> This is because several fellow south Indians gave up their lives to ensure that north Indian language bigots would not have their way.
I know everything about these agitations. There is a huge difference between what happened in 1940s and what is happening today. You are just extrapolating your fears needlessly.
When I talk about "my lifetime" I talk about 30 years of my life. I was not born in the 1940s so there is no point talking about this period. If I have never had Hindi imposed on me should I lie about it just to please your political end-goals? Or are you one of those who loves to only dwell in the past and not accept any positive changes that have happened since?
The Centre today is not talking about "imposing Hindi". It is talking about a draft proposal of making a third language compulsory for all students in India. You should be welcoming that move. If I were you, instead of protesting against Hindi, I would be asking the Centre to ensure a Dravidian language is taught as a third language in the Northern Hindi belt. Now that is a constructive! That would unite the Country rather than balkanize it! But we have bigots on both sides who believe in their own language being superior!
This is way different from the C. Rajagopalachari order of imposing Hindi as the only common language across the Nation. If you are unable to differentiate between the two then no one can help you!
The right solution is to leave it to parents and students to decide what languages they want to study in and what languages they choose to learn.
Hindi is gradually becoming universally understood all over the country precisely because it was not imposed on linguistic minorities. When people don't feel that their culture is threatened they are open to learning Hindi. Bollywood and television has done more to promote Hindi than all the academic language bigots making decisions from Delhi.
I am sorry but I have to disagree with you here. What you are saying isn't happening universally and I am a witness to it myself. I am from Karnataka (Kannadiga) and I can travel around Karnataka and speak in Hindi or English and I am not discriminated against. Heck people here speak Tamil as well to those Tamilians who do not know Kannada.
However, I travelled to Trichy, Kumbakonam and Chennai and the atmosphere is sadly totally opposite to what you claim. Unless you know Tamil no one is going to respond positively. My driver (who doesn't speak Tamil) had trouble asking for directions as the locals knew that he was not a Tamilian and guided him incorrectly. Only after I involved was I able to get the correct directions.
I noticed the same issue in Kerala when I visited Palakkad and Guruvayur (Thrissur). Unless you know Malayalam it is really hard to find your way around. You speak Hindi and you get a stare down so English is the only way to converse. And let me tell you, these are people who know Hindi and other languages. They just don't want to speak it.
These are anecdotes and may not be reflective of the entire state but nevertheless left a really bad taste in my mouth. I never experienced this sort of discrimination anywhere else in the Country (and I have travelled a lot). And that says a lot coming from a South Indian!
I never understood the sensibility of the notion of imposing Hindi to others in the country. It is like say Germany imposing German to be the de facto language all across Europe!
And I do appreciate that we have one common language, English, which is tremendously useful in practical sense (not even including politics in here).
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I'm going to post my response here as HN moderators have put a limit on my account (I think it is silly but whatever):
It is a bad analogy only in political sense. Not everything has to be seen in political light.
And my appreciation of being able to converse in English, as a neutral common language, has naught to do with the capability of people of the Indian origin in learning other languages, and more to do with not having to learn the native language(s) of fellow Indians. I'm more than happy, for instance, to merrily be able to converse with people from Karnataka or Kerala in English, instead of having to learn their languages (or them having to learn Tamil) first.
And I have no baggage whatsoever with English, as one another commenter indicated in this thread.
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> Then don't give such analogies.
Given that not everyone sees the issue of, for instance, being forced to learn a language in political sense like you, then telling them not to give their perspective on this matter is rather myopic.
> It talks about third-language being made compulsory.
I'd not even care to have a second-language being made compulsory. And this is not an exclusive issue of politics; my parents made me learn Hindi (I passed till Praveen Uttarardh) for economics reasons; yet because I wasn't enthusiastic about speaking Hindi, my fate became that of Canadians who learned French during that 4 years or so in school.
