Outlook cover: Hindistan Outlook cover: Hindistan

Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin is currently up in arms against the centre’s National Education Policy, particularly its three language formulaflauta777, which he says will force the state’s students to learn Hindi.

It is natural that the three language formula--which proposes that Hindi be taught along with the regional language and English, and is being pushed by the BJP-led central government-- has set off alarm bells in Tamil Nadu, which has a history of anti-Hindi agitations. The BJP, which comes from the political milieu that prioritises 'Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan', has always pushed Hindi as the link language for India. However, in Tamil Nadu, which has a strong tradition of taking pride in the Tamil language and the Dravidian heritage, this is seen as an attempt at cultural hegemony.

In May, 2022, Outlook India produced an issue, Hindistan, that was a multifaceted look into Hindi’s existence as an official language, and what grave repercussions its official status has resulted in. In her deeply felt ‘Body For Soil, Life For Tamil’, Meena Kandasamy articulated the historical distrust against Hindi in Tamil Nadu. “Hindi has swallowed up all its dialects, the officially-sanctioned imposition of the Devanagari script is yet another step towards cannibalising many more languages. Spare us Tamils this language death,” Meena Kandasamy wrote. She also quoted Sumathi Ramaswamy, who had written, “These waves of anti-Hindi protests have critically shaped the contours of party politics in modern Tamil Nadu, arguably more so than the anticolonial agitations against the British.”

This assertion makes Hindi’s insistence upon being the “link” language, one that can facilitate fluid exchange of ideas and cultures possible with seamlessness, feel acidic.

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There are other stories in the issue that bring up this conundrum of imposition. What is internalised and spoken emerges from a context of a place, which is sidelined when Hindi is treated as the major language. Hindi is spoken by 26 percent of the population, with the number fluctuating somewhat with every survey; but this number include those who speak what are considered sister languages and bear a resemblance to its syntax and structure (Bhojpur,fef777 Rajasthani among them).

In a recent survey published by The Indian Express, it was also found that only 1/4th of the population is multilingual. The fluency, and the instinctive ease with which people approached their regional languages were found to be irreplaceable.

There are those who argue that Hindi’s hegemony can be challenged by fostering and appreciating the arts of the other languages. In the publishing industry, while translation practice has a lot of currency, with some of the national and international bestsellers being translated works (case in point: Geetanjali Shree’s English translation of her Rait Samaadhi, called Tomb of Sand, sold 35,000 copies within 3 days once she won the Booker Prize), but these inadvertently have made the biggest case for the English language as an avenue for ambition and success.

Hindi films are a cultural, global soft power, but their circulation within the country is done through dubbed languages, and India also has regional film industries that have a thumping fanbase that is expanding beyond those who speak the language.

In Outlook India’s 2022 issue, there are stories which illustrate how minority groups are moving towards extremely specific practices of language that resonate with their own experience. For example, in ‘Rhyme and Reason’, Syeda Ambia Zahan and Mayabhushan Nagvenkar wrote:

“After decades of suffering ethnic jibes, which impute that Bengali Muslims are “encroachers”, or a race which “produces criminals” or whose women “give birth like cattle”, Miya poetry also represents a collective anguish of a discriminated population.” 

It seems, overwhelmingly, that respite, resonance and at times, answers, are found away from Hindi, and not within it.

Kuchey, who was hospitalised on September 17 after falling sick at the Kishtwar district jail, died of heart attack on Monday night, officials said. He was among seven of the 19 accused who were arrested in the case.

You can read more stories from the issueflauta777, here.