This book is dedicated to “all those working for the liquidation of sociolinguisticsas we know it” (p. 6). One of the dominant themes of this book is a conservativeskepticism about institutional claims to a knowledge of Indiansociolinguistics—western scholars and their “Indian cohorts” (p. 31,and passim) claiming to know the multilingual complexities of India. The nineessays, most previously published, are assembled in an attempt to deconstruct some of theestablished paradigms of Indian sociolinguistics, especially those that authors believe areguided by western models. The authors' dissatisfaction with the use of westernparameters in interpreting the social realities of India is shared by most, if not all, linguistsactive in research in Indian linguistics; this book presents, in one volume, critiques of theworks done in the past. After reading the book, whether or not one agrees with its statedagenda or its reinterpretation of the data, it is a brilliantly provocative, sometimes polemic,revisionist account of the multilingual realities of South Asia. The first nine essays offercritiques of studies in both micro- and macro-sociolinguistic traditions. The last two essaysreview two books: Gumperz's (1982) Language and social identity, andBhatia's (1987) A history of the Hindi grammatical tradition.