The languages will unite India
and dialogues have found a significant audience in the south. They love Hindi movie stars as much as Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Mohan Babu, Rekha, Sridevi and Hema Malini are adored in the north. There was a time when Hindi-speaking people were viewed with suspicion, but this has changed.
Another big reason behind this change is the economic liberalisation of 1991 which encouraged the corporatisation of India. The advent of technology led to the emergence of tech hubs such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Gurugram. Like large American and Euro- pean cities, these cities are populated more by talented migrants than the native population. The task of national integration, which social reformers such as Shankaracharya carried out through religion, has been completed by economic liberalisation. Today a young person belonging to any region or speaking any language has little difficulty migrating to these cities to earn a living. Every migrant brings with him some basic elements of his culture and sows its seeds there.
If you’ve noticed, of late, Hindi has incorporated words from other languages. The case is similar with other Indian languages. Now we just need to catalyse the process because language has the potential to overcome all obstacles created by linguistic divisions. The long conversation between my wife and the women from rural Puducherry is an example of this.
In recent years, technology has opened the doors to many new possibilities. Two years ago Google India said that the consumption of Hindi content was growing at the rate of 94% every year. Compared to this, the rate of growth for consumption of English content was just 19%. A Microsoft survey says those searching for information in local languages on the Internet are growing rapidly. The rise of local tongues on the Internet will clear the misconceptions that are proving to become obstacles in the course of finding common linkages between Indian languages.
Isn’t this a sign of a positive change?