‘Do Not Talk Like the Other Castes’: Language and Everyday Casteism in a Marathi Brahmin Household in Mumbai

Abstract

This chapter attempts to delve into the idea of purity and pollution associated with language and look at how it operates and operationalises in upper-caste households. In a cosmopolitan city like Mumbai, caste manifests through language, marriage, food and housing, often evading the traditional forms of discrimination and bringing in new markers of deprivation and exclusion. In a typical upper-caste Marathi-speaking household, language acts as one of the major indicators of caste. Being born and raised in a Marathi Brahmin family, the researcher was often told—‘Do not talk like the other castes’ implying a certain purity that the upper castes associate with the language that they speak, which they refer to as ‘shuddha’ (pure) Marathi and any deviation is considered to be a moral transgression. The language of the upper castes is hegemonised to such an extent that it becomes the standard way of speaking and not conforming to it leads to exclusion and deprivation. The chapter aims to look at some key questions: How does caste operate through everyday spoken language? Who decides what is pure and impure language? What happens to the experiences and aspirations of people who are forced to forget their language and adhere to the standardised language spoken by the upper castes?