[lg policy] INdia: What it costs to keep Hindi alive

[Harold Schiffman]

What it costs to keep Hindi alive? Rs 36 crore

If Hindi continues to struggle to establish itself as a pan-Indian
official language more than six decades after independence, it is not
for lack of
funds. The central government spends crores of rupees each year to
promote its use.An army of translators and Hindi officers in the
department of official language (DOL) under the home ministry keep
themselves busy translating reams of government material, bringing out
journals and newsletters meant to promote the use of Hindi for
official purposes of the union. Eight regional offices have also been
established to monitor the implementation of the official language
policy. There is also a retinue of people who expand administrative
glossary by finding Hindi equivalents for commonly-used English terms.
Never mind the fact that even Hindi speakers might find the English
terms more familiar.

The Official Language Resolution of 1968 adopted by Parliament stated
that "concerted measures should be taken for the full development" of
all the languages under the Eighth Schedule of the constitution,
besides Hindi, as it was necessary for "the educational and cultural
advancement of the country" ."The reality is that no language gets
even a tenth of the budget that Hindi gets. Even our embassies have
courses teaching Hindi, but no other languages. The Centre funds
innumerable seminars and events for Hindi. There is hardly any funding
for other languages," points out Prof V Arasu, head of the department
of Tamil in Madras University.

D K Pandey, joint secretary , DOL, says that his department is merely
carrying out what the Official Language Act stipulates by training
officers in using Hindi. "We don't use any funds to promote Hindi
outside the central government offices. The human resources
development ministry is responsible for the promotion of all languages
in the Eighth schedule, including Hindi," adds Pandey.

The DOL has a budget that has steadily increased over the years. This
year, the budget allocated is nearly Rs 36 crore. In comparison, the
National Institute of Communicable Diseases, which does work that
impacts the health of millions , gets Rs 25 crore. The National
Archives of India get just over Rs 20 crore. Even the Central Drug
Standard Control Organisation, which carries out the crucial function
of ensuring quality and safety of drugs sold in the country, gets less
than Rs 32 crore. In the last decade alone, DOL has been allocated
over Rs 200 crore. Besides the money allocated to DOL, it is mandatory
for every department, ministry, nationalised bank, institute, PSU, in
short, thousands of offices across the country, to have a Hindi
division ensuring thousands of jobs for people from the Hindi belt.
These departments have Senior Hindi Officers, Hindi Officers,
Assistant Hindi Officers, senior translators, translators, junior
translators, Hindi typists and so on. Several thousand crores are
spent on keeping them at work.

"All that the people in Hindi divisions do is harass officers
insisting that they sign their names in Hindi, keep tabs on how many
letters you write in Hindi and so on. They spend their time putting up
name plates and sign boards in Hindi even in non-Hindi speaking
states. What sense does that make?," asks an exasperated civil
servant. "Such partiality to Hindi ignoring other languages in a
country that claims to be multilingual is bound to cause heartburn,"
says a government employee from a non-Hindi speaking state.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/What-it-costs-to-keep-Hindi-alive-Rs-36-crore-/articleshow/5304154.cms

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