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
I think the writer has a valid point. We should be very considerate when we are dealing with areas like J & K and the North East. We have a lot of Hindi speakers in a mumber of non Hindi speaking states. They invariably coem from sttaes like UP, Bihar and Orissa.. This is because in these states development has taken a backseat. In addition they are Bengali speaking labour who I suspect come from Bangla Desh They invariably take lower level jobs like labourers and other unskilled jobs etc. and are willing to work for low salaries. This also deprives the uneducated people in the non Hindi states of jobs and a means of livelihood. I dont see any solution unlesss states like Bihar and UP develop fast. This could be difficult as law and order does not exist and crime is a fact of life. The least we could do is to control migration of workers to the North East who are already suffering from the influx of Bangla Desh migrants. Regards Rajmanohar
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 11:50 )
I wonder with this much of knowledge you should be our PM OR PRESIDENT OR IN BIG POSITION YOU SHOULD HOLD.
( Posted by KK on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 12:06 )
Dear KK, Thanks for your mail. I am trying to tell what is good for the country and how the Assamese people have been deprived of their livelihood. The Goverment is planning to erect barbed wire fence with Bangla Desh 50 years after Independence. The Chinese erected the Great Wall centuries ago to keep out unwanted aliens. We should alo have erected our barbed wire fence 50 years ago. Regarding Biharis and others taking away the lions share of the unskilled jobs from others I think it is a a national problem which needs to be solved. The states like Bihar and UP should start developing and for that the first thing is that they should be law and order in those states.Bihar has taken the first step by electing Nitish Kumar and one hopes UP will follow soon. Regards Rajmanohar
( Posted by T P Rajmanohar on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 15:26 )
Sourabh
The above comments clearly show how India is slowly disintegrating. I am a Bengali, I am a Tamil, I am an Oriya...is what I have been reading. Where are the Indians in this crowd. Tamil or Malyalam maybe a classical language, but don't show disrespect for Hindi. Banning Hindi from Karnataka and Tamil only goes to show that these states are a part of India as they have no alternative, given a choice they too will claim independence. Tamil Nadu I am sure will after some years seek merger with the Tamil Eelam and a seperate nationhood. Why can't these states be forward thinking like Maharashtra. This is the only state that has not opposed Hindi ever. People who reply shall give me a lame excuse that the cosmopolitian culture prohibits it, but if the government wants it can do it. Even at the school level for non-marathi vernacular schools, Marathi is not forced. Marathi is happy to play a second language to Hindi and yet be proud of its language. Dear Mr.Karunanidhi and all my Tamil, Kannada, Bengali, Oriya and Telgu bretheren, please don't critize any language. WE are Indians, so blend into this society. So what if Hindi is spoken blend into it. If you can adopt the colonial language of English as the most supreme language after Tamil, so can you adopt Hindi and stop this farce of now dividing people on linguistic basis.
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 11:41 )
Saurabh...well said man..... Whatever u said is perfectl correct....we have to respect to our national language....Just want to give one example....few months back 5 members of french client came to our office for inspection of work and deliverables...while interacting amongst themselves..they used to talk in french....one of the member saw me talking to my team in english....n simply ask me that dont u respect ur language....when u r talking to ur own people..then what is the point talking in english..its ok if u talk with us becoz we dnt understand ur language..n he told us... at our firm we ensure that while working internally we speak in french...by this way we can understand better as its our natural language....n we can keep our language alive...
Cant we learn something out of this?
( Posted by AshutoshZ on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 12:07 )
You are very right Sourabh...I donot understand why educated people talks like this. I am myself a bengali and we are in Bihar for last 70 years found nothing wrong about Hindi language, it never came to my mind as why we need Hindi.
Infact we all Indian should learn Hindi apart from knowing our own language...it reallu hurts me when we see some is calling I am Tamil...I am bengali...or I am Oriya.
We are Indian and we all should learn Hindi
( Posted by KK on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 11:59 )
Hindi is unfortunately became national language with just 1 vote. This language is used only in few north indian states.
India is formed just 250 years before after the british rule, but Tamil or dravidian is a languages which we were using it for morethan 5000 years.
After Independence Hindi became national language for cheap political reasons but without any quality. Anyhow let it be.
