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Hindi hain hum, watan hai, hindustan hamara
This report left me stunned.. I don't know if I should be feeling happy or sad. When China can have a national language that is spoken by just about half of the country, why cant Hindi be our National Language.. Why did people undergo self-immolation, buses have to be torched, and students killed in police firing..
And I must admit, all this, it turned out, was not entirely bad for the country. We all learned English, and were able to become a global force in the services sector. But who knows, just like Japan or Germany, we could have become a global hub even with a national language apart from English. But the greatest fallout of this violent agitation is that we will, as a country, never have the national integration as envisioned by our freedom fighter forefathers. For a lot of people I know, the state still comes before the nation. And from my personal experiences, I can say this feeling exists mostly in the non-Hindi speaking states.
And to all who think I oppose local languages, please note, I dont. I favor the classical status to Tamil, and the government support for regional literature. But this does not mean that everyone is taught their mother tounge as the first language under the education system. We should be teaching English as a first language, Hindi as second language, and the native language as the third language. This is only fair to communicate with the world, the nation, and your neighbor. Unfortunately, these priorities are applied in reverse today.
The sentiments of 1965 linger today, and anyone speaking Hindi or for that matter any language apart from Tamil is given stares, and occasionally wrong directions in the land of Periyar.. I just hope we have another Iron-Man, who will perform the thankless task of national integration, just like Sardar Patel did the job of political integration. Or may be I could do it.
6 comments:
Hindi will remain a de-facto link language for people and contexts in which English is inappropriate, which is good.
Exactly what do we gain by making Hindi an official national language?
Making it official raises feelings of cultural imposition in the rest of India, which is understandable.
Add our culturally insensitive babudom and politiciandom, and you have an unnecessary flashpoint. It also feeds the N. Indian establishments behaving as if control of India were their birthright. The feeling of alienation in S. India, prior to the current economic boom is not really well known up North.
Nothing personal, but I will continue to speak Hindi only because it helps me communicate with others, not because it's the "National Language".
It would help for everyone to learn a simple version of Hindi, even without it being the official national language. That would only work if the three language formula, for the sake of fairness, were to be uniform across India.
The problem with that is as much UP (which refused to mandate a South or East Indian language as a required third language) as TN.
Have come up with a reply to your post multiple times, though didn't post it till now.. This reply is a concoction of all previous replies :)
Imagine : a technical discussion in progress.. Suddenly, in the middle of a heated debate about which approach to the problem is better, someone starts explaining something in Telgu.. A guy counteracts that, again in Telgu.. Everyone who doesn't comprehend can jolly well not comprehend..
Or a lunch table scene.. A conversation about the traffic.. Suddenly, a shower of Tamil.. Few understand, giggle, reply.. Rest all, who cares.. Try pointing out to them, and see how all hell breaks loose..
And all these are happening in an environment that can said to be the most cosmopolitan as possible.. And this is because the people still refuse to use a language understood by the rest.. Thus the need of making Hindi a mode of communication for one and all.. English is truly "phoren" to us, and will remain so.. We need a medium of communication that is Indian, and that the whole of India will understand..
And well, to the last statement that you made : If UP taught Tamil, citizens would be able to speak to 6% of the country's population.. If they taught Bengali UPites could talk to 8% of the populace.. But if WB and TN taught Hindi, their "denizens" ( as they claim) could talk to 45% of the country.. Now tell me, can you blame UP for not teaching Tamil/Bengali etc etc.. Also, How many languages can UP teach..
And last but not the lest, hats off to the mad-hatter for saying you will continue to use Hindi.. But then some people just have a stigma so strong, it will take a good deal of social reform for that to go away.. And that is exactly what is needed..
So, are you proposing the forcible elimination of regional languages? I know you've said you're not, so how then are you going to replace Telugu and Tamil conversations with Hindi?
Do you expect people to be fluent enough in their *third* language to have a conversation that they cannot have in their *second* language (English)? And, if they want to speak in their first language, how are we going to stop them? I would consider speaking in Telugu in a technical discussion extremely bad form, but a lunch table conversation? If politeness does not prevent them from speaking in a language you don't understand, nothing else will.
I've always been (honestly) mystified as to how Hindi is considered any less "phoren" than English. To most South Indians, it's about as foreign as English. I was practically bilingual in Malayalam and English by the age of 4, but it took me a decade more to be able to speak reasonable Hindi. Worth the effort, but definitely not easy.
It's not a matter of how many people speak a particular language, it's a matter of sheer fairness. If native Hindi speakers get away with learning two languages and others have to learn three, then that's just not done. I do not agree with much of the Hindi hatred of the Dravidian parties on a practical basis, but I can understand where the sentiment comes from. They see it as just another form of cultural imperialism. It doesn't help that the Northie crowd is perceived, with some justification, to have a feeling of entitlement over India.
Sadly, the more you try to force Hindi on an unwilling population, the less welcoming they will be of it. Promoting Hindi has to be done gently, fairly, and with a good understanding of the genuine feeling of resentment it engenders.
That can be overcome, but only through an enlightened, not a ham-handed majoritarian approach.
India has NO National languages. Read the constitution.
Part XVII of the constitution:
This part 17, defines an OFFICIAL language, NOT a national language.
http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~sk4zw/india-const/p17.html
Article 345: This gives the State govt., power to decide its own "OFFICIAL LANGUAGE"
http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~sk4zw/india-const/p17345.html
Article 343: This defines Hindi in devangari script and English to be the "OFFICIAL LANGUAGES" of union govt.
http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~sk4zw/india-const/p17343.html
DIFFERENCE between National and Official Language:
NATIONAL LANGUAGE: Defines the people of the nation, culture, history.
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: A language that is used for official communication
While a National language by default can become the Official language, an Official language has to be APPROVED legally to become the National language.
All languages spoken in India, starting from the most populous to the least are our national languages, because all of them define the people of this nation, culture and their history collectively.
India has NO LEGALLY DEFINED NATIONAL LANGUAGES ONLY 23 OFFICIAL languages as per the constitution.
http://vetri-vel.blogspot.com/2006/12/india-does-not-have-national-language.html
Exactly the point I was trying to make : My post read "why cant Hindi be our National Language". I understand the Constitution, and my post was in keeping with the same.
However, my post was to lay emphasis on the need to make Hindi the "National Language" to enhance national integrity.
This is nothing new from Hindi Chauvanists, who wants to impose Hindi upon non--Hindi Speaking people, raising the bogey of Foreign Language.
For your kind information, all the languages recognized by Indian Union are National Language--however, Hindi is additionally a link language.
I would therefore ask these mean minded chauvinists to learn at least another language other than English and Hindi to bring in better regional feelings. Or else who has the time to master 1000s of languages...?
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