India & the politics of language
This belated realisation does not convince anyone. I think the government was testing the waters. When it found that what it considered an innocuous step has evoked strong opposition, it changed its stance. But the circular has done the damage. The fears of non-Hindi speaking people have got rekindled. And they are afraid of what may happen tomorrow.
I am convinced that Narendra Modi’s government is guided, if not goaded, by the Hindi chauvinists. The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has several liberal leaders who realise that the pace of switch over to Hindi would have to be slow, keeping in mind unity and diversity. Apparently, they do not have much say.
The India of today is very different from what it was 50 years ago, with each linguistic group asserting its identity. The turmoil during the States’ Reorganisation process should be a warning. The idea of India can be jeopardised. The entire fabric can get torn if the sensitivities of the people are not allayed. What is the hurry? A few more decades’ wait is too small a price to pay for preserving the nation’s cohesion.
India has gone through large linguistic riots in the late 1950s and early 1960s. At that time, the Home Ministry had also issued instructions to different departments to make preparations for a switchover from English to Hindi as laid down in the Constitution. Riots took place in the southern states and one man even immolated himself in Tamil Nadu to convey his refusal to accept Hindi. Even the old slogan of secession got renewed.
The then prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was unhappy but did not want to interfere. However, when he saw the fire spreading, he gave an assurance on the floor of Parliament that there would be no switchover until the non-Hindi speaking people themselves said that they were ready for Hindi to be an exclusive language of union’s administration. This categorical statement disappointed Hindi fanatics but the nation on the whole heaved a sigh of relief that India had retrieved from the brink.
I wish this bilingualism should have continued without anyone tinkering with it. But then Modi’s men were in a hurry. They wanted to restrict the use of English to certain fields. Yet, they realise that their haste can tell upon the country’s unity. Non-Hindi speaking states, particularly Tamil Nadu, have accepted the Constitutional provision that Hindi is the Indian Union’s language. But they want time to learn it and come up to the standards of people living in the Hindi belt like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh or Rajasthan.
No doubt, Modi feels at home with Hindi and his sweep in the Lok Sabha elections is primarily because of the campaign he led in Hindi, somewhat Sanskritised for northern Indians. But he should remember Nehru’s promise made in 1963 that both Hindi and English would continue to be the link languages for administration throughout the country. He did not fix any deadline for the exclusive use of Hindi.
Heritage is linked with languages and therefore leaders all over the country will have to devise ways and means whereby regional languages get succor. Without a long-term plan to reinvigorate them, some regional languages would fall by the wayside as the days go by. How many regional languages will survive 50 years hence is anybody’s guess.
I recall how the Hindi fanatics offered quotas in jobs in cases where the use of English was stopped. This approach by former speaker Purshotam Das Tandon from Uttar Pradesh was ridiculed by a parliament member from Kerala. He warned him not to open the floodgates of quota lest there should be a demand for such an arrangement in every field. All other members from non-Hindi speaking areas also supported him. Finally, the proposal was dropped.
There are 22 languages recognised by India’s Constitution, each with its own script. True, Hindi is a link language along with English, but all the 22 languages are national. This was conceded by the parliamentary committee on language commission, although the committee gave Hindi the status of the principal language and additional language status to English.
The purpose of my narration is that the status quo should continue until the nation can have a consensus on some other formula. This means that the push currently given to Hindi will have to take into consideration the feelings and aspirations of each area and assure that there is no alienation of any language of any linguistic community. Modi’s fiat to quicken the pace of switchover to Hindi have created the alarm.
Meanwhile, the chauvinist supporters of Hindi should patiently wait till people all over the country are proficient in Hindi. Already, it is a compulsory subject in all the states except for Tamil Nadu. Job seekers from different states too have underlined the necessity of learning Hindi. Films have spread the language throughout the country and one can converse in the south in Hindi or Hindustani. A few more years will see the entire non-Hindi speaking population speaking the language fluently.
Language is a very potent force. Urdu in preference to Bengali gave birth to Bangladesh. In fact, the rulers’ worry should be how to save regional languages like Punjabi, which is being gradually discarded in Punjabi homes. The new generation is indifferent to their mother tongue and for them English, which brightens their employment prospects, comes first because it helps them to secure bread and butter.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 1st, 2014.
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COMMENTS (26)
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india has no "language of the masses" too many rivalries north hates south east meets west. india is about as much a "nation" as is the equator itself. @ModiFied:
@Strategic Asset: I did not suggest that the matter solely concerns TN. I said primarily because that is the one state where there is a huge political constituency for bashing Hindi - not elsewhere. I understand your concerns about being at a disadvantage. I do not share them as being from a state where the mother tongue is also not Hindi but where people have embraced Hindi and doing so gives them mobility.