But don't expect and impose then same to anyother non-hindi speaking states. We are not against Hindi, but against impiosition of Hindi.
We are learning English to communicate to the world, which is enough to communicate to all(hindian or non-hindian). Why we need to unnecessarily learn hindi again?.
Lets everybody learn their own mother tounge and respect other language and don't impose your language on others ot don't expect others to learn Hindi unnecessarily.
Let all languages in 8th schedule be the national language of India, then only it'll be true democrativ country. Otherwise we con't stop the tragedies which are happening in Assom right now.
( Posted by Rajan on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 13:03 )
ur not against hindi, but do u know hindi? suppose if u require to travel to an hindi belt, what u wud do?
first goto orissa. u cant survive without hindi there.. do u know kannada to survive in bangalore?
seems other than tamil, u dont know any other language.
( Posted by sudarshan on Monday , January 29, 2007 at 12:53 )
Hi Sudarshan,
I don't know any language otherthan Tamil & English.
I have worked in Hyderabad for 3 years, and I have worked in Bangalore for 3 years.
To survive in Hyderabad and Kannada, I learn little bit of Telugu and Kannada, I didn't felt it tough because these are Dravidian languages and little bit similar to Tamil.
And I have been to Delhi, Noida, Shimla, Mumbai, Kolkata. I stayed around 1 week in every city. Even a signle moment I never felt that I missed Hindi, with English only I could survive.
May be if I need to stay long time and interior part of northern states, then I'll feel the difficulty, at that time I'll learn Hindi.
So it is not necessary to every Indian to learn Hindi. Based on the need and work environment, if he is going to work in North India, then he can learn, otherwise not required to learn Hindi. Only English is enough. Afterall Hindi is another regional language like other Indian languages.
I would like to ask the same question to you...
If a north Indian travel to Tamil nadu, what he would do? My answer for this is, he must learn the basic Tamil.
( Posted by Rajan on Monday , January 29, 2007 at 21:13 )
Hindi is not a tool to define one's patriotism. Even pakistanis speak hindi for that matter. But they are not indians, right? Everyone in this nation has full freedom to speak in his mother tongue or for that matter any language of his choice. Hindi should not be imposed in any non hindi speaking states. It should stay optional.
( Posted by The observer on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 13:53 )
This one is for Observer ... please observe carefully .... Pakistanis speak urdu and not hindi
For Rajan ... If India was formed 250 years ago and you have been speaking Tamil or dravidian since 5000 years ... how does it Matter ... not one is stopping you from using your mother tongue .... but please ... do not insult the national language ... going by youe logic there can be one of the two things 1. You mean to say that India is only 250 years old so you would not like to stay in India and stay in some kingdom of Vijayanagar 2. MGR is liked by more Tamilians than Mahatma Gandhi ... therefore the Father of the Nation For Tamils should be MGR
please firgive me if I understood your logic wrongly
( Posted by storada on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 14:13 )
storada,
For both of your questions, my answer is YES.
( Posted by Rajan on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 17:59 )
Pravaahan
Fools will accept Hindhi as the national language and no self-respecting, dignified person could consider Hindhi as the national language. The ongoing struggles across India in many states is a bare fact that the nationality question in India remains at stake. Myself, being a Thamizhan, and tamil being one of the classical language, classical living language is most excellent one based on science and that it will live long.
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 10:51 )
I wonder how an educated person like you talks like this. Hindi is a common language and if you know Hindi you can even interact in GULF countries and in many places outside India.
Tell me except Tamil people who knows TAMIL...
Sorry to say like this..but this is a fact.
I am myself a Bengali advocates for Hindi in national level.
( Posted by KK on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 11:41 )
Dont try to criticize tamil U say that even in Gulf u can speak Hindi. All over the world we can spaek English and survive. If i come to your poinbt what is the need to learn Hindi other than the National Language status. Do the peoples in North India give respect to the south indians. I have been to Delhi twice before 2 yrs. They look us a inferior people and say us as madrasis. Why we need to learn Hindi inspite if they dont treat us as their brothers and neglect us. Now south is growing faster with pace. If u go 20 yrs back this was much worse as i have heard it. With Tamil u can survive in Tamil Nadu, Bangalore and Kerala. With Hindi alone u cant communicate in Chennai. Only very few peoples in Airport and Railway station speaks hindi. U need to know atleast English or Tamil. I am not arguing here for my language. I am proud to be a tamilian and we have BBC Tamil also and we are recogonized globally. Tamil is one of the official language in Singapore, Srilanka, Malaysia etc.
