Now Trending: Regional Indian Language Social Media Networks

Now Trending: Regional Indian Language Social Media Networks is a Hindustan Times feature by Kanika Sharma published on 14 February 2016. The article profiles emerging regional Indian language social media platforms—including Shabdanagari (Hindi), Muganool (Tamil), ejibON (Bengali), Prasangik (Assamese) and Vismayanagari (Kannada)—exploring how they enable culturally grounded online communities and authentic self-expression in mother tongues, whilst highlighting infrastructure challenges and the need for government investment in Indic language technologies.

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Article Details

📰 Published in:: Hindustan Times
📅 Date:: 14 February 2016
👤 Authors:: Kanika Sharma
📄 Type:: Feature Article
📰 Newspaper Link:: Read Online

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How many languages did you speak today? Chances are there was a lot of English at work and at home, but at least a sprinkling of Hindi (or Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil or Kannada) when you were chatting, gossiping or joking with friends and family.

You toggle so effortlessly that you probably don't notice it, except when the option is no longer available — when arguing with a non-English-speaking cabbie while on vacation, for instance, or trying to write a heartfelt message to a faraway friend on Facebook.

And that's the key reason for the host of regional Indian-language social media platforms that have been popping up over the past four years—Shabdanagari and Mooshak in Hindi, in 2015; ejibON for Bengali, in 2014; Prasangik for Assamese, in 2013; Muganool in Tamil, in 2012; with an early start made by Vismayanagari (Kannada; 2008).

"I set up Muganool.com out of love for the language and culture, and of course because it is so much easier to express oneself in one's mother tongue," says Sathish Kumar, 31, a software solutions company owner. "On Muganool, the feed is much better, you get relevant news and people's views making them a delight to read. On Facebook, there's just too much of timepass."

Most of these platforms are modelled on Facebook. You can post updates, links and videos on a newsfeed, share and repost links, form groups and live chat.

Some are even named after their inspiration — Muganool, for instance, comes from the Tamil Mugam for Face and Nool for Book.

Many go a step further. Shabdanagari has discussion forums, Prasangik has a crowd-sourced encyclopedia section and ejibON has a crowd-funding tab.

For users, the differentiator has been this sense of community.

"It's too much of a crowd on Facebook," says Umashankara BS, 39, a Bengaluru-based marketing professional and Vismayanagari user. "Here, I feel like I know who I'm talking to, and they know me. We share opinions about politics and literature, and once a month 15 of us meet at a Bengaluru café. That's not something I would dream of doing via Facebook."

Property consultant Siddharth Bora, 35, who left Assam for Delhi a decade ago, describes Prasangik as his home away from home.

"It takes me back more than an STD call can," he says. "Prasangik feels intimate, almost private. While on Facebook it is considered rude to post content in the vernacular or go on about elements of your culture, here that is exactly what a lot of us do. From other homesick migrants to my mother in Assam, a 67-year-old retired lecturer."

It seems strange to hear the word 'intimacy' when talking about interaction on social media, but it's a concept that keeps coming up among users of the regional-language sites.

"Users take pains to give feedback and comment on posts, unlike Facebook, where most content is lost in the crowd and clamour," says Pankaj Trivedi, 53, a college staffer from Gujarat and a Shabdanagari user. "Also, since it is a language the users are confident in, conversations tend to sound more courteous. People are polite to one another. I know that there is a certain kind of audience that enjoys reading my posts and that makes me more comfortable posting on Shabdanagari."

On ejibON (meaning 'e-life'), a community has been formed across borders, with 10,000 users in India and Bangladesh bonding over their love of the language — and the idea of an undivided Bengal.

"Language can be such a great unifier," says Bangladesh-based Maruf Sunny, 28, web developer and founder of ejibON. "The aim of this website is to build a sense of community across borders and religions to celebrate the Bengali community online."

Thinking vs Feeling

These days, we think in one language and feel in another, says Sunil Abraham, executive director of The Centre for Internet and Society. "Whether it is music, literature or even relationships — it feels truer and more 'authentic' in our mother tongue. So, despite a lot of English content and services online, we still yearn for our own languages in the online world. This is precisely why Wikipedia in regional languages has become so popular."

For greater representation of Indian languages online, Gaur's website actively encourages people to embrace and personalise their Hindi as they do their English.

