Mother Tongue in the Mother Land

The half baked sarkari attempts to implement hindi in Hindustan have always saddened me. I always regarded it blasphemous to implement the mother tongue in the mother land. Yet the efforts have continued since the nation came on its own during its tryst with destiny. And we created establishments whose primary job was to promote Rajbhasha, or the commonly spoken hindi within the plethora of sarkari setups in the country. Yet despite these attempts marked by a casual approach in almost all associated activities, the usage of our mother tongue has remained barely confined to name-boards, signage’s, noting sheets, a few official communiques and some ceremonial functions. The march of English on the other hand has continued unabated.

I often wonder whether there is any other country in the world other than ours where such attempts are being made, and despite my best efforts could not locate any so far. Perhaps our dabbling in the absurd is regarded as such by the rest of the world or maybe it is regarded as illogical and beyond comprehension by those who look upon their motherland and everything associated with it with a sense of national pride. Yet if our intentions were indeed genuine, we would have achieved the target a long time ago.

And almost everything retains the flavour and bias for English, beginning from infancy till we kick the bucket, to the extent that even in social interactions, people conversing in the mother tongue are looked down and often frowned upon. So is it in conferences, seminars and even discourses when one finds someone rarely using the mother tongue to communicate. And why not – our educational system is grounded in English with the hindi medium schools not qualifying even as a distant cousin to their English counterparts.

Even the authors and also the readers of hindi literature are regarded many notches below their counterparts in other languages. This bias permeates even the bureaucracy with the hindi speaking bureaucrats called “desi” in local parlance being regarded inferior to the one who frequently and also fluently dabbles in English.

During trysts abroad we notice foreigners generally communicating in their mother tongue without much concern for the ability of the receiver to absorb a language he may be unfamiliar with.  And the best part is that they are never apologetic about that, because for them it is the most normal thing to do. Indeed it should be!

And therefore the recent change with the chief executive of the nation speaking in hindi even during his visits overseas is gratifying to say the least. His stress on the mother tongue almost always in all his interactions is indeed genuine and also rare if we take into consideration many of those who earlier adorned the highest chair in the land. And that is what has given many of us that rare feeling of national pride surfacing after a long time. After all, only identifying ourselves with the core values and culture this nation stands for is going to give our society happiness and progress in the truest sense.

The UPSC row - the conflict of conscience!

The on-going tussle over the CSAT issue seems to be assuming epic proportions. While on the one hand we have a large band of students who are against taking the basic test of English skills, on the other hand we have almost everyone else venting their anger against this band on the premise that a civil servant cannot manage everywhere unless he knows English. Both parties believe their stand to be justified and right and therefore the standoff.

It is a fact that English has emerged as the functional language of this country. The reasons for the same can be many – the effect of the british raj, the diversity of languages necessitating an impartial link language or just the national fad for anything from beyond the shores. 

Yes it is indeed a sad reality that confining oneself to hindi alone can be catastrophic in a nation that was once known as Hindustan! With almost the entire official work being carried out in English language any bureaucrat or a technocrat would find it almost impossible to survive without a bare functional knowledge of the same and that is what the CSAT paper strives to achieve. To that extent the paper is fully justified.

And we have hindi implementation or rajbhasha departments in government machineries. Hindi implementation is only possible in a non-hindi environment that existing government machineries have become. In this scenario, it has to be mandatory for all those who aspire to join central services to possess functional knowledge of English. 

Yet it rankles. Why should the link language be anything other than one of the major languages spoken in this nation and hindi being the most popular obviously has the biggest right. Why should a foreign language be the language of the nation is a thought that hurts deep down in the psyche of every idealist? Perhaps the idea behind the hindi departments was to make hindi emerge as the link language in the governmental system, frankly one is unable to think of any other idea that could have formed the basis for the same.

The love for their own language amongst the many countries whose mother tongue is not English is indeed amazing. Why are we different? Is our national penchant for the English language right? Why should people who converse in English be generally regarded as many shades above those who do not? Why should students studying in hindi medium schools feel shy in front of those who study in English medium? Why fluency in hindi cannot take one as far in life in this country as fluency in English can? These are thoughts that disturb all those who are really in love with the nation, for whom the nation should rise based on its ancient wisdom and thought and not language and practices imported from beyond the shores.

Yet we have come too far and English is there to stay. Perhaps the ideal scenario may remain a utopian dream for all times to come. It is indeed a conflict of conscience. The nation has miles to go and mere language can never dictate progress and growth.