Skip to main content

Language, Cows and Politics




Paraphrasing Stephen Fry, I must say that language is my best friend, my mistress, my girl-friend, my goddess.  How can a government decide my language?

The Central government is keen on making every Indian learn Hindi.  My state government has ordered that Malayalam should compulsorily be taught in all schools in the state.  CBSE schools in Kerala are discovering ingenious ways circumventing the problem caused by the state’s order.  The latest is that they will teach Malayalam in grades 9 and 10 (to those students who have opted for another language) but will not include it in the assessment programme since CBSE has a two language curriculum.

What I fail to understand is why any language should be imposed on anyone.  Don’t citizens have a right to choose the language they wish to fall in love with?  Yes, for me language is a love affair.  It is my means of expressing myself and giving shapes and colours to my dreams.  It is the river which washes away my sorrows and agonies. My dreams and sorrows are all my personal affairs and I must have the liberty to choose the language for my personal affairs.

The state has to communicate with citizens too.  Kerala government can choose to issue all official documents in Malayalam and I as a resident of the state will have to find my ways of deciphering the documents.  Should the government bother whether I choose a translator or a mediator or a lawyer or whatever to find my Ariadne’s thread through the political labyrinths created by power-hungry bigots?

When someone chooses to impose a language on another, it is subordination of the other that is being sought.  The present government of India is keen on imposing Hindi on the entire nation – more than half of which does not speak Hindi – because it wants to subordinate the nation to a single culture and religion. 

Courtesy: Cartoonsmix
Today’s Times of India reports that a school in Madhya Pradesh has been converted into a gaushala (cow shed).  The panchayat had built two new rooms in order to accommodate the rising number of students in that “sleepy hamlet.”  Now one Lakhan Singh Rajpoot whom the newspaper describes as “an influential person” (which in all probability means a criminal) has decided to accommodate cows in the new rooms while the hundred students will study in the “old, dilapidated building.”

This “influential” Rajpoot is a blueprint of governments which impose languages on people.  While Rajpoot uses cows (which have suddenly emerged to occupy the centre stage of Indian politics) to deny education to certain sections of people and thus keep them subordinated, the governments use language to subordinate people.  The people from non-Hindi speaking states will be highly disadvantaged if Hindi is made the official language of the country.  While Rajpoot will reap personal benefits by keeping his cows in a school building, the government will reap political benefits by favouring a particular section of citizens using language as a weapon.

The BJP has been in power at the Centre for three years now.  Cows seem to be the only creatures enjoying achche din as of now.

Comments

  1. Pranju chakrapaniMay 15, 2017 at 8:45 PM

    ...my Ariadne’s thread through the political labyrinths created by power-hungry bigots" this shows your love for language very well.

    I am against imposing language on anyone but Hindi in its literary form has a very beautiful sound in it. Quite pleasant to hear.

    But that's a liking for a language and one cannot impose one's liking onto others

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 15, 2017 at 9:08 PM

      If the govt is not so keen to impose Hindi on people, there's a possibility of more people learning it. Who likes anything that is imposed?

      Delete
  2. Ravish ManiMay 15, 2017 at 11:20 PM

    Don't worry, Sir, that is impossible. No IAS will draft in Hindi. I suggest to start complete Hindi program from judiciary itself - from the very top - The Supreme Court of India. Allow the hearings in Hindi. Write the judgements in Hindi.....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 16, 2017 at 7:10 AM

      Not a solution, Ravish. It can alienate the non-Hindi people. The country can be divided. Remember the anti-Hindi movements in Tamil Nadu?

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Shooting an Elephant

George Orwell [1903-1950] We had an anthology of classical essays as part of our undergrad English course. Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell was one of the essays. The horror of political hegemony is the core theme of the essay. Orwell was a subdivisional police officer of the British Empire in Burma (today Myanmar) when he was forced to shoot an elephant. The elephant had gone musth (an Urdu term for the temporary insanity of male elephants when they are in need of a female) and Orwell was asked to control the commotion created by the giant creature. By the time Orwell reached with his gun, the elephant had become normal. Yet Orwell shot it. The first bullet stunned the animal, the second made him waver, and Orwell had to empty the entire magazine into the elephant’s body in order to put an end to its mammoth suffering. “He was dying,” writes Orwell, “very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where not even a bullet could damage him further…. It seeme...
11 comments
Read more

Urban Naxal

Fiction “We have to guard against the urban Naxals who are the biggest threat to the nation’s unity today,” the Prime Minister was saying on the TV. He was addressing an audience that stood a hundred metres away for security reasons. It was the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel which the Prime Minister had sanctified as National Unity Day. “In order to usurp the Sardar from the Congress,” Mathew said. The clarification was meant for Alice, his niece who had landed from London a couple of days back.    Mathew had retired a few months back as a lecturer in sociology from the University of Kerala. He was known for his radical leftist views. He would be what the PM calls an urban Naxal. Alice knew that. Her mother, Mathew’s sister, had told her all about her learned uncle’s “leftist perversions.” “Your uncle thinks that he is a Messiah of the masses,” Alice’s mother had warned her before she left for India on a short holiday. “Don’t let him infiltrate your brai...
14 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
19 comments
Read more

Egregious

·       Donald Trump terminated all trade negotiations with Canada “based on their egregious behaviour.” ·       Pakistan has an egregious record of assassinations among its leaders. ·       Benjamin Netanyahu’s egregious disregard for civilian suffering has drawn widespread international condemnation. Now, look at the following sentences. ·       Archias is an egregious and most excellent man. [Cicero’s speech in 62 BCE] ·       “An egregious captain and most valiant soldier.” [Roger Ascham in 1545] U p to about 16 th century, the word egregious had a positive meaning: excellent or outstanding . Cicero was defending Greek poet Aulus Licinius Archias’s request for Roman citizenship. Archias had left his country out of disgust for the corruption of its Seleucid rulers. Ascham was speaking about the qualities of valiant soldiers when he used the ...
6 comments
Read more