Tracing the Ultra-Populism Paradox in Multilingual South Asian Nations

The world’s most linguistically diverse countries exist around the Himalayan region. In their drive to achieve one national and linguistic identity, Afghanistan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan are ultra-nationalist countries with a blend of populism. This new mixture of ultra-nationalist and populist orientations is called ultra-populism. This article attempts to understand how multilingualism works in ultra-populist countries. The article speaks of four trends that counter ultra-populism: active and passive resistance movements, the revival of classical and moribund languages, the rise of English, and partial parallelism and code-switching. Therefore, ultra-populism in multilingual nations negates everything it aims to achieve, rendering this concept a paradox.