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Rahul Singh
Which is more divisive — religion or language? In view of the Partition of the sub-continent in 1947, most Indians would reply, “Religion, of course.” Hold on. Religion alone could not keep Pakistan together. It was mainly language that split it in 1971, leading to the formation of Bangladesh. The numerous East Pakistanis resented the way Urdu was being imposed on them at the cost of their own mother tongue, Bengali, around which much of their culture was built.
Take the example of India as well. In the early 1960s, there were widespread riots in Tamil Nadu against the imposition of Hindi. Seventy people died. In fact, there was then a demand for a separate Tamil nation, Dravida Nadu. Newly-independent India was in danger of breaking up, just like Pakistan in 1971, on account of language. Fortunately, democracy came to our rescue. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) was elected to power in the state in 1967 and its separatist demand evaporated. Democracy always moderates and cools down passions. Earlier, the then Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri had wisely eased tensions by assuring the non-Hindi-speaking states that English would continue as an official language, along with Hindi, as long as they wanted. Home Minister Amit Shah is a poor student of history, unaware that he was playing with fire when he declared recently that Hindi should be the “one language of the country”. That was a red flag to non-Hindi-speaking states, particularly Tamil Nadu.
Let’s see how some other countries have handled the contentious language issue.
The most instructive is Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world, and the most diverse, after India. An archipelago of over 17,000 islands, it has 730 languages and 1,300 different ethnic groups. Thoughtful Indonesians realised that when they would get their independence from Dutch colonial rule, choosing the national language would pose a problem. And they did something remarkable. A body of students got together and decided not to select the language spoken by 40 per cent of Indonesians, Javanese, but one that was spoken by less than 4 per cent of Indonesians, namely Malay, later to be called Bahasa Indonesia. Note the word “bahasa”, a variation of “bhasha”, which means “language” in Hindi! Malay was a simple language of communication, used by traders and sailors, and understood all over the region. It incorporates several languages, including Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani. So, in 1928, at a students’ conference, the solemn pledge, “One country, one nation, one language,” was taken. And that language would be Bahasa Indonesia, in the Roman script. Over the years, it has developed into the undisputed lingua franca of the country. The other, older languages, with their own scripts have continued, but Indonesia has had no serious language problem, while India still does.
Turkey, under that great reformer — and one of my heroes — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, did something similar. In 1928, he mandated that henceforth Turkish would be in the Roman script, not the earlier Arabic script that Turks had used for 1,000 years. The Roman script was successfully adapted to the phonetic requirements of Turkish. It was also much simpler to learn. The change had dramatic consequences. Turkey’s literacy rate soared from an abysmal 10 per cent to 90 per cent, on par with any developed country.
Not too many Indians are aware that “Netaji” Subhas Chandra Bose, after he was elected the Congress president at the Haripura session in 1938, also advocated the Roman script for Hindi. “To promote national unity, we shall have to develop our lingua franca and a common script,” he said presciently at Haripura, adding that a mix of Hindi and Urdu was best, “But I am inclined to think the ultimate solution would be the adoption of a script which would bring us in line with the rest of the world.”
He then continued, “Perhaps some of our countrymen would gape with horror when they hear of the adoption of the Roman script, but I would beg them to consider this problem from the scientific and historical point of view.” Bose said he was inspired by a trip to Turkey in 1934 when “Ataturk enforced a new national script in 1928”. But the fanatical Hindi fundamentalists would have none of it. They prevailed — with the tragic results that followed.
Apart from Indonesia and Turkey, here are some other countries that have adopted the Roman script as their national script: Vietnam, Somalia, parts of Africa (where Swahili and Igbo are spoken), Malaysia, the Philippines and, needless to say, most western nations.
One final word. There is a difference between Hindustani and Hindi. A survey shows that four out of 10 “Hindi speakers” don’t consider Hindi as their mother tongue. That survey also reveals that English is now the second most spoken language in India, cutting across all linguistic groups. English is globally the most spoken language, proficiency of which has enabled India to become an international Information Technology (IT) giant. Increasingly, Indians need a knowledge of English to get jobs, which is partly why private fee-paying schools are preferred even by the relatively poor, over free government schools.
Hindustani is the lingua franca of a large part of India (Pakistan, too), no question about that. It has a mix of Hindi, Urdu, Persian, and English. It is spoken, or at least understood, all over India, as well as in the South, particularly in the main cities. Bollywood has done a great deal to make it popular, and continues to do so. If it had been promoted in the Roman script, as Netaji had proposed, I believe it would have become a truly national language of communication and unity (just like Bahasa Indonesia), accepted by all parts of India. Meanwhile, the regional languages could have continued to flourish in their own scripts. One wonders what would have happened if Netaji had lived to take over the leadership of Independent India.
