This article, originally written in Tamil by Saravanakarthikeyan Chinnadurai, not only stands on law and rejects Hindi as national language. Along with history, more importantly, its talks from a non-Hindi citizen’s point of view and questions the necessity to learn. I felt more than us - who stands against Hindi imposition, those who stands for making Hindi as national language should read this.
Standing against making Hindi as National Language never means standing against the Constitution/ Standing against Indian Union rather imposing is.
Saravanakarthikeyan follows:
Some of my colleagues, especially north Indians in the IT sector - believed as a field holds people with exceptional skills and knowledge - strongly believe that “Hindi is our national language”. Some even exclaim when they hear Tamilians don’t know Hindi. I wonder they won’t be this much surprised even if I told, “I don’t know Java.”
Even though their mother tongue is different, they know to speak Hindi at least. Some are well versed as it is their mother tongue.
Sometimes they will start discussing in Hindi in between office meetings too. Since I was taught Hindi up to my 8th standard I can understand a bit. I understand Hindi films with this little knowledge. (Among them films rely on dialogues are not suitable for me. For example, I understood ‘A Wednesday’ whereas ‘Bombay Velvet’ was a challenge.)
I understand my colleagues by the meaning of words I know. When I couldn’t, I encounter the situation with little humour, “Subtitle Please”, then they will jump to English. Sometimes, they themselves intentionally ask others to jump to English by pointing me, even though the words uttered simply as I could understand.
There is nothing to blame on them. As far as I know, they never projected hatred towards others for Language or Ethnicity. From childhood, they have been taught Hindi as India’s national language. Few months before, a five-minute video titled - a child should be like this- shared through WhatsApp and Facebook. Girl in the video is Hayat, a four year old from Mumbai who answers for all questions related to India and its States. “What is the national language of India?” is one among them; she responds, ‘Hindi’. The clip says it all!
Why we need to go that much far?! Some in Tamilnadu itself believes Hindi is our national language, tries to make others believe too. In the academic year 2015-2016, Social Science book of the eighth standard under common syllabus coined by Tamilnadu Textbook Corporation has a question “India’s National Language is _____” with options English, Tamil, Hindi. When questions arose, later it corrected as “India’s Official Language is _____”.
The point to note here is, not only teens get taught Hindi as the national language but also taught indirectly as Tamil is not a national language by listing it among the options to be ignored.
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A national language may be either officially announced (De jure) or used by the majority of the population (De facto). If a language used by the high majority of people (approximately 80- 90 percent) it can be denoted as a national language. Then only it can be used as a communication tool for the majority of people. Instead, when a language imposed on it can only earn the hatred of people. It may lead to breakage of a Union by its own citizens.
Since India holds number of languages resulting from different communities and culture we cannot point out any language and call as the national language as in the case of Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Prioritising one and ignoring others is complete rudeness.
If India is a religion, the Constitution is the Bible. Whatever happens in India should come under it. Courts conclude an issue by what has been said in it. The whole Union is glowing only in the light of Constitution.
So, what our constitution says about national language?
Our constitution doesn’t hold any single data about national language. Not only about language, it doesn’t hold anything about national emblem, national flag, national anthem, national animal, national bird, national flower, national tree, national fruit, national river, national currency, national microbe (announced in 2012). Then why we are searching answer for national language in the constitution? In practice, if something exists as a national language, there must be some description of that in the constitution of any country. It is important to note in that sense that India doesn’t hold any notation about national language.
But the constitution talks about the Official language. An official language is the language in which the orders and documents of the government should be kept.
“The official language of the Union shall be in Devanagari script.” – says section 343(1) of the constitution, means Hindi in Devanagari script. If noticed carefully one will understand a thing very clearly that, the concept of official language is only for communication through written media in government sectors. There is no relation between official language and what public speaks. Official language doesn’t hold status equivalent to national language. It’s a mere arrangement made in order to avoid confusion in governance.
More importantly, the above said is applicable only for Union government. For the States and Courts the scenario is different:
State governments can adopt either one or more languages as their official languages by calling an amendment in Legislature [Section 345].
Official language of the nation (Hindi/English) can be adopted for communication between States and for communication between a state and Union. [Section 346].
