'. 50 Sir Steuart Bayley,

> then Commissioner in Patna, declared Kaithi to be 'more

suitable to

> the wants of the people' (a significant choice of criterion),

though

> he agreed that the Nagri script was sometimes used by

zamindars. "

>

> A simpler Kaithi script, with less conjuncts, was abandoned by

> the colonial regime and Hindu elites in favor of Nagari script,

> mainly used for writing Sanskrit texts. May be the idea was

> if Urdu is in Persian script, then "Hindi" must be in Sanskritic

> Nagari script. The opposite is true in Pakistan, they abandon

> Punjabi language and its script and go towards urdu in

persian script.

> Once, I believe, prof. Rajesh Kochhar mentioned Punjabi

Hindus

> leaving that language. Are Sikhs (only?) favoring Gurmukhi

script?

>

> Regards,

> N. Ganesan

[Guest guest]

A review of a recent book around the Hindi language

in The Hindu paper,

 

THE HINDI PUBLIC SPHERE 1920-1940 — Language and Literature in

the Age of Nationalism: Francesca Orsini; OUP, 2002

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/br/2002/08/20/stories/2002082000050

300.htm