Hindi as lingua franca?
Instead of imposing Hindi, the government’s efforts would be better served in preserving the numerous Indian languages that stand to vanish with time
Ilearnt Hindi for three years in school. It was my ‘third language’, first being English and second, Bengali. I had grown up with mixed parentage; my father’s Tamil and mother’s Bengali found a common language in English. In our home, as in many others with multiple lineages and/or non-hindi backgrounds, English was the unifying language, not Hindi. But I had an early interest in the language; while most of my classmates just dragged themselves through the classes, I went onto shine, winning school awards three years in a row. My keenness for the language wasn’t enough to turn me into a scholar (I still went onto study English in college) but I wanted a working knowledge of the parlance and was glad to have it while in school.
But I don’t think I would have enjoyed learning Hindi or outperformed my classmates if I was being forced to learn it. As a child, I remember the joy of wanting to discover a new language almost like an extra-curricular activity. Coercion would have never worked. Today, we find Hindi being projected as the lingua franca of India. The recent cauldron of news was stirred by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on National Hindi Day when he had advocated for Hindi to be anointed the representative language of the nation. He later clarified that he had not meant ‘imposition
A 35,000-page survey by the People’s Linguistic Survey of India in 2013 states that India speaks over 780 languages and that 50
languages have been lost in the
last five decades
of Hindi’ over regional languages. But by then, the regional parties were already up in arms.
To put things into perspective, this is not the first time that the alleged imposition of Hindi is being discussed and debated. And, this is definitely not the first government to be harbouring such wishes either. The UPA II government had also been pushing for greater use of Hindi in government matters. As per a circular from March 2014, there had to be increased usage of Hindi on social media. Rewards were also promised to government officers who used Hindi the most in government work.
When the Modi government first took charge in 2014, it reissued that same circular. The circular had mentioned that while both English and Hindi should be used on government social media handles, ‘prominence’ had to be given to the
latter. This gave rise to a lot of dissent from non-hindi speaking states.
While Hindi is an official
language (India has 22 recognised languages by the way), historically, it has never been accepted as the nation’s one true language. India’s diversity and rich culture and heritage have made it impossible to favour Hindi at the cost of other regional languages. Our long political history has even witnessed violent protests in the southern part of the nation in the 1950s and 1960s. Language wars that lie firmly buried can quite as easily raise their heads. Language, after all, is an emotive issue; and the fear of losing one’s cultural identity in the uniformisation of ‘one nation, one language’ looks like a real threat to many.
It was the British who had first desired a standardised version of Hindi. The greater use of Hindi eventually led to several languages in the northern belt of India being sacrificed at its altar — Magadhi, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Urdu, Punjabi, Haryanvi, etc. A 35,000-page survey by the People’s Linguistic Survey of India in 2013 states that India speaks over 780 languages and that 50 languages have been lost in the last five decades. Today, the discussion should be not about imposing Hindi much to the chagrin of the non-hindi speaking states. The government should direct its efforts to preserve the numerous languages and dialects in India that are likely to disappear. As for me, I am trying to learn another language to connect with the other side of my ethnic roots — Tamil. (The writer is an author and media entrepreneur. The views expressed are strictly personal)