[Today is the International Mother Language Day 2022. I am bringing the English translation of a Hindi article written two years back in The Wire (Hindi) http://thewirehindi.com/139863/india-indian-languages-hindi-imposition/ and on this blog. It remains topical today as well.]
Tamil Parliamentarian Kanimozhi has recently been in news a couple of times. Both occasions had a common link – an unwarranted aggressiveness of proponents of Hindi. Both the events highlight the need for restraint and call for introspection.
What were the two events? The first was the audacity of a security officer at Delhi airport of using the understanding of Hindi as a touchstone for the ‘Indian’ness of the Parliamentarian. The second was a completely untenable advice by an Officer of the rank of Secretary to Government of India to the members of a Committee, all one hundred percent Indians, to leave the meeting if they did not know Hindi. If such aggressive postures gain currency these could easily put a question mark on the Indianness of over 40 crore non-Hindi speaking Indians (yes these are the figures of the ‘official’ Census of India)
Before the excited troll army starts sharpening its mouses, let me inform them that I am a fairly competent Hindi writer, have been published in Dharmayug, Hindustan, Ravivar, Prabhat Khabar and Lafz. By the grace of God, I have personally known stalwarts like Shri Dharmveer Bharati, Mrinal Pande ji, Harivansh ji and Gyan Chaturvedi ji. Even though my mother tongue is Marathi, I have never considered myself as a ‘non-Hindi-Speaking’ Indian nor has that question has ever been raised. But it is this background that has probably heightened my awareness about the unnecessary aggressiveness of some of the Hindi speaking citizens and some of their illusions. Let me share these experiences so that my Hindi speaking fellow citizens become more sensitised about some of the concerns I raise.
I will start with the views expressed by the well-known Marathi poet Kusumagraj who had clearly stated that he welcomes Hindi openheartedly if she comes as a friend (Sakhi), but if she wishes to arrive as the master (Swamini) he will oppose her.
Kanimozhi is not the first person to have faced the unwarranted aggression. I know an IAS officer of my cadre, Odisha, who stopped speaking in Hindi even though he had studied in Allahabad, knew Hindi very well and is a known Odiya writer. “Provocation?”, you may ask. Well, he was also told by some egghead that if he does not speak Hindi, he is not a ‘true’ Indian. From the very day, he stopped speaking any Hindi. Whose cause was lost?
The irony is that these preachers who keep telling the non-Hindi speaking Indians to adopt Hindi, seamlessly adopt the English route. There is a deafening silence when you ask as to how many Hindi speaking persons make it a point to learn other Indian languages sometimes even after having stayed in that state for a long time.
An additional difficulty that Hindi has faced is the lag between its evolution and the modernisation in the society. While other Indian languages have embraced new discourses, new experimentation and contemporary currents of thought, Hindi has been a rather reluctant adapter.
I have experienced this hiatus right since mid-seventies when I joined IIT Bombay in 1974 and was an active member of the Hindi Parishad. We attempted to popularise more modern, ‘out of box’ events in Hindi during Mood Indigo; a well-known cultural festival of IIT Bombay. One example was “Shabda Wedh” (शब्द वेध) on the lines of Sabira Merchant’s famous programme “What’s the good word?” which was highly appreciated in the campus. While the Marathi edition of Shabda Wedh was taken up by Marathi Doordarshan, then Tzars of Hindi Doordarshan rejected it outright terming it as ‘too modern’. Our experiment with introducing good quality cross words in Hindi met the same fate – highly appreciated within the campus, but cold-shouldered by the print ‘establishment’ outside!
Science fiction in Hindi had similar fate. While other languages had established names like Jayant Narlikar (Marathi), Satyajit Ray (Bangla) and Shivram Karanth (Kannada) writing Science fiction, Hindi did not see any such names. I in fact, had a rather sharp argument with Shri Dharmveer Bharati, the Editor of Dharmayug, as he rejected my plea to publish sci-fi stories by terming these as a second-rate genre like detective stories. To be fair, he later incorporated Jayant Narlikar’s sci-fi stories and also accepted one of mine.
When I used to raise the issue of writing technical literature in Hindi with my Professors at IIT, I was often told “I used to take part in Hindi debate in my school but after coming to the college …. You know how it is!” This is not an exception. Even during my service life, I have been frequently requested to travel from Mumbai or Bhubaneshwar to places like Allahabad and even Delhi to speak on the topic of declining sex ratio and female foeticide, because the organisers found it difficult to get good speakers in Hindi for ‘technical’ topics like these!
Do we expect to propagate Hindi with this outlook and capability?
Some readers may wonder whether I practiced any of what I am preaching. Well, as early as 1973, I had prepared myself to write the answer papers in the BSc (Physics Hons.) examination in Hindi considering that the service to Hindi is the service to the Nation. When a senior Professor came to know about it, he summoned me, scolded me, persuaded me and told me that the College has lots of expectations from me. They expect me to hold a rank and I too have a duty towards the alma mater of not subverting its expectations. I had to give in. Incidentally I secured the first rank!
Let me come back to my work life. I had an occasion to visit an Ordnance Factory Unit near Chennai. Its GM was a Hindi speaking person who told us very proudly during a lunch break how he got ‘these people’ to talk in Hindi. It was not an easy task, he told, given their reluctance etc etc. I asked him with a poker face “You have been here for about three years, you must have learnt some basic spoken Tamil?” He eyed me sympathetically at my naivete and remarked “That is hardly required here Sir, they all understand English!”. I was reminded of the Urdu couplet "वो राह दिखाते हैं हमें हजरते रहबर, जिस राह पे उनको कभी जाते नहीं देखा" (The leader is asking me to follow a path that I have never seen him traversing himself.)
I can site many similar examples. The short point is that Hindi cannot be popularised with such mind set and double standards.
On the popularisation front, the example of the Hindi film industry is an apt one. The industry and specially the Hindi songs have been highly successful in popularising Hindi without wielding any patriotism stick, any arrogance and any unwarranted aggression. Its Hindi has become popular but not through imposition as a ‘national’ language but as a people’s language that facilitates communication.
The Hindi fortnight celebrations require us to introspect on these issues. Do we wish to propagate Hindi as the Sakhi or friend of sister Indian languages or want it to lord over them invoking the stick of sovereignty. Any insensitive imposition could cost both Hindi and the Union dear.
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