[lg policy] India: Rajaji In 1968: “Hindi Is, At Best, The Language Of A Large Minority”

Wed Sep 14 14:53:28 UTC 2016

Rajaji In 1968: “Hindi Is, At Best, The Language Of A Large Minority” Swarajya
Archives <http://swarajyamag.com/author/17525> - September 14, 2016, 6:11
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Snapshot

>From the January 1968 edition of *Swarajya*, this is Rajaji’s passionate
argument against Hindi being given precedence over other regional languages
in India.

*Union Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Jitendra Singh had
said in June that Hindi needed to be promoted a lot more in the country,
especially in South and Northeast India
<http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/centre-to-promote-use-of-hindi-in-south-india-northeast-jitendra-singh/>.
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.*

*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:*

...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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

http://swarajyamag.com/from-the-archives/rajaji-in-1968-hindi-is-at-best-the-language-of-a-large-minority

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