Well, many of us, who are outside Tamil Nadu would have encountered this dialogue on a daily basis, is it not? Why? Because we are the only set of people (in India) who have not cared about learning Hindi. Almost in all other states, Hindi is a compulsory language, whereas we in Tamil Nadu are planning to re-introduce German into our school curriculum.
Now, this can be attributed to the anti-Hindi agitations of the DMK in the 1950's and 60's which saw the emergence of Dravidian politics in Tamil Nadu and end of the congress era. This prompted Annadurai to proclaim a famous law called as "Irumozhi Sattam" ( Dual Language Law), in which Tamil was considered as the official language of the state, and permitted English to co-exist with Tamil, as the medium of instruction in schools, colleges and technical institutions.
The infrangible grip of dravidian politics on Tamil Nadu ensured that its people remained ignorant of Hindi, except for the few who took pains to learn it. While the "imposition of Hindi" started as early as 1937, after Independence, it all was started by Pandit Nehru, who proclaimed that Hindi will be the "official language" and "link language" as it was easy to learn and that "popularizing Hindi" does not mean "imposing it" on non-Hindi speaking people. Well this seems out of place as the states of India have been re-organized on linguistic basis. Hence, the agitations considering the situations that existed at that stage seems to be justified. (The fact of the matter is anti-Hindi sentiments also evolved cos of the anti-brahmin movement in Tamil Nadu, I will discuss about this may be in a separate post. But Tamil Nadu is not the only state to protest Hindi imposition, karnataka, Bengal, Assam and host of other states also protested against it. But, it was so vociferous in Tamil Nadu, that it was given a lion's share in the history)
After 70 years of protesting against hindi, what have we gained? and what have we lost? ( Certainly we prevented a Raj Thakre from rising all of a sudden from no where :-P )
One certain gain is the knowledge of English. This is where we have gained while the other states ( esp Hindi heartland) have lost. We are seeing more (international) investments, landing up in lucrative jobs, and one of the main factor is the knowledge of English. If you compare man-to-man across various sectors from a sweeper to a General Manager, Tamils speak and understand English better than their counterparts anywhere else in India. Where we have lost out is again on (domestic) investments from NRI's of other states, and also the settling down time in the other states is quite longer for us,the lost job opportunities in sales and marketing in other states.
Coming to the flip side of the coin. If people of Tamil Nadu protested ( should i say protesting? ) against Hindi, the Hindi heartland is protesting against English. This certainly is a step backward in the present scenario of "global village" concept. ( Well this is a vicious circle isn't it?, people around the world protest on imposition of English :-), and even developed an alternative language called Esperanto, as the common link language of the world. But it did not become popular).
What we (OK, I ) generally dislike is the attitude of the Hindi-speaking people. While we try to learn the local language of a state ( plus Hindi) when we ( should I say I here naa, WE) are in a non-Tamil speaking state, the same cannot be said about them, where I see people in sowcarpet( area in Chennai which has lot of Hindi speaking population), still struggling to speak few sentences in Tamil even after being here for generations ( well this is my personal opinion, based on what I have read and observed, it might be wrong, kindly apologize if so)
Hey, did you people think I am against learning Hindi? Certainly not. Learning new languages always helps ( cos they don't know English :-) ) and is quite fun too, by the way I am trying to learn Telugu and Hindi. But my sincere request to the "babus, nethas and thalapathis" is that don't try to impose your ideologies on people.
Had Nehru, recognized this sentiment of people and promoted Hindi as an additional ( and optional) link language along with English ( his proclamation that he is actually doing this came after much damage had been done), there might not been a necessity for this dialogue ( and this post :-) )
One final request to Hindi speaking people, Hindi is not the "National Language" as you perceive, it is just one of the official languages in India, and try to learn the local language if you are planning to settle there. My request to all Tamils, start learning Hindi (ek gaon mein ek kissan, raghu thatha :-) ), but ensure that you don't lose your identity ( thereby necessitating an organization like MNS or Kannada Rakshana Vedike), because Tamil's pride is not in its antiquity but in its continuity!!!
Vaazhga Tamil !! Valarga Hindi !!!
