North versus South
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Jayanthi Natarajan
Interesting debate was recently aired on a popular TV channel, on whether North India was dragging down the development of South India. While intending no disrespect whatever to our brothers and sisters up north, I sincerely believe that this is a subject which merits free and frank discussion.
The debate on the differences between North and South India, was in my personal view, long overdue. This particular discussion, though incontrovertibly one sided, also highlighted some very important issues, which are rarely discussed in any meaningful way. Social scientists have long discussed the so called Bimaru states - a particular belt of states where social indices are painfully distorted and lopsided. The Southern states on the other hand got off to a very good start, and have steadily improved both their development as well as their social and economic parameters. Literacy levels are almost at one hundred percent, with the consequent improvement in the status of women, and other disadvantaged sections. Foreign investment and industrialisation are also high. All these issues were reflected in that debate, and several other important points.
However there is a political, social, and cultural divide which is not often talked about, and these are deeply felt concerns of large sections of the nation, which now need to be addressed dispassionately. What might have begun with language, has now metamorphed into an attitude of indifference and superiority on the one side, and docile apathy on the other, leading to avoidable discrimination, and a feeling of alienation.
It is difficult to be dispassionate about highly emotive issues like language and culture. This is something I can attest to in a very personal way, because as far back as 1967, my grandfather faced the brunt of the anti-Hindi agitation, as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. This was the first time that Tamil Nadu displayed to the nation in no uncertain terms, the passion and power that can be generated by controversy over language. It was nearly twenty years after this that I landed in Delhi as a Member of Parliament from Tamil Nadu, and immediately the enormity of the domination of Hindi hit me like a ton of bricks.
Ninety percent of the proceedings in Parliament are conducted in Hindi, other MPs speak in Hindi in Central Hall, most of the staff speak Hindi, all official documents come in Hindi as well as English, and obviously all the citizens we interact with, like shop keepers, bus drivers, or cabbies, speak only Hindi. Ministers are routinely told to answer questions in Hindi, and protests from non Hindi speakers are dismissed with a cavalier observation, that Hindi should rule, because “Hindi is the national language”.
All efforts to point out that Hindi is not the national language, but rather the official language, falls upon deaf ears, and the distinction between the two is never appreciated. There are always loud protests from South Indian MPs, when Hindi is sought to be thrust down our throats, but these usually turn out to be pyrrhic victories, because after the protest is said and done, the proceedings simply continue in Hindi.
We are told patronisingly that English is the language of our colonial masters and we should, if we so desired, speak in our mother tongue, or in Hindi, but should not fall prey to the “slave mentality of speaking English”. However, though many of us speak Hindi, I cannot think of a single colleague from the north of the Vindhyas who can speak Tamil. The recurrent pattern of this attitude is evident in virtually all the activities of Central Government. Huge amounts of money are spent in promoting Hindi, and even expensive foreign trips are undertaken by Parliamentary Committees, to study if Hindi is being properly developed in Indian embassies abroad!
I do not believe that any citizen of India who loves his language could possibly be hostile to any other Indian language. We are the world’s biggest and most diverse democracy. We are one billion people who have lived together for over half a century, forging brotherhood and harmony in the midst of all our diversity. Despite our natural spirit of harmony and tolerance, I found it profoundly depressing how languages other than Hindi are treated so shabbily by the Central Government, and lakhs of rupees are spent on reviving a language like Sanskrit, which has only been used in high literary circles.
Some fanatics claim that Hindi should be accorded primacy because it is spoken by a vast majority of Indians, but this is a claim which is demonstrably false. Less than 23 percent of Indians speak Hindi, and even in Northern India, the languages spoken range from Gujarati to Assamese, and Haryanvi, and Punjabi, none of which can possibly be classified as Hindi. In fact, even Devi Lal, when challenged to do so, could not speak in Hindi, but could only reply in his native Haryanvi. There can be no doubt that it would be wonderful to have one single national language that all Indians could speak, but this is something that has to evolve naturally.
This is by no means a tirade against Hindi, but a a heartfelt plea that the politics of language should never become a tool to dominate or discriminate against some parts of India, or be used to divert attention from the very real problems that now confront our country.
Unfortunately, the unthinking sense of superiority engendered in some on the basis of the language they speak, has turned into crude insensitive caricaturing of South Indians which is routinely done in Hindi films, and does not elicit the smallest protest from the Censor Board. Bollywood film makers appear to be oblivious of the fact that many learned South Indians are respected Hindi scholars, and the Hindi Prachar Sabha in Chennai is one of the most eminent institutions imparting the study of Hindi in the country.
Significantly, I have never seen a single Tamil, Telugu or Kannada film, where Hindi or Hindi speakers have been lampooned. But then, what can you expect of non political film makers, when so august a person as the Union Minister for Human Resource Development, flatly refused to even consider declaring Tamil as an official language, because “not enough persons spoke Tamil”?
Language is only part of the problem, just like the fact that the vibrant and burgeoning economic development of the South is being hampered by some lawless and indisciplined parts of North India. There are serious practical and political ramifications arising out of the underplaying of the role of South India, the ultimate irony being the fact that Parliament actually considered seriously a proposal to cut down the number of MPs representing Tamil Nadu (and other states) simply because this state had performed admirably in stabilising population. This proposal was dropped after howls of protest from the South, but still vividly illustrates how insensitive public policy can sometimes be.
After years in Parliament and in Delhi, I have come to the conclusion that it would be criminal negligence on our part to ignore this issue any longer. It is time politicians and vested interests understood that politicising the differences of language and region by projecting any one language as superior to all others, based on dubious data, is the surest way to destroy the country. And that in a country as diverse as India, there can never be any valid claim that any one language or culture is more important or superior to any other.
