India , Independence and Hindi Language Problem -
India , Independence and Hindi Language Problem -
After Reading all the comments on my post,
http://realityviews.blogspot.com/2009/11/mns-slaps-abu-for-taking-oath-in-hindi.html
I felt that I need to write the history of India ,Independence and language problem so one can see it clearly and understand it properly.
This language problem is not started by MNS , the history goes back to 1937 and before that also
The original language of India is Sanskrit and the script is called Devanagiri.
But later on Muslims from Afghanistan invaded India we know them as Moghuls,they used Persian Language, Mughuls used to refer India as Hind or Hindustan because of river Indus. The language spoken in ‘Hind’ was called by them Hindi.
As years passed on a new language emerged Urdu which used the words from
Arabic and Persian and was written in Perso-Arabic script which was used by Moghuls.
As Moghuls started to use Urdu and it replaced the original Persian language in India.
Urdu and Hindi this way started to live side by side, rulers were titled in Urdu language as Shah, Nawab or Nizam. While in Hindi they were called Raja or Maharaja.
Later British people came to India , and slowly English became the official language of India, British rulers also kept Urdu as the official language.
When we got Independence, India was divided and the Pakistan was created.
Pakistan made Urdu their official language.
That time Jawaharlal Nehru supported Hindi language as the official language of India.
The people and states who did not spoke Hindi thought that this will end there language and end of language means end of culture.
The Rajasthan language movement has been campaigning for greater recognition for the Rajasthani language since 1947.
In the year 1937, India was ruled by the British People and there were presidencies, there was one presidency called as Madras Presidency.
At that time British rulers established elected local governments in the provinces.
Madras Presidency was a province today we know it as a state of Tamil Nadu and few part of Andhra Pradesh.
In the year 1937, Madras Presidency was ruled by the congress government under C. Rajagopalachari.
Rajagopalachari.[ Rajaji ] made Hindi a compulsory subject in schools.
That time Tamils opposed Hindi imposition , and Sir A. T. Panneerselvam and E.V. Ramaswamy ( known as Periyar or "the Elder one") organized anti-Hindi imposition protests in 1938.
Pannirselvam was a member of the Justice Party, India. He was an alumnus of Cambridge University. And was the Home Minister in the Government of Madras.
Pannirselvam and Periyar both opposed the Hindi imposition and more than 1200 people including women and children were imprisoned and two people lost there lives in that protest.
The slogan "Tamil Nadu for Tamilians was first raised in 1938 in protest against the introduction of Hindi in schools.
In the year 1940 British Government withdraw the rule of teaching Hindi in Madras state.
Periyar was very intelligent politician , Periyar gave a warning in a 1926 article of the Kudi Arasu that Hindi would develop as one of the dangers confronting the non-Brahmin community and that it would help only religious propaganda by the Brahmins.
In another editorial of the Kudi Arasu in 1929, he questioned the wisdom of spreading the knowledge of Hindi, a language that had no connection to Tamils and was of no utility, an Aryan language that taught only superstitious legends and customs and the superiority of Brahmins. That time Periyar said that Hindi would destroy their culture and nullify the progressive ideas.
The Academy of Tamil Culture passed a resolution seeking for the continuation of English as the official language. The resolution was signed by C.N. Annadurai, Periyar E. V. Ramasamy and C.Rajagopalachari.
That time many people said that Hindi was spoken by more people so Hindi should be National language , but Annadurai intelligently answered that ,
"If we had to accept the principle of numerical superiority while selecting our national bird, the choice would have fallen not on the peacock but on the common crow"
Annadurai said that , Hindi was a regional language like any other. It had "no special merit"; in fact, it was less developed than other Indian languages and less suited in a time of rapid advances in science and technology.
As drafted, the constitution provided that Hindi and English were to be the languages of communication for the central government until 1965, when the switch to Hindi was mandated. The Official Languages Act of 1963, pursuing this mandate, said that Hindi would become the sole official national language in 1965
With DMK declaring January 26, 1965, as a day of mourning, the stage was set for unprecedented turmoil in independent India. A moderate Rajagopalachari suggested Part XVII of the Constitution containing the section on the official language of the Union, “be heaved and thrown into the Arabian Sea”, while DMK announced its burning.
