“Democracy
does not merely mean majority rule. It means, fundamentally, also recognizing,
sanctifying and safeguarding minority rights and even minority sentiments.”
-
C.
N. Annadurai a,
in the Council of
States, May 1963.1
When we move out of our country, we understand more
about our country. In the same way, in the Indian Union, we understand more
about our State when we move out of it.
I completed my school and college education from Tamilnadu.
In a work place filled with Bengalis, a single question was asked to me in different
formats at different occasions. All were due to the image that I’m from Tamilnadu.
Since I didn’t stayed outside Tamilnadu for more than five months, I never got
a chance to see the Delhi empires power in anybody’s fingertips or eyes. When I
saw for the first time I was scared, shattered, stammered and even hurt
emotionally. Following are the paths that led me to the answers.
1
A conflagration starts from a small spark. That day
also it started in the same way. “Why you Tamils are not learning Hindi?” I
responded “we don’t feel it is necessary” then the ball came back, “Tamilians
are arrogant, if we speak in Hindi in Tamilnadu, they will respond in an
arrogant way”
I replied. Answers created questions. Questions
created new answers. The first floor of the building started shaking. Then the
second floor. Later, the entire building. When the situation became out of
control, it costed few seniors and an officer to bring things back to normal.
There was no bloodshed.
2
This time I’m a wounded snake.
“I don’t feel it’s necessary. There is not much use
for a south Indian on learning Hindi”
“If somebody comes from north India you can answer
them easily na?”
“For that, we have English in common. Am I need to
prepare myself to answer someone who is coming from north India? Don’t he learn
the region's language?"
“Hindi is our national language. So you should learn
it”
“Okay, since Hockey is our national game, will you
ask everyone to learn to play?”
Starting from “this is illogical man” words and
hydrogen bombs are started flowing through. Then I realized that he is also a
wounded snake.
I ended up by saying “Not only Hindi, I will learn
any language only if I want to”
3
This time I and another fellow young Bengali was
trying to invent fire on this discussion. That time another one tried to leave
the place saying “These Tamils always promotes Tamil” then I stopped and
conducted a Nano-lecture on who taught me all those.
·
Whenever I struggled in front of a question he only
stood in support for me.
He only tapped my shoulder and asked me, “Thambee… Keep
aside of reading me, have you ever read Anna?”
“Have you ever thought, why in the Indian Union,
non-Hindi people are always obliged to answer questions related to language and
culture?”
He only taught me that, why that lie - Hindi is the
National language of the Union, is repeatedly spelled out even by Ministers.2
He only explained to me, how Delhi is becoming an empire
instead of a federal capital.
He was the one who taught me the difference between India
and the Indian Union, Central Government and Union Government, Local language
and Regional language, Unity and Uniformity.
He only explained to me why I didn't understand
those words ‘Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan' even though they are written in my mother
tongue.
He only said to me when talking about 1965, India -
Pakistan war is not the one should come to your mind, but the war for
Linguistic Equality.3
He only made me to realize, after 1965 why there is
no national parties headquartered in Delhi couldn’t come to power in Tamilnadu.
He only taught me the reason behind why someone
needs to explain there are many other cinemas other than Bollywood.4
He only explained to me, when the constitution says
all are equal, who gave the power to someone to stretch his finger and ask the
other citizen “why you did not learn this language?”
He only taught me why everyone in the Union should
promote their mother tongue.
He only taught me, it is not necessary to treat a
language a bit more or less compared to mother tongue in the name of any -ism.
And he is Garga Chatterjee. One who continuously
criticizes and writes about federal structure, language policies of the Union.
One who not only writes about the Hindi dominance in the Union but also the
dominance exhibited by his own mother tongue Bangla, in the states Manipur and
Tripura. Not only writes, but reaches the road to claim the linguistic rights
of his people, Argue one to one when seeing the violation of language policies
in the Union government offices, talks not only for Bengali people but for all
the non-Hindi people, for the Indian Union. He claims people’s right not only
by quoting the constitution, sometimes exceeds its boundary as a man who is
driven by the inner voice of moral sense. Here who ignores the voice from
justice and the moral questions it raises?
