Political push and resistance highlight India’s challenge to balance language diversity and unity.
The decision of the BJP-led Mahayuti government in Maharashtra to scrap the government resolutions (GRs) that made Hindi the default third language for students of Classes 1 to 5 studying in English and Marathi medium schools has come as an afterthought but is still welcome. The formation of a panel to study the implementation of the three-language policy in the state must be seen as a face-saver, and hence be treated as such.
It could be political expediency that had the government impose Hindi on students in Classes 1 to 5 under the guise of the three-language policy; it could be political expediency, again, that prompted the government to revoke it. The BJP’s aim was to play the nationalistic tune better than its friend-turned-foe Shiv Sena, but the Sena factions cannot forget their basic moorings and hence opposed the government’s plan. The Sena factions, led by Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray, smelt an opportunity to play up the passion of the language enthusiasts and planned a mega rally on July 5 against the government decision which the BJP realised would give the rivals a legitimate platform to launch a resistance, and hence the decision.
It is unfortunate that the right wing leaders in India have hardly realised that ‘India’ is qualified to be an entry in thesaurus for ‘diversity’ as every element of human behaviour and enterprise thrive here, including language and religion. It would take the imagination of a great human being to find the golden thread that connects all its inhabitants to one self, and hence Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru defined it as ‘unity in diversity’. That dictum helped India navigate the most troublesome early years as a republic while several others plunged to autocracies of different hues. In the process, the nation has learnt how to handle the faultlines of society and to stop them from developing into cracks that could potentially break it down. The Hindutva brigade has no qualms about hitting hard on the very same faultlines in their eagerness to wrest power and retain it.
Home Minister Amit Shah has made a similar volte-face after stating that “those who speak English will soon feel ashamed — the creation of such a society is not far away”. His revised opinion of the language is that there should be no opposition to any foreign language but “there should be an urge to glorify one’s own language”. The home minister also stated that there were efforts in the past to use language as a tool to divide the country but did not succeed. One should not have an objection to the renewed position of the home minister; in fact, that is the position the government in a country of diverse languages must take.
The Hindi zealots must realise that no language is loved or accepted when it is imposed; people fall in love with it when it makes their lives more livable, instead. Bollywood movies have created Hindi aficionados not just across the country but all over the world. Let the language have an organic acceptance across regions; using the tools of power to impose it covertly or overtly will be resisted and defeated.