That time students feared that if suddenly the change was made from English to Hindi they will lose all the jobs and everything and if you do not know Hindi, you will never get a good decent central government job. Their mother tongue was Tamil. English was the medium of instruction in the colleges and universities.
In the two months of anti-Hindi demonstrations and rioting which followed in Madras, more than sixty people were shot in police-firings, and unofficial reports placed the number of deaths as high as three hundred. Two young men poured gasoline upon their bodies and immolated themselves. Hindi books were burned, and the Hindi signs in railway stations were defaced or ripped down. All colleges and high schools were closed, and the students' demonstrations gave way to the mob violence of rowdies. Near Coimbatore, two policemen were beaten to death by a mob and their bodies burned. In Madras City, the police lost control as mobs burned railway cars and looted stores. The brutality of police-firings and lathi-charges only deepened resentment, and, if the rioting threw Tamilnad into a state of shock, it too opened the wounds of deep frustration and expressed a more general discontent."
On 10 December 1946, these were words spoken by someone in our house,
People who do not know Hindustani have no right to stay in India. People who are present in the House to fashion a constitution for India and do not know Hindustani are not worthy to be members of this assembly. They had better leave.
Hindustani Language means a language which is made up of, which is mix of Hindi and Urdu languages.
The case for Hindi to be the national language of India was bitterly opposed. T.T. Krishnamachari of Madras said,
I would, Sir, convey a warning on behalf of people of the South for the reason that there are already elements in South India who want separation..., and my honorable friends in U.P. do not help us in any way by flogging their idea of "Hindi Imperialism" to the maximum extent possible. So, it is up to my friends in Uttar Pradesh to have a whole India; it is up to them to have a Hindi-India. The choice is theirs.
After this a conference of Congress leaders, cabinet ministers, and chief ministers of all the states was held in New Delhi in June 1965. Non-Hindi-speaking states were assured that Hindi would not be imposed as the sole language of communication between the central government and the states as long as even one state objected. In addition any of the Scheduled Languages could be used in taking examinations for entry into the central government services.
On 11 February 1965, after the resignation of two Union ministers from madras, Lal Bahadur Shastri announced in All India Radio that he would fully honour Nehru's assurances that English would be used as long as people wanted. He also gave the following assurances.
“ Every state will have complete and unfettered freedom to continue to transact its own business in the language of its own choice, which may be the regional language or English.
Communications between one State to another will either be in English or will be accompanied by authentic English translation.
The non-Hindi states will be free to correspond with the Central Government in English and no change will be made in this arrangement without the consent of the non-Hindi States.
In the transaction of business at the Central level English will continue to be used.
All India Civil Services examination would continue to be conducted in English rather than in Hindi alone.
Indian constitution says that English and Hindi will be the official languages of India.
Article 354 specifies that the legislature of a State may by law adopt any one or more of the languages in use in the State or Hindi as the Language or Languages to be used for all or any of the National purposes of that State.
1980 - Karnataka - Gokak agitation
The government of Karnataka appointed the one committee .This committee was headed by the V.K. Gokak ,he was the former vice-chancellor of Karnataka University.
The job ,duty of the committee was that analyze and study the linguistic issues that were raised regarding the importance of various languages, including the state language Kannada and other languages such as English, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil and Urdu. The report given by the committee recommended that the Government provide first language status to Kannada and also demanded the primary facilities that the language needed at the time.
But government ignored this report, there was no indication that government will implement that .
After this the agitation was started and famous personalities from Kannada chalavali world including G.Narayankumar requested the Rajkumar of the Kannada film Industry to join that agitation. And Rajkumar accepted that agitation and kannada film industry stopped its film making activity and started state wide rallies .
When chief Minister R. Gundu Rao saw the support of local people to this agitation, the government declared that they accept this Gokak report and would ensure all the primary facilities that the language Kannada deserves as the mother tongue of the local people as well as the official language of the state of Karnataka.
Gokak agitation was a successful language rights agitation in the 1980s that fought for the first language status of the Kannada language in the state of Karnataka, India.









