Monday, September 22, 2008

National Language - Hindi... Continued.

After the break....

Government Sense - In terms of government if Hindi had been the official language then everything is clear. There will not be any dispute in understanding by the sender or receiver between govt officials. Look at the central government forms.... everything is in Hindi/English and prominent is Hindi. There is a fear of misunderstanding among South Indians when it comes to filling up of central govt., forms. For example, PF forms, this is one of the important forms which gets rejected because of incomplete information or incorrect information. We are required to consult a broker for filling up the forms who then charges us a small fee. This situation could be avoided if we all had known Hindi.

The Pros of avoiding Hindi by South Indians....

English - Our English is far better than anyone in the world barring the English themselves. Bangalore has made it to a world class city in a short span of one decade simply because of English speaking talent available.

FDI Foreign Direct Investments - The investment from large MNCs pour in South India whereas it is low in North India. Chennai has become the hub for automobile parts manufacturing and Hyundai is one of the large investor.

People Capital - Due to the knowledge of English and technical education, the South Indians are able to travel all around the corners of the world and are able to adapt to the situation. The North Indians hate 'firangis' and I do not criticize them, after all it was the firangis who ruled us for more than 100 years!

Conclusion:
Weighing the pros and cons, the end result is we have lost a unified India. We loved English (myself included), it was like an obsession to learn the foreign language but we forgot that Hindi is our national language. The main agenda of the protestors of anti-Hindi was we would lose the identity as locals and the local language Tamil. If you look at the North Indians, by learning Hindi in their curriculam they have not lost their state identity. Gujarthis are proud of their language, same way goes for Marathis and the Bengalis. Who likes to lose their identity? No one!!!! Infact, we could have adopted the Hindi imposition and still proud to be called as Tamilians or Telugus or Malayalee or Kannadigas. The self-immolation protests in Tamilnadu against the Hindi imposition put a permanent seal on Central Government not to talk on this issue in future.

It is my dream to see a unified India where language is not a barrier to communication or trade. We should be proud to show our face as Indians not as North Indians or South Indians. India, where people speak one language for the world outside but still plural inside.

If I have left something or missed something let me know.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I kinda see your point but one huge mistake on your side. Hindi is/was never a national language. It however is an official language.