> I don't think you have actually encountered ground reality [...] an agitation against Tamilians in Bangalore in the 90s
What has that got to do with not having to learn another language when both parties can understand and speak English?
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> If I can accept Hindi and enjoy the language without any sort of prejudice anyone can. There is no justification for the hatred being shown to Hindi apart from regional linguistic pride. Nothing you say will change my opinion on that.
It seems you are making a big issue out of language learning, which is more of a practical matter, such as taking not being able to fully comprehend a local's driving directions (from your other comment) to be discrimination/ hatred. It might pay you to explore this issue (a commenter here called it "baggage") within you.
> You have an ego that is coming in the way of learning/appreciating the language that is all.
If anything my ego -- and I'm using the word in its psychological sense -- actually has aided me in learning a new language (French), moving to a part of the world with over 90% locals speaking it, and being successful in interacting with them in their language.
> It has a tinge of racism
Everybody is racist/classist/casteist/etc. to an extent. Do you see that in yourself as well (in regards to your driver not being able to comprehend the driving directions given by a local)? If so you might well be on your way to understanding what the word "identity" means ... B-)
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> You know when you start saying stuff like 'a commenter here called it "baggage"' it sounds like those fascist dictators who couldn't say "me" or "I" but would in a convoluted manner refer to themselves in third-person.
Ha, given that you easily see discrimination in the simple event of being given wrong instructions (for whatever reasons), it doesn't surprise me that you see me as some "fascist dictator" now (before "racist"). Be that as it may, there is in fact a commenter (not me) who did use that word. You can use the search function of your browser to find it.
> You can throw away that ego you have in the bin where it belongs and just say "I said I have no baggage".
As I have far more intimate knowledge of the word "identity" and the word "ego" than you, I know very well that it is impossible to throw away ego (as if there is an disembodied entity throwing another entity out), be it in the bin or elsewhere. And it does not require the presence or absence of ego to be able to acknowledge, as I've done before (which apparently have eluded your attention), that I have no baggage whatsoever with English (and it is a simple matter of fact acknowledgement involving no egoistic feelings; it is just a delight to be virtually freed of one's nationalistic identity)
> You have a huge difficulty in comprehending the simple English that I am speaking. Where did I say we had difficulty comprehending local's driving directions? We caught the locals giving wrong directions because I understand and speak Tamil. So I knew that they were fooling us and when I spoke in Tamil their giggled and gave the right directions.
I see, okay. Yes, it was my error that I had overlooked your reporting of knowing Tamil. Regardless, there is no evidence (in your story) that their "giggling" automatically meant hatred and discrimination.
> I see you have absolutely zero comprehension skills because you thought my driver could not comprehend when I clearly mentioned that the local gave the wrong directions and he was caught red-handed.
Given that there are more than a few people who would rather impute malice in place of ignorance, it is not unreasonable to make that assumption. However, my overlooking your speaking Tamil still does not invalidate that assumption (as stated above).
> You are prejudiced, a racist and couple that with ego and we now have a recipe for disaster.
Everybody is racist/classist/casteist/prejudiced/etc. to an extent. And everybody harbours egoistic feelings to whatever extent. Do you see that in yourself as well (in regards to your imputing group-wide hatred and discrimination without clear evidence)? If so you might well be on your way to understanding what the word "identity" means ... B-)
> It seems you are making a big issue out of language learning, which is more of a practical matter, such as taking not being able to fully comprehend a local's driving directions to be discrimination. It might pay you to explore this issue (a commenter here called it "baggage") within you.
You know when you start saying stuff like 'a commenter here called it "baggage"' it sounds like those fascist dictators who couldn't say "me" or "I" but would in a convoluted manner refer to themselves in third-person. You can throw away that ego you have in the bin where it belongs and just say "I said I have no baggage".
> not being able to fully comprehend a local's driving directions to be discrimination.
