G. N. Devy

== ==

Padma Shri Ganesh Narayandas Devy
Born	(1950-08-01) 1 August 1950 Bhor, Pune District, Bombay State (now Maharashtra), India
Occupation	Critic, thinker, editor, educator, cultural activist
Nationality	Indian
Genre	Literary Criticism
Notable awards	Padma Shri (2014) Linguapax Prize (2011) Prince Claus Award (2003) SAARC Literary Award (2001) Sahitya Akademi Award (1993)

Ganesh Narayandas Devy (born 1 August 1950) is an Indian polymath, cultural activist, thinker, literary critic and educationist. He is known for the People's Linguistic Survey of India and the Adivasi Academy created by him. He is credited with starting the Bhaashaa research and Publication Centre. He writes in three languages—Marathi, Gujarati and English. Beginning with his first full-length book After Amnesia (1992), he has written and edited over a hundred books  in areas including Literary Criticism, Anthropology, Education, Linguistics and Philosophy.

Life and Work

G. N. Devy was educated at Shivaji University, Kolhapur and the University of Leeds, UK. The largest part of his academic and activist life was spent at Baroda in Gujarat (1980-2015). Since 2016, he has been residing in Dharwad in Karntaka. Among his many academic assignments, he held the Commonwealth Academic Exchange Fellowship at Leeds University (1986-7) and the Fulbright Fellowship at Yale University( 1992). He was a THB Symons Fellow (1991–92) and Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow (1994–96).

He was a Professor of English at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda from 1980 to 96. In 1996, he gave up his academic career in order to initiate work with the Denotified and Nomadic Tribes (DNT) and Adivasis. During this work, he created the Bhasha Research and Publication Centre at Baroda, the Adivasis Academy at Tejgadh, the DNT-Rights Action Group and several other initiatives. The DNT-rights campaign initated and led by him resulted in creation of the National Commission for Nomadic and Semi-nomadic Tribes.

He was Member of Sahitya Akademi’s English Language Board  and Member of the Executive Committee of the Indian Council for Social Science Research. He chaired the University Grants Committee for Endangered Languages. He was President of the Bharat Rural Livelihood Foundation during 2021-22, and the National President of the Rashtra Seva Dal from 2019 to 2022.    

In 2010, he initiated the largest-ever survey of languages in history, carried out with the help of nearly 3000 volunteers and covered over 700 living languages.

G. N. Devy is known to the academic community in India as a brilliant speaker and an astute analyst of Indian culture and society. More than a 100 of his lecture-videos are available in digital-space. Two documentaries are made on his life and work and a biography in Marathi written by  Anuradha Aurangabadkar.

Devy has continued to combine his academic work with his work for the marginalised communities and cultures. After creating the Adivasi Academy, Devy worked as Professor of Humanities at the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information Technology (2003-2014), Gandhinagar,  Honorary Professor at the Centre for Multidisciplinary Development Research, Dharwad( 2015-18), Obaid Siddiqi Chair Professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences—TIFR, Bangalore (2022-23) and is currently Professor of Eminence and Director, school of Civilisation at the Somaiya Vidyavihar University, Bombay.   

In response to the growing intolerance and murders of several intellectuals in India, he launched the Dakshinayan (Southward) movement of artists, writers, and intellectuals. In order to lead this movement, he moved to Dharwad in 2016. The Dakshinayan movement follows the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar.  

Devy’s activist and academic work has received wide media attention. The New York Times carried his ‘Saturday Profile’ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/11/world/asia/india-languages-ganesh-devy.html  and the New Yorker published in 2024 his life-profile, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/11/25/should-a-country-speak-a-single-language Most periodicals and newspapers in India have often published his interviews and news about his work.  

Awards

G. N. Devy has received several Lifetime Achievement Awards. He was awarded Padma Shri on 26 January 2014 in recognition of his work with denotified and nomadic tribes and endangered languages. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award (1993) for After Amnesia, and the SAARC Writers’ Foundation Award (2001) for his work with denotified tribals. He was given the reputed Prince Claus Award (2003) for his work for the conservation of tribal arts and craft. His Marathi book Vanaprasth received eight awards including the Durga Bhagwat Memorial Award and the Maharashtra Foundation Award. Along with Laxman Gaikwad and Mahashweta Devi, he was one of the founders of The Denotified and Nomadic Tribes Rights Action Group (DNT-RAG). He won the 2011 Linguapax Prize for his work for the preservation of linguistic diversity. The Ooty Literary Festival of 2025 honoured him with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Publications

• Critical Thought (1987)
• After Amnesia (1992)  ^{Translated into  Marathi, Gujarati, Telugu, Hindi, Kannada and Bangla}
• Of Many Heroes (1997) ^{Translated into Marathi and Bangla}
• India Between Tradition and Modernity (co-edited, 1997)
• In Another Tongue (1992)
• Indian Literary Criticism: Theory & Interpretation (editor 2002).
• Painted Words: An Anthology of Tribal Literature (editor, 2002).
• A Nomad Called Thief (2006) ^{Translated into Hindi}
• Keywords: Truth (contributor, date unknown)
• Vaanprastha (in Marathi, 2007) Translated into Kannada
• Adivasi Jane Che ( the Tribals Know, in Gujarati, 2001).
• The G. N. Devy Reader (2009)
• The Being of Bhasha (2014) Translated into Hindi
• Samvad ( in Gujarati, 2016) Translated into Marathi
• The Crisis Within: On Knowledge and Education in India (2017) ^{Translated into Marathi and ,Kannada}
• Trijyaa (in Marathi, 2018) Translated into Kannada
• The question of Silence (2019)
• Countering Violence (2019) Translated into Marathi
• Being Adivasi: Existence, Entitlements, Exclusion (co-edited; 2022)
• Mahabharata: The Epic and the Nation (2022) ^{Translated int Assamiya, Marathi, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Konkani}
• The Indians: Histories of a Civilization (co-edited 2023) Translated into Marathi and Kannada
• India as a Linguistic Civilization (2024) Translated into Hindi and Marathi
• The Language of Immortals: Sanskrit and its Hegemony (2025)

     The People’s Linguistic Survey of India is a large series of 50 volumes containing 94 titles, with 51 titles in English, 33 in Hindi and 10 in various regional languages. G. N. Devy is the Chief Editor of the series and also Editor for some of the volume. The PLSI volumes started appearing in 2013. 84 titles have so far been published. The entire series will be completed by 2027.

Key Terms in Indigenous Studies, Co-edited with Geoffrey Davis, published between 2020 and 22 includes five volumes. Devy has also co-edited, prior to this series, six other volumes dealing with the rights and culture of indigenous people from all continents (published between 2009 and 2015),

G. N. Devy  has contributed  over 200 opinion essays in The Times of India, Indian Express, The Telegraph, The Hindu,  Deccan Harold, National Harold and Tribune.

See also

• Indian literature
• Indian English Literature

External links

• Adivasi Academy, Tejgadh- founded by G. N. Devy
• G. N. Devy in Gujarati Vishwakosh.
• Archival Material at Leeds Library : G. N. Devy
• Books at Google Books : G. N. Devy
• Devy talks about life and death of languages on TED on YouTube
• Transcription of Devy's TED talk about life and death of languages