Published Paper Details:

This study examines the strategic role of language in constructing a distinct Behari regional identity during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries under colonial rule. Unlike the organic linguistic nationalism of Europe or Bengal, the multilingual landscape of Bihar encompassing Maithili, Magahi, and Bhojpuri. It was deliberately reshaped by an emerging educated middle class of Kayasthas, Bhumihars, Rajputs, and Muslim ashrafs. Marginalized within Bengal Presidency, this elite rejected philological realities documented by George A. Grierson, who classified Bihari dialects as distinct from Hindi and closer to Bengali-Odia. Instead, they adopted Khari Boli Hindi in Devanagari script as a unifying public vernacular, subordinating local tongues to challenge Bengali administrative and cultural hegemony. The Hindi-Nagri movement marked the pivotal phase, transforming script politics from Persian dominance to Nagari adoption via Lieutenant-Governor George Campbell's vernacular push and the 1880 Bengal Resolution mandating its use in Patna and Bhagalpur courts. Newspapers like Bihar Bandhu (1872) and Bihar Times (1894), alongside presses such as Khadag Vilas, standardized Sanskritized Hindi, fostering a public sphere while relegating dialects to the domestic realm. Figures like Ayodhya Prasad Khatri radicalized the Hindi canon, advocating Khari Boli poetry to bridge Hindu-Muslim divides and align Bihar with the North-Western Provinces' Hindi heartland. This linguistic maneuver countered Bengali claims of affinity, framed Bihar's "internal colonization," and justified separation demands in works like Mahesh Narayan and Sachchidananda Sinha's The Partition of Bengal or the Separation of Bihar? (1906). Educational disparities--Patna College's late founding (1863)--further propelled Hindi-medium advocacy for local autonomy. Culminating in Bihar's 1912 partition, this constructed identity prioritized political viability over cultural authenticity, sowing seeds of postcolonial linguistic alienation. The paper draws on archival resolutions, periodicals, and Grierson's surveys to illuminate elite agency in regional formation.