Hindi activists are so busy trying to displace English, they aren’t doing enough to promote their own cause
Political ambition should not constitute the heart of Hindi activism. Rather than appearing officious, Hindi should project itself as a cultural language. This comparison may be a revelation of sorts. The 16th World Sanskrit Conference held from June 28 to July 2, in Bangkok hosted 10 parallel sessions simultaneously, each lasting for not less than two hours. Every day, there were four slots of 10 parallel sessions each. For this, some 24 themes were identified. The schedule, printed minutely in landscape mode, ran into 18 pages.
In contrast, the 10th World Hindi Conference held between September 10 and September 12, at Bhopal could manage only four parallel sessions of one and half hours each. There were only two slots a day. There were 12 themes in all. A three-day conference had to depend upon ‘report presentation and acceptance' of each session as separate sessions to fill up the time was available. There was two hours of site-seeing on the first two days. Entertainment programmes consumed two hours on the first day, three on the second day. The schedule, printed in large letters, filled only four pages.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, in his valedictory address claimed that Hindi is closest to Sanskrit. This writer has reason to doubt the claim, especially if Hindi is examined vis-à-vis Bengali. But the above comparison shows how close (or rather far) Hindi is from Sanskrit, as far as sincerity is concerned.
The number of those who speak or understand Sanskrit in the world would be a fraction of the population of those who speak Hindi. Also, Hindi has infinitely more number of writers, journalists, singers, playwrights and dramatists. But what explains the 10th World Hindi Conference fading away in front of the 16th World Sanskrit ConferenceIJ
The reason, the writer feels, is that the cause of Hindi is more political than cultural. It is more rhetorical than academic. A comparison of the themes proves that participants in the Sanskrit Conference needed to sparkle academically necessitating rigorous preparation. The participants in the Hindi conference, by contrast, would just have to share their experiences, opinions and ideas. The champions of Hindi feel that they have just to knock down English, already berated as lord Macaulay's language — and India would be theirs. It is like those Indian political leaders who felt that once the British left, they would occupy their high chairs.
The champions are not interested in presenting Hindi as a language of Indian culture or Hindi literature as a repository of Indic consciousness. Its medieval literature, whether devotional or heroic, has nurtured the Indian psyche. Hindi has a great medieval heritage in all dialects (modern Hindi orkhadi boli is a 19th century construct). But champions of Hindi are not interested in Tulsidas, Kavi Bhushan, Raskhan or even Jaishankar Prasad. They are interested in how to displace English from offices, courts, banks and the military. But ironically in their houses, children call father papa and not pitaji and mumma not ma or mataji.
But there is a problem for Hindi in realising its temporal aspiration. The problem is that Hindi is not an innovator but an imitator in the spheres it wants to control. Sanskrit in its heydays was the innovator of philosophy, statecraft, yoga, ayurveda, Hindu law, astrology, aesthetics, architecture etc. Thus, it is the Sanskrit texts that will be the last authority on these subjects. But the same is not true for Hindi. In which modern discipline, original contribution has been made in Hindi- medicine, engineering, law, architecture, economics, banking, political science, management, film studies, information technology, geography, geologyIJ The answer is none of them. Hindi has more or less become a language of translation. This lack of innovativeness and originality of content is a major hurdle in Hindi displacing English.
The same can also be stated about other languages of India as well. But there lies the crucial difference. None of the other languages of India is trying to displace English. Nor are they getting Union Government patronage. In fact their complaint is more against Hindi rather than English. This is not because they despise Hindi as a language, but begrudge it cornering all official patronage. Are non-Hindi citizens of India not taxpayers of this countryIJ Then why should Hindi alone singled out for promotion by the StateIJ
We should not forget that India is a multi-lingual nation. It has living languages like Tamil and Kannada, which the Government of India acknowledges as classical languages. On the other end, we have Bengali which is first of the modern Indian languages. The first newspaper, the first essay, the first novel, the first magazine to be published in any Indian language was published in Bengali. In a public library, the Hindi literature section has whole shelves of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Tarashankar Bandopadhyay, Bimal Mitra, Ashapurna Devi etc. They are all Bengali writers translated into Hindi. Stalwart Hindi writers like Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi, Maithili Sharan Gupt, Hazari Prasad Dwivedi etc especially learnt Bengali because new things were then happening in that language. The very concept of Indian nationalism was born in Bengal.
This writer must add that he is no Hindi-hater. Far from it, the writer writes poems/songs in Hindi. The famous Hindi tagline for International Day of Yoga — Yog: sambhavnayon ko sambhav banaye was coined by the writer. let there be reciprocity between Hindi and other Indian languages. While others must learn Hindi, Hindi-speaking persons should also learn other Indian languages. The concept of supremacy of Hindi smacks of political ambition, where only north Indians are invited to constitute the inner circle. All accredited languages of India have played their role in enriching the culture of India. The Indian state must recognise their contribution in nation-building.