000			02293nam a22001577a 4500
999			_c524760 _d524760
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100			_aPoddar, Sanjukta _948084
245			_aThe decline of multilingualism in a divided public sphere: The Indian press and cultural politics in colonial Allahabad (1890–1920)
260			_aModern Asian Studies
300			_a57(6), Nov, 2023: p.1798-1828
520			_aThis article draws attention to the provincial city of Allahabad at the turn of the century as the site of a prolific and multilingual print culture. While publishing trends in this city were shaped by the intertwined histories of political culture and cultural politics, specific journals responded to these forces in ways that remain unexamined. Taking the Indian Press—established in 1884 and arguably the city’s most important multilingual publishing house—and four prominent journals that it produced (Saraswatī, Prabāsī, The Modern Review, and Adīb) as case study, I analyse the entanglements between print culture and debates on the contentious issues of languages and identities in a divided public sphere. Based on an extensive analysis of several decades of publishing trends for Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, and English, I argue that the continued thriving of many languages, or multilingualism, cannot be read simply as evidence for the proliferation of syncretism in the early decades of the twentieth century. Through a detailed reading of this complex field of cultural production, I show that while multilingual publishing thrived, cultural discourse led by middle-class and elite intellectuals was increasingly becoming homogeneous and insular, pushing a milieu of multilingual readers and publishers towards a narrow nationalist and majoritarian ideal. Thus, upon close analysis, multilingualism as a cultural value in the era of colonial modernity mirrored the fractures within the public sphere. – Reproduced https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-asian-studies/article/decline-of-multilingualism-in-a-divided-public-sphere-the-indian-press-and-cultural-politics-in-colonial-allahabad-18901920/3CA709F6A0B6720460FC26A100E4644A
650			_aPrayagraj, Allahabad _948085
773			_aModern Asian Studies
906			_aHISTORY
942			_cAR