Politics of Linguistic, Cultural Recovery and Reassertion

This paper is a study of the particular challenges posed by the speakers of dominated or submerged mother tongues to the hegemony of the officially recognised Hindi language in North India. It deals with the subversion of Hindi language in the cow-belt through the medium of cinema, particularly popular Bhojpuri cinema, which is also linked to the processes of internal migration and formation of identity. It does so by analysing two popular Bhojpuri films - Deshdrohi and Ek Bihari Sau Pe Bhari.