It's a story of a Bengali himself became an answer
to the questions raised by Bengalis. This article tries to find answers for
those questions through his writings. Hence, in this piece, Garga’s
contribution is more than mine.
I’m thankful to the Bengalis, Kannadigas and
Malayalees who came up with questions at different occasions. Especially to
Sujai P T, for giving important suggestions after reading the first draft.
Hindi,
not our national language
It is one of the Official languages. Another one is English.
In practice, if something exists as a national language, there must be some
description of that in the constitution of any country. But in our
constitution, there is no word about National language. Even then, this lie has
been repeatedly said. Why?
Let’s have a look at the two incidents happened in
2018.
1. When
the decision of conducting CTET examination second paper only in English, Hindi
and in Sanskrit created a row, Union minister came forward and said CTET examination
will be conducted in all Indian languages (20) as was being done earlier.5
2. When
IRCTC’s new ticket booking interface in English carried Hindi during
auto-suggestion of station names invited opposition from the people, it has been
converted to suggest place names only in English.6, 7
When there is provision to speak in parliament with
22 languages (prior request needed to use any other Indian language other than Hindi)
what is the need for asking mandatory knowledge on Hindi or Sanskrit for non-Hindi
or non-Sanskrit teachers? And how that mandate got vanished when it created a
row? Does it mean that it is unconstitutional to set in such a way by default? The
majority of the non-Hindi people should stand up for their rights even after
the independence? Is independence does not means that equal rights and equal opportunities?
On hearing the above two, one can respond in two
ways: Opposing or Ignoring. Opposing only brought the constitutional right for
the non-Hindi people. But this ignorance and the silence, how do they come?
It’s a self-compromising explanation comes from within – ‘Hindi is our National
language, that’s why they are making it mandatory. We don’t have any right to
claim.’ This is all because of the belief, Hindi is our National language.
This is how a truth which can easily found by a
simple web search we believe even after Ph.D. There is a history behind not
making Hindi as the national language or the sole official language. When there are steps taken to make Hindi as a
national language in 1965, there is agitation spread everywhere in the non-Hindi
states starting from Tamilnadu. Hundreds of them given their life as a price
for the linguistic right of their children. This was no minor affair and was
reported extensively for many days across the world, in the NewYork Times,
Chicago Tribune, Time magazine and elsewhere.3
Even now there are demands to make Hindi as the National
language. Courts rejecting the same by quoting the constitution.8 what
more?! Those who utter the constitutional truth – Hindi is not a national
language – filed with a case against them.9
Regionalism
and Nationalism
Whenever this kind of fundamental right related
questions erupts they have been labelled as who speaks Regionalism/Sectarianism/Secessionism
or Anti-national. Raising questions against the government and its policies
does not mean that they are against the nation. In fact, our constitution not
only allows the questions/statements against the representatives, government(s)
and its policies, it does allow voices against the constitution itself.
Whatever the voice is, it should be evaluated only based upon how much debate
it creates, for whose welfare it speaks, whatever it is opposing whether it is
standing for the justice or not.
Some of them links this ‘One country - One language’
policy with patriotism. Patriotism does not come from speaking the same
language, but it is more of a feeling beyond language. During the freedom
struggle, there were many languages than now. Even then they fought together
and attained freedom.
Unity cannot be attained by speaking a language. There is a belief that, George Bernard Shaw
once said, The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a
common language.
There is nothing wrong about the statement, ‘Having
a common language for a country is good.’ But, It should be attained naturally
and not by imposing or by giving privileges. In that sense, the Indian Union
needs time. In the present scenario that is good for whom? If we carefully look
at who is in support of this ‘One country - One language’ policy, they are the Hindi
knowing people not by their choice, not by their self-determination but by
their birth which is purely accidental or by the imposed educational system in
their childhood during which, they can’t even make choice of their own on their
medium of instruction or the language to learn. They are first class citizens,
they will be loyal to the policies which do the favour to them.
In our school days, we heard about ‘Unity in Diversity’
and ‘Pluralism’ which are the identity and pride of the Union. Even though we
are different in language and culture, we are setting up an example that, the
world with different communities can live in harmony. Then how come acting in
support of diversity and against the dominance of a single language becomes secessionism
or antinational? Instead ‘One country -
One language’ policy is the one against diversity.
