<div dir="ltr"><h1>World Mother Tongue Day: Time for India to implement a multi-lingual policy</h1>
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<p class="">Anecdote 1: It was a state run bank
situated in a lower middle class locality of South Bengaluru. Several
middle aged women, looking confused, were moving from desk to desk
seeking help. I inquired the bank staff on what's going on and learnt
that they were here to get their LPG subsidy amounts and seeking help of
the staff to fill the money withdrawal forms. These women were facing
two problems. The SMS that they received about credit of subsidy was in
English and the withdrawal form at the bank was printed in English and
Hindi and not in local language Kannada. This language barrier was
forcing these women to trouble the staff for help. The technology and
policy intervention that was brought in to help citizens was actually
making their lives difficult in this case!</p><p class="">Anecdote
2: It was a post office in a small town of Dharwad district in
Karnataka. A rural woman, with a Kannada newspaper in her hands, came to
me seeking help to fill a money order form. Seeing her holding a
newspaper, I was surprised as why is she seeking my help at the first
place. When inquired, she told me that she has studied till 5th standard
and knows how to read and write Kannada but unfortunately the money
order form was printed only in English and Hindi. As she didn't know
either of those languages, she needed my help to fill the form. When I
inquired the staff as why the local language is not used, they pointed
their fingers at Official language act that mandates increased usage of
Hindi at all levels of communication in all institutions belonging to
the Central government.</p><p class="">Anecdote 3:
She was a house maid widow living in Vijayanagar area of Mysore. She
was pooling in whatever little she could save for her daughter's wedding
and in the process meets an agent selling ULIP policies. Sensing an
opportunity to sell a policy and earn commission, he convinced her to
put her savings into a ULIP policy without actually revealing that it's a
stock market linked scheme where earnings is linked to fluctuations of
the market. Although she knew reading and writing in Kannada, her
inability to read English or Hindi was taken to advantage by the agent
who got her to sign the policy document and invested her savings on a
ULIP policy. Three years down the line, to her horror, she realized that
all her savings had tanked due to fluctuations of the market.</p><p class="">Anecdote
4: It was a private bank's ATM in South Bengaluru and I was waiting for
my turn to get into the ATM for almost 20 minutes. The person who was
at the Kiosk was trying hard to withdraw money and later turned back
inviting me to help him out. I duly obliged and found out later that he
works in a nearby Garment factory and doesn't understand anything other
than Kannada. It was his first salary and he was unable to withdraw
money as the ATM interface was available only in English and Hindi and
not in Kannada.</p><p class="">These are just some
of the anecdotal examples I have experienced personally in the past few
years. They tell a grim story of how India's language policy is
creating an artificial information asymmetry where non-Hindi speakers
are put to great trouble due to a language barrier placed by the system.
The Official language act of Union government makes it mandatory to run
operations only in Hindi and English while effectively sidelining other
languages spoken by as many as 60 per cent of Indians. This is also a
big reason why financial inclusion in India has failed to achieve its
objectives of bringing majority of Indians under the reach of financial
institutions. The success of a democracy lies in bridging the gap
between system and the people and the language of the people plays a
vital role in achieving that. Sadly in India, only Hindi is considered
as people's language, effectively pushing other languages to the corner.
</p><p class="">On a day when the world
celebrates International Mother Language day to celebrate diversity,
India, hailed as world's largest democracy (I doubt whether we can say
so after seeing how Telangana Bill was passed in the Parliament!) should
recognise the follies of imposing one language in the name of link
language. Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan when Urdu was imposed on
Bengalis of then East Pakistan. </p><p class="">Soviet
Union broke into pieces when Russians tried imposing Russian on
everyone in USSR. Those stark examples from history should teach India
that it's time for India to recognize all scheduled languages present in
the 8th schedule of the Constitution as official languages of the
Indian Union, giving equal status to all languages. Such a language
policy will go a long way in fostering greater sense of unity among
Indians speaking different languages. </p><p class="">With
rapid technological progress, implementing such a multi-lingual
language policy is not a big problem. Current language policy of the
European Union holds a classic testimony on how linguistic diversity
should be celebrated and not cursed. Remember, Europeans learnt this
lesson in a bitter way after the devastating Second World War! Hope all
the advocates of federalism including Mr. Modi will consider this demand
seriously in 2014 Lok Sabha elections. <br></p><p class=""><a href="http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/vasantshetty/3708/65107/world-mother-tongue-day-time-for-india-to-implement-a-multilingual-policy.html">http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/vasantshetty/3708/65107/world-mother-tongue-day-time-for-india-to-implement-a-multilingual-policy.html</a><br>
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