Like Community, Like Language: Seventy-Five Years of Sindhi in Post-Partition India

Abstract

Since Partition, the Sindhi language in India has frequently been written off by scholars and laypersons alike, citing supposed linguistic corruption, ever-shrinking domains of use, and near-obsolescence in written form. However, census figures have consistently registered an increase in Sindhi speakers in India over the last seven decades. This article argues for a fresh approach to analyzing the journey of Sindhi in post-Partition India to explain this apparent discrepancy. It adopts a language-ecological perspective and evaluates salient grammatical, sociolinguistic, and script-related changes in Indian Sindhi over the last seventy-five years. The article maintains that these changes represent structurally and sociolinguistically plausible adaptations to the language’s ecosystem since Partition. It concludes that, despite a reduction in domains of use, changes in Indian Sindhi, together with an increase in speakers, testify to the language’s survival in India.