Head to Head

Our political representatives often mistake Hindi, one of India’s official languages, for a national one. Venkaiah Naidu recently referred to Hindi as our

Soon after, the Union government announced the move to issue bilingual passports, with personal details printed in English and Hindi. What do you think of this move? All of India’s languages are important to India and to the linguistic states, in particular. But in the past 70 years, governments in Delhi have become used to giving one regional language — Hindi — precedence over all the

bhasha.” “rashtra

It’s obvious. Of course, I agree. Also there is a troubling demographic shift taking place in the country. Highlypopulated northern states with high population growth rates and poor economic growth rates are seeing migration of labour in large numbers to southern states. These migrations, of labour from the north to south, are in the hope of finding better livelihoods. I think we will see more conflicts in the future if this trend is not arrested. In your opinion, why are linguist identities playing such a strong role in the nation’s politics? Can diversity be a threat to authoritarian rule? Diversity certainly resists centralising totalitarian tendencies. And today, politicians and ministers pander to an authoritarian leadership. It’s not just linguistic, but many other identities of culture, religion, caste and ethnicity that beg the idea of an inclusive India.

The answer to the current issue could be in finding a uniform, broader and more inclusive language policy that enables usage of regional and even sub-regional languages. Technology makes this all possible. Yet what comes in the way of development are pretty and regressive mindsets.

The protests are not against the Hindi language, but the casual sense of entitlement that informs the move