The languages and their beauty is a subject close to my
heart – and thus, any controversy against any particular language is a bit
disheartening. The recent attacks against having Hindi on the Bengaluru metro
sign boards (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/hindi-signboards-on-namma-metro-opinion-is-divided/articleshow/59348066.cms)
does not make sense to me. It is surprising that this campaign got such
momentum, and for a moment I couldn’t believe it. The issue first came to my
attention through an opinion piece on NDTV (http://www.ndtv.com/opinion/how-to-read-the-anger-over-hindi-signs-on-bengaluru-metro-1716331).
However, I dismissed the article as biased right from the first sentence –
using a non-issue to attack a political party. However, this does not seem to
be a non-issue after all. The chief minister of Karnataka, who heads the
Karnataka development authority directed the metro officials to strike out the
Hindi signs. One might get an impression having the signs in Hindi caused a
bias against Kannada. That’s obviously not the case as the sign boards had all
the three relevant languages – English, Hindi and Kannada.
Bengaluru as I know it – is extremely cosmopolitan – accommodating
people from all over India. There are not three, but five languages that I see
being used on the streets – Telugu and Tamil being the other two languages.
Hence, it is beyond comprehension that there is no strict opposition to a
campaign such as this. As a Bengalurean, I would like the city to be friendlier
both to the residents and tourists. At the major tourist attractions and the
modes of transport – the signboards should make economic sense i.e., they should
cater to most if not all the people who visit. One may not have sign boards in – let’s say –
Gujarati or French. But, I doubt that opposing having Hindi does anyone any
good – even to those that the campaign seeks to side with.
It is not always a bias against Hindi – there is obviously
Hindi bias at other places. For example, in a flight that flies from Bengaluru
to Kolkata, why aren’t critical announcements made in Kannada and Bengali? I
find passengers who do not speak English or Hindi being left clueless. These
flights proudly announce that the crew in the flights speak English, Hindi,
Punjabi and Marathi – none of which are local to either the source or target
destinations. In fact, on the flight from Hyderabad to Vishakhapatnam, there were
no announcements in Telugu neither were there crew members who could speak
Telugu. Ironically, the British airways flight from Bengaluru had made
announcements in Kannada. Also, you often see Hindi speakers start interacting
with the cab drivers in Hindi without checking if the cab drivers knew Hindi
and without attempting to speak a word or two in Kannada.
While it is totally understandable to promote Kannada, it
should not come at the cost of opposing other Indian languages (no one opposes
English). The companies and institutes could provide Kannada classes to people
who move to Bengaluru. The school’s curriculum should provide exposure to
Kannada. And, the Kannada movies could come subtitled in English or Hindi.
My mother tongue is Telugu, my dad grew up speaking Tamil
and my wife is a Hindi speaker. I grew up in Kolkata acquiring fluency in
Bengali, and I picked up French in Grenoble. English remains the language where
I am most comfortable in writing among all. The knowledge of many languages
gives me great scope of connecting with people of various language groups at a
personal level. This has been the great asset – far more helpful that taking
excessive pride in any one language!
3 comments:
awesome macha
Well written piece Ram. I agree the promotion of a language shouldn't come at a cost of another. I quite like the idea of the companies taking initiatives to have language training courses for employees. As a language learner myself it needs a great deal of motivation to learn a local language. Internal motivation is the best but sometimes external motivations also help. But forcing people to learn a language will only give rise to hatred.
Well said. But since the beginning the average India voter pulse has been manipulated with sentiment than rationale. And I see current Karnataka CM masterminding more than usual bit of efforts towards inculcating some sort of sentiment through such actions. Can't blame him one-sided as well, since there is more than normal sentiment that Amit Shah of BJP, has masterminded across the various polls in different states of the country (and Modi rightly weighs in where it is essential).
So, only when the intellect of average voter in India grows beyond emotion to rationale such gimmicks will find mute spectators and we will bond more as a strong federal nation. And for that, education and upliftment of societal moral standards becomes the key. We are improving quite a bit, but there is more to improve. Young blood in politics and a strong law enforcement machinery in place can get us to ideal state sooner.
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