Why is Hindi India's national language?
This question on The Sunday Times of India in its question-answer column called 'Open Space' made me curious enough to find out if the questioner, presumably a young student, has any links... Read The Article
One way out to make it an even playing field is to make it mandatory for hindi speaking states to introduce one non hindi language as third language in schools.In this way both S.Indian n N.Indians students will have even playing field.
But even if this idea is put forth.....will the hindi speaking masses accept this idea?Wont they resist by giving the pretext of One more burden on their already pressurised child to perform well in exams at school? Wont they resist by saying that Why on earth they should learn a language even though they may never require it untill n unless thay make a visit to S.India or East India??
PS-If any body's response is//there r more subjects in the examination like maths,GK (where marks can be scored)etc...still i wud like to remind that in govt exams even 1 mark can make the difference.So even playing field need to be ensured.
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 13:36 )
Abhishek M
Before making Hindi as a national language allow me to present a few issues as a non hindi speaker which may arise n need to be addressed
1.If Hindi is made a national language,students of non Hindi speaking states would have to learn 3 languages as subjects-
a.State Language or Mother toungue b.English(Of Course!!!) c.Hindi
On the other hand the hindi speaking states students have to learn only 2 languages as subjects.These r hindi n english.
In Other words,it means that the burden of study will be one subject more on non hindi state students.
One more reason for resisting hindi is-
Although pvt companies have made huge inroads n provide employment..still govt jobs r often preferred n they provide the most employement oppurtunities in India.For the 8th standard pass to Phd Students...from defence jobs to administrative jobs,from jobs in railways to civil services.In fact the union govt of India is the largest employer..even now!!
However the language of the examination for all these jobs is either hindi or english.Most of the union govt jobs are grabbed by north Indians.
Why??Consider this......
A north Indian candidate appearing for a clerical job,hawaldar post in defence orlower post administrative job generally writes his examination in hindi.Hindi happens to be his mother toungue as well so naturally his grasp over the language is comaparitively strong than a south Indian candidate who wiill write his exam in english or even hindi!!!
Even if hindi is made the national language,the general grasp of a north Indian over hindi wud be much better than a non hindi speaker bcos hindi happens to be the mother toungue of the north indian as well.So imagine the condition of a candiadate who writes his exam in his mother toungue n another candiadate who writes his examination in his second language(hindi or english).
Who has the most chance of scoring..both in written n interview??
These issues need to be addressed as well.
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 13:35 )
I do not agree with you that if you are a natural speaker, you have a better grasp over the language. Having been bought up in Mumbai, I have moved to london to pursue my further education. I studied Hindi, English, Marathi, Gujarati, and Arabic (script). In London, I study alongside people who were bought up speaking English and yet get less marks than all the Indian colleagues. I believe in an increasing globalised world we need to adapt to every language. I have always been proud of Hindi, and do believe that whatever language becomes the official language of Inida we should all whole heartedly embrace that language.
( Posted by Hussain on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 14:25 )
Dear Hussain...You said correctly. I donot know why people are fighting here...the more u learn about others culture....more u will know.
You know India will never be superpower...because still we like to see ourself as Hindu...Muslim and then think oh... I am Bihari...I am Gujuu...I am tamil and so on.
See how these people are fighting with each other...North Indian donot like south and vice versa.
Oh... God...save this country. Once we overcome this biased attitude...India will be the best.
My all friends in this forum...think the way Hussain said.
( Posted by KK on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 17:51 )
Good, from now on, the hindi speaking BIMARUs must learn at least one south or north eastern language for national integration :)
( Posted by arun on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 04:42 )
chanakya
The hatred for Hindi stems from the portryal of affluence of Hindi speaking in numerous TV serials and movies....don't worry I have seen Southies,Bengalis are also jostling with each other to come to the centre stage through Hindi..watch those numerous sa re gama type programme in TV and then you would understand what I am saying.Recently in December I was in Darjeeling...there I found that those simple hill folks are singing Hindi songs and not Kancha re...or English songs which they used to sing 20 years back..
