India is home to great writing systems such as the Brāhmī and the Kharosthī that date back centuries. It’s also a land where languages such as Sanskrit, Tamil and Kannada have etched an oral history ...

In some Indian languages, the word for “language” is bhasha—the vowels long and warm, as in “car” or “tar.” It has a formal weight and a refined spirit. It comes to us from the classical heights of ...

At independence, India faced a dilemma. With hundreds of languages and dialects spoken across its vast landscape, its newly appointed leaders grappled with the question of which one should represent ...