Proceedings in Supreme Court and in every High court should be in English [Section 348(1)].
All acts passed by Parliament or the Legislature of a State and of all Ordinances promulgated by the President or the Governor of a State should be in English [Section 348(2)].
All orders, rules, regulations and bye-laws issued under this Constitution or under any law made by Parliament or the Legislature of a State should be in English [Section 348(3)].
There were several stages of debates went on deciding national language when building the Constitution.
From North K M Munshi, Purushottam Das Tandon, Ravishankar Shukla, Seth Govind Das, Sampurnanand, Algu Rai Shastri, Babunath Gupta, Hari Vinayak Pataskar are stood for making Hindi as a national language. T. T. Krishnamachari, G. Durgabai, T. A. Ramalingam Chettiar, N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar, S. V. Krishnamoorthy Rao, N. G. Ranga stood for English from South. Ambedkar was in support to Sanskrit. Nehru, Abul Kalam Azad, R V Dhulekar stood for Hindustani – which is another form of Hindi. Quaid-e-Millat, who was the head of Indian Union Muslim League, stood for Tamil.
In between on 10th December 1946, R V Dhulekar aggressively stated that “People who don’t know Hindustani doesn’t have the right to stay in India. People who are present in the house to fashion a constitution for India and do not know Hindustani are not worthy to be members of this assembly. They had better leave.”
After three years, the committee came to a conclusion in 1949, called Munshi - Ayyangar formula, named after K.M. Munshi and Gopalsamy Ayyangar – both members of Indian constituent assembly – this formula ensured that the Indian constitution did not specify any “National Language” and only mentioned, “Official Language” of the Union.
This is how leaders of that time, considering the Unity of the nation, ignored the term national language in the constitution.
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Well, this is not the end. Constitution says some more too...
1. For a period of fifteen years from the commencement of Constitution, the English language shall continue to be used for all the official purposes of the Union. [Section 343(2)].
2. The President shall, at the expiration of five years from the commencement of Constitution and thereafter at the expiration of ten years from such commencement, by order constitute a Commission which shall consist of a Chairman and such other members representing the different languages specified in the Eighth Schedule (Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu) as the President may appoint. [Section 344(1)]. It will make recommendations for national language in the future.
3. In making their recommendations under clause (2), the Commission shall have due regard to the industrial, cultural and scientific advancement of India, and the just claims and the interests of persons belonging to the non-Hindi speaking areas in regard to the public services. [Section 344(3)].
From the above, we can understand that the will of the majority of the constituent members were to make Hindi as the official language but even in that time, English stood in front of Hindi as the common language. Strong evidence is our constitution itself, written only in English.
One more thing to note is, Hindi in Devanagari script itself is a new language at that period. In 1881, Bihar opted Hindi as the official language. Hindi doesn’t have any accepted grammatical form during the commencement of constitution. Union government has set up a committee in 1954 and it proposed a grammatical form for Hindi in 1958. Our constitution bench announced a language - which is yet to grow - as an official language of States with different languages!
Understanding this situation, Jawaharlal Nehru brought official language act in 1963, states, “Notwithstanding the expiration of the period of fifteen years from the commencement of the Constitution, the English language may, as from the appointed day, continue to be used, in addition to Hindi.” which means even if the grace period is over, English will continue as official language along with Hindi. But the word ‘may’ didn’t sound affirmative and objections rose (particularly DMK from Tamilnadu). Later, Nehru declared it should be taken as ‘shall’ and confirmed that it will be continued.
At the end of 15 years in 1965, Nehru was no more and Lal Bahadur Shastri was in his seat. In those 15 years, Union government couldn’t make Hindi as a common language. Shastri himself and influential people like Morarji Desai, Gulzarilal Nanda of his cabinet were in supporter of Hindi. All decided to announce Hindi as an official language on Republic day.
But strong objections rose from all over the country. Even Congress broke and stood as two opposite sides. When northern congress leaders stood for Hindi, southern leaders like Kamaraj from Tamilnadu, Mysore chief minister Nijalingappa, Bengal Congress leader Atulya Ghosh, Union minister Sanjeeva Reddy are stood against it. Even Rajaji, who himself issued an order to make Hindi as a must in schools of Tamilnadu in the past, changed his mind and opposed Hindi. But, Shastri stood still.