And here, why that nationalism/patriotism always
expected from citizen to government(s) and not in the other way around. Nation means people, nationalism means
treating them equally. If the term Nationalism is used to treat citizens
unequally means, to supress minorities means, to supress different opinion
means, to establish cultural oppression means, to take off opportunities of a
non-Hindi speaker means, to establish dominance means, to establish one culture
– one language means then it should be the first thing to be kicked out from
the subcontinent.
Tamil
- Hindi
The one to one theory between Tamil and Hindi is
itself wrong. What kind of image it creates means,
1. Tamils
are not only opposing making Hindi as the national language, in addition, they
want Tamil to be the national language of the Union.
2. Other
than Tamils no other ethnic group opposes the moves to make Hindi as the
national language of the Union.
Both are wrong.
Tamils don’t want Tamil alone to be the national
language; they expect all languages to be given equal status. Not only Tamils,
but those who are fighting for linguistic equality also opposes Hindi
imposition and not Hindi.10
In Tamilnadu, Hindi is not taught only in government
schools. Those who are interested can learn many of the training centers
outside. For example, Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha which is founded to
spread Hindi across the non-Hindi people of the Union has more number of
educators (10709) in Tamilnadu compared to the total number of educators in
other four south Indian states (3787).11
Tamils have no hatred towards Hindi. They also
listen to Lata Mangeshkar and Begum Akhtar. They also read Nirmal Verma.
Why
oppose Hindi imposition?
“The official language of the Union shall be in
Devanagari script.” – says section 343(1) of the constitution, means Hindi in
Devanagari script. Since it talks about writing script, it's evident that the
concept of official language is only for communication through written media in
government sectors. There is no relation between the official language and what
the 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.12
We don’t have any problem in whatever the language
they use inside the office. But when it comes to the communication with people
they should convey in the language people can understand. But the ground status
here is, treating the people unequally based on a language which is suggested
for using only for documentation purposes.
The renewed language policies of the government
forwarded by the president on 27th April 1960 states the following,
“In
the opinion of the Committee, local offices of the Central Government
departments should use Hindi for their internal working and the respective
regional languages in their public dealings in the respective regions.
In
formulating the plan for the progressive use of Hindi in addition to English in
their local offices, the Central Government Departments should keep in view the
need for providing facilities to the local public by making available to them
forms and departmental literature for their use in the regional languages in as
large measure as practicable.”13
As far as I know, in Indian Union, except
Maharashtra – that too by the compulsion of State government – nowhere this
rule is followed. For example, a job vacancy notification for RBI published in
a Malayalam daily will not hold any single word either in Malayalam or in English.14
If you go for a Union government office in Thiruvananthapuram, the receptionist
(if he/she from a Hindi speaking state) will start talking in Hindi instead of
Malayalam or English. In such cases how people can ask for their need and get
it done without difficulties? What is the reason for ignorance behind this part
of the constitution among those who impose Hindi by quoting the constitution?
First,
Second and Third class citizens
We learn from people in power. A student will acquire
the sense of equality by seeing how his/her teachers and family head treats the
fellow members. When the government treats its citizens equally, they also grow
with that sense. But here in the Indian Union, there is no chance for that.
That’s why one citizen insulting other just because for not knowing a language.
That’s why he is stretching the finger and asking “why you didn’t learn this
language?”
Let’s see an example to know how a citizen in the Union
understands himself. If somebody from Chennai writes a letter to correct the
spelling of his name in PAN card means, he’ll receive a letter printed both Hindi
and in English.15 If he is a Hindi knowing citizen, he’ll read the
answer in his mother tongue: first-class citizen. If he is educated, English
learned citizen means, he’ll read the letter in his second/third language
(there is no assurance that he can understand that completely): second class
citizen. If he knows only Tamil means (you can’t write a letter in any Indian
language other than Hindi) he can’t read that letter: third class citizen.
In this way, we can show thousands of examples which
gives struggles for a non-Hindi speaker in the Union.2
Lifesaving safety instructions in a flight from
Hyderabad to Chennai will be in Hindi or English. Will not be in either Telugu
or Tamil. (But British Airways flight from Chennai to London will have the
announcement in Tamil and English)
Cannot apply for a passport in any other Indian
language other than Hindi. (But the US embassy in the Union use regional
languages)
Cannot expect the Union government schemes will be
named in any other Indian language or translated to the language of the region.
