The Book of Genesis says that mankind once spoke a common language. This enabled them to advance without obstacles and dream bigger, until one day their dreams got big enough to worry God. When man decided to build the tower of Babel which would touch the floors of Heaven, the Almighty felt challenged and struck it down. But would it deter them permanently? He couldn't take chances knowing his children's endless thirst for power. In order to foil any further attempt from his creations, He schemed a plan so simple it made Him laugh at His own smartness. He created chaos. He confused them. He jumbled up their language and created a million new ones, thus breaking the backbone of collective thought and discussion which would have otherwise led mankind to glory. God succeeded in his deed, for the tower of Babel was never rebuilt as the master builders were now mere fools who could not comprehend each other. Babel became synonymous with confusion. Humanity was forced to scatter all over the Earth, like the branches that grow off a tree.
Going by statistics, India would be a humongous branch of the above mentioned tree, having a multitude of branches and leaves of its own. She is a particularly peculiar country where the spoken tongue changes every few hundred kilometres in any direction, numbering as much as 1600 unique languages and dialects (this is by no means an exaggeration). Of this staggering number, only about 300 to 400 languages are said to be 'living languages' (depending upon the number of native speakers) and of this smaller number, only 22 languages have Official Status as mentioned in the Indian Constitution. India is thus a miniature Babel, when it comes to matters concerning one's mother tongue.
Being educated in Central Government schools in North as well as South India, I was taught that Hindi is the Rashtra Bhasha (National Language) of India and every citizen was expected to read, write and speak it with polished ease. National integrity, they said, comes from a common language that links together all people, irrespective of culture, race, religion, and ethnicity. Its powerful slogan 'Unity in Diversity', portrays the unity of various cultures without conformity, while being diverse without fragmentation. Hindi was the means to achieve it, or so we were made to think.
Hence we studied Hindi, because as the next generation of Indians aspiring to be model citizens striving for progress, it was imperative that we do so. English was apparently a vestigial remain of the colonized days and would not serve the purpose, for it was neither Indian in origin, nor common enough for the common people.
Fairly enough, Hindi was propagated and supported by the Government throughout the country. English, in spite of its strong presence was sidelined and partially neglected like the child from a previous marriage. One had to know Hindi to get the smallest thing done in the North Indian belt. People there would not talk to you in English even if they knew it. Central Government offices communicated in Hindi and English, with weightage leaning towards the former. Schools following the CBSE syllabus, like mine, had Hindi included in the curriculum but not my mother tongue, Malayalam. This was the situation everywhere. Indian Cinema came to be synonymous with the Hindi movie industry, or Bollywood (a name quite liberally "borrowed" from its English counterpart). Railway stations and public spaces sported signs in English, which could be read by many, and Hindi, relatively unknown to non-speakers.
The end result was that I knew a language more deeply than the language of my people. I could not read and write in Malayalam until I made efforts on my own to learn the same. Non-Hindi speaking government employees had a tough time in offices where the seniors spoke nothing but chaste Hindi. Non-Hindi cinema, with better themes, talent and numerous accolades to its name, was sidelined at the national and international levels. Whereas Hindi movies are released all over the nation, other Indian language films are released on a limited basis citing financial non-viability at 'outside centres'. The world failed to recognize the existence of a dozen other movie industries in the country, for Hindi naach-gaana tamasha was what Indian movies meant in the eyes of the West. Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan became world-renowned, while the legendary likes of Kamal Hassan, Mohanlal, Mammooty, enjoyed lesser popularity. The glorious 100 years of Cinema in India presently being celebrated focuses the limelight more on the Hindi language, casting a dark shadow on the unfortuante rest.The particular effect of cinema was that it indirectly increased the popularity of Hindi in urban centres in far off states where it is geographically as alien as English.
This continued, prolonged propagation and encouragement of the Hindi language through Government strategies and various organizations such as the Dakshin Bharath Hindi Prachar Sabha since Independence has made the Indian population quite oblivious to the fact that Hindi being India's national language is a misconstrued statement.
Yes, after all that was detailed above, it comes as a shock to most people that India does not have a National Language. What it does have instead, are two languages which are to be used for official communication - English and Hindi. There has never ever been any circular, notice or document issued which validates Hindi as our national language. Neither is it mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, which only talks about Official languages. In effect, whatever we learnt over the years was essentially a national lie (pun intended).
