Paintings & Literature

GS Paper: GS Paper I | Subject: Art & Culture | Last updated: 2026-07-20

Prelims

(Key facts, data, schemes, laws, organizations — MCQ-ready points)

'Museum of Word' (Shabdalok) — India's First Immersive Language Museum (The Hindu, 20-07-2026)

Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated the "Museum of Word", also called Shabdalok, at the National Library campus, Kolkata, on 19 July 2026 — India's first immersive language museum
Developed by the National Library under the aegis of the Union Ministry of Culture
What it holds: nine galleries exploring different facets of the history of languages and their influence on India's civilisation and culture; presents language as a living entity that has continuously shaped society while being shaped by it
Design: deliberately not a conventional repository — an immersive cultural experience using digital displays, holograms and motion-sensor technology
Content of phase one: chronicles the diversity of Indian languages, scripts and literature; celebrates India's 22 official languages (the Eighth Schedule) and traces their journey from oral traditions and ancient manuscripts → printed works → modern electronic texts
The framing used: part of the "Vikas and Virasat" (development and heritage) formulation — "Our language carries our heritage, and through languages you can understand a country's culture"
Useful context for a linguistic-diversity question: the Eighth Schedule lists 22 scheduled languages; Census 2011 recorded 121 languages and 270 mother tongues with 10,000+ speakers, and 19,569 raw mother-tongue returns; India has 11 languages with Classical Language status — Tamil (2004), Sanskrit (2005), Telugu & Kannada (2008), Malayalam (2013), Odia (2014), and Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali (added October 2024). UNESCO's Atlas classifies 197 Indian languages as endangered — the highest for any country

Mains

(Analysis, dimensions, significance, critique, policy angles — for 10/15 mark answers)

Museums, Language and the Politics of Heritage (The Hindu, 20-07-2026)

The genuine significance: India's museum tradition is overwhelmingly object-based — sculpture, coins, manuscripts. A museum of language attempts to exhibit something intangible, aligning with the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (to which India is a party, with 15 elements on the Representative List including Kutiyattam, Vedic chanting, Ramlila, Yoga, Kumbh Mela, Durga Puja and Garba). Using holograms and motion sensors to render oral tradition is a serious answer to the question of how you display speech
Why documentation is urgent: with 197 endangered Indian languages and mother tongues with fewer than 10,000 speakers excluded from Census enumeration, language loss is India's quietest heritage crisis. Each loss removes an entire system of ecological, medicinal and social knowledge — particularly acute for tribal languages (Great Andamanese, Bo, Majhi). Institutional efforts to note: the Peoples' Linguistic Survey of India (Ganesh Devy, which documented 780 languages), the Scheme for Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages (SPPEL) run by CIIL Mysuru, and the Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti
The critical questions to raise (a balanced answer must):
Which languages get represented? A museum organised around the 22 Eighth Schedule languages risks reproducing the very hierarchy that endangers the other 99 Census-listed languages and 270 mother tongues. Recognition itself is a form of power — inclusion in the Eighth Schedule brings official status, funding and examination rights, and demands for inclusion (Bhojpuri, Rajasthani, Bhoti, Tulu, Garo, Khasi and others — around 38 pending) remain unresolved
Heritage framing vs living use. Curating languages as virasat (heritage) can subtly consign them to the past tense. A language survives by being used in administration, courts, schooling and commerce — not by being exhibited. Mother-tongue instruction under NEP 2020's three-language formula, and the Article 350A duty to provide primary education in the mother tongue, do more for language survival than any museum
The federal sensitivity. Language policy is among India's most combustible federal questions — from the anti-Hindi agitations in Tamil Nadu (1937, 1965) to the Official Languages Act 1963 compromise and current disputes over the three-language formula and NEET/UPSC language accessibility. A Union-government-curated account of Indian linguistic heritage will inevitably be read through that lens, particularly on Sanskrit's place relative to Dravidian and Austroasiatic language families
The constitutional frame to cite: Article 29(1) (right of any section of citizens to conserve its distinct language, script or culture), Article 350A (primary education in the mother tongue), Article 350B (Special Officer for Linguistic Minorities), Article 351 (development of Hindi — while drawing on other Indian languages), and the Eighth Schedule
UPSC angle: Eighth Schedule & classical-language status, endangered languages & SPPEL/PLSI, intangible cultural heritage & the UNESCO 2003 Convention, Articles 29/350A/350B/351, official-language policy & federalism, museums and public history, NEP 2020 three-language formula