Skip to main content

Hindi vs Tamil

Illustration by Copilot Designer


Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin has once again pitted the Tamil pride against Hindi pride. He has been championing the Dravidian cause against the Aryan Shahs of Delhi for quite some time now. Just last month, he offered a prize of $1 million to anyone who can decode the Indus Valley script which, Stalin believes as I too do, was proto-Dravidian.

As a South Indian, I’m on Stalin’s side. The North shouldn’t impose their culture and language and gods on the Southerners. I’m not speaking on behalf of anyone, please. I’m expressing my personal views. If some people of South India want to be bossed over by someone from the North, that’s their wish and I have no problem with it. I don’t want a native version of colonialism.

Like Stalin, I too believe that the Indus Valley Civilisation was Dravidian. Like him again, I would like more research to go into it. The truth may take the entire the wind out of the Hindutva sails. Moreover, the steamroller that the Hindutva shenanigans have set in motion pulverising regional cultures and languages has to lose its steam for the survival of the infinite variety that makes up India.

There’s one thing, however, on which I disagree with Stalin and many other Tamil people. While their pride in their language, whose history goes back to as many years as that of Sanskrit, is justified, their opposition to Hindi is not. Whenever Stalin and other Tamils oppose Hindi, I’m reminded of Shakespeare’s Caliban.

Caliban was the master of the island on which he lived alone until Prospero landed on it. Prospero uses all his powers to bring Caliban under his control, a colonial control of sorts. Eventually Caliban learns Prospero’s language and is happy to be able to “curse” Prospero in his own language.

Language is power. The New Education Policy of India is seeking to impose Hindi all over the country. This is one of the prominent grievances of Stalin. He is right too. And they will succeed in the effort by and by. India is being transformed slowly but steadily, and not so stealthily, by her Conservo-saurus Rex in Indraprastha. Trying to stop that juggernaut is like a mosquito trying to push an elephant back.

A more pragmatic solution is what Caliban can teach us. Learn their language and oppose them in that language. Anyway, they aren’t going to learn our language. Even the British colonisers leant the local languages. But our very own native colonisers don’t intend to condescend. So, learn their language and tell them in that language about your rights and gods and whatever.

Caliban teaches us that language can be used skilfully to preserve identity and shape resistance. “Be not afraid; the isle is full of noises,” Caliban says. He is connected with the island and its noises, its very soul. Unlike Prospero, the “tyrant who enslaved” him. He learns Prospero’s language which he uses effectively for his redemption from oppressive forces.

Caliban teaches us that language is more than communication. Language shapes identity, relationships, and power dynamics. I regret that I didn’t learn Hindi better when I had the opportunity while working in Delhi. I wish Stalin changes his stance on this one issue.

Labels:

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanFebruary 22, 2025 at 4:30 PM

    Hari Om
    True, fighting that juggernaut is a tad futile. Do what the various parts of Britain did; adopt the commercial/common language for trading and wider interaction. But when those from other parts come to your parts, let them discover that although you are speaking "English/Hindi/common language" it is with your local accent/dialect - which will be every bit as foreign as Welsh/Gaelic/Tamil/Malayalam.... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Liz A.February 23, 2025 at 7:45 AM

    Learning each other's language can be valuable. But saying one language is "right" and everyone should learn it isn't helpful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 23, 2025 at 9:02 AM

      In India today, language is being used as a power weapon.

      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

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 3

Street leading to St Francis Church, Fort Kochi There were Christians in Kerala long before the Brahmins, who came to be known as Namboothiris, landed in the state from North India some time after 6 th century CE. Tradition has it that Thomas, disciple of Jesus, brought Christianity to Kerala in the first century. That is quite possible, given the trade relationships that Kerala had with the Roman Empire in those days. Pliny the Elder, Roman author, chastised in his encyclopaedic work, Natural History (published around 77 CE), the Romans’ greed for pepper from India. He was displeased with his country spending “no less than fifty million sesterces” on a commodity which had no value other than its “certain pungency.” Did Thomas sail on one of the many ships that came to Kerala to purchase “pungency”? Possible.   Even if Thomas did not come, the advent of Christianity in Kerala precedes the arrival of the Namboothiris. The Persians established trade links with Kerala in 4 ...
10 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 4

The footpath between Park Avenue and Subhash Bose Park The Park Avenue in Ernakulam is flanked by gigantic rain trees with their branches arching over the road like a cathedral of green. They were not so domineering four decades ago when I used to walk beneath their growing canopies. The Park Avenue with its charming, enormous trees has a history too. King Rama Varma of Kochi ordered trees to be planted on either side of the road and make it look like a European avenue. He also developed a park beside it. The park was named after him, though today it is divided into two parts, with one part named after Subhash Chandra Bose and the other after Indira Gandhi. We can never say how long Indira Gandhi’s name will remain there. Even Sardar Patel, whom the right wing apparently admires, was ousted from the world’s biggest cricket stadium which was renamed Narendra Modi Stadium by Narendra Modi.   Renaming places and roads and institutions is one of the favourite pastimes of the pres...
10 comments
Read more

Five Microtales

1.        Development             Chamar, Lohar, Mehtar and many others stood at a distance, along with their families, and watched their huts being pulled down by a bulldozer. They were asked to leave the place where they had been living for decades. “The government has taken over this land for development works,” an officer said. Chamar, Lohar, Mehtar and the others spread their bedsheets under a flyover over which flew opulent vehicles of development.   2.        Impersonation             The old woman went to the Women’s Welfare office. She wanted to register herself for the Prime Minister’s monthly welfare scheme for the old and unemployable women. She placed her thumb on the scanner for Aadhar authentication. “Not matching,” the officer said. She was arrested for trying to impersonate. Sitti...
8 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 1

Inside St Francis Church, Fort Kochi Moraes Zogoiby (Moor), the narrator-protagonist of Salman Rushdie’s iconic novel The Moor’s Last Sigh , carries in his genes a richly variegated lineage. His mother, Aurora da Gama, belongs to the da Gama family of Kochi, who claim descent from none less than Vasco da Gama, the historical Portuguese Catholic explorer. Abraham Zogoiby, his father, is a Jew whose family originally belonged to Spain from where they were expelled by the Catholic Inquisition. Kochi welcomed all the Jews who arrived there in 1492 from Spain. Vasco da Gama landed on the Malabar coast of Kerala in 1498. Today’s Fort Kochi carries the history of all those arrivals and subsequent mingling of history and miscegenation of races. Kochi’s history is intertwined with that of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, the Arbas, the Jews, and the Chinese. No culture is a sacrosanct monolith that can remain untouched by other cultures that keep coming in from all over the world. ...
7 comments
Read more