( Posted by Selva on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 12:15 )
Come on,you people give me a break.
Do you know I am a Bengali,who knows how to speak Hindi....currently living in Chennai....trying to pick up Tamil. So maybe one or two years down the line I would know "moon" languages(moon means 3 in Tamil....correct me if I am wrong)- Bengali,Hindi and Tamil
Still if you ask my primary identity it would be "INDIAN"
And you people are getting one thing wrong,"Not knowing a language dosen't mean hating it"
I may not know French,German and hundreds of other languages out there,but dosen't mean I hate them.
( Posted by Mayukh on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 13:41 )
Its not moon...its moona. I stay in gulf and surrounded by southindain people..and I am very much ok...
( Posted by KK on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 17:40 )
The Primary reason for Bangaladesh was Urdu imposition by West Pakistan on East Pakisatan..
The Bengali people loved their mother tongue ( Amar Sona Bangla ) and fought againgst the West Pakis ....
So Let us say - all people love thier mother language..
So not impose Hindi on Tamil, Telegu, Tulu, Kannada,Malayalam, Kodava, Konkani ( we have to preserve our Mother Language ! )
( Posted by Sen on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 18:40 )
And for all of your knowledge, there is BBC Bengali also.....and BBC in a host of other regional languages of India....so wat? I feel all ,by all I mean each and every regional language of India is great in its own right and there is no need for some foreign broadcasting media like BBC to justify that
( Posted by Mayukh on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 13:52 )
Hey KK, If your advocating for Hindi and not fo Bengali means that you lost your great identity and sefl respect. And trapped inside the deadly Hindi.
( Posted by Rajan on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 18:05 )
I am advocating for Hindi since I know how beneficial it is and I love my mother tongue.
I donot expect people around the world speaking in Bengali but I know many people in Gulf speaks Hindi. Many of them donot speak english but they speak Hindi.
HINDI is a must but at the same time we should know our own language. It is better if we can learn other language culture and there is no limit of learning.
Thank you..
( Posted by KK on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 21:22 )
The same would apply to you too... Dont throw stones from the glass house.
( Posted by Pravaahan on Saturday , December 08, 2007 at 17:28 )
Pravaahan...I do not agree at all to whtever u said....I am sorry to say but when u cant pronounce Hindi properly and pronouncing it as Hindhi then what else expected from u man....come out of regionality...and make our motherland a betterplace to live in......
( Posted by AshutoshZ on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 11:58 )
Hindi is nothing but Urdu written in an a crappy script called Devanagari.
( Posted by Triton on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 12:23 )
Ashutosh, can you speak good tamil for that matter? If hindi ppl are giving wierd looks because a person has regional accent, its ofcourse going to discourage others from learning hindi. appreciate the effort the south indian has put into learning the language.
I have seen this so many times that north indians never try to learn a south indian language. i studied in kendriya vidyalaya in chennai and hyderabad for 10 yrs. not a single north indian classmate of mine could speak telugu or tamil. never even made an attempt to learn it. the diametrically opp is the case with south indians who were so comfy with hindi. hindi speaking ppl generalize all south indians as (kaala) madraasees... thre more to SI that just Madras....
( Posted by KS on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 13:10 )
Yes i agree to KS when he says that most Northies steteotype southIndians as madrasi. For most North Indians(educated or not), any person from south of Vindhyas is a "Madrasi". I can bet that most North Indians(including educated ones) do not even know that 4 languages are spoken in South India.
If people are beating their chest proclaiming themselves to be Indians; then let them first know about India; appreciate India in totality and not see India through the lens of language. Indulging in deja-vu just for the sake of it is utter crap!!
