Hindi imperialism

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.

The writer is editor of The Little Magazine