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
The article is not well balanced and the author made comments without any substantial proof. Hindi is more used and respected in Andhra, as far as I know! In which other movies do you find songs that are sung in their native language and Hindi as well. I can name quite few Telugu movie songs which also have Hindi lyrics. Can you name one Hindi song which has Telugu/Tamil/Kannada/Malayalam lyrics and a movie story which can atleast acknowledge the mere presence of these states in the country? Almost in all the movies the Hero and the Heroin are Hindi speaking. Was the South ever shown on the Bollywood screen? If I can add a little more, the recent Indian Film Festival looked more like a Bollywood festival and the other artistes from the South were completely ignored. They weren't even acknowledged due to which stars like Chiranjeevi had to air their strong views. Well, I know its not only all about movies. Had to make my argument taking that example! So, what finally one can conclude is that NO ONE HATES HINDI. Its just the attitude of the Hindi speaking people that people find it distasteful. Please write articles with a balanced viewpoint.
( Posted: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 12:28 )
Sourabh
An excert from an article by Mr.Arun Sadhu, President of the prestigious Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Sahitya Sammelan appeared in the Times of India, dated 17th Jan, 2007
Why Can't the southerners be accomodating like the Maharashtrians?
Most Marathi people readily speak Hindi or English with people of other languages—not in Mumbai alone but even in the remotest villages. Maharashtrians have never tried to impose their language or culture on others. That is why people from Marwad, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala, etc have settled in Maharashtra for generations (not in Mumbai alone but in Pune, Satara, Kolhapur, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Chandrapur, etc.) and have hardly felt the need to learn the local language. They have prospered without learning Marathi. Forget politics for the moment, and do a survey of Maharashtra and you will understand just how tolerant Marathi people are. One might even say there is no other linguistic group in this world that so readily discards its mother tongue to please the migrant and speak in a language the latter can understand. You will not find this phenomenon in Bengal, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Kerala or elsewhere. And friends unlike some of you who studied just 2 languages in School, most of us adopted to English, Hindi and Marathi with a fuss. There are more important things on which we should focus than just fighting on language.
( Posted: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 11:47 )
Hi I feel language should just be medium to communication.. Be it any language doesn't matter. But we can't have Tamil as National Language as majority doens't know Tamil and I personally feel its complex :). Now one language has to be national language as its easy for smaller group to learn the national language easily along with their own language..
I am from BITS Pilani and do remember myself watching Tamil movies in my college where majority people were Tamil even though I cudn't understand.. But still i love the songs even though not aware of its meaning..
Keep life simple and be happy.. No use of fighting over these useless things.. Lets everyone coexist. I personally never want Tamil to be sidelined and every language has right to exist. But Tamil people should also not say they will not learn Hindi.. Its really bad.. They are going to miss lots of good movies for sure:)
( Posted by Krishna Singh on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 13:05 )
iam not definetely missing the bollywood movies.
all of them are crap and copied.
( Posted by sudarshan on Monday , January 22, 2007 at 13:20 )
True Indian
Why u people are cursing each other ...be indian yaar.. Speak in ur own mother tongue ...who is stopping u ...who r we to decide which language is good and which is bad...sometimes its difficult to manage but still we r managing ...do we don't north indian and south indian as friends...south indians are there in north so called hindi speaking state and north indians are there in south and majority of them are leading their life peacefully why u people are creating hatred among ur self just because of language.....we india as a country have other major issues to resolve concentrate on that and do something constructive ...tell me one thing who has stopped u people ...from speaking ur mother tongue...just because one mad person has written something u people have started hating each other its....shame ................grow up....and do something for your country ....and if you love ur mother tongue so much do something to make it popular spread ..it let more people know bengali, tamil, telugu and hindi....enjoy madi
( Posted: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 11:47 )
Sourabh
Hey Tamilian brothers stop behaving like the stiff upper lip Britishers. Tamil is a classical language and none challenges it. The point is that why oppose Hindi. If the Southerners can speak English - The erstwhile colonial language then why not Hindi, its still a language spoken in the country. No one is forcing you to speak Hindi if you don't wanna speak it. Just don't stop the use of Hindi in the southern states, what do you want to achieve by doing this.
( Posted: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 11:25 )
Hi Sourabh,
We do not oppose or stand against the growth of hindi in the South.. we are only against hindi being forced upon us.. We are, by birth, very intelligent ppl who know how to survive in any place in the world.. and learning hindi will help us.. no doubt regarding it.. i know hindi to a good extent.. i enjoy hindi songs.. mukesh, rafi are still among my favorites..
but if u make it the national language.. or make it compulsory in any way or form.. then we will fight against it.. do you see our stand clearly now brother.. its like this.. The mozart of madras.. ARR will make music for hindi films.. will sing in hindi very beautifully.. but have u ever seen him speak in hindi.. now there lies the intelligence of the South Indian..
( Posted by Karthink on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 13:00 )
sourabh, we are NOT asking the hindi speaking ppl to stop speaking hindi but we do NOT want it !
