Language as an Interstate Migration Barrier – The Interesting Case of India

Abstract

This article focuses on the issue of language as an interstate migration barrier in India. Nowadays, in the era of progressive globalization, when the term “global village” is accurate as never before, more and more attention is paid to the problems regarding migrations. As the result of its internal diversity and multilingualism - Indian society struggles with interstate migration barrier that is nearly non-existent in other countries. Language barrier. There are more than twenty different regional languages being used across India as official languages of particular states, but none of them could be described as the “national” language. As a consequence of that, many Indians are heavily limited in choosing their place of living and managing their education and career. The article provides detailed analysis of the roots of the problem, both historical and legal ones, as well as the evaluation of legislative measures taken in order to resolve it. The paper refers to multiple reports, statistics, and laws regarding discussed matter. Furthermore, this work also highlights the role of both legislature and society in the ongoing process of linguistic transformation.