Cannot expect Delhi centred autonomous bodies like Election
Commission of India to give advertisement in the region's language in movie
theatres.16
Cannot expect public sector banks will use
trilingual policies in their Challans, ATMs and CDMs (as per the RBI
directions) in the non-Hindi speaking states.
Cannot expect ironies like reservations chart in a
train moving from Thiruvananthapuram to Chennai to be prepared either in
Malayalam or Tamil. (Now reservation charts are not pasted)
Cannot expect to can sign in your mother tongue when
applying for Union government jobs like railways.17
I will let your concise to decide what would have
happened if Hindi became the national language or sole official language of the
Union.
Union
government(s) and language census
An important thing repeated in the discussions about
Hindi is, ‘It is spoken by the majority (less than 50%) of the people.’ Let’s
see how.
Professor Ganesh N. Devyb who led the
People's Linguistic Survey of India in 2010, writes the following: During the 1961 census that languages in the
country were a total of 1,652. Using ill-founded logic, this figure was pegged
at only 109, in the 1971 Census. During the 2011 census, citizens submitted
19,569 names of mother tongues. A total of 1,369 names — technically called
“labels” — were picked as “being names of languages”. In addition to the 1,369
“mother tongue” names shortlisted, there were 1,474 other mother tongue names.
These were placed under the generic label “Others”. The 1,369 have been grouped
further under a total of 121 “group labels”, which have been presented as
“Languages”. Of these, 22 are languages included in the Eighth Schedule of the
Constitution, called “Scheduled Languages”. The remainder, 99, are “Non-scheduled
Languages”.18
An
analysis shows that most of the groupings are forced. For instance, under the
heading “Hindi”, there are nearly 60 other languages.19 Bhojpuri
(spoken by more than 5 crore people, and with its own cinema, theatre,
literature, vocabulary, and style) comes under "Hindi”. Under Hindi too is
the nearly 3 crore population from Rajasthan with its own independent
languages. There are demands to add many languages in the eighth
schedule and there is fear too, that will result in a decrease of Hindi
speakers.20
Propagation of Sanskrit, a language spoken by all of
25,000 Indians as per Census 2011, has been another area of focus of the Union
government. Back in 2014, over 70,000 students across 500 Kendriya Vidyalayas
were asked to switch from German to Sanskrit as their third language of study.
In 2016, the Union HRD ministry asked all IITs and IIMs to offer elective
language courses in Sanskrit.21 270 crores sanctioned for Sanskrit
Prachar Sabha in the financial year 2014-2015 and when it not even submitted
its audit at the end, 740 crores were sanctioned for the consecutive year.40
We have no problem in promoting a language in an extinct stage. There are many
languages in the Union which holds situation as equal to or worse than
Sanskrit. Searching what has been done to promote those languages by the Union
government resulted in an empty hand.
A Committee was set up in September 2003, under the
Chairmanship of Shri Sitakant Mohapatra to evolve a set of objective criteria
for inclusion of more languages in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India.
The Committee submitted its report in 2004 asking to include 38 languages. Up
to now, there is no action taken by the Union government(s).22
There is a hidden truth in Hindi dominance in the Hindi
belt over other Indian languages and south India, which doesn’t hold any
dominant language among the Dravidian languages.
Hindi
imposition in Education
We’ll start from Primary education. Learning in the
mother tongue is good23 and it’s a birth right. Most of us are
thinking in our mother tongue. Learning in a language spoken inside the home
and society results in developed cognitive function. But in fact, language
policies of the Union affects Child education in many ways.
In the movie 'Newton' released in 2017, one of the
main character asks the school teacher, "these children don't know Hindi?”
in response she will tell, “They know only Gondi, but their textbooks are in
Hindi” There is a dictionary for Gondi available online, but their books are
not in their language.