Having said that I think we are both agreed that a) In a federal republic, a language should not be imposed b) I do not believe that the social media policy was trying to do any such thing.
Separately I do not agree with your response to @Shashi. The notion that English can be a link language in India is limited to the elite and those in higher echelons of government. There simply are not enough teachers proficient in English to allow English to be universal - even though English is indeed aspirational. As such for economic migrants, Hindi is far far more empowering than English - just my 2 cents.
I am a South indian err from the border of Karnataka and maharashtra my point is there is no need to impose Hindi as one national langauge I see people giving examples were south Indians speak Hindi this is true and is only at the levels of very big cities you need to travel to interior places in south to understand if they can understand Hindi for ex people from my surrounding villages when they go on North indian tours they make sure that they have person with them who understands atleast passable Hindi. My point is why do we have to impose one langauge over another.why would say sone one from south should attempt to learn Hindi I have my own mother toungue which I am comfortable. Going ahead we like it or not English is going to a common langaguge as it is we see so many local medium shools have no takers. One last point is if any message has to go out in one language then it should be in English and not Hindi as here not just speaking ability but understanding the hindi script is still more a rarer.
@Gp65: Agree with you that strengthening/preserving federalism should ensure that local languages have primacy.
Now that South India has 5 states, apart from TN, in Kerala hardly anyone knows Hindi. Karnataka has those who can speak Hindi in Bangalore and a few belts, but if one steps off the beaten path, no one can speak Hindi. Not sure of AP, but I suspect Hindi speakers would be found in Telengana. Therefore it is wrong to paint this as a matter that solely concerns TN. I also wonder about the viewpoint from those in West Bengal and the NE states.
@Sashi: If we must all learn Hindi since it is the "link language" of India, then why not all learn English since it is the "link language" of the world?
As someone who was taunted by classmates for my "madraasi" accent when I am neither a Tamilian nor from Madras, your post exemplifies the viewpoint I had stated in my previous post -- that the real worry is that a non-native Hindi speaker can never be as good as a Hindi speaker despite taking the effort to learn Hindi.
One other aspect is that Hindi speakers in the south rarely make an effort to speak the local language whereas South Indians in the north and west generally try and learn Hindi or the local language.
@Gp65, I completely endorse your well articulated position. I really don't know what Kuldip Nayar's locus standi is in this issue since he is neither South based nor a proponent of regional languages- like many others, he may be driven solely by the maxim that Modi can do no right. I also don't know how many commentators who have posted their views are living the real life & how many are reporting hearsay/anecdotal cases. I am from Kerala but am based in Chennai for over 25 years. I have travelled all over North & West, learnt Hindi out of choice and speak it like a native without the stereotyped "madraasi" accent. The anti Hindi constituency is primarily in Tamil Nadu and certainly not in other Southern states. It is a political card played for the benefit of the rural, economically challenged, hardcore Dravidian sub set cutting across religion & caste. This category is either less educated or educated in Tamil medium who badly aspire to learn/converse in English but has/will continue to fail miserably since they have no access to proper English teachers. He/She has been told since the 60s & 70s that English is the panacea of all his woes & Hindi is the big bad wolf. Today, the same class is actually cursing the politicians for hobbling them - while their progeny is Hindi deprived & handicapped, the politicians' offsprings are well equipped linguistically. Forget jobs, your mobility & adaptability is severely compromised by lack of Hindi. When one travels to North, West, Central & even parts of East, does he/she really believe they can conduct basic activities with English as the link language? Even grammatically correct Hindi with a trace of an alien accent can paint a bulls eye behind your back for conmen or opportunists. No, dear outraged Indians, English can never be a link language covering most of the country howsoever much elitists would like to wish. Only Hindi can fit that bill, not Tamil, not Gujarati, not Bengali , not Punjabi........Chennai today has every restaurant, every shop, every educational institution, every service sector saturated with the more industrious and mobile UPites, Oriyas & Biharis - so much so that I revel in establishing a rapport and getting my way faster than locals. It also gives me a perverse pleasure in rubbing their noses in after their years of mindless, self defeating Hindi bashing exercise.
@Strategic Asset: I do understand the concern and it is far more common in TN than in other states. Just as I do not buy into TNT, i have no desire to reverse partition. Similarly , while I do not buy the logic that people of south give for rejecting Hindi, I accept that in a diverse and federal country like India, if commitments have been made about 2 official languages, then they must be kept. So by no means do I advocate imposition of Hindi. The limited point I was making is that the social media policy does not in any way seek to impose Hindi on southern states.
The second point is that barring TN if you look at the other 3 southern states, more people would be able to understand Hindi than English. The notion that keeping English as also an official language somehow helps to protect the culture in southern states is one I cannot buy. Gujaratis living in east Africa for many generations who have never even put a foot in India speak fluent Gujarati. Even within India people in Gujarat and Maharashtra have embraced Hindi and there is no evidence whatsoever that they have lost their language or culture.
