<div dir="ltr"><h1 class="">Inclusive language policy the need of the hour</h1>
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<div class="">By <a itemprop="author" href="http://www.newsgram.com/author/ng-news-desk/">NewsGram News Desk</a> - </div> <div class="">January 7, 2016</div><br></div><div class="">
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<p><span style="color:rgb(128,0,128)"><em><strong>By Harshmeet Singh</strong></em></span></p>
<p>Language has always been a contentious issue in India. Ever since
India attained Independence, several protests have taken place on the
issue of language and linguistic identity. These language protests have
often taken a violent turn with people losing lives for their cause.</p>
<p>The battle of Hindi against other regional languages has always been
at the center of most of these protests. While the Indian constitution
mentions that <em>“Hindi [in the Devanagiri script] is the official language of the Union”</em>, it fell short of naming it the national language.</p>
<p><span style="color:rgb(255,102,0)"><em>In 1959, the then PM Jawaharlal
Nehru assured the Parliament that the English language would be freely
used whenever people of non-Hindi background needed. This assurance got
the backing of the law in the form of Official Languages Act, 1963.</em></span></p>
<blockquote class=""><p><span style="color:rgb(255,0,0)"><strong>Considering
that India is home to over 1600 languages, linguistic rivalry is bound
to be an unpleasant reality. The 2001 census revealed that close to 41%
of the national population spoke Hindi. The other languages that made up
the top five were Bengali (8.11%), Telugu (7.37%), Marathi (6.99%) and
Tamil (5.91%). Though the statistics may show an overwhelming majority
of Hindi speakers, in reality, most of the Hindi speakers are
concentrated in only a handful of states.</strong></span></p></blockquote>
<p>Language struggle in India is relatively old. The opposition to
imposition of Hindi by the central government has been historically led
by Tamil Nadu. The state of Tamil Nadu has witnessed several anti-Hindi
protests before and after independence. Most of these struggles saw mass
participation and violent demonstrations.</p>
<p>The roots of pre-Independence struggle lay in Congress’ attempts at
making Hindi a compulsory subject in the then Madras Presidency. It was
congress’ way of replacing English and preparing for a British-free
India. <span style="color:rgb(128,0,128)">This led to widespread agitations
led by EV Ramasamy or Periyar. Though it stopped the Congress from
imposing Hindi in Madras schools, it came at the cost of several lives.</span></p>
<p>Similar agitation took place post independence. This time, it was to
ensure that Hindi doesn’t become the sole official language of the Union
of India. The Congress leaders hailing from the South Indian states
also took part in the agitation and ensured that leaders like
Purushottam Das Tandon and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee don’t have their way.
The solution was a clause that English would accompany Hindi as the
official Language of the Union for a period of 15 years. Since then, the
Congress has never managed to come into power in Tamil Nadu.</p>
<p><span style="color:rgb(51,153,102)"><em>Ironically, the agitation against
Hindi also saw the support of C. Rajagopalachari, the person who
introduced Hindi as the compulsory subject when he was the CM of Madras
Presidency in 1938.</em></span></p>
<p>Though such violent agitations aren’t seen today, the language
protests are still a common idea in the country. Such unhealthy
rivalries can be out to rest by providing equal status to all the major
languages spoken in the country. An inclusive language policy will go a
long way in ensuring that the country doesn’t fall victim to
disintegrative politics.</p><p><a href="http://www.newsgram.com/inclusive-language-policy-the-need-of-the-hour/">http://www.newsgram.com/inclusive-language-policy-the-need-of-the-hour/</a><br></p></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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