Because of this kind of policies, dropout rate of
children in tribal areas is increasing in number, one of the Delhi University
professors adds. Even today, in Orissa, if 100 tribal children were taken
inside, 75-80 of them drops out of the school before reaching 8th standard.15
Union government established a council (Council for
Scientific and Technical Terminology - CSTT) to create new terminologies for
Hindi to use in the offices and educational institutions. As per the directions
from the court (later it became a problem for judge’s themselves) 24
this council derives words from Sanskrit. Because of this, the children who
born in Hindi belt also gets affected.
For example, ‘Pani’ derived from Hindustani,
is the common word used for water in Hindi. But instead of that the word ‘Jal’
used in textbooks. When there is a difference between ‘Hindi they speak’ and
‘Hindi they learn’ the effects it will create won’t be a desirable one.
In 2017, the committee set for giving
recommendations for official language policies came up with some
recommendations25 (including ministers and president should use
only Hindi to address the people and Candidates willing to get employed in
Central Government Offices to pass Hindi competitive exam in accordance with
the post.) which were signed by the President of the Union. One among them,
The Committee is of the opinion that
Scientific/Research and other Research institutions spend a large amount on
purchase of books. If this exemption continues the major portion of the library
budget will be spent on the purchase of the journals and reference books and
will adversely affect the purchase of Hindi books. This will be a deviation
from the original purpose. Therefore, clear orders in this regard may be issued
that in any case 50% out of the total amount for purchase of books should be
used for the purchase of Hindi books. The Committee recommends that in the
offices where library budget is not allocated, a minimum 1% of the Office
Expenditure Head may be spent on the purchase of Hindi books. It is also to be
kept in mind that 50% of the total library budget or 1% of the total Office
Expenditure Head, whichever is more, may be spent on the purchase of Hindi
books.
It recommends some more too:
1. Ministry of Human Resource Development should make serious efforts to
make Hindi Language compulsory in curriculum.
2. Ministry of Human Resource Development should work
out an action plan for implementing Hindi teaching scheme in all
Universities/Higher Educational Institutes and initiate the process of
implementing a common law and table it before both the Houses of
Parliament.
3. A proposal for making Hindi education
compulsory up to Class tenth should be introduced in
the Parliament.
When it comes to national level examinations,
situations are even worse. When it’s come to an exam, everyone should be given
equal opportunities, not only in the sense of syllabus but also in the sense of
language. Either it should be in mother tongue or in the second language.
Instead of that, giving opportunities for someone in their mother tongue and
for others in their second language is not justice. Here, one who doesn't have
Hindi as his mother tongue cannot write national level entrance exams like
AIIMS, IIT-JEE and NET in her/his mother tongue.
One can ask, do we need to spend money and time for
translations for a few people? Yes, we should pay the prize for justice. When civil
service exam questions translated even for 25 candidates opted a language means,
the same should be followed in all exams or should be conducted in a common
language. In that sense, we the citizens of India should share the advantages
and disadvantages equally.
English
and Hindi
“English is a foreign language we should have an
Indian language as a national/common language”
“You are an Indian you should support Hindi and not
English which is brought by British”
You may heard this kind of funny one-liners. If I
look into the life of these people who live on their policies, their patriotism
will not reflect even one percent in the case of their own signature, the
medium of education, products they prefer. Imposing anything inside individual
right is violence. To the best of my search, none of the citizens around the
world need to express his love towards the nation by learning a language.
Since English stands in support of diversity and
proving Hindi alone is not the link language naturally opposition will come from
Hindi imperialists. We should strongly support the claim that there should be
only Indian language. But that should not be a single language like Hindi since
majority can’t read and write. Hindi speakers are different from Hindi
literate. It’s a Union of states separated by language.
Government is an arrangement of public
representatives who are selected for serving the people. Representatives should
speak the language of the people. But here a representative speaks people
language when asking for vote, and once he enters into the ministry, he is
asked to give public speeches in Hindi. But one who sells nuts in Kanyakumari,
speaks the language of his customer. This sense will not be there for a
so-called educated employee of the Union government office. In the name of
nationalism and patriotism, speaking a language which the customer/people can’t
understand is a complete fraudulent act.
Since English taught in 598 Navodaya schools in the
Union (except Tamilnadu) by the directions from the Union governments itself I
feel everyone knows the importance of it. That is the medium of instruction in
the majority of the educational institutions. What is the problem in continuing
English as a link/additional official language? When they are fanatic about
Hindi, what is wrong if a Tamil stood up for his/hers mother tongue? What could
be the better way other than upholding linguistic identity when supressed by
reasoning the same?
