Article: In Search for a Pan-Indian Language

In Search for a Pan-Indian Language

There are a few prominent politicians in our country. They are good orators and some news channels make sure that their oratory skill reaches every nook and corner and is a matter for a debate at prime news hours. When these orators appear in any public rally or at an event, there is a new announcement either relating to a state, a policy, a law and the more recent one, on language.

On 14 September 2019, as the government of India celebrated the adoption of Hindi written in Devanagari script as one of the two official languages of the Republic of India by the Constituent Assembly of India, the Home Minister Mr Amith Shah emphasized the need for making Hindi the national link language and this has sparked off nationwide acrimony. He emphasized the need for Hindi to be made the common language of the country. It was necessary, Shah said, to have one language which could represent India in the world. But his contention that Hindi was widely spoken and could be the language to keep India ‘united’, drew condemnation from across the country.

The undercurrent of such a speech is the long running stand of Sangh Parivar on Hindi. For them ‘Oneness’ is the deepest feeling and it has to be achieved through political power. There have been many successive plans to promote ‘One India’. ‘One nation One Vote’ was one of them and now it is ‘One nation One Language’. Thus, Shah has accurately articulated the stand that the Sangh has held for decades. He emphasized the need for Hindi to be strengthened as the link language to protect the core values of Indian culture. In other words, English should not be the language of our culture. Shah said, to quote: “To preserve our ancient philosophy, our culture and the memory of our freedom struggle, it is important that we strengthen our local languages and that there is at least one language, Hindi, that the nation knows. If Hindi is taken out of our freedom struggle, the entire soul of the struggle is lost.” And He tweeted this after the speech to emphasize his point: “I want to appeal to people to promote their native languages but also use Hindi to make the dream of Bapu and Sardar Patel of one language come true.”

In his further stress on the language and with regret that Hindi was losing space to English, he said: “Hindi will achieve new heights by 2024 as we take it to all regions of the country. But promoting Hindi does not mean this will be done at the cost of some other regional language.”

Shah’s attacks were focused on the English language, and he commented that many Indians had admitted to him with shame that they had little knowledge of their mother tongue and could speak only in English. He pointed out: “A nation that relinquishes its own native languages can never sustain itself. Indian languages are the richest of all the languages in the world.”

The Constitution of India (Part XVII Official Language Chapter I. -Language of the Union 343 No. 1) clearly states that “the official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script”. However it is important to mention the context of this point.

It was a debate on the issue of one nation one language since the genesis of the framing of the Constituent Assembly. The question was to make sure that one language must remain as the official language of Independent India. The Constitution makers had to reconcile between various languages in India and the dialect of Hindi. In choosing Hindi as the official language prominence was given to Hindi spoken in Delhi-Agra region with Sanskrit vocabulary. The road to such a solution was not easy. There were many debates and arguments for and against. Whenever the topic of language arose in some political discussion, the group was divided in its opinions and thus finally in the year 1967, Indira Gandhi’s government amended the Official Languages Act providing for indefinite usage of English and Hindi as the official languages of the country. There were subsequent agitations in 1968 as well as in 1986 but limited to certain states.

As far as the numerals are concerned, the international form of Indian numerals were chosen after a debate and a proviso was attached to it that after a period of fifteen years, the Parliament could replace the system by Devanagari form of numerals.

The Constitution of India admits that India is a multilingual country. That was the mind of the fathers of our Constitution. They also felt the need to specify the languages to be used in state functions. Therefore, Part XVII of the Indian Constitution came into existence which not only provides for the official language of the Union (Article 343-344) and official languages of the states (Article 345) but also the language of interstate-communication (Article 346-347), language to be used in the courts and in legislative processes (Article 348). Apart from these provisions, there are some special directives too (Article 350-351).

Language is a highly emotional issue for citizens of any nation. It has the power for the integration of any country. With his recent statements, Shah has sparked the same old flame.

Notwithstanding the differences now, looking back to the debate of the Constitution makers, their intention was to introduce ‘a pan-Indian language’ for a smooth functioning of governance.

The German philosopher Johann Gottfried von Herder asked: “Has a nation anything more precious than the language of its fathers?” The nationalism that is promoted today is with sheer arrogance, antagonism towards other languages and cultures. In no way the Sangh has understood the heart and mind of the founding fathers of our nation. Our nation is in fact, multilingual as recognized by the Constitution. The Nationalist ideology of the Sangh is conceptually wrong and irrational. The diversity in language and culture is our pride and part of our nationhood.

It appears that the present government is giving more importance to nationalism and linguistic nationalism is one of them. The government must realize that in a multi-cultural country like India, language is a sacrosanct aspect of every group’s identity.