DMK lead by Annadurai in Tamilnadu strongly opposed Hindi imposition. Protests spread everywhere. College students were on streets against Hindi. Meanwhile, Shastri called for a session in the parliament to make an Indian language as National language, Official language, Communication language (Lingua Franca) between States instead of English. Hindi stood front in their choice.
Since there is no response for their words, Tamils went one step further, lighting themselves. Two sacrificed their life in republic day. When the situation became worse like this, C. Subramaniam and O. V. Alagesan from Tamilnadu who were the part of Union ministry, came out of it.
On the same day evening Shastri responded through All India Radio, pointing four:
1) States can select their official language as they wish.
2) Communication between states can be in English or translated into English.
3) Non-Hindi speaking states can communicate with the Union in English.
4) Union will continue the usage of English. Later he added one more too - All India civil services examinations will be continued in English.
This is how the entire Tamilnadu stood in front to oppose Hindi imposition in the Union. In continuation of the above, official language resolution came in 1968.
Constitution very much concerned about minorities i.e., giving directions for primary education in mother tongue. Section 350(A) of constitution says: It shall be the endeavor of every State and of every local authority within the State to provide adequate facilities for instruction in the mother-tongue at the primary stage of education to children belonging to linguistic minority groups; and the President may issue such directions to any State as he considers necessary or proper for securing the provision of such facilities.
Contradictorily, the same also asks the Union government to spread Hindi and to make it as common language. From then, the union government frequently tries to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speaking States by quoting Section 351, which says: It shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Hindi language, to develop it so that it may serve as a medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of India and to secure its enrichment by assimilating without interfering with its genius, the forms, style and expressions used in Hindustani and in the other languages of India specified in the Eighth Schedule, and by drawing, wherever necessary or desirable, for its vocabulary, primarily on Sanskrit and secondarily on other languages.
Tamilnadu always opposed Hindi imposition, viz., when Indira Gandhi’s government tried in the name of three language formula in 1968, when Rajiv Gandhi’s government tried in the name of National Policy on Education in 1986 and when Narendra Modi’s government asked all the government employees to follow Hindi in 2014.
If carefully examined, Hindi imposition never happened whenever Tamilnadu parties – particularly DMK – are in alliance with the union governments. Now, BJP leading the Union government tries to impose the same with the motto Hindi – Hindu - Hindustan as a part of their religious nationalism.
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In 2009, Mr. Kachhadia had filed the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking direction to Central and State government to make it mandatory for manufacturers to print details of goods like price, ingredients and date of manufacture in Hindi (Special Civil Application No. 2896 of 2009). The observation was made by the division bench of that time, Chief Justice S.J. Mukhopadhaya and justice A.S. Dave. The bench rejected the PIL by saying that the constitution of India doesn’t point anything as the national language and it only talks about official languages which are Hindi and English.
Importantly, the Counsel representing union government also submitted that specific provision has been made under the sections 9(4), 33(3A) of Standard of Weight and Measures (Packaged Commodities) Rules of 1977 that particulars of declaration should be in Hindi in Devanagari script or in English.
By considering the above two, court gave a verdict saying, “manufacturers can independently decide whether to print the details in Hindi or English but court cannot make Hindi mandatory.”
The court also stated that, “Normally, in India, majority of the people have accepted Hindi as a national language and many people speak Hindi and write in Devanagari script 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.” This verdict is a milestone in the longtime debate on national language.
Verdict ensures that law won’t consider what majority believe, rather it acts on records. There was a belief that Quaid-e-Millat once said, “If numbers only matter, Chinese become the common language of the world and not English. If numbers only matter, Crow become the national bird of the Union and not Peacock.”
In parliament (House of the People), Gorakh Prasad Jaiswal (Bahujan Samaj Party) and Yashbant Narayan Singh Laguri (Biju Janata Dal) were raised a question, “whether the Union government has done anything to make Hindi as the national language?” Answering this on May 4, 2010, Ajay Maken (Congress) who was in charge of Ministry of Home Affairs (States) of United Progressive Alliance quoted the constitution and said, “There is no provision to make Hindi as a national language of the country.”