Even a tiny town like Amarillo, TX you will find navratri being celebrated all 9 days even as people celebrate Holi and Diwali only on the closest weekend. My point is that if a community wishes to preserve its language and culture it can do so. It does not have to reject Hindi in order to that.
As I said earlier though, despite the fact that i do not buy into the logic used to reject Hindi, by TN primarily, I respect their right to such a choice in a federal country and I am pretty sure so does Modi led NDA.
@Toticalling: I did mention close to 55%. I do not think it would be 85% but that number is not captured by census so no one can answer with certainty.
@Ali Tanoli: Why Jinnah did not agree on Hindi the language of masses. This shows he was fundamantalist.
Come on guys just accept it that Jinnah was right when he told gandhi that urdu will be national lang of india because it has capability to control any reigen .... why gandhi did not agreed on it we dont know he might be scare of Hindutva mind set of centuries but how u indians are agreed on english which is foriegner and samraji too.
"There are 22 languages recognised by India’s Constitution, each with its own script." Wrong! Kashmiri is recognized as one of the national languages but does not have a script of its own and so is not used for any official purpose. It is not really a language but a dialect, one of more than 250 Indian dialects in a strange company of languages with thousands of years of literature in some cases. It is written in Devnagri or Persian script but either script is not suited to it. Sheikh Abdullah's government tried to evolve a script for it based on the Persian script but it was given up as an abysmal failure. Hindi will come into its own only when it answers to the needs of the people. Long back, when South Indians (they speak at least four major languages) would be transferred to other parts of the country, their wives would make sure they learnt Hindi before relocating, a testimonial to the fact that people will learn a language when one can't do without it and also that it is Hindi, and Hindi alone, which fills that need demonstrably and overwhelmingly compared to other languages. I am not a Hindiwallah, just to clarify. Abroad, I have heard Indians coming from widely different corners of India and with scant knowledge of English speak in tutti-frutti Hindi or Hinglish. Nevertheless, it is Hindi they have to resort to.
@Gp65: @ModiFied: @abhi: Many of you have not fully understood the South Indian position on Hindi in being the sole official language of India. South Indians do not have any animosity towards Hindi nor do they have any ambition that one day their own language would spread outside their state to the rest of India.
The issue that South Indians have in giving primacy to Hindi is that it would provide an unfair advantage to people who speak Hindi as their sole first language. The need for a level playing field is the reason why South Indian states chose English and some anti-Hindi activists in Tamil Nadu approve of Sanskrit as a national language even though it is not Dravidian. Existing South Indian languages have a rich body of literature such as the Tirukkural that they feel would be irrevocably lost by switching over to Hindi. Most importantly for the south, language is what unites the people regardless of religion.
To say that tweets in one language must only be in Hindi further exacerbates the notion that it is the South vs ROI. The other fact that must not be overlooked is that common masses in India do not have access to twitter anyway.
As I mentioned earlier, I doubt Modi has any hidden language agenda regardless of what @Rakib says. So it is best to let sleeping dogs lie.
@Banglorean Yes sweepers in Hindi speaking states wish their children learn English because English is imposed on all India (using divide and rule policy). This is only because just by virtue of speaking english someone is considered educated and all other qualifications are useless if one doesn't speak English.
@Rakib I can understand your problem but please don't abuse Hindi just for sake of it. Please don't tell me that having English as mandatory language is somehow helping Bengali or Tamil languages. These languages are suffering more because of imposition of English. I know many Bengalis and Kannad young one who proudly claim that they only read English literature and never read any Bengali, Kannad book. When I told them that I read many Bengali and Kannad writers through Hindi translation they couldn't belive me.
@Gp65: you say: 25% Indians consider Hindi their mother tongue. But more important would be to see how many non hindi speaking speak hindi fluently. Then it would be more than 85%. In EU mother language English is less than 14%, but over 65% speak English as second language. European central Bank is housed in Franlkfurt, Germany, but uses English as official language of the Bank, although UK is not in Euro currency union. Other than that I agree with your analysis.
Not a leaf can move in BJP @ Delhi without Modi's knowledge.. Hindi-Hindutva-"Hindu"stan is the obsession of many. Only to satisfy that constituency Modi made a gesture by letting his flunkies come up with some planned controversial comments so that he appears aggressive even on non-urgent issues & yet retains plausible deniability. To be fair, this obsession to thump an underdeveloped dialect on others, especially on far more cultured Bengali & Tamil, is not his, but predates independence. There used to be demented fanatics, of Sanskritised tongue-twister Hindi, like Seth Gobind Das of Congress. Their linguistic tyranny destroyed Congress in Tamilnadu & then indirectly in Bengal, Odisha for all times to come; just as Jinnah unwittingly sowed seeds of Bangladesh with his insistence of Only Urdu at Dacca.. Modi knows how not to take such paths. He will support English education but won't advertise that thought. Hindi (or what passes for it), though buoyed up by Bollywood, will have her cause destroyed by her most ardent but hypocritical supporters who prefer Hindi/vernacular for their servants' kids & English for their own!
