Don't Destroy Linguistic Heritage of India
Why
on earth does our new Bharatiya Janata Party government need to borrow
the bad habits of our old Congress governments? Like trying to impose
Hindi on this vast, multi-lingual country. From the infancy of the
Indian nation there have been long debates and fervent nation-wide
discussions about the harm that pushing Hindi in the name of unity does
to the carefully nurtured diversity that makes India so unique. People
have died, people have killed in language wars.
And
the language battlefields have not dried yet, threatens Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam supremo Karunanidhi. Half a century ago he had led a
fierce battle against the Congress government’s Hindi im-perialism and
swept to power in Tamil Nadu. The sentiment remains unchanged. Tamils,
like more than half of India’s population, do not speak Hindi. And are
not about to let the dignity of Tamil — one of the finest classical
languages alive today, a language with a 2,000-year-old cultural
tradition — be undermined by a Johnny-cum-lately from north India just
because a huge number of north Indians speak it. They will not become
“second class citizens” in their own country thanks to Hindi
imperialism.
This sentiment is so
strong in Tamil Nadu that shortly after Mr Karunanidhi’s protest, his
arch rival J. Jayalalithaa wrote a strong letter of protest to PM
Narendra Modi. And even the BJP’s allies from the state were quick to
object. This was unacceptable, said PMK chief Ramadoss firmly,
suggesting that the government should instead declare as official
languages all the 22 languages recognised by the Indian Constitution.
And the MDMK’s Vaiko warned the Centre not to wake a sleeping tiger,
because “TN has shed blood against the imposition of Hindi.”
Like
Tamil Nadu and the southern states, the states in the east, with their
own languages like Bengali or Oriya, and Jammu and Kashmir, where
English and Urdu are the official languages would all have serious
problems with the imposition of Hindi.
The
home ministry, which had issued these switch-to-Hindi orders to
government officials, has quickly backed off. And Union home minister
Rajnath Singh, tweeted: “The home ministry is of the view that all
Indian languages are important. The ministry is committed to promote all
languages of the country.” Whew! What a relief. So the home ministry
actually agrees with the Indian Constitution. But it still does not say
that it will not impose Hindi on the rest of us.
As
of now, English and Hindi are the official languages for the Central
government, and state governments can function in English and their
languages. This freedom to choose your language nurtures In-dia’s
linguistic pluralism, and enriches our traditions. But there have been
periodic attempts to impose Hindi on India’s other languages.
And
as soon as the new BJP government was sworn in, it ordered all
bureaucrats and government officials to write their official
correspondence in Hindi, take notes in Hindi and stick to Hindi on
official ac-counts for social media like Twitter and Face-book. The home
ministry announced cash prizes for those who do most of their official
work in Hindi. Mean-while, the Prime Minis-ter himself was speaking to
all foreign dignitaries in Hindi, through an interpreter. He even
addressed the joint session of Bhutan’s Parlia-ment in Hindi.
And
in this push for Hindi, it is interesting to see a face from the
Northeast represent Hindi supremacy. Junior ho-me minister Kiren Rijuju
makes a clear distinction between Hindi, the national language (“we will
give priority to the promotion of Hindi in all communications in
various departments and public life because it is our official
language”) and the other Indian languages (“It does not mean that we are
going to discourage the use of regional languages.”) There are very few
in Mr Rijuju’s home state of Arunachal Pradesh who would understand,
let alone be able to read, Hindi. But then, the main languages that the
masses speak in his far-away state are not among the 22 scheduled
languages of the Indian Constitution either.
Besides,
we need to let our politicians know that India does not have a single
“national language”. This “national” versus “regional” divide is
completely fake. India has 22 scheduled languages, among which Hindi
happens to be also the official language for government work, along with
English. Mr Modi should perhaps brief his colleagues on this. In 2010,
in his state, the Gujarat high court had specified that India had no
national language — “people have accepted Hindi as a national
language... but there is nothing on record to suggest that any provision
has been made or order issued declaring Hindi as a national language of
the country.”
India has always had a
hierarchy of languages. The bigger languages often smother smaller
ones, overshadowing their cultural heritage, not allowing them to grow,
leading to loss of linguistic treasures.
Besides,
as bigger languages offer bigger options and better employment choices
and lifestyles, people migra-te from smaller to bigger languages, which
leads to the eventual withering away of smaller tongues. The 22
languages that are included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution
are just the most prominent ones, with the most well-known cultural
traditions. There are hundreds of other languages. In 1961, India had
1,652 recognised mother-tongues, which were narrowed down to about 1,100
well developed languages. Today, there are about 800. The rest are
lost.
Instead of arbitrary language
imperialism, we need a clear language policy. We need to preserve our
unique linguistic heritage. We do not need to impose one language over
the rest in the name of national unity. The best glue for our nation is
the one we choose on our own. The forced delivery of strenuous Hindi
through AIR and early Doordarshan did not make us flock to the so-called
“national language”. Hindi has spread far more due to Bollywood films
and cable television that other language speakers embraced with glee.
India
has always been a land of diversity. It has been held together by a
loose set of values and traditions and most importantly, a sense of
solidarity. You do not need to be the same, you just need to be
together. We don’t need majoritarian muscle flexing to be united. We
need to be smart and sensitive. When Mayawati, with her constituency
entirely embedded in the Hindi heartland, today protests the imposition
of Hindi and speaks up for “the rich heritage of regional languages” we
get a glimpse of what holds this land of diversities together.
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