Opinion Hindi should be promoted. How about starting in the ‘Hindi belt’

Hindi deserves to be nurtured. Hindi deserves love. Hindi deserves pride. Yet all it gets is shrill, insecure chauvinism that wants to shove it down other people’s throats, instead of nourishing it for its native speakers.

Any conversation about Hindi gets dragged into too many pitfalls. Who is a native speaker? Will advancing Hindi mean killing the many dialects that the heartland talks to itself in? And then there is English, whispering promises of mobility, holding the key to many desired doors.

Looking at languages in an either/or binary in a country as blessed with diversity as India is bound to be a flawed approach. Hindi cannot be championed by positioning it as an adversary to other languages, or as yet, a competitor to English.

Championed, but unloved

Across the Hindi belt, there are far too many people who speak neither Hindi nor English well. Many people above 20 can’t count till 100 in Hindi, fewer still can narrate the Hindi alphabet without stuttering. Asked to name the most popular Hindi author in the last 30 years, the most vociferous of the rashtrabhasha brigade would scratch their heads.

A good step towards “restoring Hindi’s glory” would be to honestly examine the causes behind the problem, make a reckoning of its effects, and then take non-jingoistic steps to solve it.

Not being able to speak any language well is an issue that runs deeper than poor spelling or bad grammar. Language is the muscle of the intellect. Without this tool for articulation, you can neither think nor feel coherently. A lack of comfort in your language cuts you off from the wisdom produced and recorded in it over generations, leaving you adrift. You are robbed of clarity, connection, pride, the essential context that gives you your place in history and the present.

And a muddled, insecure head takes readily to chauvinism. Confusion turns easily into rage.

Hindi has produced a wealth of literature worth reading, quoting, taking pride in. What organised efforts are made to popularise them in rural and small town schools? The Hindi belt is brimming with stories it wants to tell. Which government is making attempts at recognising and nurturing young talent?

In fact, most Hindi speakers would be hard-pressed to name a high-quality translation of even the Ramayana or the Mahabharata in Hindi, which, religious beliefs aside, are superlative works of literature.

T-shirts are sold with quotes by Shakespeare or Bob Marley or Descartes. Why has no one had the bright idea to do the same with quotes by Mahadevi Varma, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, all beautifully, universally accessible and applicable?

Is English the only culprit for Hindi’s plight?

So what has led to Hindi’s less-than-felicitous position in its heartland? Blaming English alone is the lazy way out.

The deeper problem is the lack of secure pride in the language. This could be because for too long, the Hindi-speaker has had to migrate for jobs. It could be because all policies to boost Hindi are misguided, treating some other language — English, Urdu — as the enemy, rather than focusing on Hindi itself. It could be because even today, with all the noise about honouring Hindi, a Hindi or a Hindi-medium graduate would find herself shut out of most jobs. It could be because not enough honest efforts have been made to promote an intellectual discourse in Hindi.

Raining death wishes upon English will not help anyone. The Hindi heartland needs jobs and mobility. What needs to be done is acknowledging English as a necessary tool of self-advancement, but delinking it from ideas of superiority or “coolness”.

Policy decisions like making Hindi the primary mode of education, before creating an ecosystem where Hindi speakers will be employable, put the cart before the horse and are bound to fail. Authorities need to work to make Hindi a road to profit, or pride, or ideally both.

And start with the Hindi heartland for this.

yashee.s@indianexpress.com