English is not a disease left by the British. That
brought Nobel prizes to our country, 26 two of them got a chance to
get recommended (Kamala Das27 and Sachidhananthan28). One
who studied B.Sc. in his mother toungue standing among the frontiers of Indian
science means, that is only because of English.29 One who born for a
fisherman in a small village in Rameswaram became the first citizen of India
means, that is only because of English. They themselves live long as a metaphor
for all non-Hindi speaking people.
Apart from all these, when each district has its own
dialects for a language (including Hindi30) this ‘One country - One
language’ policy is a nightmare.
Is
there no progress without Hindi?
You may heard many saying there is no progress
without Hindi. It is true that, those who know Hindi can make use of many
privileges and opportunities. These are all the arrangement done to impose
Hindi and not to provide justice. A language should be beneficial for the user
– this became the inverse agenda in Hindi imposition. A language should attain
its place among the people by entering into their daily usage, like English.
If we look in the sense of population and size,
Hindi speaking states are higher in number.
But the major contribution to the Union’s GDP is from the non-Hindi
states. The money they contribute to the Union and get back for their welfare
schemes and during natural disasters are lesser than the demand. While Tamil
Nadu and Kerala gets about 40 paise and 25 paise for every rupee they generate
for the Union, Uttar Pradesh gets back 1.79 per rupee it generates.31
Apart from this, non-Hindi states are frontier in
education, medicine, creating opportunities, women welfare, annihilation of
caste and poverty.32 Tamilnadu which is frontier in opposing Hindi
imposition holds its place among top five under any of the above category. If Hindi brings progress why there is more
migration from Hindi belt to non-Hindi states?33 The claim Hindi
will be useful for living in India, is not true even in the case of people with
Hindi as their mother tongue. Non-Hindi states are one of the finest ever
living examples of these false claims. Improvement cannot be attained by
imposing a language, it’s by creating opportunities.
What
would result by learning only Hindi by ignoring English?
We have seen three recommendations given by Official
Language Implementation committee. When reading that, the above question
naturally arises, Gujarat Model gives answer for this.
20% of Gujarat’s population were Patels. Among the
120 assembly members of the State, 40 were Patels. Majority of the ministers
were also from the same caste. Being landlords and with this much political
representation, why they protested for reservations? 34 Most
importantly, when looking back, the same community protested against
reservation in 1985. What happened in those 20+ years?
Individual’s salary for a Gujarati is higher when
compared to a Tamilian. It is because of their longer working time or they are
involved in two different jobs in a day. Gujarat has created Blue-collar jobs
than White-collar jobs. Why?
Ignorance of English. In Gujarat Children starts to
learn ABCD from 6th standard. ‘Pratham’ report, which analyses about
the progress of primary education in the Union on yearly basis says, “Gujarat
children are holding last place in handling English” This resulted in no
service sectors and only manufacturing sectors and hence only Blue-collar jobs.
It is mainly because in those 20+ years an entire generation is not given
access to learn English up to 5th standard.35
Since these recommendations mainly influence the
future of our children we should find an answer for this question: What Hindi
will give for a Non-Hindi speaker which his/hers Mother tongue and English will
not give? 34
Through
other eyes
Once I was discussing with one of my juniors from
Rajasthan, she was surprised about the designation Hindi officer in the non-Hindi
states. I added “It is for assisting in the official proceedings in Hindi. We
don’t have any problem with that. In fact, they are helping us in circulars
violating bilingual policies.” But if you go to any of the railway stations and
Union government offices in Tamilnadu, each day you will witness Tamil-Hindi-English
version of a word in boards kept. Able to witness posters saying, “Thinking and
speaking in Hindi will give you happiness” in the airports.14 we are
yet to be converted into Indian citizens.
On another occasion, one of our guest from Japan asked
a very important question: ‘How are Indians accepting a foreigner very easily?’
He has travelled to 4-5 countries. Question rose from that experience.
Professor Ganesh N. Devy gives a hand here36 – “those who accept
diversity have more tolerance; you see those who want to make Hindi as the
national language!”9, 37 One who grown among diverse culture
understand its values, respect others rights and beliefs. For him, in the Union,
seeing a foreign thing out of his culture is normal.