@ Strategic asset : In addition to what you have posted, the fact is that Indian Mainstream Media has blown this out of proportion. Why? Please do read sunday-guardian.com. Apparently when Modi travelled to Bhutan, he took along only the official agencies like PTI, ANI, etc and official broadcasters like All India Radio & Doordarshan. His logic was that the private channels & print media could afford to pay for their fare, food & billet while the official media had no such budget. This policy will be in place during Modi's tenure. During all previous governments, including Vajpayee's BJP led Govt, the entire lot went as freeloaders so that the Govt was not given any grief as a quid pro quo. Since the MSM cannot reveal their pettiness by attacking Modi on this withdrawal of an unnecessary perquisite, they are whipping up frenzy on any potentially sensitive issue. Modi is right, for him the honeymoon period never even started.
A well written article with facts. Whether it was a routine circular by a bureaucrat or hype by the media, the intention of the minister was revealed for everyone. Giving prominence to one language over other by way of incentives or laws does create unnecessary tension which can affect the unity of a state. Using Hindi may sound good for hindi-speaking region, but it is an additional burden on non-hindi-speaking people. Already they have to learn English for the sake of jobs, why learn another language just because some politicians want that way. Learning English solves 2 problems; one, it acts as a link language and two, it can fetch a job.
If any more proof was needed that this author is out of touch with India and Indians, then this article can be added somewhere near the top of that long list.
The language controversy was raked up when a bureaucrat issued a routine circular and a junior minister extended it to tweets on Twitter and this was picked up and given extended play time on news channels.
That Modi may in fact have no hidden agenda can be gauged by his speech yesterday at the ISRO launch facility in South India where he spoke in English.
@ModiFied - I am too a staunch supporter of Modi. But I agree with @Bangalorean. Modi won the elections on a platform of development, people did not judge what language he spoke, but the content and voted for him. In the first 50 years there was more migration from South to North, but today, there are more migration of labor from North to South on the rozi roti . Let the new government do not jeopardize this change. Modi always used to say " Agenda" is clear, and any pronouncements should stick to agenda of development, governance etc.,
Kuldip Nayar will take every chance to foulmouth Modi and BJP. We know that about him and hence he is irrelevant. I am sure he is praying that Modi fails.
The hindiban need to understand that in non-Hindi speaking areas, there is absolutely no use for Hindi. It does not get someone a job. It does not lift the standard of living of the local people. All of the non-Hindi speaking states have languages that are far older than Hindi and are consciously very proud of their history. There is no need to officially impose Hindi. TV and Bollywood are doing a decent job. Modi govt. should focus on development only. Politics of religion and language will create Pakistans and Bangladeshes.
The irony is, not only do hindiban send their kids to English medium school, after 67 years of only Hindi, even sweepers in U.P. and Bihar wish their children to learn English.
Language fanatic invariably send and will keep on sending their children to English language schools.But they have to play politics.and don't really care about language.They will be the first to oppose if Government was to ban English language schools.After all they wish their kids to get head-start on a common man's child.This is true in every part of the world.
For once I agree with Nayar. English is ingrained in India's psyche. Many young adults instinctively pepper their speech with English word even when they are speaking in their mother tongue. I would suggest that bureaucrats should wherever possible send their missives in English as well as in the mother tongue of the recipient. Similarly the court business could also be carried out two languages if necessary. That way local languages will remain operative.
"I am convinced that Narendra Modi’s government is guided, if not goaded, by the Hindi chauvinists"
Wishful assumption. Which language do you think should be used for social media in India which maximum number of Indians understand ? Do you think English is that language ? Modi's English is just good enough and at times embarrassing. Modi is fluent only in Hindi and Gujarati. Modi will therefore be using Hindi. If leaders from South want to compete for prime ministership, they will have to communicate in the language of masses. Mind you, Modi did not many sets from non Hindi speaking areas as he simply could not communicate better with them. Its up to the leaders of south India if they want to remain just local leaders or want to have pan India following. If Sonia Gandhi can speak Hindi, why not Jayalalitha? Or alternatively let them popularize Tamil so that more and more North Indians understand it. Truth is that almost every Indian understands Hindi. Its just political scoring and nothing else and of course the bread and butter for people like you as u get something to criticize.
Hindi is not my mother tongue, I did not see any chauvinism as you claim. They issued a circular and once they heard some disapprovals, the govt issued clarification and every one has moved on. The minister involved is not a native Hindi speaker. That's how India works and will continue to work.