Skip to main content

Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan


Hindi is being imposed on Indians once again. The 11th volume of the Report of the Official Language Committee headed by Amit Shah has been submitted for the approval of the President. The chief ministers of both Kerala and Tamil Nadu have registered their protest against this fresh move to impose Hindi on people who have nothing to do with that language. This move of Amit Shah is yet another instance of the ruling party’s objective of decimating the minority cultures in the country.

Language is an integral part of a culture. Amit Shah and his accomplice Modi nurture the dream of creating a Hindu Rashtra in India. The latest move to impose Hindi on the entire country is part of the materialization of that dream. The Shah panel has made around 100 recommendations one of which is that the medium of instruction in IITs, IIMs, and central universities should be Hindi in the Hindi-speaking states. There are numerous students from non-Hindi-speaking states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu studying in those universities. This latest move seems to be meant to keep such students away from the premier institutions and universities of the country. If this is not discrimination, what is?

The situation is rather bizarre. Shah and his team want every central government employee to use only Hindi. Their language panel has warned state governments that the employees’ reluctance to use Hindi would reflect in their Annual Performance Assessment Report [APAR]. Does this mean that the people of South India and Northeast India as well as those from other states where Hindi is not taken too seriously do not deserve to get central government jobs?

This obsession with Hindi will do no good to India. Amit Shah is becoming a dangerous enemy of the country with this kind of policies that will endanger the future of the country’s youth. Let us remember that there are about 32 million Indians living abroad. Indians make up the world’s largest overseas diaspora. This country has little to offer to the emerging youth. What will they do with the kind of sectarianism and regressive attitudes that Shah’s party is foisting on the country? There are jobs available abroad. The future is lying in those countries. Let the youth learn English and save themselves. Here we are given holy cows of no use whatever.

Let India live, please. Do not impose dead weights on people who are already bogged down with the filth of obsolete visions. Slogans like Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan may sound patriotic. They may help to win elections. But they won’t buy anyone food. It is high time India woke up and gave a massive kick in the capacious bums of its overfed politicians.

Labels:

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanOctober 15, 2022 at 5:34 PM

    Hari Om
    With regard the universities/teaching - students from other states not speaking Hindi means that the teaching had to have been in a language common to all. This, I am assuming, must have been English. Is it, then, that the aim is to supplant English as the common denominator in teahing and administrative use?

    Long back, the English demanded of the Scots, the Irish and the Welsh that only English be spoken - but not that alone, they also banned the use of Scots Gaelic, Irish Gaelic and Welsh at risk of punishment. I am hoping that at least that is not the case in India? Though the 'making of law' suggests that there may be consequences for not following that law.

    The idea of one language understood nationally is not necessarily a bad thing, but it should certainly not be enforced in a manner that demeans or belittles regional variation. Or threatens the rights and freedoms of those with different oral tradition. Here, the two dialects of Gaelic and the Welsh are revived and vibrant in each of our countries and placed equal to the language that unites us - the other dialect of these isles which dominated as a result of subjugation.

    A big and emotive subject! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 15, 2022 at 7:10 PM

      English is the only language that is common to all the states of India as of now. Why disregard that simple practical fact? Nationalism has nothing to do with the future of the youth of the country. Quite many of my students from Kerala are abroad now either studying or working. English is what helped them. They pass IELTS/OET quite easily because Kerala has excellent schools that give English education. I am an English teacher and I know what I'm speaking about. My school does not provide Hindi even as an optional subject at the senior secondary level because there are no takers for it. Now If the central govt imposes Hindi this way - by making it the medium of instruction in prominent institutions - a lot of students in South India will be victims. This is not fair.

      A friend of mine sent me a WhatsApp message after reading this post. It claims that all of the 100,000 crore rupee loans from India's nationalised banks waived by the Modi govt were taken by Gujaratis. I am yet to verify the data. But I won't be surprised if that's true. There is a small mafia that is governing India today. And that's a Gujarati mafia. Since they can't impose Gujarati on all Indians they impose Hindi. They don't love Hindi. They don't love anything or anybody. Hatred is the only language they know. And they call it nationalism.

      This has to end. Sooner the better.

      Delete
  2. Pooja MahimkarOctober 16, 2022 at 1:08 PM

    I fail to understand, what is the problem with accepting regional languages? Why do we need one language across such a diverse and vibrant country?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 16, 2022 at 6:43 PM

      This is a slow process of bringing back the hegemony of a particular group or class of people. It's not about language really. It's about power. It's about who gets to sit on the throne. It's about the king and his diwans.

      Delete
  3. magiceyeOctober 16, 2022 at 4:21 PM

    Do as I say or die.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 16, 2022 at 6:45 PM

      Indeed. When they say 'Go to Pakistan' or 'Go to Italy', the implication is some people are just not wanted here.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Florentino’s Many Loves

Florentino Ariza has had 622 serious relationships (combo pack with sex) apart from numerous fleeting liaisons before he is able to embrace the only woman whom he loved with all his heart and soul. And that embrace happens “after a long and troubled love affair” that lasted 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days. Florentino is in his late 70s when he is able to behold, and hold as well, the very body of his beloved Fermina, who is just a few years younger than him. She now stands before him with her wrinkled shoulders, sagged breasts, and flabby skin that is as pale and cold as a frog’s. It is the culmination of a long, very long, wait as far as Florentino is concerned, the end of his passionate quest for his holy grail. “I’ve remained a virgin for you,” he says. All those 622 and more women whose details filled the 25 diaries that he kept writing with meticulous devotion have now vanished into thin air. They mean nothing now that he has reached where he longed to reach all his life. The
62 comments
Read more

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
44 comments
Read more

Unromantic Men

Romance is a tenderness of the heart. That is disappearing even from the movies. Tenderness of heart is not a virtue anymore; it is a weakness. Who is an ideal man in today’s world? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas would be considered as fools in today’s world in which the wealthiest individuals appear on elite lists, ‘strong’ leaders are hailed as nationalist heroes, and success is equated with anything other than traditional virtues. The protagonist of Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds [which sold more than 33 million copies], is torn between his idealism and his natural weaknesses as a human being. Ralph de Bricassart is a young Catholic priest who is sent on a kind of punishment-appointment to a remote rural area of Australia where the Cleary family arrives from New Zealand in 1921 to take care of the enormous estate of Mary Carson who is Paddy Cleary’s own sister. Meggy Cleary is the only daughter of Paddy and Fiona who have eight so
39 comments
Read more

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let
36 comments
Read more

Nishagandhi – Queen of the Night

Disclaimer: A friend tells me this flower is Kalyana Saugandhikam (garland lily) and not Nishagandhi.  Finally one of my Nishagandhis has bloomed. Here’s the picture.  I have four pots of this plant which is quite exotic as its very name implies. Belonging to the Cactaceae family, this flower goes by different names. The Indian name ‘Nishagandhi’ comes from two Sanskrit words: nisha = night & gandh: fragrance. This flower blooms in the night and wilts as dawn breaks. I took the above pic just before sunrise this morning. I have waited for nearly half a year now for this blossoming. It’s not easy to get these flowers which have a divine touch. It is known as Brahma Kamala, Bethlehem Lily, and the flower of healing. The Chinese consider the Nishagandhi flower to be lucky. I consider it as cosmic flower. The Nishagandhi has many medicinal properties. Ayurveda uses it for treating diabetes, breathing disorders, throat infections, digestive problems, and so on. Of course, I don’t
8 comments
Read more