In an event at Bharat Bhavan, I met a Kerala University
professor (retired) from Italy and lives in Thiruvananthapuram. Been a part of the
English department, she taught foreign language in the university. She had
enough socio-cultural life experience in Kerala to point out the
characteristics of Thiruvananthapuram people. She traveled around India. “The
asset of India is the diversity in culture, language, food and landscape. It
can be understood only by stepping out” Yes, one needs to travel, Gandhi did
the same. One should not decide about language policies with mere statistics by
sitting hundreds of kilometres away.
Voices
from the north
To the best of my search, none of the historians
from the Union were the supporters of this ‘One country – One language’ policy.
Hindi was not even a language of majority’s usage
before independence – not printed in the rupee notes of East India Company’s Indian
currency. In sixties, Hindi was a toddler. In 1963, C.N. Annadurai, one among
the representatives of Tamilnadu in the upper house of the parliament,
demanding to continue English as an additional official language of the Union
and to replace the word ‘may’ with ‘shall’ in section 343 of the constitution
(both the bills were passed). When the speaker of the house asked him to stop
the speech when time exceeded, there were voices echoed, tables tapped in
support of him to continue.1 The sound echoed that time are the
sounds of the States. Because of that only Hindi is not the only official
language (and it will not become). The parliament heard the same sound at the
beginning of this year. If you didn't watch the video of "Tharoor, Swaraj
spar over Hindi at the UN" please do watch on YouTube. They are the
questions raised by him when the Union tried to make Hindi as the official
language of the UN. (If Hindi became the official language of the UN, Indian
Union need to spend 267 Crore per year) 38
In addition to these, there are oppositions from the
people, there are articles26, 39, 40 and movies and there are actions
taken by the state governments to promote languages of this land.
How
about other states in the Union?
Union governments should learn from the states.
The Hindu (Thiruvananthapuram) on November 24, 2018,
carried a piece in the first page: Odisha now has a lexicon for rare tribal
languages (21).41
UNESCO global education monitoring report 2019 (came
out in November 2018) stressed the challenges in child education by migration.
The Hindu has listed what the state governments were doing. Among the states, Tamilnadu
is the one which prints textbooks for the children of migrants in their
language.42
Kerala and West Bengal made states language
compulsory up to 10th standard.43, 44
West Bengal issued an order to make 120 prime time
shows for Bengali movies.45
Kerala invited entries for state’s official song.46
Metro rail in Bengaluru removed Hindi boards on
demand from the public.47
Series of demands in 2018 resulted in printing
railway tickets in regional languages across 9500 stations in Tamilnadu and Kerala.48
(Information on all Railway tickets should be provided in bilingual form so
that there is no inconvenience to those
knowing Hindi. – one of the recommendations by the committee set for giving
recommendations for official language policies)
Kerala started to promote Malayalam worldwide and initiated
literacy programs for migrants.49, 50
There are requests to make sign languages also an
official language.51
Several NGO’s joined hands and brought of the
constitution in Braille.52 (The constitution written in English does
not have the official translation in any other Indian languages except Hindi)
Punjab University abandoned the usage of Hindi for
official purposes when demands rose from the students.53
AAI declared the announcements will be made in regional
language along with English and Hindi.54
How
about other countries?
If we search on the internet, we can see a lot of
countries in favor of/accepting multilingualism.55 Switzerland
prints passports in five languages. Srilanka which holds the population of
74.9% Sinhalese prints passports in three languages. Someone may ask, ‘Do we
need to print Indian Union passports in all the scheduled languages?’ There is
wrong in printing the passport for a Maharashtrian in Marathi and for Punjabis
in Punjabi in addition to English.
Nigeria a country with more than 520 languages uses English
alone for their official purpose. They also ruled by the British and got
independence after us. They understood English is a tool to communicate with the
world. They teach Regional language in all the 36 states. They are not imposing
any language in the name of nationalism or they don’t ignore English. They
know, in a country with different languages should have a common language which
is a foreign language for all; They know, the citizens of a country should be
treated equally; They know, citizens of a country should share the advantages
and disadvantages equally; They know, in the name of nationalism imposing a language
on the people is immoral. If anyone says they are less patriotic towards their
country would anybody consider it as a wiser statement?
