“ Reading after the Empire “ with Maya Jasanoff

The use of language politics was well discussed in the webinar held by Ashoka University dated 11th December 2021. Ms Maya Jasonoff, a history teacher at Harvard University was very precise when she answered the question: What makes Vladimir Putin wait for the interpreter to translate every conversation into Russian even when he understands the English language?

Ms Maya pointed out that the theatre of language is used for the manifestation of power. The same power was used for the imposition of Russian when Poland was under the rule of Russia. The same language was used for building up the concept of Nation-states.

She opined that it is necessary to have smaller entities of countries that can be more accommodating to varied languages. Maya Jasanoff was one of the jury members of The Bookers Prize 2021. The Booker Prize was initially given to English language books but now breaking the hegemony of the English language even books written in regional languages translated into English are considered for the award.

She stated that India has seen the politics of Hindi but the respect for diversity and pluralism is so fertile here that India prefers to be multilingual.

She also emphasized that we need to rethink the use of words like ‘’Man’ and begin to replace it with ‘Human’ to do away with all gender bias.

Language is the soul of humans and we need to introspect about it along with all the other faculties of development.

Change is inherent and language cannot remain untouched.

Ms. Shahnaaz Ojha

Educator - Social Science