India’s
National Language Dilemma
Written
by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, 20 September, 2015
Copyright © Dr. Seshadri Kumar. All Rights Reserved.
Disclaimer: All the opinions expressed in this article are the
opinions of Dr. Seshadri Kumar alone and should not be construed to mean the
opinions of any other person or organization, unless explicitly stated
otherwise in the article.
*********************************
Since independence, India has faced a major dilemma.
As probably the most diverse democracy on the planet – a
multi-religious (Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Parsi, Jewish, and other minorities),
multi-linguistic (today there are 22
official languages in India), and multi-ethnic democracy characterized by
community and caste, India faced the formidable challenge since its formation
of how to create unity in this incredible diversity. Other countries can barely
fathom the complexity of this challenge. One goes from one state to another –
like Tamil Nadu to Karnataka, or Maharashtra to Gujarat, and the language of
communication changes completely. It is like saying that when you drive from
Kentucky to Ohio in the USA, you have to speak a different language. Another
way to imagine this complexity is to imagine what Europe would be if it were a
country rather than a continent composed of many countries. Such cultural
complexity as seen in India is not seen in any other country.
One of the solutions proposed to create unity within this
diversity was the creation of a national language. This solution was proposed
by the Indian
National Congress (INC), the party that spearheaded the nonviolent freedom
movement in India. Prominent leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, and Chakravarthi
Rajagopalachari (aka Rajaji) mooted this idea so that the whole of India
could communicate in one voice. This would lead to administrative clarity as well
as cultural cohesiveness, they argued, and forge a nation of multiple,
multi-dimensional identities into a whole.
Historical
Opposition
However, this idea has faced serious opposition from its
inception. The idea was introduced by the INC in 1937 when they were in charge
of the Home Rule government under British authority. Rajaji introduced it during
his tenure as Premier of Madras Province and
made education in Hindi compulsory, leading to protests organized by EV Ramasamy Naicker
(aka Periyar) against what Periyar considered the imposition of north Indian
values and ideas on the people of the south – the domination of the Dravidians by the Aryans, as Periyar viewed it.
Periyar was a giant in the world of Tamil Nadu (the state that
was formed based on language from the Madras state for speakers of the Tamil
language) politics, and he left a legacy that has survived to this day, and
will likely continue for a long time hereafter as well. Periyar was one of the
leading pro-Dalit (Dalits are
the lowest strata – the “untouchables” – in Hinduism’s notorious
caste system) voices in the country, and he saw Hindi as an offshoot of
Sanskrit, the language of the upper castes in Hinduism. He saw the people of
Tamil Nadu as the original inhabitants of India – the Dravidians, who were
subjugated and assimilated in a gradual process by the migrating Aryans from
outside India. He saw the caste system in Hinduism as a construct by the Aryans
to subjugate the native Dravidians in their own land, and therefore argued for
the rejection of all Sanskrit-based culture as symbols of oppression of the
Dravidians.
Periyar’s efforts in raising a Dravidian consciousness led to
the formation of parties that claimed to stand for the rights of the “Dravidian
people” – essentially, the non-Brahmins – parties such as the Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam (DMK) (lit., “Dravidian Peoples’ Progress Party”) and its chief
rival, the All-India
Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), where the name “Anna” refers to a
prominent leader of the Dravidian movement – CN Annadurai, the
disciple of Periyar who became chief minister of Tamil Nadu following Periyar’s
ideals on Dravida empowerment. The hold of the Dravida empowerment philosophy
evolved by Periyar is so strong that for the last 48 years, power in Tamil Nadu
has only been in the hands of either the DMK or the AIADMK.
Following independence in 1947, the Central Government tried
to make the teaching of Hindi compulsory throughout India. This evoked
widespread protests in Tamil Nadu, led by Periyar, eventually forcing the
government to relent and make Hindi an optional subject in Tamil Nadu in 1950.
The Constituent Assembly considered the question of a national
language and finally decided against it. Instead, it advocated that two
languages, English and Hindi, be used for all official business in India for 15
years. In 15 years, Hindi would be widely promoted and eventually after 15
years, English would be dropped as an official language and Hindi would be the
sole official language.
While this kept tensions under the lid for some time, people
started getting worried once the 15 year deadline approached. The government
instituted first
the BG Kher committee in 1955 and later the Parliamentary Committee on Official
Language (chaired by Gobind Ballabh Pant and hence also called the Pant
Committee) to study the issue in 1957. The Pant committee recommended that
Hindi be made the primary official language and English the subsidiary official
language. This was again greeted with protests. To quell the agitation, PM
Nehru stated in Parliament that the arrangement of English as the second
official language would not end in 1965.
