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Language Problems and Language Planning: Online-First Articles

Mohandas Gandhi and the uses of Esperanto

Language as a tool for coercive state-making

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In the vast literature that deals with Mohandas Gandhi, very little attention has been paid to his opinions on questions of language. This essay studies Gandhi’s use of the international auxiliary language, Esperanto, as a negative example of a way to find a common language. Gandhi was willing and able to collaborate with Esperantists. And yet, Esperanto was repeatedly invoked by Gandhi in order to attack it as an utopian ideal irrelevant in Indian contexts. Gandhi’s arguments against Esperanto established the rejection of an internationalism of which he perceived Esperanto to be a part. His rejection of Esperanto as an artificially constructed language is integral to his failure to acknowledge Hindi’s artificial construction and imposition in South Indian contexts. The Gandhi-led All Indian Education Conference at Wardha (1937) is situated in this essay, therefore, within a wider context of linguistic parochialisms.
Keywords: Basic English, Esperanto, Gandhi, Hindi-Hindustani, language politics, mother tongue, scripts, völkisch movements
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The public Gandhi on Esperanto
    • Gandhi among the Esperantists
    • Gandhi among the anti-Esperantists
  • Wardha and after
    • Anti-Esperanto constructions and their discontents
    • Wardha and the authentic Volk
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 August 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.23047.bha
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