Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement that ‘Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English and not to local languages’ invited the fury of Opposition leaders, as well as artistes such as AR Rahman and Prakash Raj. They called it an assault on India’s pluralism
Actors, politicians, artists have all come down heavily on Home Minister Amit Shah over his pitch for Hindi to be made an alternative to English as a mode of communication between people of different states.
We take a look at what Amit Shah said and why it caused such a furore. We also take a look at history of language-politics in India.
What Amit Shah said
The Union home minister was presiding over the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee in New Delhi on Friday where Amit Shah mentioned that “the time has come to make the Official Language an important part of the unity of the country.”
A statement issued by the home ministry said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had decided that the medium of running the government is the official language and this will definitely increase the importance of Hindi.
He also informed the members that now 70 per cent of the agenda of the Cabinet is prepared in Hindi.
Amit Shah also announced that Hindi would be made compulsory in all eight northeastern states upto Class 10.
Opposition to Amit Shah’s statements
Amit Shah’s remarks were heavily criticised with the Opposition calling it an assault on India’s pluralism and asserting they will thwart the move to impose “Hindi imperialism”.
News agency PTI reported that Congress’ Jairam Ramesh contended that Hindi is ‘Raj Bhasha’ (official language) and not ‘Rashtra Bhasha’ (national language).
His party colleague Shashi Tharoor also echoed similar opposition to Amit Shah’s Hindi imposition. “Promoting a language that advantages one set of Indians over others is a recipe for division over diversity. Uniformity is not unity. Attempts to impose uniformity will undermine India’s unity,” he told The Hindu.
Parties in Tamil Nadu were also up in arms with the home minister’s remarks with Chief Minister MK Stalin, saying that Shah’s suggestion was an idea to wreck the unity of the country.
Pattali Makkal Katchi founder S Ramadoss also expressed shock at Shah’s comments. “What the home minister implies is that Hindi will be imposed on non-Hindi speaking states. Though Hindi is a language that is spoken by a slightly larger section of people, it should not be imposed on others. This has been the demand of non-Hindi speaking states for the past 85 years. Only after accepting this, former Prime Minister Nehru had allowed English to continue as a link language.”
“If there is a language eligible to be made as link language of entire India, it is Tamil. No other language has that eligibility. However, since we don’t wish to impose Tamil on others, we demand to declare all languages in the Eighth Schedule as official languages. So, the wishes and sentiments of all States should be respected,” Ramadoss said to New Indian Express.
West Bengal’s Trinamool Congress also voiced their opposition to the imposition of Hindi. TMC leader Sougata Roy said, as per a PTI report, “If Amit Shah and the BJP try to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states, it will be resisted. The people of this country, where there is so much diversity, will never accept such a thing.”
Groups in the Northeast have also opposed the move.
The Asom Sahitya Sabha in a statement, published by The Indian Express read: “The Union Home minister should have instead taken steps to develop Assamese and other indigenous languages. Such steps spell a bleak future for Assamese and all indigenous languages in the Northeast.”
The Meitei Erol Eyek Loinashillon Apunba Lup, a group formed to protect Manipuri manuscripts and language also said that the move to make Hindi language compulsory was aimed at rewriting history.
Renowned singer AR Rahman voiced his opinion on the issue, albeit in a cryptic manner.
He posted an image with the caption ‘Tamizhanangu‘, mentioning the song to invoke Tamil goddess.
The line, in the footnote of the image, is from a famous poem of celebrated Tamil nationalist poet Barathidasan, which denotes that Tamil, as a language, serves as the root to the rights of the people.
Famous actor Prakash Raj also voiced his criticism against Amit Shah.
India’s language politics
India is among the world’s most linguistically liberal states. It has 22 official languages and almost as many mother tongues. According to the 2011 census, 19,500 distinct tongues are spoken.
The issue of language has been a long one in Indian history. In 1949, the Constituent Assembly adopted the Munshi-Ayyangar formula. According to this, Hindi in the Devnagari script would be the official language of the Union. English would continue to be used for all official purposes for the next 15 years, to enable a smooth transition for non-Hindi speaking states.
However, when the issue came up again in 1965, it became a movement against the imposition of Hindi.
Tamil Nadu saw protests, including strikes, hartals and self-immolations. As per a report published by The News Minute, Chinnasamy of Tiruchi was the first person to immolate himself against imposition of Hindi. This led to a spate of self-immolations against imposition of Hindi.
During the two weeks of protests, the government estimated that about 70 people were killed.
Keeping in mind the protests, the Government of India enacted Official Language Act in 1963 which provided for continued use of English alongside Hindi indefinitely.
Since then, the demand for making Hindi the national language has kept cropping up.
In 1968, a National Policy on Education was adopted, which said that in non-Hindi-speaking states, the language should be taught optionally along with English and the regional language.
However, in 2019, when the policy was updated, it stated that Hindi should be taught mandatorily in schools in non-Hindi speaking states. The backlash against this was so strong that the Centre had to tweak its policy.
It is left to be seen if Hindi does become the lingua franca of India.
With inputs from agencies
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