TV
and the media have made gutter Hindi the de facto language. Not the
kind of language that is music to my ears. I do not speak Hindi for the
fear that by mistake I might belt out some of that ghastly media Bombay
Hindi.
There is a need for ONE language for communication between the states. And that language can never be Hindi and has to be English, because there is virtually no opposition to the use of English anywhere but there is opposition to just about every other language including Hindi. Tragically, the old Hindi imperialists brought this fate to Hindi. When I was growing up right after independence, there was a lot of goodwill for Hindi in the them Madras, Mysore, and the itsy-bitsy kingdoms in present-day Kerala (there was no Kerala, Karnataka, or Andhra Pradesh then). And then the Hindi fanatics hit the fan. Had INC been more understanding things would have been different.
You must remember that after independence the politicians tried their best to keep English out of the list of national languages. They failed utterly because in 1967 Nagaland proclaimed English to be their state language; the consensus was that all state languages should also be national languages of India. We all should be eternally grateful to Nagaland for this wonderful gift.
My father was transferred from Delhi to a place Kasaragod (now in Kerala) in 1951. He knew no Hindi but was favourably disposed towards it also because of his interest in Hndustani classical music. He was a botanist working at a research Institute. The the Hindi imperialists ht them and all researchers were required to put their research on the back burner and attend Hindi classes. It was such a joke! I know because my father took me with him to one of those classes. There were these researchers reading some journal article or simply dozing off while the teacher droned.
Rajaji (Rajagopalachari) was favourably disposed to Hindustani but NOT HIndi. Even DMK probably would have lived, though uncomfortably, with Hindustani. But that was not enough for the Hindi zealots. Nothing short of Sanskritised Hindustani was good enough. That was the last nail in the coffin for Hindi as national language.
This chauvinism has pervaded Indian politics even in areas other than language. For eample, in music, Harmonium was banned on All India Radio until fairly recently on the contention that it was not an Indian but a Western instrument. But then much of Indian music, especially that espoused by muslims, was harmonium based (try looking for qawali music without harmonium). It shut out more than a generation of musicians from All India Radio.
In a democracy, in the long run, nothing can survive without popular consent.
There is a need for ONE language for communication between the states. And that language can never be Hindi and has to be English, because there is virtually no opposition to the use of English anywhere but there is opposition to just about every other language including Hindi. Tragically, the old Hindi imperialists brought this fate to Hindi. When I was growing up right after independence, there was a lot of goodwill for Hindi in the them Madras, Mysore, and the itsy-bitsy kingdoms in present-day Kerala (there was no Kerala, Karnataka, or Andhra Pradesh then). And then the Hindi fanatics hit the fan. Had INC been more understanding things would have been different.
You must remember that after independence the politicians tried their best to keep English out of the list of national languages. They failed utterly because in 1967 Nagaland proclaimed English to be their state language; the consensus was that all state languages should also be national languages of India. We all should be eternally grateful to Nagaland for this wonderful gift.
My father was transferred from Delhi to a place Kasaragod (now in Kerala) in 1951. He knew no Hindi but was favourably disposed towards it also because of his interest in Hndustani classical music. He was a botanist working at a research Institute. The the Hindi imperialists ht them and all researchers were required to put their research on the back burner and attend Hindi classes. It was such a joke! I know because my father took me with him to one of those classes. There were these researchers reading some journal article or simply dozing off while the teacher droned.
Rajaji (Rajagopalachari) was favourably disposed to Hindustani but NOT HIndi. Even DMK probably would have lived, though uncomfortably, with Hindustani. But that was not enough for the Hindi zealots. Nothing short of Sanskritised Hindustani was good enough. That was the last nail in the coffin for Hindi as national language.
This chauvinism has pervaded Indian politics even in areas other than language. For eample, in music, Harmonium was banned on All India Radio until fairly recently on the contention that it was not an Indian but a Western instrument. But then much of Indian music, especially that espoused by muslims, was harmonium based (try looking for qawali music without harmonium). It shut out more than a generation of musicians from All India Radio.
In a democracy, in the long run, nothing can survive without popular consent.
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