Digging out the buried hatchet of Hindi (IANS Column: Beyond The Headline)

When India heaved a sigh of Independence in 1947, all was not quite hunky-dory. And neither is now, 75 years hence.

The knowledge of a common language is often a bonding factor between culturally distinct communities, but in the years that just preceded Independence, anti-Hindi agitation had significantly taken roots, and in the years that followed the historic hand-over of power, the concern over imposition of Hindi language resurfaced-not withstanding who wielded political power and authority.

This was the time when English was the official language, as the colonial masters prevailed. With bludgeoning calls for Independence in the early 20th century, there was concerted effort to consolidate various linguistic groups against the British government, and Hindustani -a mixture of Hindi and Urdu- was promoted as the common language.

In 1918, Gandhi went on to establish the Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha (Institution for the Propagation of Hindi in South India). In 1925, the Indian National Congress switched to English from Hindustani to conduct its proceedings but continued to support Hindustani to the extent that stalwarts like Gandhi and Nehru were inclined to propagate Hindustani in non-Hindi speaking regions as well.

Periyar, the towering Tamil leader, however, was displeased with this proposition and saw it as a method to put Tamils below the North Ind.

Purushottam Das Tandon emerged, among other reasons, for his efforts to achieve the Official Language of India status for Hindi. However, notwithstanding the instance on Hindustani as the national language, he insisted on the use of Devnagari script over the Urdu script and also refrained from words that were of Persian/Arabic origin. His controversial bent got him branded as a political reactionary by Nehru. That his ideas irked Dravidian leaders was no surprise.

Colonial India saw a series of protests over the three-year long agitation against imposition of Hindi in 1937-40 in what was then the Madras Presidency, and which is largely the southern state of Tamil Nadu now. This movement was launched in opposition to the introduction of compulsory teaching of Hindi language in schools in the said region by the first Indian National Congress government led by C. Rajagopalachari.

In the wake of the agitations, a crackdown by the government ensued. Two protestors died, and 1,198 (including women and children) were arrested of whom 1,179 were convicted. The British Governor of Madras then withdrew the mandatory Hindi education in 1940, after the Congress government resigned in 1939.

Constituent Assembly debates in favour of Hindi were led by R.V Dhulekar predominantly. He said that people who did not know Hindi did not deserve to live in India. Despite other members not being in favour, Hindi was adopted as the Official Language of the Union on September 14, 1949. However, as a compromise, it was decided that English would also remain the official language for 15 years.

The concentrated dominance of Hindi

Eventually, it was President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan who assured that English would stay in India, thereby mitigating to a great extent the aversion to dominance of Hindi, especially in the Madras region.

Schedule VIII of the Constitution recognises 22 Indian languages officially. Further, India has more than 100 non-scheduled languages, each of which is spoken by at least 10,000 people. There happens to be 1,800 mother tongues, besides 700 different languages, and numerous other recognised and unrecognised dialects.

As per the 2011 census, just about 44 per cent Ind speak Hindi as their mother tongue; the rest speak in 120 other languages.

Earlier in September, Union Home Minister Amit Shah suggested that the states communicate in Hindi instead of English, while also stressing that Hindi should not be an alternative to local languages.

He is quoted to have officially said at the meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee: "When citizens of states who speak other languages communicate with each other, it should be in the language of India."

This gesture appears to be not only in the direction of establishing cultural hegemony of Hindi over non-Hindi states, but also thereby launch an assault on the decentralised nature of the Indian system, a stark reminder of the reasons of protests that followed in the years after Independence.

On October 10, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin went vehemently vocal over the imposition of Hindi in IITs, IIMs, and Kendriya Vidyalayas, as in the report of the Official Language Committee recently presented to the President.

The committee has recommended that English be replaced with Hindi as medium of instruction in all Central universities including IITs, IIMs, AIIMS, and Kendriya Vidyalayas, the most prominent Central government chain of schools.

The fact that one language is chosen from 22 to dominate the discourse and procedures is naturally not a welcome proposition by those that do not belong to the Hindi identity. It also amounts to the violation of the Constitutional provision of equal rights of all Ind. Disregard to India's lingual diversity is yet another effect of such a proposition.

Stalin recently expressed through a tweet that "If implemented, the vast non-Hindi speaking population will be made second-class citizens in their own land. Imposing Hindi is against the integrity of India. The BJP govt would do well to learn lessons from the Anti-Hindi agitations in the past. #StopHindiImposition."

As recent as in 2018, Stalin had warned of '1965-like' protests in the state if the Centre kept imposing Hindi, bringing back the scenes of the anti-Hindi mobilisations from over five decades ago.

The landmark year of 1965

1965 is a year etched prominently in Indian history for the Dravidian Movement that broke out after Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru presented the Official Languages Bill, 1963. In January 1965, riots started in Madurai and reached Madras in no time.

DMK, the political inheritor of the Dravidian Movement, launched a campaign against this decision. Although English wasn't any less alien to the natives of the southern state, the resistance was against the push for just one official language to prevail and dominate.

The scene was such that on January 25, 1965, senior DMK leaders were taken into preventive custody, about 50,000 college students marched to the seat of the government at Fort St George to petition the Chief Minister of the then Madras State, to withdraw Hindi from school curriculum.

When two Union Ministers from Tamil Nadu proposed to resign, the Central government under the new Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, announced that Hindi will not be imposed, and that English will remain as the official language.

In February 1965, the Congress Working Committee passed a resolution in favour of the three-language formula in schools, and sought the amendment of the Official Languages Act, 1963, to accommodate the concerns of the non-Hindi speaking populations.

The Official Languages Act of 1963 made way for the creation of the Committee in 1976. About 30 Parliamentar got together to evaluate the development in Hindi language used for official purposes and came up with a report.

The period between 1961 and 2011 saw a dramatic rise of 30.39 per cent (13.34 crore) Hindi speakers.

The (lack of) acceptance of Hindi in states

The Congress government in Tamil Nadu was toppled in 1967 due to dispute over imposing Hindi, and DMK rose to power. Similar discourse occasionally came up in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, and Kerala.

Southern states of Kerala and Karnataka have gone a step ahead in institutionalising English education and making schools English-medium. States such as those in the northeast have hardly any natural connect with Hindi; not only do they not recognise Hindi as an official language, it is not included in their three-language formula either.

As matters stand at present, the rise of the BJP since 2014 has brought with it a preference for a Hindi India, triggering counter-narratives in Southern states in particular.

Irrespective of the political party that is helming the affairs of the nation, the push for Hindi to dominate has appeared less like an inclusive step; and especially given the opposition from non-Hindi states, fresh ways to unite the nation and bind its diverse people need to be devised if that is the intent. Uniting India or Ind by way of language or any other, to begin with, need not point at a threat to any group's identity.

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