( Posted by Pappu gota on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 13:58 )
Triton bhaiyya Man its depends on person how he looks at this....I am not blaiming ur ascent problem but the attitude with which pravahaan blaim hindi.....n tell u dnt blaim other part of India n show ur superiority tht u can learn more languages...its ur weakness tht u r saying explicitly tht u hav learnt hindi...man its must tht each of us has to respect our languange n learnt it....to answer ur quest...man I can read,write fluently in marathi,hindi,english,gujarati....n if in case i will come across need to learn tamil i will do tht....now tell me can u speak marathi n gujarati fluently...I can with added advantage is i m fluent in Hindi as well....n i do not need to tell it explicitly...this is wht the difference is in ur n others attitude.....
By telling tht i can speak n he can not ur again going to regionality..which is the only cause of less acceptance of our national language by kind of peopls like u.......
bhaiyya abhibhi samajh mein nahi a raha hai to rashtra basha mein samajhaunga....
( Posted by AshutoshZ on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 19:15 )
mbc
Being a Bengali, I feel pain to see the slow death of my mother tongue. But it is inevitable, nobody can stop it, only can be delayed forcibly. Because of need of modern era English is must needed in our diversified country to earn livelihood, but hindi will be there as much of the people do not have access to learn English. It will also progress due to movement of people who do not know English. In this way it is becoming language to express ourselves and getting importance in regional language speaking area. Along with that vast central government machinery is forcing us to learn it. In city inter state marriage is also plying role to expand the hindi and English since the couple and their child speak either in hindi or English. Can it be reversed? I am not sure, but some step can be taken, like use of language at respective state in all government office along with English, make state language is compulsory at all type school as a 2nd subject. Only hope about Bengali, it will not die easily as it nation language of our neighboring country, but in WB it is approaching to death.
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 10:34 )
Rishi
Respect for local language and culture is a must. People however use Hindi as the linking language of the masses. Even today in any southern state if you want to have interaction with the masses you would have a better chance to do so in Hindi than in English (Thanks to Doordarshan maybe) English is a Foreign language and is good for interacting internationally but at the national level I think Hindi still is the most spoken/understood language. The hatred comes only when people see themselves marginalised.. and not just culturally. After all the loudest propagandist for cultural marginalisation are not the Rich or even Middle class people. The solution to this issue is by bringing progress and prosperity at the grass root levels. That will take people away from fighting over culture and language and unite and act as one single Nation that we are.
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 09:52 )
Fact
Avestan and Sanskrit are old persian languages. Zorostroism is full of avestan language having Gathas, our pundits ie.,Brahmins copied everything from that and chaged some here and there and said them as vedas and they copied everything from Urdu and wrote in Devanagari script and said it as Hindi. There is no language called as Hindi, it is nothing but Urdu and Sanskrit is copy of avestan language.
Like I can write "aap kaise hein" and call it as Hinglish by writing in Romanized Hindi, similarly they wrote Urdu in Devanagari and copied Avestan and called it Sanskrit. Copy cats.
ENGLISH MUST BECOME A NATIONAL LANGUAGE and let them have their own mother tongue for their interest. HINDI MUST NOT BE ENFORCED. All north Indians came from Iran and they confused everyone with Hindi, vedas etc etc
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 09:35 )
The facts by Mr Fact are quite farsical.
So sanskrit is a persial language and hindi was born out of urdu.
You Sir should come settle in the US of A. Cuz over here we have a prez who hears some alternative version of events and holds on to them as facts.
The cruz of the issue to me is why the non hindi speakers should love hindi in the first place. Can hindi speakers recite the list of other indian languages that they "love"?
Love is over-rated. If hindi speakers and non hindi speakers can get along well enough to do business together, then Mr Saikia's non sense becomes irrelevant.
Enough proseletizing. Dakshin bharatiya hindi prachar sabha nonsense. Some religious let their followers pray their god in any language. So should be Bharati. It can be praised or sullied in any language. hindi itself has changed every 100 years. It shouldnt be imposed. If it is, then i'd hate it.
( Posted by nonsensical fact on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 10:31 )
Really? You seems to have a great knowledge.So live with it.
