Bahu Basha 2025:-Celebrating Languages in the Tech Hub

This blog shares my experience of participating in Bahu Bhasha 2025, a multilingual and language-technology programme, from the perspective of a Wikimedian working with underrepresented languages. As a contributor engaged in community-led documentation and open knowledge, the event offered valuable insights into how language technology, academia, and grassroots initiatives can intersect with the Wikimedia ecosystem.

What does Bahu Bhasha mean?

The term Bahu Bhasha comes from Indian languages, where bahu means many and bhasha means language. Together, it signifies multilingualism—the coexistence and equal dignity of many languages. In the context of this programme, the phrase also represents a commitment to ensuring that linguistic diversity has a meaningful presence in digital spaces, including open knowledge platforms.

Language, technology, and open knowledge

Bahu Bhasha 2025 was held from 6–8 November 2025 at International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad, and organised by Open Knowledge Initiatives in collaboration with the Language Technologies Research Centre. It was encouraging to see a leading technology institute position language not as an isolated humanities subject, but as an integral partner in innovation.

For Wikimedians, this framing felt especially relevant. Many discussions—on open datasets, ethical AI, machine translation, and digitisation of oral traditions—closely mirrored the challenges and possibilities we encounter while building Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Commons, and Wikisource in Indian languages.

A shared space for communities

The three-day programme brought together a wide spectrum of participants: researchers, developers, Wikimedia contributors, translators, librarians, cultural practitioners, retired administrators, grassroots volunteers, and community elders. This diversity reflected a core Wikimedia value—knowledge equity—where multiple forms of knowledge and experience are respected and documented collaboratively.

Sessions frequently returned to questions familiar to the Wikimedia movement:

• How do we create and sustain open repositories for language data?
• How can community-generated content support language technologies?
• What ethical responsibilities do we carry when working with oral traditions and living cultures?

Reflections as a Tulu–Arebhashe Wikimedian

I attended the programme representing the Karavali Wikimedians User Group, which focuses on Tulu and Arebhashe language initiatives. Tulu, despite its rich literary and cultural heritage, remains outside India’s Eighth Schedule and lacks formal state recognition. Yet, at Bahu Bhasha, Tulu was not framed as merely a “low-resource language.” Instead, it was acknowledged as a living cultural ecosystem with relevance for education, AI, and digital knowledge.

This recognition resonated deeply with our Wikimedia work. Through Wikipedia articles, Commons documentation, Wikisource texts, and community training, we have seen how open platforms can offer visibility and legitimacy to languages beyond formal policy frameworks.

Learning for the Wikimedia movement

One important takeaway from the event was the potential for stronger collaboration between academic linguistics, government language bodies, and community-driven platforms like Wikimedia. Future editions of Bahu Bhasha could be further strengthened by engaging more university language departments and official language institutions. Such participation could help translate community discussions into research agendas and policy conversations—benefiting the broader open knowledge ecosystem.

Language activism is digital activism

For me, Bahu Bhasha 2025 reaffirmed a central idea many Wikimedians already practice: language activism today is also digital activism. Documenting folklore, uploading media to Commons, building dictionaries on Wiktionary, and mentoring new editors are not small acts. They are part of a global movement to ensure linguistic justice and long-term access to knowledge.

As I return from this programme, I carry renewed motivation to continue strengthening Tulu’s presence across digital libraries, open datasets, and Wikimedia projects. With sustained community effort and partnerships between academia, technology institutions, and the Wikimedia movement, the vision of true Bahu Bhasha—many languages, equally valued—feels closer than ever.

My sincere thanks to IIIT Hyderabad, Open Knowledge Initiatives, and the organising team for creating a space where multilingualism, technology, and open knowledge could meaningfully come together.