SYED KHALIQUE AHMED
NEW DELHI, OCT 23
Will the gradual approach of the BJP to impose Hindi on Southern states help it politically in the 2024 general elections and help it establish itself in the country’s southern region where it is very weak except in Karnataka, where the BJP is in power? What if there is opposition to its attempt, in the same manner, the Southerners, particularly the Tamilians, opposed the bid to impose Hindi during the Congress rule in the 1960s and 1980s?
The subject has acquired importance because a debate has begun about the issue in political circles after the Official Language Committee of Parliament submitted its report to President Draupadi Murmu on September 9, 2022.
Though the report is confidential and has not been made public yet, media reports, quoting sources, say that the report has recommended increasing the use of Hindi in official communication and discouraging the use of English, besides making Hindi the medium of instruction in technical and professional institutions like IITs, IIMs, AIIMS, and central universities.
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Taking this as a bid to impose Hindi on non-Hindi-speaking states, the Tamil Nadu assembly passed a resolution against it on October 18, 2022.
Moving the resolution, TN chief minister MK Stalin said that the Narendra Modi government’s bid to impose Hindi was “divisive and impractical”. Moreover, he said it was against the interest of non-Hindi-speaking states. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, too, has opposed the ‘imposition of Hindi’. Vijayan called it an “onslaught on India’s cherished idea of unity in diversity.” Kirti Chidambaram, in a letter to PM, said that Hindi as medium of instruction in technical and medical courses would hurt the schientific temper and quality of medical education in India. “Hindi imposition is going to lead to great disaster,” Kirti, son of former union minister P Chidambaram commented.
The TN assembly resolution has requested the President not to accept the panel’s recommendations. In a separate letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Stalin demanded that all the languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution be made as official languages of the country, a non-practical suggestion because there are 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule. Can a country be run with 22 official languages? The answer is “No”.
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Why do the Southerners fear that the Modi government is trying to impose Hindi against their wishes? This is because the job of the Official Language Committe is to review the progress made in using Hindi in official communication and administrative works. But the committee, according to experts, have gone beyond its brief and recommended the use of Hindi as a medium of instruction in technical and higher education institutions, apart from instructing that the question papers for recruitment to central services and its departments be framed in Hindi only. Could Southern states, especially Tamil Nadu, accept it? Tamil Nadu is the only state that does not have Navodaya Vidyalayas because the Rajiv Gandhi government had made Hindi the medium of instruction in NVs, and the Tamil Nadu state government did not accept the proposal.
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Media reports, quoting sources, say that the committee has warned the officers who use the English language in official communication in Hindi-speaking states. According to recommendations, if the officers continue official work in English, it will reflect in their performance during the annual appraisal of their work. It means the officers will have to do all official work in Hindi only if they want promotion and a rise in the hierarchy.
Another thing that has angered the Southerners is the committee’s recommendations about setting question papers for central services examinations in Hindi only. The Southerners feel that it will go against their interest.
According to media reports, the committee has recommended using Hindi only in government departments in states like UP, Bihar, Haryana, MP, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattishgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, and Union Territories of Delhi and Andaman and the Nicobar Islands. In addition, the recommendations reportedly say that the medium of instruction in IITs, AIIMS, central universities, and Kendriya Vidyalayas in these states should be Hindi only.
Reports say that use of Hindi is 100 percent in Union Home Ministry under Amit Shah and Defence Ministry under Rajnath Singh.
Political and social activists from Tamil Nadu and the other Southern States say that the move of the BJP government, which is a part of its plan to make Hindi the only official language, will result in the domination of the North over the South in central services and professional, technical and higher educational institutions. Moreover, as South Indians are not very proficient in the Hindi language, they will not be able to get selected for central government jobs as well as teachers in technical and higher educational institutes if Hindi is made the medium of instruction.
The Hindi opponents say that Hindi as the medium of instruction in higher and technical education institutions will bring down the quality of education in India, which is now almost at par with many advanced countries. In addition, there have been several incidents of plagiarism, particularly in research work in universities that allow PhD theses in Hindi or the regional languages because there is no mechanism in Hindi or regional languages to check whether a research work is original or plagiarised.
