Poetry, Politics, and Purity: The Khari Boli–Braj Bhasha Debate in Colonial North India

Abstract

This paper explores the Khari Boli–Braj Bhasha debate in colonial North India as a pivotal episode in the politics of language, where literary choices were deeply intertwined with questions of cultural identity, communal affiliation, and linguistic nationalism. At its surface, the debate appeared to center on dialectal preferences in Hindi poetry—Braj Bhasha, the classical medium of devotional verse, versus Khari Boli, the emerging standard for modern prose. However, the controversy reflected deeper ideological anxieties, shaped by the broader Hindi–Urdu controversy and the colonial state’s role in codifying linguistic identities. Supporters of Braj Bhasha viewed the adoption of Khari Boli in poetry as a potential conduit for Urdu’s influence, which they saw as threatening the purity of Hindi and its Hindu cultural roots. In contrast, proponents of Khari Boli emphasized its accessibility, standardisation, and modern potential, viewing it as essential for the future growth of Hindi literature. The debate also invoked arguments around the division of poetic and prose registers, the shared linguistic heritage of Hindi dialects, and the perceived encroachment of Persian and Arabic lexicons through Urdu. Figures like Radha Charan Goswami, Shridhar Pathak, and Pratap Narayan Mishra framed these tensions in both cultural and communal terms. Ultimately, the Khari Boli–Braj Bhasha dispute was not merely about literary form but symbolized the contestation over Hindi’s identity and its autonomy from Urdu. It reveals how literary aesthetics became a vehicle for negotiating broader social, religious, and political concerns in colonial India’s linguistically charged environment.