You have a huge difficulty in comprehending the simple English that I am speaking. Where did I say we had difficulty comprehending local's driving directions? We caught the locals giving wrong directions because I understand and speak Tamil. So I knew that they were fooling us and when I spoke in Tamil they giggled and gave the right directions. If you are going to justify this sort of maliciousness with your logics then go ahead. You are only doing a great disservice to your people.
> Everybody is racist/classist/casteist/etc. to an extent. Do you see that in yourself as well (in regards to your driver not being able to comprehend the driving directions given by a local)? If so you might well be on your way to understanding what the word "identity" means ... B-)
I see you have absolutely zero comprehension skills because you thought my driver could not comprehend when I clearly mentioned that the local gave the wrong directions and he was caught red-handed. You are prejudiced, a racist and couple that with ego and we now have a recipe for disaster.
> It is a bad analogy only in political sense. Not everything has to be seen in political light.
Then don't give such analogies. Analogies are made to shed light on your argument. Not to convolute it further. And analogies have to have some sense to the topic at hand. The analogy you gave doesn't make sense even if you take it non-politically.
> instead of having to learn their languages (or them having to learn Tamil) first.
I don't think you have actually encountered ground reality. In Bangalore's private companies it was a trend for Tamilians to only hire Tamilians. It got to a point where if a Kannadiga spoke to a Tamilian in Kannada the colleague would reply back in Tamil. This led to an agitation against Tamilians in Bangalore in the 90s especially after the Kaveri verdict which was the tipping point. So when you say stuff like this I just can't take it seriously.
That is a really bad analogy. Germany is a country. Europe is a continent. Germany is part of Europe not the other way round.
India is a country. Tamil Nadu is a state inside the country called India. Tamil Nadu is not greater than India. No state in India is greater than India. Tamilians cannot dictate to India what is and what is not allowed just like Germany cannot dictate to Europe what is and what is not allowed.
Legally, India has all rights to impose a single language on all states in India. Deal with it! The founding fathers of Modern India empowered the Centre to make sweeping changes to the Constitution. All it requires is an Amendment to the Constitution and the Centre has all powers to do so. Yet it is not imposing any language. It is not making Hindi the only language for all states. It has not moved any such Amendment. To insinuate it is doing so when it is not showing any such intentions is ignorance at best and malicious at worst!
Germany does not have any legal jurisdiction over rest of Europe. Hence, even if it wants to impose it can't impose German on the rest of Europe. Makes sense?
You are comparing Apples to Oranges.
Now, can we just appreciate the simple fact that the Centre, even with all its powers (now that it has near absolute majority), is not imposing Hindi on all states? The proposal is pretty clear. It talks about third-language being made compulsory. I don't understand what the fuss is all about! Are you saying we Indians have the capacity to learn Maths, Science and all the complicated topics in the World but are incapable of learning one extra Indian language? Are we that weak?
> And I do appreciate that we have one common language, English, which is tremendously useful in practical sense (not even including politics in here).
I don't understand why would you need to compare Indian languages with English? Are you saying that we Indians are incapable of learning more languages? What are you hinting at?
I know everything about these agitations. There is a huge difference between what happened in 1940s and what is happening today. You are just extrapolating your fears needlessly.
When I talk about "my lifetime" I talk about 30 years of my life. I was not born in the 1940s so there is no point talking about this period. If I have never had Hindi imposed on me should I lie about it just to please your political end-goals? Or are you one of those who loves to only dwell in the past and not accept any positive changes that have happened since?
The Centre today is not talking about "imposing Hindi". It is talking about a draft proposal of making a third language compulsory for all students in India. You should be welcoming that move. If I were you, instead of protesting against Hindi, I would be asking the Centre to ensure a Dravidian language is taught as a third language in the Northern Hindi belt. Now that is a constructive! That would unite the Country rather than balkanize it! But we have bigots on both sides who believe in their own language being superior!
This is way different from the C. Rajagopalachari order of imposing Hindi as the only common language across the Nation. If you are unable to differentiate between the two then no one can help you!