<div dir="ltr"><h1 class="gmail- gmail-article__hero__headline">Rajaji In 1968: “Hindi Is, At Best, The Language Of A Large Minority”</h1>
<a href="http://swarajyamag.com/author/17525" class="gmail-article__hero__author">
<span>Swarajya Archives</span>
</a>
<span> - </span>
<span class="gmail-timestamp">September 14, 2016, 6:11 pm </span>
<div class="gmail-social-links">
<div class="gmail-facebook">
<a class="gmail-fb-xfbml-parse-ignore gmail-facebook gmail-social-share" target="_blank" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://swarajyamag.com/from-the-archives/rajaji-in-1968-hindi-is-at-best-the-language-of-a-large-minority">
<span class="gmail-fb_icon">
</span>
</a>
</div>
<div class="gmail-social-share">
</div>
<a class="gmail-twitter gmail-social-share" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http://swarajyamag.com/from-the-archives/rajaji-in-1968-hindi-is-at-best-the-language-of-a-large-minority&text=Rajaji%20In%201968:%20%E2%80%9CHindi%20Is,%20At%20Best,%20The%20Language%20Of%20A%20Large%20Minority%E2%80%9D%20via%20@swarajyamag">
</a>
<a class="gmail-gplus gmail-social-share" target="_blank" href="https://plus.google.com/share?url=http://swarajyamag.com/from-the-archives/rajaji-in-1968-hindi-is-at-best-the-language-of-a-large-minority">
</a>
<a class="gmail-linkedin gmail-social-share" target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=http://swarajyamag.com/from-the-archives/rajaji-in-1968-hindi-is-at-best-the-language-of-a-large-minority">
</a>
<a class="gmail-whatsapp gmail-social-share" target="_blank">
</a>
</div>
<div class="gmail-img-expand">
<div class="gmail-img-expanded">
</div>
</div>
<img id="gmail-1" alt="Rajaji In 1968: “Hindi Is, At Best, The Language Of A Large Minority”" class="gmail-article__hero__image" src="http://quintype-01.imgix.net/swarajya/2016-02/28f90f7b-dbd8-4c7b-8d70-f42d65809f47/rajaji1.jpg?w=640&q=60&fmt=pjpeg&auto=format" width="520">
<div class="gmail-story-card-view">
<div class="gmail-story-elements">
<div class="gmail-story-element-text gmail-snapshot-card">
<span class="gmail-snapshot-header">
<h5>Snapshot</h5>
<span class="gmail-snapshot-icon"></span>
</span>
<div class="gmail-snapshot-text">
<p>From the January 1968 edition of <i>Swarajya</i>, this is Rajaji’s passionate argument against Hindi being given precedence over other regional languages in India.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-story-elements">
<div class="gmail-story-element gmail-story-element-text">
<p> </p><p><i>Union Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Jitendra Singh had said in June that Hindi needed to be <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/centre-to-promote-use-of-hindi-in-south-india-northeast-jitendra-singh/">promoted a lot more in the country, especially in South and Northeast India</a>.
He also said that Hindi, in addition to easily lending itself to be
used as a medium of communication across the country, could help
youngsters in search of jobs, as it carried additional weightage in
selection processes.</i></p><p><i>On the question of Hindi being given
additional importance over other regional languages, C Rajagopalachari
wrote persuasively in the January 1968 edition of Swarajya. Here is his
article:</i></p><p>...It is well known by now that Hindi is not the
language of the majority of our people. Even if Hindi had been the
language of the majority of our people, that majority would not have had
the right to coerce the minority into acceptance in a matter of this
kind. Hindi is, at best, the language of a large minority, even as Tamil
is the language of a medium-sized minority, and Tulu of a small
minority of our people. Apart from this, Hindi cannot claim to be a
fully grown and integrated language. Its many dialects prevent its being
called a language in its own right. Even in its most advanced form,
Hindi as a language is inadequately equipped with the technical terms
required for conveying modern knowledge. To sit down now to devise
technical words for administrative and academic purposes in Hindi for
the sake of gradually improving it, would be as futile as it would be
difficult, and would mean, interfering with the required pace of
administrative, academic and judicial work. I make this observation
after a genuine and strenuous effort on my part more than half a century
ago to devise an improvement and expansion of the Tamil language for
these purposes. I came finally to the conclusion that it would be a
waste of national effort.</p><p>Taking into consideration the facts that
(1) Hindi is, strictly speaking, only a regional language and not the
language of the majority of our people spread evenly all over the
country, and (2) Hindi is technically incapable of handling the
work-load which is now being handled efficiently by English, singling
out Hindi for any special status would amount to giving one regional
language the right of conquest over other regions. The unpleasant
history of the British East India Company would have to be repeated by
an attempted Hindi regime, which would be most unfortunate.</p><p>The
English language was introduced to Indian society by the British regime
with all its nationwide machinery of administration. English, therefore,
struck roots in our country and grew with the growth of the British
power which it represented. The British regime in India was the result
of fraud and aggression and was an exploitation of our weaknesses. The
introduction of English into our system was, no doubt, unnatural. But
adaptation and usage over more than a century transformed this
instrument of communication into a great good, linking the elite of all
the regions of our country into a single body of people and giving us
our stock of words for the expanding administrative, educational and
commercial horizons of our country. It linked us with progress and
civilization in the rest of the world.</p><p>This natural development is
now sought to be destroyed. A well-developed and long-adapted medium is
sought to be replaced by one of our many regional languages, which are
all more or less unsuitable for the requirements of our times. I may say
here that the popular notion that only the people of the South came to
know English well, and are therefore keen on its retention, is wrong. I
know quite a number of people in the North who speak better English than
the best of the English-knowing people in Madras, and Allahabad, where
the Hindi-loving students have been creating such a stir, was a great
centre for English studies in my younger days. The country as a whole
had the same reasons and equal opportunities for absorbing English, and
therefore, if we accept the continuance of English for the purposes of
official work, there will be no discrimination whatever. If it is now
enacted that any one regional language should take the place of English,
our people being politically conscious they will oppose such
far-reaching discrimination. We must remember that job opportunity is
intimately connected with the official language.</p><p>The Constituent
Assembly was in a mood of exhilaration over the attainment of Freedom
and felt that it should demonstrate that we could easily overcome all
objections raised hitherto based on diversities of language and
religion, and without a true national discussion of this difficult and
important question, it wrote down an article in the Constitution that
Hindi shall be the official language of India after a certain period.
