Serving endangered languages, denotified and nomadic Communities: Ganesh Devy on the need for a “sustainable economic and social base in the homeland”

A Nomad Called Thief by Ganesh Devy | Homepage >> A collection of essays on Adivasis. Tribal groups (adivasis) in India have often been excluded, marginalized and oppressed by ‘mainstream’ society. In many ways this exclusion, marginalization and oppression is fostered by the way in which ‘mainstream’ society looks at the adivasis – as exotic, dangerous, … Read more

Adivasis rejected the British knowledge and “chose to remain outside the colonial economy and social discourse”: Ganesh Devy – A View of Higher Education in India

Adivasis confronted the British. They fought the British. They resisted the Raj in every possible way, did not accept the British Raj at all. Adivasis chose to remain outside the colonial economy and social discourse. Even when the universities came up in the 1850s, the Adivasis did not join the Bombay colleges or the Chennai … Read more

eBook | “Painted Words”: An Anthology edited by Prof Ganesh Devy – Tribal Literature from all over India

“It is almost impossible to characterize all of India’s tribals in a single ethnographic or historic framework. […] After Independence, these communities were ‘denotified’ and placed quite randomly in the schedules of tribes, castes and other ‘backward communities’. Yet anyone with any experience of tribal culture will find these listings mind-boggingly oversimplified. The most useful … Read more

“Speech communities deserve dignity and respect”: Linguist Prof. Ganesh Devy on ways to avoid “global phonocide” – UNESCO lecture

Indigenous languages by GANESH N. DEVY | Full text | Backup (PDF, 100 KB)Excerpts from the modified version of the text of UNESCO lecture, October 2008 RECOGNIZED as ‘Aborigines’ in Australia, as ‘Mâori’ in New Zealand, as ‘First Nations’ in Canada, as ‘Indigenous’ in the United States, as ‘Janajatis’ in India, or as ‘tribes’ in … Read more

A View of Higher Education in India” – public lecture by Prof. Ganesh Devy

The dramatically adverse ratio between India’s rural population and the institutions of higher education relegates the entire rural population to the category of ‘educationally disadvantaged’.  […] In democracies all over the world, electoral politics inevitably envelopes public institutions, and the social or ethical imperatives quickly get subsumed within the political dynamics. The policy of reservations … Read more