I am Indian but I don’t speak Hindi!
India is a Union of States as described in Article 1 on Indian Constitution . India is a union of 29 states . Of the 29 states only 9 states list Hindi as their official language. Even among these 9 states it is not entirely true that Hindi is prevalent spoken. For instance Bihar, Hindi and Urdu are the official languages of the state, whilst the majority of the people speak one of the Bihari languages — Bhojpuri, Magadhi, Maithili or Angika. Bhojpuri and Magahi are sometimes considered dialects of Hindi, while Maithili and Angika are not. Many speakers of the Bihari languages often conflate their languages with Hindi in the census, which is mainly why the proportion of Hindi speakers is so large when in reality it is mainly other languages.Although widely spoken , around 56% of Indians don’t identify themselves as Hindi speaking.
Why does the Indian government want to impose Hindi and Sanskrit on Indians ?
Indian national politics is mainly dictated by politicians from the Hindi Belt region. 9 out of 14 Indian Prime Minister’s were sent to the parliament by Uttar Pradesh, heart beat of India’s Hindi belt. Almost half of India’s members (226 in 2019 election) of parliament in the lower house are from the same 9 states and Delhi. It is natural for Hindi to be the go to language. Policy makers speak Hindi so the cause for propitiating the language is evident .
Is it right for the government to impose a language on its citizens?
May be not . State reorganization act of 1956 was the first time states were divided or carved out based on linguistic homogeneity. This was after the realization that other forms of defining states failed to propel the lives of people. Linguistic units provided a point of unification and opportunity for people to be involved in the administration of their states. India is not the first country to be divided by languages . European Union, though not a country,is a classic example when it comes to its historical commitment to institutional “plurilingualism”. From the emergence of the nation-state, to the decolonization that took place after the World Wars, language has played a pivotal role as an agent of change in this particular context.
Why Tamils are in the fore front of Anti-Hindi agitations ?
First ever Anti-Hindi agitation was in 1930’s lead by E.V.Ramasamy (a.k.a Periyar) against then Congress Chief Minister C.Rajagopalachariar (a.k.a Rajaji). There was a repeat of this during 1965 led by C.N Annadurai(a.k.a Anna). I am tired of a.k.a’s by now. That set the path for DMKs rise to power in 1967. This was a wide spread grass root level protest. A majority of participants were students.So most of young Tamils today were raised by parents or grandparents who had a role to play in this Anti-Hindi agitation. The fight for Tamil comes from a love for the language that has been passed generation after generation. Tamil is one of oldest , classical language spoken widely to date. To plan a language is to plan society.It is the fear that Hindi imposition would eventually influence society and take away life as known by Tamil speaking community is spurring this reaction.
The case for not wanting to learn Tamil is further validated by the stark differences between the languages .
Tamil is of Dravidian origin . Dravidians unlike Aryans are the longest surviving people of this land. Hindi is a language from Indo -European /Indo-Aryan origin. When the government is all about Make In India , Hindi itself was not made in India
Tamil is one of the oldest surviving classical languages of the world and the first to be recognized as a classical language by Indian Constitution. 55% of ancient archaeological inscriptions recovered in India is written in one of the Tamil scripts. Tamil as a language dates back to several thousand years . Rich and varied heritage. Hindi in its current form came into existences only in the 18th century.
After the arrival of Islamic administrative rule in northern India, Old Hindi acquired many loanwords from Persian, as well as Arabic, which led to the development of Hindustani. In the 18th century, an intensively Persianised version of Hindustani emerged and came to be called Urdu.The growing importance of Hindustani in colonial India and the association of Urdu with Muslims prompted Hindus to develop a Sanskritised version of Hindustani, leading to the formation of Modern Standard Hindi a century after the creation of Urdu.
Tamil is bestowed with several epics and literary gems dating back 300 B.C. The earliest attested use of the name is found in Tholkappiyam, which is dated as early as late 2nd century BC. Tholkappiyam describes Tamil grammar . Standardization comes after the genesis and existence of the language for few centuries . This simple reason proves Tamil is much older than many other contemporary languages.When some one knows a classical language that has evolved over centuries and has added scientific words to help communicate in modern world why would someone have to learn Hindi ?
Does learning Hindi bring economic prosperity . Data suggests otherwise . Only 2 out of the top 10 states that contribute to India’s GDP are Hindi speaking states. Tamil Nadu is the second largest contributor to India’s GDP. There is no logical reason for imposing Hindi on people except to systematically suppress people.In today’s society where we talk more about Diversity & Inclusion , it is counter intuitive to see governments regress to imposing languages on its citizens. If history is any proof these are the same steps that lead to systemic oppression of people and wide spread revolt against governments.