Southerners argue that the imposition of Hindi will reduce the representation of South Indians in central government jobs, which will likely result in straining relations between the two regions. In addition, reports say there is a lot of anger among South Indians over the Official Language Committee report on increasing the use of Hindi in administrative work and teaching jobs in educational institutions.
Tamil Nadu has opposed Hindi as the sole official language since Independence. When the Constitution came into effect on January 26, 1950, Hindi and English were made official languages. However, it was resolved that Hindi would continue to be the country’s sole official language after 15 years. But, it was opposed by Tamil politicians who wanted the continuation of English as the official language along with Hindi. It was owing to pressure from South Indian states, and more particularly from Tamil politicians, that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru got Official Language Act enacted in 1963, which provided that English would continue as the country’s official language even after 1965.
But Tamil politicians feared that Hindi might be made the sole official language after January 26, 1965. When January 26, 1965, approached near, Tamil politicians started anti-Hindi agitation on a mass scale. There was a riot all over Tamil Nadu, and the turmoil continued for over two months. The protest ended only after Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri assured that English would continue as the official language as long as the non-Hindi-speaking states wanted. The two-month-long agitation by opposition parties cost Congress heavily, as the party could not come back to power in the state again. Under Indira Gandhi’s prime ministership, the Official Language Act was amended in 1967, which provided that Hindi and English would continue as official languages indefinitely. This pacified the Tamil chauvinists, who wanted English as the official language, along with Hindi.
The question arises: Will the current approach of the Modi government to impose Hindi in a piecemeal manner and make it the sole official language by removing English be successful? The Congress failed to make Hindi the sole official language because it tried to impose it directly, resulting in protests. But the Modi government is trying to do the same thing from the backdoor. Instead of now making Hindi the sole official language in one go, it is trying to bring Hindi as a medium of instruction in all technical, professional and higher educational institutions, apart from forcing officers in central government departments and Hindi-speaking states to do all official work and communication in Hindi language only. If this strategy succeeds, then there will be nothing left to discard English and officially declare Hindi as the sole official language.
Political analysts say that times have changed, and South Indians may not oppose it as strongly as they did in the 1960s and 1980s. Moreover, the gradual manner in which the Modi government is moving to implement Hindi will not give many opportunities for Southerners to oppose it vigorously. The Hindi language is slowly becoming acceptable as all the signages and boards for central government highways, and other projects are displayed in Hindi, in addition to the local language, even in Tamil Nadu. Political observers say the same is true in Karnataka and other Southern states. This indicates that opposition to Hindi has diluted to a large extent, and the people in the South are slowly adjusting to the use of the Hindi language. Many South Indian complain that Public Sector Banks like State bank of India communicate over phone or online only in Hindi and English, making it difficult for people in rural areas of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Kannada. A SBI customer said that he recently received his SBI bank account passbook printed in Hindi and english only, not in Kannada language as used to be the case earlier. This is leading to anger among South Indian population. Employees of multi-national companies in Bengaluru complain that their companies are using Hindi language only to celebrate Diwali in offices.
Media reports say that protests are also being organised in Kolkata against hegemony of Hindi being promoted by BJP-led central government. Protesters during a rally against Hindi on October 12 carried the photographs of Tamil icons Annadurai and Kannada poet KV Puttapa in their hands and shouted slogans against Hindi being made as the sole official language.
In any case, BJP’s bid to take Hindi to the Southern states will help it consolidate its political base in the Hindi-speaking belt. According to political experts, it will further strengthen the position of the BJP in the Hindi belt if there is strong opposition or some sort of agitation is started against Hindi in Tamil Nadu and other Southern states. This is because Hindi can become a double-edged sword politically for BJP. Suppose the imposition of Hindi can have unfavourable consequences for BJP in South India. In that case, it can have favourable development in political terms for the saffron party in the Hindi-speaking states. So, BJP has nothing to lose in political terms even if there is opposition to the Hindi agenda of the party in South India because it will further consolidate its support base in the Hindi belt, having the maximum number of Lok Sabha seats.
(Syed Khalique Ahmed is the Chief Editor of indiatomorrow.net)
