Opinion Saving our matrubhashas

For their anti-Hindi tirade,they are making ample use of a recent judgment by the Gujarat High Court,which has observed that Hindi is not the national language of India. The court has said nothing new. India’s Constitution regards all 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule as national languages. But,it has also declared Hindi along with English,as the official language of the Union. States can have one or more languages as their own official languages. Marathi is the official language of Maharashtra. But,Constitutionally speaking,Marathi has no higher status in Maharashtra than Hindi does in the Union. Both are simply official languages. Which means that people have the right to use the language of their choice in the non-official space. With vastly increased mobility of Indians from one state to another,more and more Indian cities are bound to become multi-lingual and cosmopolitan. This is a trend to be welcomed,and not opposed,since it helps the Great Indian Family become better integrated.

This having been said,I must hasten add that there is an objective,and to some extent legitimate,basis to the pro-Marathi drive launched by Raj Thackeray,whose appeal is rapidly growing in a section of the Maharashtrian population. That appeal is rooted in the spread of linguistic disquiet amongst people not only in Maharashtra but also in other states. Marathi-speaking people rightly feel that their mother tongue is being neglected in Maharashtra. Similar is the grievance of Kannadigas in Karnataka and Bengaluru (see how the name of Bangalore got changed),of Gujaratis in Gujarat and so on. Many eminent personalities from literature,arts and culture are rushing to the rescue of their mother tongues. Dr U.R. Ananthamurthy,a Jnanapeeth laureate Kannada writer,has been fighting a valiant battle for the promotion of Kannada in education and administration in Karnataka. On January 30,a commendable mass campaign was launched in Gujarat in honour of the mother tongue of the Father of the Nation. Gunawant Shah,a renowned Gujarati writer and columnist,started the ‘Matrubhasha Vandana Yatra’ to make people affirm their pride in their language and heritage. Shah has stated that the idea of the yatra was provoked by what he saw on a TV channel a few months back—a student studying in an English medium school in Andhra Pradesh was punished and made to display a board proclaiming “I will never again speak in Telugu.”

It is important to remember that the threat to native Indian languages comes from English,and not from one another. English is spreading its hegemony over the linguistic landscape all over India at a blinding speed. It is invading all our mother tongues to an extent that threatens their extinction. In Karnataka,where I was born,I rarely find educated people speak in Kannada these days without broken English sentences and badly chosen English words. Hindi was free from this pollution until 10-15 years ago. But it has surrendered so meekly to the domination of Angrezi that,in places like Delhi,what one hears educated people speak is not Hindi anymore. It is a strange new hybrid language. Actively aiding its spread are three subversive agents: Hindi TV channels,Hindi newspapers,and,above all,the new crop of films from Bollywood. Just look at the recent cinema titles—Wanted,3 Idiots,The Hangman,My Name Is Khan. Are these Hindi films?

The most direct impact of globalisation and liberalisation has been on our mother tongues,which are losing their charm for the rich as well as the poor. More and more people,including in slums and rural areas,have come to the conclusion that English alone provides the passport to prosperity. As a result,English medium schools are mushrooming everywhere. In recent years Mumbai has seen a drastic fall in the enrollment to Marathi medium schools even in Marathi-speaking areas.

The issue of language in India is highly complex and multi-dimensional. Hence,there is no scope for dogmatism and extreme positions. Even the anti-English attitude in some parts of the country is wrong. After all,English has become an integral part of our national life. India now has more English-speaking people than England. What then is the way forward for the language policy in a rapidly changing India? I think that it should move in a balanced manner on two parallel tracks: one,save our mother tongues and,two,Indianise English culturally and socially.

sudheenkulkarni@gmail.com