“We need to bond together and renew our compact to protect the world from falling into a spiral of slow economic growth, rising inequality and irreversibly altered climate, conflict and fragility,” Jaitley said in Washington DC last week.
Jaitley’s audience included his counterparts from the US, Australia, New Zealand and several European nations as well as those from Asia and Africa. The key word in the aforementioned quote is “bond”. Without bonding together none of the other targets of growth, climate, etc; would be achieved is what was being propounded.
But Jaitley could as well have made that speech in India, most notably to his own Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). After all, we all know where charity should begin and if bonding between people of different nations is important for growth, the same should hold good for people within a nation.
What the BJP needs to be told is that it should aim at ‘bonding’ Indians in as many spheres as possible so that the nation as a whole develops and progresses. Now, how do you ‘bond’ a beef-eating, Christian Sikkimese woman in Gangtok who wears the traditional ‘kho’ with a Kancheevaram sari-clad, vegetarian Brahmin from Madurai in Tamil Nadu? Or a Sikh from Amritsar, Punjab in his Pathani suit and with all the five ‘k’s – ‘kesh, kirpan, kada, kachcha and kanga – with the bare-chested, lungi-clad Muslim from Malappuram, Kerala? The diversities are many and wide-ranging.
Introducing economic measures like the goods and services tax cannot bring about bonding or integration. At best it can increase trade. Legislating what people should eat or drink also cannot enhance bonding. Nor, for that matter, imposing compulsory teaching of any language, to be more precise Hindi, in a country of many languages.
Unfortunately, in the euphoria of massive electoral victories, mainly in the northern part of the country, the BJP is trying to do all these things at once. Although currently led by two Gujaratis – Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah – the BJP has always been considered a north Indian party, that too of upper class Hindus for the most part. That latter distinction has got blurred somewhat lately as the lower caste Hindus and even many of the minority communities began to gravitate towards the BJP as they found the Congress, the communists and several of the regional parties lacking in honesty and credibility.
But electoral support can never translate into socio-religious-linguistic sanction. The Modi government may want to deny it, but it is impossible for the Committee of Parliament on Official Language, which is under the Home Ministry, to send a recommendation to the President without its knowledge. And what has this committee recommended? That Hindi should be made compulsory learning for all classes up to 10th standard across the country.
Yes, the recommendation was moved as long ago as 2011 when the Congress-led government was in power but the President’s approval has come now. Why the President’s office did not take it up for six years, four of which were when the Congress was ruling, and why it should be notified now by the government and find favour with the President when the BJP is in power are questions that are begging answers.
Of course there is nothing new in the attempt to make Hindi popular. Article 343(1) of the Constitution provides that “Hindi in Devanagari script shall be the Official Language of the Union of India.” Article 343(2) also provided for continuing the “use of English in official work of the Union for a period of 15 years (i.e., up to 25 January 1965) from the date of commencement of the Constitution.” This was further extended to 25 years, meaning English should have stopped existing in official papers of India by January 25, 1975.
But the world moved on English mainly and so did India. English education held much attraction because it opened up the world to the student. Almost every scientific, engineering or medical advancement has its roots in English. Its literature has near-universal appeal. Mention Shakespeare and you won’t be asked, at least in most parts of the world, “Shakespeare who?” Those with proficiency in English have the opportunity to become world citizens even as they are celebrated citizens of their own country. Surely Jaitley holding forth at the World Bank could not have been as effective if he were to make his pitch in India’s official language.
Agreed that the majority of Indians speak Hindi, with one state – Uttar Pradesh – alone contributing the most. It is so big that if it were a separate country, it will be the world’s fifth most populous nation. But the curious fact is Uttar Pradesh is also one of the most illiterate states in India! A popular national news television channel found that teachers of Class X in government schools in the state did not know who the prime minister of India was! So, instead of making it compulsory for all of India to learn Hindi, the government would well to concentrate its efforts on educating – in Hindi, of course – the people of Uttar Pradesh. And if that is over and done with, it can move to Bihar, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and the like.
The proponents of Hindi – the government and those with a vested interest, that is – do not seem to notice that Kerala, where English education had struck roots decades ago, is also one of the most literate states in the country. This is also one of the main reasons for Kerala being cited for other social indices like healthcare, low infant mortality, etc. Closely following Kerala are Mizoram, Tripura, Goa, Puducherry and Chandigarh, not one of them is Hindi-speaking, at least officially. Is there a lesson to be learned from this? If there is, it looks like it has got to be learned in a language other than Hindi!
Digressions apart, the language issue is a very emotional one beyond the Vindhyas, especially in Tamil Nadu. Major riots had broken out there during the pre- and-post-independence days. In fact the politics of Tamil Nadu, one of the most industrialised states in the country, is closely linked to the legacy of Tamil, considered by scholars inside and outside India as the oldest language in the world. Next door Karnataka is also very possessive about Kannada. Not to be left behind, Kerala recently made Malayalam compulsory learning till class X. If the Modi government is indeed planning to invoke that old provision in the Constitution it could well be igniting passions that it may be in no position to control.
Modi, Jaitley and the rest of the world are viewing the progress and development of China with awe and admiration. Deng Xioping is credited as the maker of modern China. In an authoritative treatise on English language education in China, Guangwei Hu of Nayang Technological University describes in detail what Deng did to popularise English.
“Thus to revive and expand, English language education became an integral part of the modernisation drive. This was no easy task, as the decade-long Cultural Revolution had wreaked havoc on the infrastructure for foreign language education. During that 10-year period, English was viewed as the language of the enemy…. The central emphasis on the strategic role of English in the modernisation process, the projected demand for human resources with good pro?ciency in English, and the marginal English provision in the school system made the reinstatement and expansion of English language education a top priority on the national agenda of educational development. In 1978, the Ministry of Education (MOE) issued the ?rst uni?ed primary and secondary curriculum and the accompanying draft English syllabus in the era of modernisation.”
To cut the story short, China has not looked back ever since. Many believe that Modi could well be India’s Deng. Like the Chinese leader Modi too had confronted his compatriots with some stark truths. In speech after speech Modi has reminded Indians that their country has a lot of catching up to do. Modi is a keen student of history and would know what Deng had to do to bring China back from the brink. Hopefully he would also remember how Deng turned the “language of the enemy” to China’s advantage. History can repeat itself elsewhere too, can’t it?