The
path to equality
Voices for linguistic equality are continuing to
echo in the Union. We witness people attaining linguistic rights on demand. There
are number of organizations like CLEAR, 10 Bangla Pokkho,56
PLE Karnataka57 and Thannatchi Tamizhakam58 around the Union.
The above-stated changes in different states brought by the major contribution
from the above organizations.
Among them, CLEAR, which mainly demands child
education in mother tongue, linguistic equality and preservation of languages
in extinct stage constitutes representatives from 40 languages of the Union.
Our problems are larger and hence the article. Language
is not just a simple thing. Each word holds history of an ethnic group. Saving
the language means saving fundamental right. One of the reasons that Soviet
Union broke is language dominance. Bangladesh is born by claiming linguistic
equality. Thousands of Tamils killed in Srilanka is because of language
dominance. Each topic discussed here is the content for a separate article. I
force myself to end here. It cannot be concluded because every morning I read
something new to write about. We cannot come to a conclusion by discussing when
having a tea or meals. But we should not stop discussing.
It is disgrace for a country where the people need
to fight for their fundamental rights.
Inequality will remain until the end of this world.
History is what else other than the path to equality?!
·
*West Bengal
Assembly passed a resolution to rename State as ‘Bangla’ in 26th
July 2018.59
Garga
Chatterjee
Brain Scientist. MBBS from Calcutta University. Ph.D.
from Harvard University. Post-Doctoral research from Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Assistant Professor at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata,
West Bengal. One of the founder members of CLEAR. He writes in the wide
spectrum of topics including politics and culture in both English and Hindi.
His first book published in Tamil – Your Empire and My Citizens. You can read
his articles by using his name in web. Blog: hajarduari.wordpress.com
a
C.
N. Annadurai
Former Chief Minister and Member of Parliament from Tamilnadu.
In his speech in the Council of States on May, 1963 he elaborated the injustice
in making Hindi as sole official language and importance of English.1
The arguments he made, each of the word he used, did not expired even after
half century and it will not tarnish for the many years to come. Web: http://www.annavinpadaippugal.info/speech_paralumandram.htm
b
Professor
Ganesh N. Devy
He led the People's Linguistic Survey of India
(PLSI) in 2010 and identified 780 languages in the Union. He won the 2011
Linguapax Prize for his work for the preservation of linguistic diversity. He
was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award (1993) for his book in English and
returned the same in October 2015 as a mark of protest and in solidarity with
other writers sensing a threat to Indian democracy, secularism and freedom of
expression and "growing intolerance towards differences of opinion" Born
in Maharashtra and living in Karnataka to take care of the case proceedings of
M. M. Kalburgi who was shot dead in 2015.
References:
3. Remembering
1965, forgetting 1965, celebrating 1965
4. Peranbu
-Official First Look | Mammootty, Anjali, Sadhana | Ram | Yuvan Shankar Raja
|HD Promo Video
7. Hindi
removed from English version of IRCTC online ticket booking portal
9. Case
filed against Raj Thackeray for insulting Hindi language
12. Is
Hindi India's National language?
http://sannaloram.blogspot.com/2018/09/is-hindi-is-indias-national-language.html
15. Kalachuvadu
(Tamil Monthly), Vol 30, Issue 3, March 2018
23. Impact
of Mother Tongue on Children's Learning Abilities in Early Childhood Classroom,
A. V. Awopetu, Procedia - Social and
Behavioral Sciences, 233, 2016,
58-63.
25. http://www.rajbhasha.nic.in/sites/default/files/cpolreport9-chapter15eng.pdf
28. Sukumaran
speech | Poet Atmanam Awards 2017
30. Hindi Nationalism – Alok Rai, Orient Longman Limited
36. Andhimazhai
(Tamil Monthly), October 2018.
38. Sinthippathaith thavira veru vazhi illai, Suguna
Dhivagar, Ethir Veliyeedu.
40. We
are not Hindi, Sooraj B Singh, Uyirmmai (Tamil Monthly), Issue 174, February
2018
55. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilingual_sign