To keep good his word, Nehru introduced the Official
Languages Act in 1963, two years before the 15-year deadline of the
Constituent Assembly ended in 1965, to clarify that English would continue to
be an official language beyond 1965. The act recommended that the then-existing
system continue for another 10 years, after which a committee would examine how
much progress Hindi had made in its spread through India and make
recommendations to the President.
Notwithstanding the expiration of the period of fifteen years from the commencement of the Constitution, the English language may, as from the appointed day, continue to be used, in addition to Hindi,--
(a) For all the official purpose of the Union for which it was being used immediately before that day; and
(b) For the transaction of business in Parliament.
The difficulty the DMK had with the bill was the use of the
word “may” in the sentence reading, “the English language may, as from the
appointed day, continue to be used…” The DMK argued that “may” was ambiguous,
and could just as easily be interpreted as “may not,” and so rejected the bill.
Soon after this, Nehru died, and his successor Lal Bahadur Shastri
and his cabinet ministers Gulzarilal Nanda and Morarji Desai were
strongly in favour of making Hindi a national language. This prompted the DMK,
who feared that Shastri would not keep Nehru’s word, to intensify agitations.
Things came to a boil when the Congress CM of Tamil Nadu introduced a bill to
make compulsory in Tamil Nadu a three-language formula (English, Hindi, Tamil.)
The 15-year deadline for the continuation of English as a
second official language would end on Republic Day, 1965 (January 22).
Therefore, the DMK intensified anti-Hindi agitations in January 1965. Eventually
Shastri backed down and agreed to honor Nehru’s commitments.
In 1968 a National
Policy on Education was implemented by the Indira Gandhi government after
the death of Shastri. This suggested a three-language formula, where children
in all states in India would learn three languages – the language of the state,
Hindi, and English. In states where the state language was Hindi, the students
would have to learn any one of the many other official languages of India,
preferably a South Indian language for the purposes of national integration.
However, this policy was
not followed faithfully by most states. The Tamil Nadu government
unilaterally passed a law not requiring compliance with the central law, and
said that only Tamil and English need be taught in Tamil Nadu. In
Hindi-speaking states, parents chose not to learn any southern languages, but
use the provision to teach their children Sanskrit as the third language. The
issue was thus never resolved.
Although Tamil Nadu has been at the forefront of efforts to
block Hindi as the national language, many other states have a similar
objection, although they do not state it so vocally. One such state is Bengal,
which takes great pride in Bengali, considers it culturally more advanced than
Hindi, and sees no reason for Bengali to play second fiddle to Hindi. Many
other states have similar regional pride and do not see a reason to strongly
opt for Hindi as a national language.
Thus, at many levels, there is opposition within India to
naming Hindi as the national language. Many attempts have been made to
reintroduce Hindi as the national language, but there has always been opposition
to it. A recent Gujarat High Court ruling in 2010 affirmed that Hindi
was not the national language and could not be imposed as such, even though
Hindi had penetrated through most of India.
English
as a Possibility?
Given the difficulty with Hindi as a national language, if one
needs a link language throughout India, why not use English? After all, English
is the lingua franca of the world. Even in countries with strong local language
traditions, such as France or Germany, learning English is compulsory. In China,
the
government is making a very strong push to make its citizens learn English
to be more competitive globally. In India itself, even poor people
have understood well that English is the ticket to prosperity, so more
parents want their children to go to a school where English, rather than the
local state language, is the medium of instruction.
Given all this, it makes eminent sense for English to be made
the national language of India on pragmatic grounds. However, this offends the
nationalist spirit of many Indians, who point out that English was the language
of the foreign rulers (the British) who ruled India for 200 years. They also
point out that while many people in India may speak English, it is actually the
native language of very few in India. For many, this seems like a colonial
hangover.
In addition, people fear that, if English becomes the national
language, literature in local languages will start to be neglected because
local languages would cease to be taught in schools. Even in present-day India,
the focus seems to have irretrievably shifted from regional languages to
English, purely because of the job market. This has advocates of local
languages and cultural diversity concerned (and rightly so) about the vast
treasure of literature in local languages vanishing from India and about a
generation of Indians, in the not-so-distant future, that is incapable of
reading or appreciating any literature in regional languages. That would
certainly be a huge cultural loss.
One could point out that opponents of Hindi also fear a
similar cultural loss – that Hindi literature and poetry would benefit at the
cost of the literature and poetry of other states.
Being
Novel by Coming Full Circle
As we have seen, it is unlikely Hindi will ever be accepted by
the entire nation currently. English also faces opposition from many angles, no
matter what the pragmatic value it adds. One clearly needs a different
approach.
