हिंदी दिवस के उपलक्ष्य मे
On the occasion of Hindi Diwas
14th Sep used to be a day that would usually go unnoticed in the pre digital era. In the era of fb however 14th September is duly observed by the social media as the annual north south slang match day. Heated arguments, ridiculous assertions and twisted historical/demographical facts are traded at a furious pace as though the eternal question of India's national language could possibly be settled by digital fistcuffs.
While I hardly agree with the entire "Let us shove Hindi down their throat" argument, I do firmly believe the battle for India's lingua franca has for all practical purposes already been won and the winner is pretty obvious. An official stamp is of hardly any consequence now! Allow me to explain how:
1. The statistics: This one is actually pretty tricky as official stats only capture the language spoken as mother tongue. Just for example the number of english speakers is listed as just 2,26,449 [census 2001]. A figure so ridiculously low that I am quite sure that there would be more english medium school students in India at any given point of time than the alleged number of speakers. An official languages map of India [by state] therefore looks like this (Hindi language states marked in blue):
As official languages are largely a political construct, one could be misled into believing that Hindi is an unintelligible language in the cities of Ludhiana or Jammu!
Another useful piece of data that the census captures is mother tongue. Though useful, this data too can be quite misleading if used to measure the usage of Hindi in different parts of India.
Unluckily there is no government statistic through which we can understand the spread and reach of Hindi in India. There is no question in our census forms which would essentially ask, "क्या आपको हिंदी बोलनी आती है?" and "क्या आप हिंदी समझ सकते है ?".
Therefore I have created one more map. This one essentially captures usage of Hindi in India on the following scale:
Dark Green: Spoken and understood by nearly everyone easily [Urban & Rural]
Light Green: Spoken and understood by nearly everyone [urban] and with difficulty [rural]
Dark Orange: Hindi largely understood and spoken, even if haltingly/ with accent [urban + rural]
Red: Hindi is not understood / cannot be used on the streets
Even a basic understanding of the map above would lead to the inference that Hindi is already the Lingua Franca of the country and has unofficially become the link language in a country with 28 official and100+ unofficial tongues. You can use Hindi to order Emo Dashi [a delectable Bhutani chesse dish] in a restaurant in Paro or to ask for directions in Tumkur, Karnataka. You can use it haggle for prices from a market in Vizag to the bazaars of Lahore. Hindi transcends borders both national and international thanks in no small part to the proliferation and popularity of Hindi TV soaps and movies in unthinkably remote places. Tribes in Arunachal use it as a link language while even those with partially mutually intelligible languages like Assamese-Bengali-Odia prefer it in their conversations as a neutral third language to avoid insulting anyone's mother tongue. In the city of Bangalore quite uniquely, they often prefer Hindi over Tamil just so that they can settle scores with their neighbours! [the city is unofficially quadrilingual:Kannada, Hindi, English, Tamil]
Emglish too has spread in a similar manner by the sheer weight of its number of speakers and the economic clout of it native speakers even when it is by any measurement a ridiculously nonsensical language. One where every rule has an exception and an exception has an exception. Suave parisians may refuse to understand English but they can do little to stop the wave upon wave of english speaking Asian tourists and American businessmen. Our sweaty metropolis to the south, that bastion of anti Hindi movements could perhaps learn a leasson or two from Paris' experience. The battle is already lost, making your city inaccesible is hardly going to help this lost cause. Why your very own citizenry would indeed suffer in any corner of the country if they continue to believe that the other official language aka English will be of greater use to them than Hindi.
As in the words of Annadurai himself, the peacock may have won the battle for the national bird but it is the common crow which can be found in every nook and cranny of the country.
On the occasion of Hindi Diwas
14th Sep used to be a day that would usually go unnoticed in the pre digital era. In the era of fb however 14th September is duly observed by the social media as the annual north south slang match day. Heated arguments, ridiculous assertions and twisted historical/demographical facts are traded at a furious pace as though the eternal question of India's national language could possibly be settled by digital fistcuffs.
While I hardly agree with the entire "Let us shove Hindi down their throat" argument, I do firmly believe the battle for India's lingua franca has for all practical purposes already been won and the winner is pretty obvious. An official stamp is of hardly any consequence now! Allow me to explain how:
1. The statistics: This one is actually pretty tricky as official stats only capture the language spoken as mother tongue. Just for example the number of english speakers is listed as just 2,26,449 [census 2001]. A figure so ridiculously low that I am quite sure that there would be more english medium school students in India at any given point of time than the alleged number of speakers. An official languages map of India [by state] therefore looks like this (Hindi language states marked in blue):
Another useful piece of data that the census captures is mother tongue. Though useful, this data too can be quite misleading if used to measure the usage of Hindi in different parts of India.
Unluckily there is no government statistic through which we can understand the spread and reach of Hindi in India. There is no question in our census forms which would essentially ask, "क्या आपको हिंदी बोलनी आती है?" and "क्या आप हिंदी समझ सकते है ?".
Therefore I have created one more map. This one essentially captures usage of Hindi in India on the following scale:
Dark Green: Spoken and understood by nearly everyone easily [Urban & Rural]
Light Green: Spoken and understood by nearly everyone [urban] and with difficulty [rural]
Dark Orange: Hindi largely understood and spoken, even if haltingly/ with accent [urban + rural]
Red: Hindi is not understood / cannot be used on the streets
Even a basic understanding of the map above would lead to the inference that Hindi is already the Lingua Franca of the country and has unofficially become the link language in a country with 28 official and100+ unofficial tongues. You can use Hindi to order Emo Dashi [a delectable Bhutani chesse dish] in a restaurant in Paro or to ask for directions in Tumkur, Karnataka. You can use it haggle for prices from a market in Vizag to the bazaars of Lahore. Hindi transcends borders both national and international thanks in no small part to the proliferation and popularity of Hindi TV soaps and movies in unthinkably remote places. Tribes in Arunachal use it as a link language while even those with partially mutually intelligible languages like Assamese-Bengali-Odia prefer it in their conversations as a neutral third language to avoid insulting anyone's mother tongue. In the city of Bangalore quite uniquely, they often prefer Hindi over Tamil just so that they can settle scores with their neighbours! [the city is unofficially quadrilingual:Kannada, Hindi, English, Tamil]
Emglish too has spread in a similar manner by the sheer weight of its number of speakers and the economic clout of it native speakers even when it is by any measurement a ridiculously nonsensical language. One where every rule has an exception and an exception has an exception. Suave parisians may refuse to understand English but they can do little to stop the wave upon wave of english speaking Asian tourists and American businessmen. Our sweaty metropolis to the south, that bastion of anti Hindi movements could perhaps learn a leasson or two from Paris' experience. The battle is already lost, making your city inaccesible is hardly going to help this lost cause. Why your very own citizenry would indeed suffer in any corner of the country if they continue to believe that the other official language aka English will be of greater use to them than Hindi.
As in the words of Annadurai himself, the peacock may have won the battle for the national bird but it is the common crow which can be found in every nook and cranny of the country.