( Posted by arun on Friday , January 19, 2007 at 10:43 )
meantares
Hindi is the official language of India because of the dominance of north Indians in politics. It is not what people want. Because of Hindi, all other languages are dying out and the new generations are not even learning their own language. Because of the dominance of Hindi speakers everywhere, I cannot even speak my own language in my state and city. And if there is a Hindi speaker between us, then we are supposed to make him feel comfortable by not speaking our language. Well, why don't you speak our language smart Alec? And do you stop speaking Hindi when non-Hindi speaking people are in your midst? You people deserve to be whacked hard.
( Posted: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 07:10 )
Shyam
I am from South India. I like languages in general. I speak fluent Hindi. I had always felt it ok to speak in Hindi till the June 2006.But today I have a hatred towards the mentality of the so called "only Hindi speaking" community
Reason: I have few N.Indian roomies. All all of them make fun about south Indian languages and south Indian culture. I tried requesting them not to speak bad about languages. The response 'chaltha hain re... its fun'.
Sad indeed!
( Posted: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 06:18 )
Ravinder Reddy
We have a cultural divide within us wherein if you travel a couple of hours the language changes. You feel like you reached different country. What is there in National Language, when two citzens of same country cant communicate in one common language.
Telugu films are watched all over the world, they are much widley accepected than Hindi movies. Our Rajnikath is a Super hero in Japan,Singapore, all Eastern World. His movies are super/duper hits in these countries,eventhough they cant understand Tamil.
Bollywood thinks that represent India. If compare with two South India Film Industris(Tamil and Telugu Industry), it very small.
Language is simple, its medium of oral communication.
( Posted: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 05:15 )
Dear Mr.Reddy,
I am a great fan of Rajnikanth, even though I am not a Tamilian. But one doesn't need to know Tamil to understand Rajni's movies ;). Just enjoy the action.
Facts: Muthu was the only movie that ran in Japan 5-6% of the Singapore population is of Tamil origin (Indians + Sri Lankans) most of who went to Singapore as labourers under the British. So that's why it does run in Singapore. No Singaporean Chinese or Malay watches Tamil movies.
Moreover, I went to see the Shah Rukh starer Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna in Singapore and there were a lot of ethinic Malay and Indonesians who had come to watch that movie.
( Posted by Sourabh on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 12:10 )
Mr Sourabh, This is unfortunatelyteh state of perception of Indian by the international community. To them India starts in the heartland of (Rajasthan, UP, Bihar, Delhi, Mumbai) and ends there. Most that has been written about India in the early 20th century deals only with N.India. I bet the history books tht you have read have solely concentrated on the kingdoms of teh Indo gangetic plains only. Do you know that there were more flourishing kindoms south, have you heard of the Chera, Cholas and Pandiyas. And do you know that the Angkor Vat and and the spread of Hinduism in these areas were not by labourers who were moved by the British but early invasions by the kings down south to these areas. Infact there are very old Arabic communities that traded with these kings even before the moghuls set foot in India. There are still some sect of muslims who trace thier lineage to those traders. So please know the history well before you spoke. This is the problem with the Film Boards too, Indian movies start and end with Bollywood whereas the more critical movies have been from the other states, most notably Malayalam. All these comedies that you find Akshay Kumar and Paresh Rawal are actually remakes of old Malayalam hits.
People just dont say that we are against Hindi, as much as there are communities of Gujju's Bongs and Tamils there are also such communities that live in Chennai, example Sowcarpet, this not new but some families there have been living for more than 100 years. Why dont you think the other way, no such hatred is shown to people who speak Telugu or Kannada in Tamil Nadu, infact they have deeper penetration even into rural tamil nadu. Please understand all this before you make your judgements.
( Posted by Mouli on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 16:22 )
Sivaram
Good point and interesting discussion. May be more than a small part of the blog is true. I personally do not have a problem with Hindi being our national language, but it might be helpful to have a third language learning encouraged in Hindi speaking states to make them understand that even non-hindi languages exist, as in most non-hindi states, Hindi is taught as a third language (I learned Hindi in my school for twelve years along with my mothertongue Telugu;my wife is hindi speaking). Before any one calls non-hindi people regionalists, I wish to remind that more non-hindiites speak hindi than hindi-speaking people learning/speaking non-hindi language, even if they stay in Assam or Andhra or Tamil Nadu. I hope these small issues can get settled by understanding within ourselves and I certainly do not wish to see words like 'ethnic', ''regionalists' killing the spirit of Indianism.
( Posted: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 04:48 )
Raj
Why should a Hindi speaker have superiority complex over the linguistic speaker? And how do you know that a Hindi speaker does not speak the language of the land where they migrate? If people hate Hindi then I think they have 2 reasons to do it: 1) Hindi has become more popular now than it was when we got independence. The reason for this being Bollywood and N number of different Hindi channels. 2) The Indian politicians are well known for raising the people emotions by making them insecure about certain things. We Indians also think more with our heart than with our brains. This make the politician job more easier.
( Posted: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 04:30 )
Satvic
Hey, whats with some of the comments claiming Lord Shiva's lineage? Creepy guys! No wonder Lord Shiva resides on top of Mount Kailash diametrically opposite to their weather system, fearing such creepy mere mortals.
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