( Posted by Aryan on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 10:41 )
Mr Fact, you are so indoctrinated with the western missionary theory of Aryan invasion the hatred shows in your language. Recent genetic study show that the population of India both south and north are the longest stangnant gene pool in the world and these people have been here as long as anybody else. Please do a google. You can hate brahmins all you like, but the ancient indians gave the world the greatest in philosophy, science and spirituality. The vedas says first validate and then accept unlike the mid-east born religions which say this is the only truth others are false and controlled by mafia like leadership which does not allow man to think.
( Posted by mahesh on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 11:01 )
lun-dhan
When in Rome, be a Roman. Learn local the language, respect local traditions, be one with them and see the difference. Hindi speakers should learn to adapt and stop complaining.
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 08:41 )
Saurabh A
"Correct observation, but incorrect inference", that’s how I will sum up this article. The best way to look at this issue is to study the economic class of the immigrants. As article rightly points out (but loses it pretty quickly) is that illiterate poor class of immigrants will find it hard to learn new language (not 'coz they are poor but jus because all they care abt is to feed themselves rather than anything else), ultra rich higher class just because of their education are more comfortable in English than anything else, and then there is middle class- they do tend to learn the language of the land. Its just that because of the economic developments of the states most of the Hindi speaking immigrants are poor whereas immigrants to the Hindi land are middle class- thus the wrong impression that Hindi speakers have a feeling of superiority (as a Hindi speaker I can vouch that this is the most stupid thing I have ever read in my life!) Hindi something like English is also an evolving language- it has already encompassed Bhojpuri, Awadhi etc. and now you can find occasional Guajarati, Bengali words in it. And that’s the way it should and will be- puritans will keep complaining of the dying of Hindi but language has to move with the times. Not just Hindi, but hating any other language is like hating somebody's mother. I believe that my mother is best that does not means your mother is not- every person has the right and duty to regard their language as the best, but not to ridicule others language. "Love your language and respect others"! Jai Hind!
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 08:41 )
brilliant!!! I feel the observers like the writer of this blog are still analysing the India of 1900.
( Posted by Amitabh on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 09:23 )
Vikram Singh
Why u people are cursing hindi speaking people...hindi speaking people don't have any superiority complex ..yes it is a fact that they can adapt to any condition and live in any part of India and survive ...which others lack ...they dont want to move out from their shell they feel protective ...one major fact is most of the non hindi speaking people feel comfortable ....in Hindi speaking state as these state dont have any rules and regulation for non hindi speaking people.....why to curse hindi ...in tamilnadu and karnataka its very difficult to survive ...if u don't know kannada or tamil ...so should we ...declare Karnataka ...and tamilnadu as different country...fact is Hindi is very easy to learn....atleast ...people understand hindi...one more thing...if u dont want to speak hindi dont speak...dont watch hindi movies dont watch hindi channels ....but by doing all this nothing special that u can acheive...one more thing only with tamil kannada & malyalam ...u cannot survive...try and see....
( Posted: Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 08:37 )
why are you blaming malayalam? Majority of the mallus know hindi & they don't have such discriminations towards hindi.
( Posted by menon on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 09:53 )
Yep. Dont blame mallus. Since I anyway am going Kerala in some time to see backwaters and am sure picking up bits and pieces of malayalam.
( Posted by vipin on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 10:07 )
Please don't confuse urself Mr. VIKRAM SINGH. We are all Indians and its not right to enforce any language upon another. If you like HINDI, speak it. I have my own mother tongue and I will always be proud to speak in that tongue. If I learn to speak in another language it only adds to my strength (I speak 5 languages) but if anyone were to enforce any other language on me - I WILL SEE THAT I DON"T SPEAK IT...!!! People all over India have their own lanugages & dialets. Learn to respect it. If you don't have your own lanugage but need the common language of HINDI to survive, that's ur choice but please don't generalise Indians from the south as just HINDI haters. We just love our mother tongue more than any other language and NO VIKRAM SINGH is going to change that with his so called mother tongue which happens to be spoken in the northern parts of India.
( Posted by True Blue Indian on Tuesday , January 16, 2007 at 12:08 )
who is forcing you to ...speak hindi don't speak...why u people have hatred towards hindi speaking people just because we can survive any where...and yes no Vikram Singh is going to take your mother tongue away from you.
You follow ur language and let us follow ours ...no need to fight over language ....and target hindi speaking people.
( Posted by vikram Singh on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 14:49 )
RBS
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