But why Hindi? Why depend upon this sole language to link the nation? Why not use another Indian language to do the same? Pro-Hindi activists list out a series of arguments (some are given below), which according to them, validates Hindi's claim to be India's National language, or at least act like one.
- Hindi is the most common individually spoken language in India, with 422 million speakers out of a total population of 1.2 billion people.
- Hindi is older compared to other Indian languages.
- Hindi is more classical as it has a rich literary history.
- Hindi is the official language of six states hence numerically superior.
Very true, that is indeed an extremely large number of people with Hindi as their mother tongue, constituting about 40% of the total population. But then what about the remaining 788 million people who speak other languages? It has to be taken into consideration that the remaining 60 % of Indians speak a variety of languages and live in regions beyond the geographic scope of Hindi.
Hindi is as alien to South Indians, as English is to Indians in general. If we want an Indian language to serve as the lingua franca of India, then why not take Malayalam, Tamil, Gujarati, Assamese or Bengali? Each and every Indian language would then have a right to vie for recognition, not just Hindi.
Basic knowledge of Indian history will suffice to negate the claim concerning age and language development. Tamil is 8000 years old, Telugu is 3300 years old, Kannada is 2500 years old, Malayalam is 1000 years old. Modern form of Hindi or Standard Hindi, derived from the Khariboli dialect is only 500 years old and still evolving.
There is not even an iota of doubt that Hindi possesses some of the best classics ever written. The works of Surdas, Kabir, Munshi Premchand, Amir Khusro and Tulsidas are well known, but that does not make the works of littérateurs in other languages pale in comparison. Ezhuthachan, Vallathol, Kumaran Asan and Ilango are equal competitors. Moreover, all four major South Indian languages are recognized classical languages while Hindi isn't. Even minority Southern languages like Tulu and Konkani could stand up to Hindi in terms of literature. The ultimate point is, Hindi literature is good, but others are equally good.
(Please forgive my overdependence on South Indian examples. I have limited knowledge of works in other Indian languages, but attempting to learn more.)
Though Hindi is the official language of six states, one mustn't forget the fact that there are twenty two other states where different linguistic demographics prevail. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C.N. Annadurai once said, and I am quite sorry to side with him for his secessionist ideas and claim for Dravida Nadu:
If we had to accept the principle of numerical superiority while selecting our national bird, the choice would have fallen not on the peacock but on the common crow.
But then, we didn't choose the crow, right? I wonder why. All attempts made by the Government to impose Hindi as the sole language for communication while slowly withdrawing English has always been met with severe backlashes in the South, especially Tamil Nadu where an unshakeable sense of nationalist pride is still associated with the mother tongue. Fears of being treated as third grade citizens in a country administered in an foreign language was the foremost fear in their minds, and it culminated with the South trying to secede to form an independent Dravida Nadu, a move which proved to be unsuccessful with little support and Nehru declaring secessions illegal.
The ferocity with which pro-Hindi advocates commanded the involuntary acceptance of Hindi by the masses further alienated the people, deepening the rift which was in turn utilized by political organizations in different regions. The rigidity on the side of Hindi-speakers to speak only Hindi no matter where they migrated to in India, and their reluctance to learn the local language didn't help either.
The need for a link language is of utmost importance if we wish to stay united as a nation. Without a common language, we cannot progress. But in my humble opinion, contrary to years of thinking otherwise, Hindi cannot achieve that goal. Why? Because it was, is and always will be a regional language, like all other Indian tongues. Numerical strength based on demographic patterns cannot be a criteria for attributing national importance to a language.
Similarly, no language with origins in India can be attributed the status of national language. Many might disagree with this opinion of mine, but genuine reasons force me to think so. For me, all languages are equal and I hold all Indian languages close to heart. Apart from Malayalam and Hindi, I know Tamil, Telugu and Kannada; though in varying degrees of fluency. If I were to pick any one language from the complete list of Indian languages, that would be equivalent to giving it undue preference over the rest. Speakers of one language should not have any sort of upper hand over the others.
