Bloody Language

Locating “nation” not on the center but on its borders, this study seeks to shift the study of nation from an analysis centered on its origins or its substantive and foundational aspects to an investigation focused on its mode of boundary construction. This article reverses the debate over whether nations grow out of some presumed ethnic, linguistic, or religious foundations to argue that these foundations themselves are given shape by a sociocognitive frame of total closure that informs the national system. Taking a close look at the formation of India and Pakistan as nations, the article shows how Hindi and Urdu were separated as two distinct national languages out of the same dialect – Khari Boli – under the pressure of conflicting national aspirations of nineteenth-century South Asia. To exaggerate differences, Hindi was developed as a Sanskritized version of Khari Boli, while Urdu matured as its Persianized form. Devnagari and Persian scripts respectively gave them their distinctive looks.