Hindi hegemony is never a desirable idea
The Namma Metro row is another attempt at linguistic chauvinism — but it cannot work in a multicultural country
The Namma Metro has become the latest battleground for tensions between Hindi chauvinists and those resisting the language’s imposition on nonHindi speaking states down the Vindhyas. Members of Karnataka Rakshana Vedike recently held a protest in front of the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation office, demanding an end to tri-lingual announcements and signage (in English, Kannada and Hindi) in the newly-launched Metro. The excuse that the decision had been taken at the Centre’s behest made matters worse with Kannadiga groups asking why it hasn’t insisted on triplelanguage announcements and signage across Metro trains in Maharashtra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu that have retained just English plus the regional language.
In neighbouring Tamil Nadu, the hashtag #StopHindiChauvinism began trending when DMK leader MK Stalin noticed that the English milestones on highways were being replaced by Hindi ones. Historically, Tamil Nadu has always come up with emotive responses to any attempt at the imposition of Hindi. It was the hub of anti-Hindi riots in the 1950s as well as widespread protests in 1965 when Hindi was meant to replace English as the language of the government. In 1967, the DMK came to power in Tamil Nadu, riding on the anti-Hindi sentiment in the state.
The imposition of Hindi in a country as linguistically diverse as India has always been a subject of much friction. Recently Venkaiah Naidu said Hindi was India’s national language and that it “is our misfortune that we give too much importance to English.” The BJP’s vice presidential candidate forgot that India is a melting pot where people speak 122 major and 1,652 other languages. The citizens of every state are free to decide on the language of communication and the country can boast 22 ‘official’ languages.
No culture can thrive if it seeks coercive implementation of one language on its people. It might be prudent to remember that the imposition of Urdu on Bengalis was the trigger for the movement that led to the creation of Bangladesh and that Mamata Banerjee’s announcement of making Bengali compulsory in schools in Nepali-speaking areas gave rise to fresh demands for Gorkhaland.
An urban legend about non-Hindi speaking politicians in the 1990s goes like this. When Mulayam Yadav was the chief minister of UP, he wrote to a long-serving chief minister of a Left-ruled state (there are two versions of this ), in Hindi. Since the political colossus he wrote to didn’t understand Hindi, he wrote back to Mulayam in his own tongue. As Mulayam didn’t know Malayalam or Bengali and similarly neither EK Nayanar nor Jyoti Basu had bothered to bone up on their Hindi, nothing was gained in translation.