The curious case of India's national language(s) - Part 1
Recently, Mr. Amit Shah, the honorable home minister of India made news by proposing that ‘Hindi’ be adopted as the National language of India and as an official means of communication within and across the nation. This proposal was supported by our PM Mr. Narendra Modi under the ‘One Nation One Language’ theory.
This announcement has evoked mixed reactions all over the nation.
People from the North would have obviously welcomed this move, given the fact that Hindi is widely spoken there.
People from South India, mainly from the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have reacted acerbically. Many from the South have criticized this proposal as a move by the North Indian states to ‘Impose’ the Hindi language upon them. Some politicians have gone as far as to claim this move as ‘linguistic’ imperialism.
Whereas, people from the other non-Hindi speaking states such as Punjab, Odisha, West Bengal, Gujarat, Maharashtra and the North Eastern States haven’t explicitly stated whether they are ok or not with this proposal. This could mean that they comply, or they simply don’t care.
Looking at these reactions, several questions come to mind:
Has Mr. Shah stirred a hornet’s nest by proposing to make Hindi as the national language to be used across the nation?
What is Mr. Shah’s rationale for choosing Hindi as the national language and not other languages such as Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Bengali, Kannada, Marathi etc.?
Why have Karnataka and Tamil Nadu reacted in such a Hostile manner to this proposal? Why are the South Indian states in general so averse to accepting Hindi as a common language of communication?
Do these reactions suggest any serious threat to India’s diverse linguistic structure and national unity overall?
Why haven’t other non-Hindi speaking states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, West Bengal, Odisha, Assam and the North Eastern states reacted? What are their feelings on this issue? Do they accept Hindi to be the common language?
If not Hindi, which other language should be used as a common language?
Is it justified to continue to use English as an official language and a common means of communication within the country? It is, after all a foreign language and a remnant of British imperialism.
Should Mr. Shah take back this proposal and let things continue as they are?
About me
Before we go any further, let me tell you a bit about myself. I am a South Indian by birth, Telugu being my mother tongue. I have been brought up in Gujarat since childhood. As a consequence, my entire schooling and college has been in Gujarat. I was taught Hindi, English and Gujarati in school, and my parents ensured that I learnt my mother tongue at home. My school friends were a mixed bag of people from diverse regions, religions and cultural backgrounds. We communicated with each other in Hindi. I was taught by my parents and in school to respect other languages and cultures as I respect my own. Overall, I have had a fair amount of exposure to the Hindi language and am not averse to speaking it. Hence, given my background, I can confidently say that I am best suited to take a neutral stance on this issue, and can put forth my arguments without any inherent bias.
Why do we need a common language within the nation?
Let’s go with point # 1 first. I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Shah’s proposal to have a common ‘Indian’ language. Given India’s sheer size and linguistic diversity, necessity demands that we have a common language to facilitate ease of communication with people from different states and regions within the nation.
Let me illustrate by using the following examples:
Mr. XYZ is an official licensed tourist guide in Jaipur, Rajasthan. He works in a specific area where a large number of domestic tourists come for sightseeing, and not all of them are well versed in Hindi or Marwari. And he is not very fluent in English. Therefore, communication with tourists becomes difficult. He feels he is losing out on a large number of tourists and thereby, a good source of income. Here, knowledge of a common language would have helped bridge the gap between him and his customers and helped him immensely.
Mr. ABC, is a businessman based out of Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. The nature of his business makes him travel to Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi frequently. He faces no problem in Chennai, as the people there speak his native language Tamil. But he faces a communication problem in Mumbai and Delhi as his contacts there do not speak Tamil and he cannot speak Hindi or English fluently. Here again, knowledge of a common language would have helped him and his contacts immensely.
Mr. Software Engineer, based in Indore, Madhya Pradesh has been selected by an Indian IT major to join as a trainee in their campus in Chennai. Inside the company, there is no problem as he can communicate in English. But outside, he faces a tough problem in communicating with the local people for various tasks such as transport, shopping etc. as the local people do not speak Hindi or English and he cannot speak Tamil. Once again, a common and accepted language as a means of communication would have removed a lot of hurdles.
In all cases mentioned above and many other examples, having a common language facilitates ease of communication and does not force you to learn the local language. This can greatly promote inter-regional trade and commerce, cultural exchanges and foster national unity. English has been in use as an official language of the country since independence. But English, for all it’s virtues is still a foreign language. It is a remnant of British Imperialism. Given that India is now a free country, does it make sense to keep using English as an official language within the nation?
Based on these points, Mr. Shah has proposed a common language of communication to be used throughout the nation. And he has proposed Hindi to be that common language.
Why Hindi?
Which brings us to point # 2! Why chose Hindi, of all languages? Why not Gujarati (which also happens to be Mr. Shah’s mother tongue) or Assamese, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu, Oriya, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam or any other regional language? What is the rationale on which Mr. Shah proposed Hindi to become the common language?
For the answer, let’s take a look at some history. The proposal for making Hindi as the official language of communication across the country started much before independence. Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru realised the need for a common language to foster national unity across the nation, as language is the greatest unifier. Therefore they made plans to introduce Hindi and promote it as an official language in a phase wise manner. After Independence, most of the regions in Southern, Eastern and Western India were princely states which were given two choices: remain independent or join the Indian union. They all chose the latter. And in joining India came the caveat of having Hindi as the official language. Many accepted, while some regions / people in the South resisted.
Displayed below is a table which shows the primary language distribution across various states and union territories across the country (source: Wikipedia):
* denotes states which speak Hindi dialects.
And this in turn leads to the chart below:
(I must point out that the data is not entirely accurate and is for broad representational purposes only. It must by no means, taken as a guiding principle. For example, the representation of Telugu is 6% while that of Marathi is 3%. This does not imply that more number of people speak Telugu than Marathi. This is simply due to the emergence of the new state of Telangana. Therefore, you have two states which speak Telugu as the first language which brings the number to 6% - counting two states. Similarly, if any of the states mentioned above split into more states, the percentage of representation of that state’s language might go up. But that does not imply that a larger number of people speak that language. But for all practical purposes, let us assume the above data to be accurate enough to depict the proportion of the people speaking a language.)
So going by the above data, it can be seen that Hindi (and it’s dialects) are spoken by around 29% of the people. This is one point which would have influenced Mr. Shah.
Another point that might have influenced Mr.Shah is the fact that Hindi is being taught as a second language in many schools across the country. Since many states are already familiar with it, it should make a good choice for a common language.
But if the above points are Mr. Shah’s rationale in choosing Hindi as the common language, then here are some counter-arguments:
Even though 29% of the nation speaks Hindi, the remaining 71% does not. This is also a sizeable majority. So that, in alone does not warrant Hindi to become the common language.
That fact that Hindi is being taught as a second language in many schools across the country really does not mean that it’s being dutifully spoken. Schools in Gujarat, Maharashtra, West Bengal and other states do teach Hindi as a second language, but they’re not really in full use in day to day communication in those states, except in metros and major cities.
So the choice of choosing Hindi as the common language remains open to debate.