IIIT Hyderabad Hosts Bahu Bhasa 2025 to Promote Language Diversity

The Open Knowledge Initiatives (OKI) and the Language Technologies Research Centre (LTRC) organized Bahu Bhasa 2025 at IIIT Hyderabad from Nov 6-8, 2025. The event was an effort to engage with the current discourse on Indian languages from the perspectives of policy, technology and community, with the objective of bringing them in conversation with each other.

The name “Bahu Bhasa” (not “Bhasha”) challenges linguistic hierarchy that privileges standardized, script-bound languages with institutional power. The event was not only a celebration of Indian languages, but a space to ask difficult, necessary questions about preservation, access, and equity in a rapidly digitizing world. 

In the opening remarks on Day 1, Prof. Deva Priyakumar (Dean, R&D, IIIT Hyderabad) urged researchers to move beyond academic publications to develop tools that solve real-world communication challenges. Prof. Vasudeva Varma, Head, LTRC described a “silent crisis of storytelling,” urging that India must make its linguistic heritage open, lest others define it for us. In the keynote, author and educationist Vadrevu Chinaveerabhadrudu called for transforming education into a collaborative, open system of knowledge creation. 

Panels and workshops delved into language policy gaps, civic technologies for safer online spaces, and community-driven approaches for low-resource languages. The day closed with the release of Ho-language works by Adivasi Ho Samaj Mahasabha and a fireside chat with Prof. P. Sainath and Prof. Dipti Misra Sharma on the future of language activism.

The keynote address by Prof. Arjun Ghosh (IIT Delhi) on Day 2 explored how technology continually reshapes language, identity, and access. Demonstrations showcased the impact of community-driven innovations, including Assamese typing tools, Sindhi and Chhattisgarhi language archives, and a Tamil spell-checker. The day also included a hands-on workshop on BhashaVerse by LTRC, and a panel discussion on politics of translation, access, and identity in the digital sphere, followed by an interactive session by Science Gallery Bengaluru.

Day 3 began with a panel discussion on building resources for low-resource and low-visibility contexts, emphasising the social labour behind documentation and the need for community agency in shaping linguistic futures. Demonstrations by Swecha, OSM Kerala, Wiki Loves, and Bengali Wikisource showcased how open, collaborative infrastructures can democratize access and preserve linguistic knowledge. This was followed by a workshop critically examining translation evaluation methodologies, comparing human and automated systems  In the final keynote, Dr. Rukmini Banerji (Pratham) offered an inspiring vision of people-centred learning built on trust, simplicity, and non-linearity.

Bahu Bhasa 2025 is a collective call to action to preserve and revitalize India’s many voices. It reaffirmed that the future of linguistic diversity will not be defined by technology alone, but by people and communities who continue to live, create, and dream in their languages.