Life in the slums of calcutta

Description

To write a foreword to a volume on the Language Problem in India probably requires an expertise in the field of languages and dia lects. The editor of the volume, Sanghasen Singh, in requesting me to write the same has perhaps taken an official line in the matter (I being the Chairman of the Institute of Objective Studies). However, as econo mists we too have to deal with various aspects of languages and dialects like letters, words, sentences, syntax, semantics and so on on the one hand and the ifs and buts of the language problem before the nation on the other. In this respect, I am more interested in the economics of lan guage problems in our country. It is my hunch that every problem per training to languages and dialects has its root in the matter of loaves and fishes. When the people of a particular area demand inclusion of the name of their language in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, they are definitely guided by the basic motive of money matters. In fact, it would be highly worthwhile, if some one takes up this problem for a detailed and systematic study. The results of far-reaching consequences are likely to emerge, if the problem is studied in that light, though some contributors have made stray references to this effect in their essays.