The Language Debate

[This is the first (and possibly the last) debate article I'm posting on this blog. As a debate, this topic has special relevance to me personally.
Dedicated to Siddharth Bhattacharya, whose blog is filled with such articles, and who will hopefully post an article on this too.]

This 14th of September was celebrated as 'Hindi Divas'. Keeping to the context, Cabinet Minister Kapil Sibal proposed a 3 language system of education: English, Hindi and Regional Language. And Sunday the 20th, featured this Language Debate on NDTV's We The People show. Here, I am going to give a summary of what I had heard in that debate.

Broadly speaking, the debate touched upon issues of language elitism, and the identity-connectivity requirement of language.

First of all, it is debatable whether each language considers itself superior to the other or not. In any case, there is a sense of 'language pride'. Those who have english are supposedly at a higher class as compared to those who don't have it. At the same time, without hindi or the regional language, survivial would not be easy. Lets consider the kind of people who are equipped with one and not the other.

People who know english and not hindi think that it sets them apart from the masses. They feel that they are able to rise in their careers and in their social circles because of it. They consider those who don't know english as people who are uneducated. Kids educated through the convent education are imparted with english elitism, whether it is in the movies they watch, songs they listen to, or culture they embrace. Now coming to the hindi walas, they feel that they are the real people, like the english ones are fake of sorts. This feeling of authenticity is the main cause of hindi elitism. They consider non-hindi speaking people outsiders, unworthy of being Indian as such. This is just the elitist view of either side.

The identity-connectivity requirement of languages just gives us an excuse to embrace other languages. "English is highly required to get along in the outside world", "Hindi is essential to survival in North India"; or else, "Hindi is the national language. It shows your being Indian" and "Your mother tongue gives you the feeling of who you are in this multicultural India." All these are various reasons for needing a language, whether it is to prosper, or for your sense of identity.

If we look at a few viewpoints of this debate, a lot of people are happy with the way things are and feel there is no need for change. "I was once given the choice to learn Hindi, or German. I chose German. I had thought, 'why would I need to learn hindi?!'", was one such view. It came from one who knew hindi, but felt it would not benefit her if she learnt it. The panelists all agreed that nowadays there are different kinds of english all over the world; that the U.K. English differed from the U.S. English and so why don't we just embrace our own form of Hinglish? With the Oxford Dictionary accepting words such as 'Jai Ho', such a thing is inevitable and certainly acceptable.

Some of the adults in the panel and in the audience tried taking the child's view. "First the child learns his mother tongue. Then he goes to school and has to learn English, Hindi as well as his regional language. What are we trying to do to them?!" Other views involved the decline of certain languages which did not have a region associated to it. Languages like Konkani and Urdu which don't have any region to belong to as such would decline under Sibal's '3-language-system' of education. One of the panelists knew as many as 5 languages. "I know English and Hindi out of experience. Being Muslim, I know Urdu as my mother tongue. Having been born and brought up in Maharashtra, I know Marathi. Since I am currently living in Chennai, I know Tamil. In spite of knowing these 5 languages, I am happy if my children know only English, Hindi and Tamil." was her viewpoint.

At the end of the day, I guess people found this system nothing short of 'forcing languages down people's throats'. A better solution to this problem of linking different-language people while simultaneously not adversely affecting the identity concerns of an individual is that of translations. If someone from the south wants to speak in the Parliament in Tamil for example, why should he be disallowed? Aren't there interpreters at hand to translate what he says into the other languages? If you have a work of literature, wouldn't it be a good business strategy to translate it into another language and get recognition? Why force languages down people's throats when such a solution (if not easy to implement, is atleast feasible) exists?

You might think that this entire topic does not merit debate. If you feel this way, I would just request you to for a moment imagine yourself as a monolingual person. Imagine you know just english, and no regional language, no national language, no mother tongue. Imagine yourself without the 'identity' of your ancestors. Imagine yourself without the 'identity' of your region. Imagine yourself unable to communicate with 'the common man'. And imagine your peers treating you as a linguistic hero who owns a property that they'd hope to imbibe by virtue of being in your company. Imagine of all the things, they are jealous of your english. Now tell me that this does not merit debate.