Saying Hindi as the national language is as childish as saying “Do you know how much powerful my daddy is?!” Even respected intellects who know the law are not an exception in this case. Recently, Justice Markandey Katju stated that he never strictly followed the section 348(1) of the constitution and used both Hindi and English (even used other languages, including Tamil) for proceedings. He also says Hindi as a national language by pointing most of the people knows Hindi.
There are many attempts to make Hindi as the national language still continuing from different parts of India. Each time Courts and Union governments ignoring the request by quoting the constitution. It’s well known that the Constitution of India is not a rigid one, it’s flexible. But, there should be some strong necessity to make Hindi as the national language.
Rather, trying to impose through back doors is an insult done to that language.
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Today, a common communication tool in India is English. Even if none have English as mother tongue, it gives a hand to people from different parts communicate. In particular, the usefulness of English cannot be measured in the areas like Corporates, Higher Education, Research and Management. Now we rely more on English to continue national and international relations. The necessity for English has increased more compared to 1965 when Tamils stood for making English as an official language.
Imposing Hindi in the place of English is an unwanted surgery, like doing heart transplant for someone with a healthy one, nearly a suicide attempt.
Even today, only 10 among 29 states hold Hindi as primary official language; another two holds an additional official language. Since, less than half of the population only knows Hindi there are practical difficulties in making Hindi as the communication tool between north and south, which is always considered as an imposition. It is well known that English plays a significant role in our daily life; it’s enough if we refine and regulate a bit. It’s unnecessary to be stubborn and say English is a foreign language.
It’s obvious that some from a northern state only know Hindi and some from Tamilnadu only knows Tamil. It’s difficult for them also to learn English here. But, when there is a necessity we don’t have a choice. We suggest the same for them also. It’s a mere compromise, that we will learn something which both of us already know a little instead of imposing a new one. We can think of this ignoring haughty over language and then only we will understand the equity of others too.
When writing this I saw a tape in Zee news in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is giving a speech. Among the 15 minutes, he spoke more than half of the words were English. He even used the word ‘Jobs.’ Hindi today is that much depends on English? There is no Neologism for the modern world? Or Hindi doesn’t use/excludes such words created?
Union government trying to make this as lingua franca of the union! - A language which cannot create/adopt words for this modern world. If today’s Hindi is with a substantial amount of English means why can’t we have whole English as a common language instead?!
It’s nearly half a century over they tried to impose Hindi and lost. If we looked at the growth of Tamilnadu in these fifty years without Hindi under Dravidian parties, it is very drastic. They don’t have any answers for what we have lost without Hindi. Their side becoming weak day by day.
Whatever imposed will be spit out – food, language or anything. It’s enough if Union governments understood this. The biggest example is Congress, ruled Tamilnadu in 1965 and tried imposing Hindi. Soon in 1967, it was washed out in the assembly polls and DMK came to power with a majority. Until then, Congress never stood up in Tamilnadu. It’s a lesson for national parties.
Whatever the constitution direct to spread Hindi is not teaching Hindi at gunpoint, which is equivalent to a sexual assault. Instead, they should develop the necessity and hence the status. That will be the constructive approach.
If that occurs, south Indians, including Tamils will come forward and learn Hindi. Then they don’t need to request people to learn or to impose. That is how we are learning languages like English, German, French, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
A Tamilian should never learn Hindi? – No, he can learn for sure. Its individual’s choice. But, what is the necessity for a Tamilian to learn Hindi today?
Except at corporate groups in north India, a Tamilian working for the people or working with people who don’t know English should learn Hindi. It’s important for one who is interested in Hindi literature or who is doing research on north Indian life. Tamilian who is going to have marital relations with a northern family should learn Hindi. Those who already in this situation or who attain this in the future should learn Hindi.
Finally, apart from these minor reasons, I feel, there is no necessity for a Tamilian to learn Hindi.
Today there is no prohibition to learn Hindi in Tamilnadu. Those who are interested can learn through many ways available. Instead, arguing in the tone like introducing Hindi in government schools only good, otherwise they will not get food in the future is are a complete fraudulent act.
If I were asked, will suggest Java instead of Hindi.