As a nation, we are familiar with false memories. Cricket is not our national sport. The lion is not our national animal. The argument and fervor around a national language — apart from being a political one — is also about history, culture, and the elusive idea of unity.
The Constitution is largely silent on the issue of a national language. The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution makes note of 22 regional languages, including Hindi. Hindi is limited to particular regions in the country — just like Bengali, Gujarati, Odia, or Kannada.
Further, the lack of an explicit notification stating that India has no national language led to confusion and space for falsehoods to thrive. Another legal bias is reflected in Article 2 of the Constitution and Section 7 of the Official Languages Act, , which allow Hindi-speaking states, such as Bihar and Rajasthan, to use Hindi in their respective high courts.
Although the Tamil Nadu government urged the Centre to make similar provisions for Tamil, the court rejected the petition, arguing that such a change would impact the transfer and posting of high-court judges across India. Experts have noted the elevation of Hindi in official use too. Railway tickets are only printed in Hindi and English and government websites rarely go beyond these two languages. In Delhi, examinations and courses are mostly offered in English and Hindi, although Urdu is an official language, too.
However, G. According to Devy, there are approximately 65 such languages. But even in these regions, research shows locals either speak in dialects associated with their communities or converse in a form of Hindi that is drastically different from the mainstream version. For instance, in Bihar, the Bhojpuri dialect or the mother tongue Maithili are more common; in Chattisgarh, people use a dialect known as Chattisgarhi.
There are also some historic issues at play here. In northern states, particularly rural areas, English is spoken by a small section of people. Experts have also ascribed the perpetuation of Hindi imposition to political rhetoric linked to a certain idea of nationalism. Today, the Hindi myth continues to be perpetuated because in all practical senses, Hindi acts as the common national language in urban settings. Moreover, its relevance is seen to be mostly limited to the Hindi hinterland.
Experts point out that over the years, the Census has subsumed several dialects such as Bhojpuri, Rajasthani, Haryanvi, Marwari, Chhattisgarhi and many others for administrative convenience, which artificially beefs up its share.
For the record, Hindi has about 60 regional dialects, many of which predate the language as well as the works of Tulsidas, Kabir and Amir Khusrow. Last but not the least, the huge budgetary allocation each year for promotion of Hindi as official language is the cause for deep-seated and widespread resentment. Is there a case for English as a middle ground? Given that India has still not been able to realise its dream of arriving at a single official language acceptable to every single citizen, and that English is the most-spoken language in an increasingly multicultural world, many push the case of making English the only official language.
There is a desire to learn English because people see value in doing so. According to experts, India boasts the largest population of English speakers in the world after the United States.
As per latest available Census data, nearly , people list English as their mother tongue, up from , in But a far greater proportion of the population is able to speak English as a second or third language, and this figure is mushrooming steadily. Not only is it an increasingly popular language choice, but the numbers of English-speakers are pretty evenly distributed across the country. According to experts, this gives English a leg-up over Hindi when it comes to serving as a pan-India link language.
After all, there are large parts of the country — especially in the south and the northeast — beyond the Hindi heartland, where Hindi-speakers are few and far between. Given that Hindi as an official language raises such an emotional and political maelstrom and the sheer number of other regional languages rule out effective communication across the country, there is arguably a strong case of picking English as the sole alternative.
However, this competitive advantage has been eroding in recent years with China, the Philippines and Malaysia heavily investing in the English language. A bigger problem is that English is almost exclusively the domain of urban dwellers in India. As already established by multiple large-scale testing initiatives, when children are taught in a language they do not understand, by teachers who themselves boast poor English skills, not only do the students fail to learn English, they do not learn anything else, either.
What does the law say about official languages? In , while passing the judgment on a public interest litigation PIL , the Gujarat high court observed that in India, although a majority of people have accepted Hindi as a national language, it's not officially the national language.
With this observation, the court refused to issue directions that packaged commodities must contain details about goods in Hindi.
Subsequently, several other high court judgments have delivered judgments in favour of mother tongues. For instance, in , the Patna high court ruled in favour of a petitioner fighting against the Bihar government to ensure primary school children in Maithili-speaking regions of the state were taught in the same regional language.
In June , the Supreme Court refused to interfere with the decision of Haryana government to enforce Hindi as official language in all subordinate courts and tribunals across the state. Last August, the apex court suggested that the Centre should amend the Official Languages Act, , to allow publication of official notifications in all the 22 scheduled languages, not just Hindi and English. Most recently, in September, the Madras high court made it clear that the Central government is duty-bound to communicate in English with those states that have not adopted Hindi as their official language.
Clearly the trend is slowly but surely moving towards linguistic equality. Read 0 Comment post a comment. Continue without login. Login from existing account Facebook Google Email.
All Comments Your Activity. We have sent you a verification email. To verify, just follow the link in the message. The menu button on the top left will clear 12 Nov , India What's holding our courts from filling up vacancies?
Madras High Court dismissing plea seeking special recruitment drive for the transgender community is a recent example of how the judiciary merely pays lip service and refuses to walk the talk on bringing a change Dushyant 11 Nov , India India-Pak: Should cheering for a sporting opponent be treated as a criminal act?
Two experts debate TNN 11 Nov , Historical and cultural processes and the linguistic affinity that exists in Indian languages led to the emergence of Hindi-Urdu or so-called Hindustani as the lingua franca of major areas of India long before its independence. Hindi was the language that was adopted by Indian leaders as a symbol of national identity during the struggle for freedom. Hindi has been used as a literary language since the twelfth century.
The development of prose, however, began only in the eighteenth century, which marks the emergence of Hindi as a full-fledged literary language. The modern representative of the corresponding Apabhamsa is Eastern Hindi, and the Chaurasia Apabhramsa of the middle Doab is the parent of Western Hindi. Eastern Hindi is bounded on the north by the language of Nepal, and on the west by various dialects of Western Hindi, of which the principal is Kanauji and Bundeli.
On the east, it is bounded by the Bhojpuri dialect of Bihari and by Oriya. On the south, it meets forms of the Marathi language. Western Hindi extends to the foot of the Himalayas on the north, south to the Jamuna valley, and occupies most of Bundelkhand and a part of central provinces on the east side.
The dialects are spoken in the regions of Bihar i. Now, all of these dialects are also covered under the term Hindi. Basic Linguistic Features: Hindi shares major linguistic characteristics with other Indo-Aryan languages. The length of vowels is phonemic. All vowels can be nasalized, and nasalization is phonemic.
0コメント