Standard "Shuddha" Marathi and The Sound of Caste

 A lot is being said about Vidyanand Bapat’s “शुद्ध/ चांगली/ स्पष्ट ” (pure/ good/ well-enunciated) Marathi. Have you also stumbled upon memes where he has been called the Marathi Shashi Tharoor (refering to his command over Marathi)?

 
I want to urge us to think about how the current discourse on the language he uses is loaded with casteism.

At the outset, let's call it what it is. What Bapat is speaking in is Brahmanical Marathi which is considered “standard”… and is also often aspirational for non-Brahmins. 

Language is one of the easiest weapons humans use to classify people in a hierarchy and discriminate against them. Language carries a lot of power and Brahmins have known very well how to use it to their advantage and to exploit Bahujans and keep them perpetually subordinated. 

When I was in Mumbai in 2024, I spoke in Marathi with someone and they suddenly interrupted me mid-sentence and asked, “what’s your surname?” They then proceeded to say, “meaning, Brahmin right?” Without waiting for me to say anything, this person said in a voice thick with awe and admiration, “you don’t have to tell me you are. Who else could speak such शुद्ध (pure) Marathi?” And then made very appreciative comments about how clear my pronunciations are, how well I enunciate etc. 

So many complex layers here. I got my style of Marathi from my home and then it was also shaped by my learning of Sanskrit to a certain extent. I haven’t, unfortunately, read as much Marathi as I should have or retrospectively speaking, would have liked to. Very frankly, I’ve almost read no Marathi literature. So this linguistic capital came to me entirely due to the identity I was born into and doesn’t really speak to any personal effort on my part. Yet, I promptly reveal myself when I open my mouth to talk in Marathi and get treated unnecessarily and unfairly better than others because of how I speak. The irony is that I actually think more easily in English (case in point - I am writing this in English and not Marathi). So just look at how ludicrous it is that my Marathi gets compliments and yet someone else, who is not a Brahmin but who has spent far more time and effort and perhaps feels a deeper connection with Marathi than I do gets mocked and treated poorly because it is not “standard” and/ or is a regional variant. This is completely underserved Brahmin privilege. 

I do not mean to say that if I had worked harder on Marathi and achieved this standard language through effort then that should have made me deserving of this privilege.  Language is for communication. If that is achieved, then the use of language has been successful. We must consciously make an effort to stop associating standard language with notions such as 'good/civilized/ pure" etc. We don't realize how easily we dehumanize people, but it is rampant. I will elaborate on this with some very current examples from the social media realm.  

(1) I noticed a few minutes ago that Avadhoot Gupte has dropped a fresh, new song in support of Vidyanand Bapat and the first lines are “स्वच्छ वाणी अन स्वच्छ विचार यावर हसणारी माकडं” - literally translating to “the monkeys who laugh at (his) clean language and clean thoughts". How problematic is this! This idea of "स्वच्छ" is very directly reminiscent of concepts of purity and untouchability. So, people who don't speak like Bapat are 'unclean'? And then he takes it further and dehumanizes them to 'monkeys', and with this metaphor, we directly evoke ideas such as 'animal', 'uncivilized', 'wild', 'savage'. etc.
 

(2) I also watched a reel Nupur Shikhare (clearly a doom scroller here) made where he’s imitating Bapat’s "घटं भिन्द्यात् पटं छिन्द्यात् कुर्यात् रासभरोहणम् " Sanskrit verse referencing and his famous स्खलन स्वातंत्र्य (right to err) comment. Many a Marathi content creator are playing with this and making fun reels. But what caught my attention was Sukanya Kulkarni Mone’s comment right below Nupur's reel. She said,  “चला, ह्या निमित्ताने तू छान मराठी … संस्कृत बोलायला शिकलास” 

(Translation: “oh wonderful.. thanks to this (Bapat situation) you have learned to speak good Marathi.. Sanskrit” ) 

I was triggered by this. How easily and without even an iota of self-doubt do Brahmins appoint themselves judges of linguistic ability! What gives Ms. Kulkarni-Mone the authority to call this version of Marathi “good” and then to applaud Nupur .. if not her caste that comes with heaps of privilege? Note: She didn’t say “we are learning good Marathi”. It was “you are learning”.. so her Marathi (like Bapat’s) is good and  she wants to congratulate him for starting to catch up? I don’t know what Nupur Shikhare’s caste is.. but I imagine it is not Brahmin (I may be wrong, please correct me if so), because Ms. Kulkarni-Mone is unlikely to take such liberties with a fellow Brahmin. Sure, she attempted to soften it with the "” emojis, but that unfortunately does not hide the casteism loaded in her comment. 

As much as I enjoy and joyfully consume Bapat’s use of Marathi (it really is lovely to watch his fluency and vocabulary) and also his command over English and his Sanskrit-verse dropping, I want to state clearly that Bapat is able to do this because he has had a leg up since the time he was in the cradle. He was born in a Brahmin family where this kind of Marathi (which Brahmins decided was standard and shuddha and whatnot) was just normal. He may personally have a knack for languages and he may have consumed a lot of literature and fortified his linguistic abilities. But the fact  that it gets appreciated and admired has mostly, if not entirely, to do with his identity, the easy access it provides to resources, and the very problematic ideas of purity and 'civilized-ness'. There are so many other people with just as much of a command over “non-standard” Marathi who do not get this kind of adulation. 

Bapat absolutely can and should be appreciated for the extraordinary courage he has shown in taking up a rational stance and making a very reasonable demand in a situation where a lot of the people involved are irrational and unreasonable. He knows he is putting his life at risk (which is condemnable, no one should feel threatened because they are asking for no loudspeakers and lowered noise pollution) and he is doing this with full awareness. I salute him. But do not use yet another Brahmin for his “good” Marathi to continue this linguistic oppression. All styles, accents, dialects of Marathi are great. Some of us just have easier access to standard language. But we must absolutely not call his (and other Brahmins') language pure and continue to demean, belittle, and perpetuate this age-old oppression against speakers of non-standard varieities. 

The moment we call one version of Marathi 'स्वच्छ/शुद्ध ,' we are calling those who speak other versions 'impure and dirty'.