It just would not be fair, choosing one and imposing it on the nation. In fact, I believe it is tyrannous to randomly pick one and force everyone else to learn it. If that were the case, we would simply be filling up Hindi's shoes with another arbitrary choice, and that would do no good in bridging the divide. If the obstinacy in selecting a native tongue were to be satisfied no matter what, then all the native tongues would need to be accorded an equal national status as well, which is a completely preposterous alternative. All or nothing- Either give the same high status to all, or give to none.
The only plausible, practical and pragmatic solution to this issue would be bring to in a neutral language to link all the diverse groups, and in our case it would have to be Non-Indian and easy to learn. The answer was always there in front of us but no one ever bothered to take a positive step. For far too long has English been ignored by our leaders in the name of colonial nightmares and self-respect.
'Patriotism/nationalist sentiments' has always rejected outright the idea of relying on the white man's tongue for any purpose. Many still cling onto this archaic thought, and I couldn't disagree more. The whole idea of English being non-native and a dark reminder of the Raj is a misguided concept. If we were to remove all memories associated with the British in India, no self-respecting Indian would send a letter/telegram, travel in a train, or use a telephone. strangely, 'patriotism' does not kick in when we do the above.
English has changed quite a lot in the last few centuries. It has transformed itself to a global, cosmopolitan language with 1.8 billion speakers worldwide. It is the most commonly spoken language on the planet, and is the undisputed lingua franca in organizational, diplomatic and business circles. English is the first language preference whenever people travel or trade internationally. It is the preferred medium of education in most countries. English is no longer a reminder of the Union Jack; it is not about a particular country any more.
Advocating the use of English does not in any way mean that it should be the sole language of an Indian citizen. The current trilingual system of knowing Hindi, English and a regional language should be replaced by a bilingual set-up in which English is used as the link language of the country and used for all practical/official purposes, while regional Indian languages can be used for local administration and day-to-day affairs.
India, being a former British possession, has been strongly influenced by English. It has 125 million people who speak English, and is the country with the second largest English speaking population in the world. Even then, only 10% of the total Indian population make up this number. But if we were to give English the same amount of support and funding as Hindi was given for decades, the process of transformation would be successful in a hundred years. Also, there is a minimal chance of opposition arising against English, except from the Hindi speaking areas- South India, the hotbed of Anti-Hindi agitations, has since time immemorial welcomed English as the link language of the nation, but official apathy has still given preference to Hindi.
As an ending note, I will leave you with another somewhat well-known anecdote by C.N. Annadurai about two dogs which goes something like this:
A man had two dogs- a big one and a small one. The owner desired his dogs to be able to freely enter and exit the house without relying on his presence each time. Therefore, he built two trapdoors to let them in- a big one and a small one. His neighbours laughed at him and called him an idiot, for the big door was enough for both the dogs.
Here, the big dog represents English while the smaller one represents Hindi. The ridiculousness in offering two official languages is reflected in the story. While it is known to all that English is a global language and most necessary for communicating with the world, and the same is being taught at the school level throughout the nation, the Indian Government is still very much obsessed with creating a separate official position for Hindi while English would do the job on its own.
In the long run, we cannot predict what will happen. But I firmly believe that taking English ahead is the only way to move forward while maintaining harmony. But at the same time, I stress that English should never ever sideline or suppress the culture and heritage of any Indian language or replace the mother tongue of any citizen. As an Indian, I sincerely hope, and pray that we overcome this age-old confusion and recreate the Tower of Babel.
(Disclaimer: This is not some random, mindless tirade against Hindi by a South Indian (Malayali to be precise, for those who are only aware of a generalized community by the name of 'Madrasis'). I am a proud Malayali and South Indian, but I am a proud Indian as well. I am very much fluent in Hindi, and have studied the language since elementary school. I am not against Hindi, or any language for that matter, but against the rigidity of its native speakers who fail to respect the sentiments of other Indian languages. The purpose of this post is not to incite hatred or bias against any particular community or language, but to sensitize each and every Indian citizen about the impracticality of having a national language in India, and to work towards maintaining neutrality while increasing the scope of communication within and outside the country, without encouraging or discouraging any particular Indian language apart from English. All opinions expressed here are personal, and well within my Right to Freedom of Expression as guaranteed by the Constitution of India. Reader views are welcome in the comments section.)
