languages (question) (was Re: pronunciation of Sanskrit)

[Srinivasan Pichumani]

	For Hindi speaking states, the third language is supposed to be another
	Indian language. The complaint is not about including a language to the
	official list of Indian languages, but about the actual practice of
	teaching (or not teaching) a non-Hindi language to native speakers of
	Hindi. Nowadays, I hear Tamil is becoming popular as a third language in
	Uttar Pradesh schools, because of the popularity of Periyar (E. V.
	Ramaswami Naicker) and Anna (C. N. Annadurai) among its politicians. 

I wonder if there are any hard facts to support this... I too
have heard somewhere that Telugu is studied in some Haryana 
schools...  but Bh.Krishnamurti (Osmania Univ), Siba Bhattacharya 
(Calcutta Univ) discount the 3-language policy's working in
the Hindi speaking states and elsewhere.

In any case, the inclusion of EVR in the list above is interesting
since he didn't lay much store by Tamil.  

	Tamil Nadu has eliminated teaching of Hindi from state-accredited schools. 
	This means that if a domicile of the state of Tamil Nadu wants to learn 
	Hindi, she should attend private classes, or else go to a school that 
	follows a syllabus prescribed by NCERT (National Council for Educational 
	Research and Training), instead of the local state examination board. 

I am not sure if this is right or if this is a recent development... 
I know of people who have studied Hindi in state-accredited schools
in TN... it all depended upon the school's resources.  But you can't 
study it in a TN state run school, I believe... like the schools run
by Madras Corporation.  Corrections ?

For the sake of completeness, one needs to mention that Mizoram and
Pondicherry (which is completely surrounded by TN anyway, except for
the Bay of Bengal) too don't have Hindi in their schools.  But since
this data comes from Chaturvedi and Mohale 1976, the situation may
have changed in Mizoram.

	Tamil Nadu's decision to boycott Hindi extends not only to education, 
	but also to Doordarshan broadcasts of the news in Hindi. That time slot 
	is used for Tamil news, whereas in a state like Maharashtra, Marathi news 
	is broadcast at a different time. 

This has to be seen in light of the overbearing attitude of folks 
in the Central Govt who feel the desire to push Hindi down everyone's
throats.  Very real measures and directives in various sectors like
railways, post and communications, banking, insurance, etc and of
course on Doordarshan attest to this attitude.

s'ubh kAmanAyen,
-Srini.