Some have argued for Sanskrit as an alternative to Hindi, but
there are two problems with it. One, it is a dead language. No one, apart from one small village in
Karnataka, actually uses it for everyday language. Two, introducing
Sanskrit will not satisfy Tamil Nadu – for, recall that the main objection of
Tamil Nadu is that they did not want a Brahminical, “Aryan,” language thrust
upon them. So Sanskrit will not work.
Here I propose a novel solution – actually an old solution that
time has made novel.
I propose to introduce Hindustani – the mix
of Hindi and Persian that was the dominant dialect of Hindi at the time of
independence – as the national language.
This may seem like a foolish proposal, given that this was the
language that Rajaji and Nehru wanted implemented in 1937 as the national
language, and opposed passionately by Periyar. However, consider these facts.
· Hindustani
was being proposed as the national language only until 1947
· Once
Pakistan was separated from India, the Congress dropped the demand for
Hindustani and switched to “pure” Hindi, whatever that means (in practice it
meant replacing well-known Hindustani words like “maafi” with esoteric Sanskrit
words like “kshama.”
· Today’s
Hindi bears very little resemblance to Hindustani because all the Urdu/Persian
words have been stripped out.
· If
Hindustani becomes the national language, it will be a learning burden on both
Hindi speakers and non-Hindi speakers alike because the “official” version of
Hindustani that everyone will learn will contain substantial amounts of Urdu
and Persian words.
· Not only
this, the inclusion of Urdu words means that this will be a good national
unification bridge between Hindus and Muslims as well.
· If Hindi
speakers agree to this, it will be a big concession from them, and then Tamil
people may not mind making a concession in turn.
· Hindustani
is not the language of Hinduism. There are plenty of non-Sanskrit words. The
vedas do not use words like ijaazat, matlab, or kaamiyaab. Hence there is no
need to think that this is an effort by Brahmins to thrust their culture on
Dalits.
· Hindustani
is the language of Bollywood, and this is the greatest unifier in India today.
· Hindustani
may have been the common language of north India in 1947; today the official
language is pure Hindi and Hindustani has been de-emphasized, leading to
relative ignorance among the people of north India in Hindustani.
· Hindustani,
unlike English, is a uniquely Indian language. It is a blend of languages that
was achieved in India. Nothing foreign about it.
· And
finally, (I will elaborate on this point in the next section), Hindustani is a
much prettier language than Hindi.
The
Beauty of Hindustani
One of the key reasons I prefer Hindustani is that it is a far
prettier language than Hindi, especially Sanskritised Hindi. Sanskrit is full
of hard sounds that do not flow easily for music and poetry. This makes pure Hindi
a difficult language for poetry and songs. Recognizing this, most poets who work
in the Hindi film industry actually use Hindustani abundantly to make the
language more musical. Perhaps some examples will help to understand.
Below,
Hindi phrases from songs are marked in red, and Hindustani phrases are marked
in blue, so you can see the difference. See if you can even hum the pure Hindi
equivalents.
1.
Intezaar, aitbaar, iqraar, aur pyaar
Pratiksha, bharosa, sweekruti, aur pyaar
2.
Mere mehboob tujhe meri mohabbat ki qasam
Phir mujhe nargisi ankhon ka sahaara de de
Mera khoya hua rangeen nazaara de de
Meri priyatama mujhe meri prem ki vachan
Phir mujhe halki peeli netron ka sahaara de de
Mera gum hua rangeen adbhut drishya de de
3.
Sham e gham ki qasam
Aaj gamgeen hain hum
Aa bhi jaa, aa bhi jaa aaj mere sanam
Dukh bhari sham par satya
Aaaj dukhi hain hum
Aa bhi jaa, aa bhi jaa, aaj mere premika
4.
Seene mein jalan, ankhon mein toofan sa kyoon hai
Is sheher mein har shaqs pareshaan sa kyoon hai
Hriday mein jwala, netron mein aandhi sa kyoon hai
Is nagar mein, har vyakti chintit kyoon hai
5.
Aap ki nazron nein samjha pyar ke kaabil mujhe
Aap ki vichar nein samjha prem ke yogya mujhe
6.
Ajeeb dastan hai ye, kahan shuru kahan khatam
Ye manzilen hain kaunsi, na wo samajh sake na ham
Asaamaanya kahani hai yeh, kahan prarambh kahan samapt
Ye lakshya hain kaunsi, na wo samajh paae na ham
7.
Khwab chun rahi hai raat, beqaraar hai
Tumhara intezaar hai
Sapne chun rahi hai raat, utsuk hai
Tumhari pratiksha hai
See my point? Because of all the lovely sounds in Hindustani
due to Persian and Urdu influences, Hindustani sounds a lot prettier than
Hindi. Given the other advantages I have listed for Hindustani in the bulleted
list, and given that for 68 years we have struggled with this dilemma, I urge
the nation to give this thought careful consideration.
Jai Hind!