"I want users to coin and combine words, use hashtags," he says. "Eventually, I want more Indians to voice their opinions online so that the English-speaking elite are not counted as the voice of the nation. Today, whatever trends on Twitter is taken as the opinion of the majority. That's just inaccurate."

With thrice as many people offline in India as online, and most of them non-English-speakers, the potential of such websites is immense, Abraham points out. The stumbling block, of course, will be the resources — internet access and electricity.

Meanwhile, the money is already flowing in. Last month, Shabdanagari.com raised $200,000 (about Rs 1.35 crore) from Indian investors.

The way forward lies in governmental support, says Abraham.

"Indic language technologies are not sufficiently developed because of insufficient investment by the government," he adds. "Existing work needs to be promoted and technology infrastructure developed to protect and promote India's linguistic heritage."

Context and Background

This feature appeared during a period when India’s internet penetration remained concentrated among English-speaking urban populations, with regional language content and platforms representing an emerging frontier. By early 2016, whilst Facebook and Twitter dominated India’s social media landscape with over 100 million users, these platforms operated primarily in English, with limited vernacular interface options and content discovery mechanisms that privileged English-language posts.

The platforms profiled in this article—spanning launches from Vismayanagari in 2008 to Shabdanagari and Mooshak in 2015—represented attempts to create linguistically and culturally distinct online spaces. Their Facebook-inspired architectures (newsfeeds, sharing, groups, live chat) acknowledged the social network as the template for digital community-building, whilst their vernacular-only approach addressed what founders perceived as Facebook’s inadequacy for authentic cultural expression.

The naming conventions illustrated this relationship: Muganool literally translated Facebook into Tamil (Mugam = Face, Nool = Book), whilst platforms like ejibON (e-life) and Prasangik (contextual/relevant) chose terms evoking digital existence and meaningful connection. Feature differentiation—discussion forums on Shabdanagari, crowd-sourced encyclopedias on Prasangik, crowd-funding on ejibON—suggested efforts to build comprehensive ecosystems rather than simple social networking functionality.

User testimonials emphasised three recurring themes: intimacy, authenticity and cultural comfort. The characterisation of Facebook as “too much of a crowd” contrasted with regional platforms’ smaller, self-selecting communities where users felt known and recognised. The ability to organise offline meetups—monthly gatherings of 15 Vismayanagari users in Bengaluru cafés—suggested these platforms facilitated bridging social capital in ways that Facebook’s scale inhibited.

The migration experience figured prominently in user motivations. Siddharth Bora’s description of Prasangik as “home away from home” that “takes me back more than an STD call can” illustrated how linguistic platforms served diaspora populations maintaining cultural connections across geographic dispersal. The observation that posting vernacular content or extensive cultural references was “considered rude” on Facebook revealed implicit linguistic hierarchies in ostensibly language-neutral platforms.

Sunil Abraham’s formulation—”these days, we think in one language and feel in another”—articulated the cognitive-affective split produced by English-medium education and workplaces combined with vernacular family and emotional life. This distinction between languages of cognition and emotion explained why Wikipedia’s regional language editions had succeeded: knowledge could be processed in mother tongues even when formal education occurred in English.

The article’s observation that India had “thrice as many people offline as online, and most of them non-English-speakers” highlighted the demographic opportunity these platforms addressed. With internet penetration around 25% in 2016 and English speakers constituting roughly 10% of India’s population, the potential vernacular internet user base far exceeded the existing English-dominant online population. However, Abraham’s identification of infrastructure deficits—internet access and electricity—underscored material constraints limiting vernacular platform growth.

Shabdanagari’s $200,000 fundraise in January 2016 signalled investor interest in vernacular digital markets, predating the explosion of regional language content consumption that would occur with cheap smartphone proliferation and Reliance Jio’s data revolution beginning later that year. The call for government investment in Indic language technologies reflected recognition that market forces alone might not develop the linguistic infrastructure—keyboards, fonts, optical character recognition, speech-to-text systems—required for vernacular platforms to achieve mass adoption.

The article thus documented an early moment in India’s vernacular internet emergence, when platform founders and users were articulating alternatives to English-dominated social media, before the massive vernacular content boom that would reshape India’s digital landscape in subsequent years.