Disclaimer : This post is certainly not written just because I failed in madhima :-)
Now, this can be attributed to the anti-Hindi agitations of the DMK in the 1950's and 60's which saw the emergence of Dravidian politics in Tamil Nadu and end of the congress era. This prompted Annadurai to proclaim a famous law called as "Irumozhi Sattam" ( Dual Language Law), in which Tamil was considered as the official language of the state, and permitted English to co-exist with Tamil, as the medium of instruction in schools, colleges and technical institutions.
The infrangible grip of dravidian politics on Tamil Nadu ensured that its people remained ignorant of Hindi, except for the few who took pains to learn it. While the "imposition of Hindi" started as early as 1937, after Independence, it all was started by Pandit Nehru, who proclaimed that Hindi will be the "official language" and "link language" as it was easy to learn and that "popularizing Hindi" does not mean "imposing it" on non-Hindi speaking people. Well this seems out of place as the states of India have been re-organized on linguistic basis. Hence, the agitations considering the situations that existed at that stage seems to be justified. (The fact of the matter is anti-Hindi sentiments also evolved cos of the anti-brahmin movement in Tamil Nadu, I will discuss about this may be in a separate post. But Tamil Nadu is not the only state to protest Hindi imposition, karnataka, Bengal, Assam and host of other states also protested against it. But, it was so vociferous in Tamil Nadu, that it was given a lion's share in the history)
After 70 years of protesting against hindi, what have we gained? and what have we lost? ( Certainly we prevented a Raj Thakre from rising all of a sudden from no where :-P )
One certain gain is the knowledge of English. This is where we have gained while the other states ( esp Hindi heartland) have lost. We are seeing more (international) investments, landing up in lucrative jobs, and one of the main factor is the knowledge of English. If you compare man-to-man across various sectors from a sweeper to a General Manager, Tamils speak and understand English better than their counterparts anywhere else in India. Where we have lost out is again on (domestic) investments from NRI's of other states, and also the settling down time in the other states is quite longer for us,the lost job opportunities in sales and marketing in other states.
Coming to the flip side of the coin. If people of Tamil Nadu protested ( should i say protesting? ) against Hindi, the Hindi heartland is protesting against English. This certainly is a step backward in the present scenario of "global village" concept. ( Well this is a vicious circle isn't it?, people around the world protest on imposition of English :-), and even developed an alternative language called Esperanto, as the common link language of the world. But it did not become popular).
What we (OK, I ) generally dislike is the attitude of the Hindi-speaking people. While we try to learn the local language of a state ( plus Hindi) when we ( should I say I here naa, WE) are in a non-Tamil speaking state, the same cannot be said about them, where I see people in sowcarpet( area in Chennai which has lot of Hindi speaking population), still struggling to speak few sentences in Tamil even after being here for generations ( well this is my personal opinion, based on what I have read and observed, it might be wrong, kindly apologize if so)
Hey, did you people think I am against learning Hindi? Certainly not. Learning new languages always helps ( cos they don't know English :-) ) and is quite fun too, by the way I am trying to learn Telugu and Hindi. But my sincere request to the "babus, nethas and thalapathis" is that don't try to impose your ideologies on people.
Had Nehru, recognized this sentiment of people and promoted Hindi as an additional ( and optional) link language along with English ( his proclamation that he is actually doing this came after much damage had been done), there might not been a necessity for this dialogue ( and this post :-) )
One final request to Hindi speaking people, Hindi is not the "National Language" as you perceive, it is just one of the official languages in India, and try to learn the local language if you are planning to settle there. My request to all Tamils, start learning Hindi (ek gaon mein ek kissan, raghu thatha :-) ), but ensure that you don't lose your identity ( thereby necessitating an organization like MNS or Kannada Rakshana Vedike), because Tamil's pride is not in its antiquity but in its continuity!!!
Vaazhga Tamil !! Valarga Hindi !!!
Disclaimer : This post is certainly not written just because I failed in madhima :-)
nice writing :)
ReplyDelete@ Sudha : thanks !!!
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous : Oh, am getting anonymous comments!! Thanks and do keep reading and commenting :)
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteek goan mein.... semma comedy sir neenga
ReplyDelete@Laxman: tats one hindi sentence probably everyone in tamil nadu can speak :) is it not??
ReplyDeleteU r back so many years after school??!!!!!....i loved the very last line of r post:-D....Disclaimer
ReplyDelete