[lg policy] Language identity in India: One state, many worlds, now what?

Sat Jun 29 13:55:21 UTC 2013

 Language identity in India One state, many worlds, now what? Jun 25th
2013, 21:46 by S.A.P. | THE HAGUE

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THE music video “Ek Sur”, more popularly known as “Mile Sur Mera
Tumhara<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jf6pwtPqCs>”,
was released on India’s Independence Day in 1988. It was a small
contribution to the country’s herculean post-independence task of building
a unified national identity. The song’s lyrics were written in all 14
languages recognised by the constitution at the time. (The number has since
increased to 22.) Playing off India’s many cultures, the performers sing:
“When your song and my song meet, they become our song.” In typical Indian
fashion, the video is both kitschy and irresistible. It has since attained
legendary status, eclipsing even a hi-fi, star-studded 2010 remake. “Ek
Sur” represents one piece of the ongoing effort to define who and what is
“Indian”, one of modern India’s most pressing challenges.

On a smaller scale, the southwestern state of Karnataka struggles with some
of the same issues. Karnataka was created in 1956 from adjoining, mostly
Kannada-speaking districts in four different states. The three other
southern Indian states were created using language-based distinctions
around the same time. The reorganisations were meant to strengthen regional
identities. But as with all things Indian, matters are never so clear-cut.
Within Karnataka, there are major native linguistic minorities: Tulu and
Kodava are spoken by some 8m and 200,000 people, respectively, all within
Karnataka. Konkani is spoken by 8m people spread over four states. Urdu,
found all over the subcontinent, is spoken by around 10% of Karnataka’s
62.5m people. Many people in border districts speak Marathi, Telugu,
Malayalam and Tamil. Even discounting the recent influx of out-of-staters
to Bangalore, Karnataka is hugely diverse. This all means that Kannada, the
state’s only official language, is spoken natively by only about 65% of
Karnataka residents. But the Ekikarana Movement, the group of politicians
and academics who (successfully) demanded a unified Karnataka, was defined
by language. To these protesters, Karnataka was meant to be a Kannada
homeland. How inconvenient, then, that the districts they sewed together
were so ethnically mixed.
 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Karnataka_1956_Reorg.svg>

Equating Karnataka with Kannada since unification has been controversial,
but certainly not uncommon. Karnataka Rajyotsava, the holiday commemorating
the birth of the state, is often used to celebrate Kannada culture. The
bicolour Kannada
flag<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Flag_of_Karnataka.svg>is
used on the holiday and other times during the year to unofficially
represent the state, even though it originated as the symbol of a Kannada
political party. To Tulu-speakers anxious for their own Tulu Nadu state,
anchored by the huge coastal city Mangalore, or Kodava-speakers calling for
a separate Coorg state, the holiday might seem sour. And to the many
non-Kannada-speakers in Bangalore, the state’s diverse capital and India’s
third-largest city (which we’ve written
about<http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2012/08/language-india>before),
the often deliberate, exclusionary focus on Kannada rankles.

All this is exacerbated by the conflation of language and religious
identity. This is certainly not unique to Kannada or Karnataka. Hindi and
Urdu, two dialects of the language Hindustani, are the most prominent
example of this sort of partitioning of language based on religious
identity. Hindi is associated with Hindus, and Urdu with Muslims. But
language in Karnataka is instructive, too. Kannada cultural identity is
often wrapped up in Hinduism. Most premodern Kannada cultural works,
including writing, dance, sculpture, theatre and music, are religious—mostly
Hindu, with significant Jain contributions, too. The area had been largely
ruled by a succession of Hindu kingdoms. (Muslim rulers in the region,
including Tipu, a prominent 18th-century sultan of Mysore, promoted Urdu
and Persian cultural works instead.) The land is covered with old Hindu and
Jain architecture. Sanskrit borrowings, so common in formal Kannada, are
often suffused with religious connotations. But it is certainly not the
case that only Hindus and Jains in Karnataka speak Kannada. And Muslims,
Christians, atheists and others have contributed much to past and present
culture in Karnataka. Still, it is hard to separate Kannada and religious
identity, especially when the ways to celebrate the language’s cultural
heritage are through the music, dance, and theatre mostly created by
Hindus, under Hindu kingdoms, for Hindus, and in reference to Hinduism.

The knots created by this diversity raise uncomfortable questions. Is it
possible to be a Muslim (or Christian, or atheist) Kannadiga, not just a
fellow Karnatakan, when the language’s culture is so suffused with other
religious identities? The very existence of Muslim native Kannada-speakers,
of course, supports one conclusion. But the state’s many native
Urdu-speakers, and the unavoidable saturation of Hindu religious culture
into the Kannada language, lean toward another. More fundamentally, is it
exclusionary to celebrate Kannada culture as a way to celebrate Karnataka?
Many people would say yes, of course it is: a third of the state speaks
other languages and have other cultures, so Karnataka must represent more
than just Kannada. But perhaps that is too unkind to the majority group in
a state created for them. If they can’t celebrate their heritage in their
own homeland, where else? How, then, to draw these distinctions fairly?

I recently came across this music video <http://youtu.be/6CWJMCqU5ow>,
“Kannada Jeevaswara”, which was released last year to celebrate Karnataka
Rajyotsava and the “cultural heritage of Karnataka”. It was sponsored by
the Information and Publicity Department of Karnataka’s state government.
Like its predecessor “Ek Sur” did for all India, this video uses catchy
tunes and pretty scenery to propagandise a message of Karnataka unity. The
main message, nominally like “Ek Sur”, is unity in diversity: we have many
stories, but let us find common ground with Kannada.

Unlike many of these sorts of cheesy cultural features, “Kannada
Jeevaswara” has high production value and well-written lyrics. Without my
critical goggles on, I might have even enjoyed it. But a few things stood
out to me. The song is meant to represent all of Karnataka: the images
cover the state north to south, coast to hills. It’s written about Kannada,
though. (Even non-Kannada speakers can hear how many times the language’s
name is repeated in the song.) There’s not even a wink to the state’s other
native languages, like Tulu, Kodava or Konkani, though they’ve taken video
of the regions where they’re spoken. And Hindu imagery appears again and
again. Fine; the state is home to incredible religious heritage, old and
new. Still, apart from a few flashes here and there, Islam and other major
religions are given short shrift even while the camera lingers on the
state’s tiny Tibetan Buddhist community.

It would take some skilled mental gymnastics to claim that this video,
expansive as it is, represents Karnataka. Perhaps it’s unfair to pick on a
video that was probably made with the best of intentions. I don’t think
that it was meant to be exclusionary. But I think it’s even more telling
that the government of Karnataka could so unconsciously equate Karnataka
with (only) Kannada and (mainly) Hindu identities. The current slogan of
the state’s tourism board is “One State. Many
Worlds.<http://www.karnatakatourism.org/>”,
a rather accurate summary of Karnataka’s diversity. If only it were simple
enough to leave it at that. As long as the state's minorities are stifled
in favour of a facade of unity, the sentiment is empty: "many worlds", yes,
but a splintered state. Karnataka's advocates must either avoid celebrating
the state's cultural heritage at all (an impossibly sad result), or it must
take its own tourism motto to heart.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2013/06/language-identity-india

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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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