— The writer is a veteran journalistWhich is more divisive — religion or language? In view of the Partition of the sub-continent in 1947, most Indians would reply, “Religion, of course.” Hold on. Religion alone could not keep Pakistan together. It was mainly language that split it in 1971, leading to the formation of Bangladesh. The numerous East Pakistanis resented the way Urdu was being imposed on them at the cost of their own mother tongue, Bengali, around which much of their culture was built.
Take the example of India as well. In the early 1960s, there were widespread riots in Tamil Nadu against the imposition of Hindi. Seventy people died. In fact, there was then a demand for a separate Tamil nation, Dravida Nadu. Newly-independent India was in danger of breaking up, just like Pakistan in 1971, on account of language. Fortunately, democracy came to our rescue. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) was elected to power in the state in 1967 and its separatist demand evaporated. Democracy always moderates and cools down passions. Earlier, the then Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri had wisely eased tensions by assuring the non-Hindi-speaking states that English would continue as an official language, along with Hindi, as long as they wanted. Home Minister Amit Shah is a poor student of history, unaware that he was playing with fire when he declared recently that Hindi should be the “one language of the country”. That was a red flag to non-Hindi-speaking states, particularly Tamil Nadu.
Let’s see how some other countries have handled the contentious language issue.
The most instructive is Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world, and the most diverse, after India. An archipelago of over 17,000 islands, it has 730 languages and 1,300 different ethnic groups. Thoughtful Indonesians realised that when they would get their independence from Dutch colonial rule, choosing the national language would pose a problem. And they did something remarkable. A body of students got together and decided not to select the language spoken by 40 per cent of Indonesians, Javanese, but one that was spoken by less than 4 per cent of Indonesians, namely Malay, later to be called Bahasa Indonesia. Note the word “bahasa”, a variation of “bhasha”, which means “language” in Hindi! Malay was a simple language of communication, used by traders and sailors, and understood all over the region. It incorporates several languages, including Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani. So, in 1928, at a students’ conference, the solemn pledge, “One country, one nation, one language,” was taken. And that language would be Bahasa Indonesia, in the Roman script. Over the years, it has developed into the undisputed lingua franca of the country. The other, older languages, with their own scripts have continued, but Indonesia has had no serious language problem, while India still does.
Turkey, under that great reformer — and one of my heroes — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, did something similar. In 1928, he mandated that henceforth Turkish would be in the Roman script, not the earlier Arabic script that Turks had used for 1,000 years. The Roman script was successfully adapted to the phonetic requirements of Turkish. It was also much simpler to learn. The change had dramatic consequences. Turkey’s literacy rate soared from an abysmal 10 per cent to 90 per cent, on par with any developed country.
Not too many Indians are aware that “Netaji” Subhas Chandra Bose, after he was elected the Congress president at the Haripura session in 1938, also advocated the Roman script for Hindi. “To promote national unity, we shall have to develop our lingua franca and a common script,” he said presciently at Haripura, adding that a mix of Hindi and Urdu was best, “But I am inclined to think the ultimate solution would be the adoption of a script which would bring us in line with the rest of the world.”
He then continued, “Perhaps some of our countrymen would gape with horror when they hear of the adoption of the Roman script, but I would beg them to consider this problem from the scientific and historical point of view.” Bose said he was inspired by a trip to Turkey in 1934 when “Ataturk enforced a new national script in 1928”. But the fanatical Hindi fundamentalists would have none of it. They prevailed — with the tragic results that followed.
Apart from Indonesia and Turkey, here are some other countries that have adopted the Roman script as their national script: Vietnam, Somalia, parts of Africa (where Swahili and Igbo are spoken), Malaysia, the Philippines and, needless to say, most western nations.
One final word. There is a difference between Hindustani and Hindi. A survey shows that four out of 10 “Hindi speakers” don’t consider Hindi as their mother tongue. That survey also reveals that English is now the second most spoken language in India, cutting across all linguistic groups. English is globally the most spoken language, proficiency of which has enabled India to become an international Information Technology (IT) giant. Increasingly, Indians need a knowledge of English to get jobs, which is partly why private fee-paying schools are preferred even by the relatively poor, over free government schools.
Hindustani is the lingua franca of a large part of India (Pakistan, too), no question about that. It has a mix of Hindi, Urdu, Persian, and English. It is spoken, or at least understood, all over India, as well as in the South, particularly in the main cities. Bollywood has done a great deal to make it popular, and continues to do so. If it had been promoted in the Roman script, as Netaji had proposed, I believe it would have become a truly national language of communication and unity (just like Bahasa Indonesia), accepted by all parts of India. Meanwhile, the regional languages could have continued to flourish in their own scripts. One wonders what would have happened if Netaji had lived to take over the leadership of Independent India.
— The writer is a veteran journalist
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