The period fixed having passed, without adequate and successful
preparation for the consummation, we are faced with the reality of the
difficulties of the question and are now seeking to solve them. An
attempt is being made by various provisions in the Language Bill really
to modify the Constitution in several respects in order to fulfil the
assurance very justly given by two Prime Ministers to the non-Hindi
people of India. I have to state that the Bill is nothing but deception.
If the UPSC examinations can be answered in Hindi and all the many
regional languages, our Indian Administrative Service will break up into
many provincial services, giving rise to the worst kind of
parochialism, and the most important limb of the administration of India
will lose its mobility and its traditions - inherited unbroken from the
Indian Civil Service.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-story-page-ad">
<div id="gmail-div-gpt-ad-1470226951526-0" style="height:250px;width:300px">
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p> </p><p>The involutions and
convolutions of the Bill hide the fact that it is an escapist move and
does not meet the problem. If the Central Government was really keen on
retaining national parity and harmony, the only right course would have
been for it, as the Executive, to suspend the implementation of the part
of the Constitution which deals with the official language. That would
have been Justice.</p><p>Part XVII of the Constitution does not come
under Fundamental Rights and a suspension of its implementation would
have constituted no breach of the Constitution but would be only an
exercise of executive discretion. And surely, the Hindi-speaking people
do not imagine that the imposition of Hindi on their non-Hindi
fellow-countrymen is a fundamental right of theirs. The people of the
North will go back to reason one day or another.</p><p>The only
legislative solution to the impasse, in my opinion, can be a
constitutional amendment. And this should be either the entire deletion
of the Language articles from the Constitution, or a simple amendment
that English shall continue. The Government of India Act of 1935, which
was drafted by great experts for the Secretary of State, Sir Samuel
Hoare and the British Parliament to instal a federal form of government
for all India, did not contain any provision on the official language
for India. The Executive could carry on with the requirements of
expediency from time to time. Until this is done, all assurances,
devices and directives are meaningless. The Official Languages
(Amendment) Bill is an empty gift to the non-Hindi regions because it is
liable to be struck down if challenged in the Supreme Court. The
amendments accepted by the Government have rendered the Bill of no use
to the non-Hindi people. It is the legendary Dead Sea apple which turns
to ashes in the mouth. If the implementation of Part XVII had been
suspended or a constitutional amendment gone through, we would have seen
Justice done.</p><p>Crude majority tyranny is not democracy. This
should not be permitted if India is to remain united and is to command
some world respect yet – despite its economic bankruptcy. This must be
understood clearly. The Congress President’s disapproval of the Bill
should be a lesson to the Congress Government and its impetuous language
policy. Even if what I say or what eminent men like Mr. Chagla or Mr.
Setalvad say does not make an impression on the powers that be in Delhi,
the Congress President’s criticism must carry weight.</p><p>I have
urged the Prime Minister to put off the question until our economic
problems are solved when a national convention of competent leaders may
be called to reconsider the whole issue dispassionately and with a
constructive attitude. She fears that a suspension of the issue now
would result in agitation all over the country. I have pointed out that
agitation will continue in any case, but that the agitation would take a
healthier and more constructive turn after the suspension I have
suggested which will give an assurance that no coercion is planned.</p><p>There
must be no slackening in our endeavour to retain for English the place
that history has accorded it, and thereby preserve the unity of our
country. India today is not what it was when the British came. Today we
are not backward and we cannot allow region ‘A’ to rule over region ‘B’.
It is an impossible proposition that is now put before the country. It
will break up the country, whether the Hindi people realise this or not.
Bilingualism will lead to two-compartmental administration and that
will lead to two Indias. I have fought many battles as a single man and I
shall continue to fight with all my conviction on this issue. I can say
that I did not enter the struggle for Independence with the amount of
conviction with which I am conducting this crusade now. I expressed my
doubts about the future of Self-Rule even as early as 1922 in my Jail
Diary. On this question however, I have no doubt whatsoever of the
advantage of retaining English and the disaster of having Hindi as the
official language, or the compromise of two languages running together
at the same time in different parts of the country.</p><p><a href="http://swarajyamag.com/from-the-archives/rajaji-in-1968-hindi-is-at-best-the-language-of-a-large-minority">http://swarajyamag.com/from-the-archives/rajaji-in-1968-hindi-is-at-best-the-language-of-a-large-minority</a><br></p><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>
</div>