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 13:26 )
Sanjeev
Hi freinds,
The writer has been highly prejudiced and he had been highly illogical. He had also mixed two issues of migration and hindi hating. In Assam, if this is only against hindi, then there shd not have been violence against bengalis, bodo, manipuris; in Tamilnadu, no fight against kannadaiga shd be there. Secondly whetehr migration shd be allowed or not. Those who r against migration shd ask for anti migration throughout. It can not be that malyalees can work all over but biharis can not. And they shd also say that they disapprove Indians going to US/Europe for for work under same logic. I do not think north indians will have much problem if there is total non-migration. At least I know many of industrial towns / collieries/ hospitals with lot of migrants from other sates. Since no body kills them, it does not mean there is not an issue. As far as BIMARU states are concerned it is there own problems and they do not need any help from others. Just being sarcastic, for most of south Indians even their Gods stay in North India like Shiva / Vishnu. Pl throw ban them.
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 13:09 )
Shiva stays in China and not in North India
( Posted by Shiva on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 13:23 )
Vineet
Like everyone else on this great land we all speak, we give arguments, counter arguments, reasons and list of bad things but no one looks or tries a way out of it. Hate is like Love as both come from heart and both have their reasons. i saw comments from our fellow countrymen who all are someone either Tamilian, Andhraite, bengalee etc....but no one was brave to accept the fact that what one is depends only on the place he lives. i was a bengalee when i was in Calcutta, i was an Andhri when i was in Hyderabad but all along i was Indian. we should respect each n every language. The only reason hate gets germinated is to counter protect itself from extinction from a larger alien. we should try to develop and sustain all languages to try to train our generation to live in hormony. two people need not be same to be in LOVE
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 12:48 )
Triton
Hindi must be driven out of south india and East India and it shud be preserved where it belongs,to BIMARUs who are the true Indians
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 12:35 )
Man...u r sick....... Again u r giving regional flavour in ur talk....why u r jst concentrated in BIMARU...when we r talking @ whole country.....if u r so proud to be true indian as being part of BIMARU....then u shd be proud of other things as well....as highest birth rate.....lowest literacy rate... largest violence precentage....these r the hurdles to our countries survival.....
Are u still proud to say and stick to BIMARU...come out of regional aspect man....
( Posted by AshutoshZ on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 12:57 )
hindi is also a "regional language" mr. ashutosh.
If it was "national", ppl wont be fighting about it :)
( Posted by arun on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 04:43 )
rightly said man ........ thats the place they deserve
( Posted by fearless on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 13:02 )
And you deserve to be in the gutters of India mr fearless. just rehash your basics and you will come to know why India is developing the way it is. We are one nation and there is nothing like they and us ... it is WE ... unless you change this attitude we may have more kashmirs, naxalite zones, bodolands, khalistans etc etc. Change your thinking amd define .."What is India" .. till the time you answer this question to yourself you will have the same feelings that you expressed. OK lets do one thing ... forget Hindi ... give me another Language that can be the national language without any protest from anywhere and without any association with a Particular region. You may not approve of people from the "BIMARU" states migrating to your state. But why do you create a fuss if people form India are insulted in other countries. Well the reason is the same coming from somewhere else to take my job
( Posted by storada on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 13:52 )
English as link language
Every language as "Official language" for the states concerned
Center protects and promotes minority languages.
( Posted by arun on Friday , January 19, 2007 at 11:15 )
Dont know about South but I am from eastern part of India and I do support Hindi.... I have learned 3 langauges , mother tongoue , Hindi, English and do not find any problem... So I love Hindi....
