The other important feature in the ‘rise’ of ‘major’ languages was that theselanguages emerged as the markers of political identity of a given community.The re-organization of the Indian state in the 1950s was also along such linguisticlines. However, by the last decades of the 20thcentury, it came to be increasinglyrealized that these ‘major’languages and the literature in these languages did notor could not speak about those social groups which were the dominated onesvis-à-vis the dominant socio-cultural groups. It was also shown that ‘major’languages had become means of not allowing the dominated social groups toexpress themselves culturally. This was because the ‘major’languages, as markersof political identity of a given community, had come to be used to signify thatcommunity as a single entity. In other words, the ‘major’ language of a givencommunitysignified the universalityof the communityrather than the multiplicitythat it contained within it. As a result, the dominated groups, along with othertools, also came to view their language as avehicle of protest against their socio-cultural domination and seek voice for self expression through their own language.Such languages came to be called ‘minor’ languages.In