Language may be structured, but its essence lives in people, culture, and experience. India’s vast linguistic diversity has long shaped its democracy, yet questions of identity, access, and representation continue to resurface. Even with renewed interest in Indian languages over the last several years, driven by cultural revival, digital expansion, and policy attention, meaningful, everyday access to usable language spaces in education, governance, and technology remains uneven. Much of the discourse is still siloed; even as communities grapple with limited infrastructure, uneven technological support, and the urgent need to document and strengthen low-resource and endangered languages. To support a truly multilingual India in a rapidly digitalising world, we need deeper public dialogu…
Language may be structured, but its essence lives in people, culture, and experience. India’s vast linguistic diversity has long shaped its democracy, yet questions of identity, access, and representation continue to resurface. Even with renewed interest in Indian languages over the last several years, driven by cultural revival, digital expansion, and policy attention, meaningful, everyday access to usable language spaces in education, governance, and technology remains uneven. Much of the discourse is still siloed; even as communities grapple with limited infrastructure, uneven technological support, and the urgent need to document and strengthen low-resource and endangered languages. To support a truly multilingual India in a rapidly digitalising world, we need deeper public dialogue, more research-based interventions, and community-driven approaches that treat language not only as a communication tool but as lived knowledge and cultural experience.
Nivas (OKI), Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Why Bahu Bhasa?
In this spirit, the Open Knowledge Initiatives (OKI), RCTS, in collaboration with the Language Technologies Research Centre (LTRC), International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Hyderabad, organised Bahu Bhasa from November 6-8, 2025. The deliberate use of Bhasa (not Bhasha) challenges linguistic hierarchies that privilege standardised, script-bound, institutionally recognised languages. Bhasa embraces oral, tribal, folk, and marginalised language forms, languages without scripts or state recognition, yet rich in cultural and human value. It represents an inclusive, democratic, and decolonial stance.
Objectives of Bahu Bhasa 2025
The event brought policy, technology, and community perspectives into conversation about the shifting landscape of Indian languages. It focused particularly on low-resource and underrepresented languages and their visibility on the internet, while highlighting ongoing work in documentation, conservation, revitalisation, and digital development. The aim was to identify emerging issues and create opportunities for collaboration. Each day focused on the three thematic areas, language policy, technology-building and community engagement, to explore how they may inform a multilingual, digital future.
Key Themes
Policy + Technology + Community = Bahu Bhasa
Day 1: Policy – Shaping Futures Through Governance
Day 1 explored how policy decisions shape linguistic diversity, influence barriers to access, and impact the everyday use of Indian languages across domains like education, governance, and technology.Prof. Vasudeva Varma, Head of LTRC, IIIT Hyderabad, highlighted a “silent crisis of storytelling,” stressing that if India does not make its linguistic heritage openly accessible, others will shape its narrative for us. In his keynote, author and educationist Vadrevu Chinaveerabhadrudu called for more open-knowledge, multilingual educational models. The panel discussions underscored the urgent need to connect policy, community, and technology in meaningful ways. Conversations centred on gaps in language policy, the dominance of English, mother-tongue teaching and learning, ethical data practices, and AI-driven inequities. A workshop on Indian languages and online safety by Tattle Civic Technologies emphasised community-led models, data sovereignty, and inclusive digital ecosystems. The day closed with reflections on the future of language activism as part of a fireside conversation between Prof. Dipti Misra Sharma and P. Sainath, and the need for collaborative efforts on language policy and community interventions in preservation.
Day 2: Product & Technology – Infrastructure for Access
Day 2 examined the role of digital tools in widening or limiting access, including infrastructural gaps, the impact of AI, and developments in Indic computing, localisation, and open knowledge ecosystems. The keynote address by Prof. Arjun Ghosh (IIT Delhi) examined how technology continually reshapes language, identity, and access. The day was mostly focused on how technological infrastructures shape belonging and inclusion. Demonstrations featured homegrown innovations, from Assamese AI keyboards and Ho script tools to Chhattisgarhi archives, Sindhi catalogues, and Tamil grammar engines. A workshop on Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) by LTRC explored India’s growing machine translation ecosystem, stressing open data and community participation. Panel discussions reframed localisation as a matter of dignity, representation, and cultural continuity, while an interactive session by Science Gallery Bengaluru highlighted translation as mediation between science, art, and public life.
Pavan Santhosh (OKI), Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Day 3: People – Community, Culture, and Innovation
Day 3 highlighted language as a lived culture expressed through creativity, social life, and collective memory. Discussions showcased community-led documentation, preservation, and revitalisation efforts and explored ways to strengthen their role in the language ecosystem. It reaffirmed that meaningful language work begins with people. Speakers challenged the idea of “low resource,” noting that communities are rich in knowledge but underserved digitally. Showcases ranged from Kashmiri oral traditions and Adivasi storytelling to Khasi data annotation, children’s publishing, open-source mapping, and heritage documentation. A number of Wikimedia projects and other open knowledge platforms were also discussed, including Bengali Wikisource, Wiki Loves, Swecha andOpen Street Maps. A hands-on translation evaluation workshop by LTRC highlighted the centrality of human judgment in translation and annotation. In the final keynote for the event, Dr Rukmini Banerji, CEO of Pratham Education Foundation, highlighted people-centred learning and the strength of community-driven interventions. Reflections called for culturally rooted technology, stronger community networks, and collaborative policy to build an open, multilingual knowledge commons. The day concluded with reflections from the team and participants. Prof. Sandeep Shukla, Director, IIIT Hyderabad, noted the decline in reading cultures, even in major languages like Bengali, and reflected on how this trend may affect low-resource and underrepresented languages.
Pavan Santhosh (OKI), Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Reflections: A Way Forward
Indian language work requires shifting our lens from scarcity to abundance. Communities or languages are not low resource; systems are. Progress lies in building technologies that follow culture, strengthening community-led documentation, and recognising linguistic labour as essential and skilled. Open knowledge ecosystems demonstrate that when people participate, they become the infrastructure sustaining multilingual futures. Creating an inclusive language landscape now demands trust, simplicity, fair compensation, and sustained collaboration across policy, technology, and community.
The event went beyond celebrating Indian languages; it created space for difficult but necessary conversations about preservation, access, and equity in a rapidly digitising world. Within Wikimedia, these three principles, preservation, access, and equity, are foundational pillars of the movement, and yet they continue to face real challenges. At Bahu Bhasa, participants came from diverse platforms, disciplines, and lived experiences, but ultimately converged around shared questions: How do we preserve what is disappearing? How do we make knowledge accessible across languages? How do we build systems that honour linguistic diversity rather than flatten it? The discussions echoed the broader Wikimedia mission, reminding us that sustaining multilingual knowledge requires collective responsibility, open collaboration, and a willingness to confront the structural barriers that shape language futures. Across the global Wikimedia community, efforts to foster and sustain the wealth of knowledge contained in various languages continue to thrive, supported by volunteers and the Wikimedia Foundation. But our vision for these initiatives must expand, enriched by the insights of those working at the grassroots. Such perspectives remind us that Wikimedia’s work is not only about digitising languages; it is about ensuring that knowledge remains accessible to all: for the people, by the people.
Read the full event report on the Bahu Bhasa website here.
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