Rashtrabhasha
We all know that India is a land of diversity and this is one of the main reasons which makes the country so fascinating. Amidst all the diversities, we seem to have forgotten that the greatest source of unity to a nation is a common national language. Although unofficially Hindi is the answer to this issue, the refusal of some of the states in India to embrace Hindi has resulted in a clear North Indian-South Indian rift.
Leaving out a few cosmopolitan cities in the south of India, Hindi is outrightly banished from the society and kids grow up with a notion of Hindi being a sin etched in their minds. Consequently, when we have a group of people from different corners of India in a conversation, there is no common medium for communication except English. Isn't this so typical of a nation with a colonial past? Moreover, English can't be a viable alternative to Hindi since outside the corridors of urban India, English has absolutely no influence.
English may have opened up the gates for India into the world scene and probably if it hadn't been for English, nobody in the West would have dreaded the word "Bangalored". But surely, amidst all these prosperity, India is missing out on one common "Indian" language for all Indians.
So, who is to blame for this? Is it the Hindi-haters? Is it the people from North India who see every South Indian as a "Madrasi"? Is it the IT age which has made Hindi irrelevant?
Probably, it's all the above. If all the regional languages in South India got the respect they deserve from "outsiders", the aversion towards Hindi may subside significantly. On the same vein, the love for their language of the South Indians should not have a repercussion of hatred towards Hindi. Loving Hindi does not mean hating your language and loving your language does in no way justify hating Hindi.
Masala Dosa or Malai Kofta, we are all Indians, right?
Cappuccino Musings
4 comments:
I agree but I also believe that North Indians don't respect South Indians as much as they should. Hindi is an exported language too being derived from Sanskrit which came with Aryans from Europe. South Indian languages are truly "Indian" in that sense, so I can understand their frustration. I don't know what is a fuss about Hindi because what makes India truly unique is our diversity of languages and we should embrace it. Language of understanding and compassion should be our national languages.
Considering the population shift it involves,I think IT has actually promoted Hindi usage and also helped in bringing people of differnt regions together. A typical team in any software company will have reps from the north, south, east and the west.
I agree to your point. If every one shows equal respect to all other languages probably that drift would not exists among the Indians. The very existences of this drift led to invasion from the outside world.
Hindi which is by itself a foreign language and is about 1000 years old, be replaced by English which came to Indian about 400 years ago in a similar way? The other fact is that when a person from north and south meet, where does the question of Hindi language come into picture when both have adequate knowledge of English to converse.
There is a point when you said that English cannot be used as language to address many rural people of India, similarly many south Indian people who are as living in the rural areas as the north , can they learn Hindi to communicate? Can people from the north address the rural south of India using language Hindi.
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