Yea offcourse there is problem for the ppl in south India to learn Hindi as it is very different from these four langauges... So it needs to be addressed ... Infact I will suggest there should be 4 langauges in syllabus.... 1.Mother Tongoue 2. Hindi 3. English 4. A south Indian Language
As I am from east and settled in Bangalore and finding difficulty in learning Kannad , but if I would have learned any of south Indian Langauge during school Hoping I could have learned Karnnad easily
( Posted by prakash on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 13:57 )
Amit
Do you anything to write which is constructive in nature, drawing people to conversation not confrontation, driving minds to do something or propel them to think and act rather than provoking people and their sentiments. U r disgusting.
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 12:35 )
Paran
I am born and brought up in Tinsukia, which is nowadays in the news for all the violence against the Hindi-speaking people. I have a question to ask. This is a historic place once ruled by a dynasty called the Muttocks. In fact, they ruled till just about 300 years back. And mind you, this part of India had never come under the Mughals. Now, Tinsukia is what people call 'mini-Bihar'. Over the years, Biharis have taken over everything here -- the land, the shops, the big business, the factories everything. The people of these lands, the Muttocks, have long gone to the peripheries. Now, Assamese doesn't work in this place. This is Assam's Mumbai, but you cannot even by a pencil or rise a rickshaw if you don't know Hindi. Tell, me will you allow Lucknow to be taken over by the Tamils or Chennai to be taken over by the Bengalis this way?
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 12:09 )
Mr Paran you are not addressing the right issue. Bihari's or for that matter Hindi speaking people did not take over everythimg. The bigger issue is that the local residents were at that point of time not willing to do enough to counter the competition form these guys. Your logic is the same as today Foreign cola companies have taken over the India market. We can not see Indian companies thriving ... they are thrown to the margins ... we should kill all people working in these companies to allow our companies to flourish. Man this is a foolish idea. because even giants like these have not been able to do much in Goa ... where the local cola people formed a cartel, stopped undercutting and have been abel to keep these companies at bay. So the issue is not whether anyone will allow tamilians to be the front runners in lucknow ... if they have the capability ... if they do everything right ... no one can and no one will stop them. As a Tamilian in Lucknow I can say one thing ... When I came here I did not know hindi ... people here took pains to understand english and help me out in whatever I wanted ... this is true ... today I speak in Tamil with my freinds in the City and guess what ... people around do not want to kill us ... they do not even bother .. if they do not hate tamil ... we have no reasons to hate Hindi
( Posted by strado on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 14:02 )
NA
I am a Tamilian living in Bangalore for the past 3 years. My mother tongue being urdu, I am very much comfortable with Hindi. In Bangalore I can simply survive with tamil and Hindi. But I learned (in fact learning) Kannada and try to speak in Kannada to the maximum. This is because that I strongly believe that one should respect the local culture and language if you are migrant.
But I have never seen any of my fellow Indians from the Northern part of the country have the attitude to learn the local language and respect the culture. It obviously makes the localites to feel that their land is being culturally polluted by the outsiders and the politicians get the mileage of it. The migrants take the localites for the granted for the only reason that they are multilingual.
And my dear fellow Indians from the Northern part of the country have an hatred towards the states like Tamilnadu (But they would love to eat Idli,Sambar) where they cannot survive without the knowledge of local language. Thanks to the great leaders like Annadurai and Karunanidhi who did not allow the Hindi Imperialists to elevate in Tamilnadu. I would thank to the Anti-hindi movement which helped to preserve the cultural heritage of Tamilnadu though I hate politicians.
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 12:06 )
I agree. In Kolkata you will find many North Indian living for decades without knowing even a single Bengali word. On the contrary the South Indian community can speak bengali even better than Bengalees.
( Posted by Shovan Sen on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 16:24 )
Smitahas Das
The ambiguity centering Hindi as the official language is rightly pointed out. Twenty to thirty years down the line when India will be on the threshold of attaining the state of a developed country, the language problem is sure to crop up and then may be there will be no other way but to divide the country into separate countries on the basis of their languages.
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