Re: [IAC#RG] Fwd: Hindi SE rashtravaad KA sambandh

The issue is not just one of Hindi and Tamil, but the "identity" issue with Dravidian languages and Indo-Aryan languages. - as I got the feeling from some people with heavy identity issues. There is some of this feeling in Maharashtra as well. And to some extent, it is also far more serious, because the economic capital of Mumbai is rapidly resulting in the marginaization of the Marathi language and native speakers. We see this among the Bangladeshis, who rejected the imposed Urdu so strongly, that it was a large part of their wish for freedom.

Being a Maharashtrian, I can speak some for the decline of Marathi from my knowledge. in 1910, we had US typewriter manufacturer offer a typewriter model for Marathi. A century later, Google translate does not cater to this language - in spite of it being it is the 19th most spoken language in the world. It is the official language of Maharashtra, co-official language in Daman and Diu and Dadara and Nagar Haveli, while being unofficially recognized in Goa. It is fourth most spoken in India, with 27 million speakers as of 2001. 

When google translate does not cater to it, most exclusively Marathi readers, or those more comfortable in Marathi have no access to a lot of information. Searching for anything in Marathi yields precious little anything, which is rarely accurate - since Google doesn't support it, it clubs it with Hindi, which does not work. That is a hell of a lot of Indians without access to the wider world. This also ties in with their increasing marginalization in Mumbai. While the Thackerays and their hooliganism is not an answer, the support they get is from the local humiliation at being seen as "ghati" in the place they were born!

These things are very closely related with the abandonment of language. As people with greater access to knowledge spread their horizons, the ones without occupy increasingly less space and power. It is a cyclic thing. Disempowerment marginalizes language, and lack of support for language disempowers further - which suits capitalist interests in Mumbai very well - they mainly operate in English/Hindi. The people are frustrated and cannon fodder for political interests.

Identity and language are closely entwined, and I think imposing languages is as good as colonization. Agree with Justice Katju, that a recommendation is about the most that is gracefully possibe (or advisable).

I agree to some extent that a common language will be useful, but English does serve the purpose to a great extent with the additional bonus of a far larger reach to knowledge. It is possibly the only common linguistic factor India wide - we were all a British colony and learned to operate in English as a result.

That said, I think a far greater concern is the lack of attention to regional languages, which are increasingly dying in importance. Faster in some places, slower in others, but I am not sure if any are actually thriving at all, in terms of growing literature, etc. Maybe Hindi. You have the usual consumer usage - films, newspapers. Where are the great Tagores and Pu La Deshpandes and so on?

It is one of my keenest beliefs that knowledge accessible in the language one speaks naturally is vital for development and intellectual upliftment of people. India wishes to become a superpower. If you look at other superpowers, they operate in the mother tongues of the people of the land - including the internet. US, England, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, China.... all have massive parts of the internet seamlessly usable in their languages. India, the largest democracy in the world does not.

I believe till we can invest heavily in languages, automatic machie-translation competence and such things, we are not going to get the power of advancement and knowledge to most citizens.

So in my view, we should be looking more at getting communication to reach every citizen rather than getting citizens to standardize to one language. We are techonologically advanced enough for this to be possible.

Vidyut