Hindi

[Bhadraiah Mallampalli]

>From: rohan.oberoi at CORNELL.EDU
>>>implications of 100 years of blind Hindee enforcement by Sanghis.

I think many people are worried by the 'future' 100 years they may rule. But
isn't religious involvement always irrational? Did you read the news items
about Islamic leaders in India calling for destruction of TV sets as a cause
of earthquakes? I think religion must be separated from state. It is when
state fails that religion comes to control state. Traditionally as per
purANAs the sages only used to visit kingdoms rarely to advise the kings.
Otherwise sages never had a vested interest in state.

>But it isn't quite accurate to characterise the influence of >'Sanghis' as
>restricted to the brief period of BJP governance in >independent India, for
>several reasons;

To the best of my information, before and after independence, sanghis
introduced sanskrit in their daily routine, not Hindi. Most of their
'military style commands' were in sanskrit. Another thing I heard they
imposed was the marAThA legacy in leadership.

>- The Indian government pre-1947 was quite sensitive to prevailing
>   Indian opinion, and certainly was not (as a lot of this sort of
>debate seems to assume) dictating policies without consideration of
>   that opinion

This story is similar to Jesus being crucified by Roman city mayor on the
advise of Jewish priests. I would blame the mayor, not the Jews because the
mayor was supposed to have absolute authority on his kingdom. Likewise the
Viceroy was responsible for what happened before independence. I leave it to
historians whether Viceroy acted out of avoiding headache or to purposely
manipulate; but he may have played both ways to appease both Hindus and
Muslims.

(which is not, of course, to claim that it was a
>   democratic government - though whether present Indian governments
>   meet that criterion either is also somewhat in question).

I don't deny that some rulers may not be democratic, but they were all
promptly brought down through democratic elections. The exceptions were the
two prime ministers who were assassinated. Even in those cases it was caused
by frustrated members of some affected communities rather than by a
'military establishment' taking over.

>- The Congress party, both before and after independence, had a >strong (I
>personally would say dominant) Hindu right wing that can >only be with
>difficulty distinguished from the Sangh (cf. B.G. >Tilak).

Wasn't pre-independence politics already polarized on religious grounds? it
is difficult to say what "caused" it first. Tilak organized religious
festivals, but did he give out any hate speeches against others?

>Indira Gandhi's well known Hindu mobilisation and minority
>demonisation campaigns are only one facet of this.

I didn't hear anything in words, but it was well known that Indira Gandhi
was shrewd. 1994 riots were the worst part.

As for languages; we have to separate out literary issues and daily routine
link language issues.

Literary: In my opinion, sanskrit should have been more rightist than Hindi.
Even stauch Tamil scholars on this list would welcome sanskrit courses in
their home state than Hindi, because it may indirectly help a lot of
literary works to/from Tamil. But sanskrit was not actively promoted either
because the new rulers wanted to create a "new history" devoid of older
sanskrit/farsi legacy; or because of pressure from the 'dead language'
crowd.

Link-language for people: Hindi was popularized to have something common
between different states. The question arises why not English? This question
was asked for 5 decades by every body, and that is why local language is
first language, and English is second language in every state. Hindi is
relegated to third language in most states except probably Tamil nadu where
people learn on their own for jobs in north. Another reason for promotion of
Hindi may be that Congress was pretty strong in UP belt. It may be north
dominating south, rather than a Hindu agenda. At least that is what I
guessed in my long public sector service in north India. The northern
managers found it easier to do administration in Hindi rather than English.
If you write some nonsense, they still say "Eh kya angrezi hai?"

Best regards
Bhadraiah
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