India has no national language because the country has
too many languages. Apart from the officially recognised 22 languages are the
hundreds of regional languages and dialects. It would be preposterous to
imagine one particular language as the national language in such a situation.
That is why the visionary leaders of Independent India decided upon a
three-language policy for most purposes: Hindi, English, and the local
language.
The other day two pranksters from the Hindi belt landed in Bengaluru airport wearing T-shirts declaring Hindi as the national language. They posted a picture on X and it evoked angry responses from a lot of Indians who don’t speak Hindi.
The worthiness of Hindi to be India’s
national language was debated umpteen times and there is nothing new to add to
all that verbiage. Yet it seems a reminder is in good place now for the likes
of the above puerile young men.
Language is a
power-tool.
One of the first things done by colonisers and conquerors is to impose their
language on the vanquished people. Germany did that to the people of Alsace and
Lorraine, for example, when Otto von Bismark annexed those provinces from
France. In a story set during that time, the author Alphonse Daudet makes a
character who is a French teacher say: “When a people are enslaved, as long as
they hold fast to their language, it is as if they had the key to their prison.”
Imposing your
language on a people is tantamount to putting those people in prison. This is what the above
imprudent youngsters should understand first of all. Language has historically
been used as a tool for asserting dominance. The present rulers in Delhi have
too many ulterior motives and one of them is to impose Hindi on the entire
country. Like all the other motives of these leaders, this one will do no good to
the country. It will do a lot of harm, on the contrary.
A language is
part of a culture. When you impose your language on a people, you are
jettisoning their culture itself. You are reshaping them after your image.
Because you think you, your culture and language, are superior. This
superiority is sheer fiction in most cases. Flimsy fantasy of some inflated and
vainglorious egos.
A language carries certain economic and political baggage with it. A dominant language can streamline
governance, trade, and communication to the advantage of the people to whom it
really belongs. Imagine a Tamil candidate competing with another from a Hindi state
in a civil service exam conducted in Hindi, “the national language.” What
chance will the Tamil candidate ever have of becoming a bureaucrat in his
country? This is exactly the deviousness of the mission being worked out by the
present Delhi dispensation. You can usurp power from its rightful owners using
language.
In Shakespeare’s play The
Tempest, Caliban, the native of the island colonised by the European
protagonist, tells the protagonist, “You taught me your language and my
advantage now is that I can curse you in that language.” [I have modernised
Shakespeare’s idiom.] Caliban subverted the very purpose for which Prospero,
the coloniser-protagonist, taught him the language. Instead of submitting
himself to Prospero’s power, Caliban used Prospero’s language to curse him. Caliban
used the imposed language creatively and defiantly. He used his oppressor’s
weapon as his own means of resistance.
Caliban is not an ideal motif for a
person oppressed by a political system because of his lack of refinement. I
cited his example here precisely because the wielders of power in the North and
their acolytes seem to view people from other parts of India quite as Prospero
viewed Caliban.
As Prospero viewed Caliban, Modiji
came after the recent Wayanad [Kerala] catastrophe and flew over the despoiled
region like an actor being filmed. Months have passed and the victims have
received absolutely no aid from Modiji’s government. “We are part of India too,”
Kerala’s Chief Minister reminds Modiji time and again, the latest
being today.
We are part of the country. When any
people of a country have to make statements like that, you know there’s
something seriously wrong. More wrong than mere imposition of a language. 
Modiji as disaster-tourist in Wayanad
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