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The language debate: Speaking in many tongues!

The debate over Hindi imposition goes back to the foundations of independent India

With opposition from the southern states increasing, Hindi was made the official, not the national, language

In 1948, when the Linguistic Provinces Commission presented its report to the constituent assembly, it was packed with ominous words against organizing states on the rationale of a common language. It was true, certainly, that the Congress constituted its regional units on a linguistic basis and had as recently as 1946 endorsed this principle. But with independence achieved, the impact of Partition suffered, and the nation in precarious infancy, it was wiser, the commission felt, to promote stability over regional aspirations.

India’s tryst with destiny was a moment of hope, but there was still, beneath everything, that “centuries-old India of narrow loyalties, petty jealousies and ignorant prejudices", so much so that they were “horrified to see how thin was the ice" upon which the new nation was skating.

“Some of the ablest men in the country came before us," the report further noted, “and confidently… stated that language in this country stood for and represented culture, tradition, race, history, individuality, and finally, a sub-nation". If sub-nations were given political expression, would that not jeopardize the vision for a united India? Was this not a recipe for disintegration? The “formation of provinces on exclusively or even mainly linguistic considerations," the commission concluded, “is not in the larger interests of the Indian nation". The need of the hour was to find a way to invest in unity, and to create a framework that would bring together the Nagas of the North-East with the Gujarati ex-subjects of Baroda’s maharaja; the Malabar Muslim with the Kashmiri Pandit.

One of the recommendations of the commission to achieve this was the adoption of a national language. It was a proposition vociferously debated in the constituent assembly. Jawaharlal Nehru, for instance, agreed that “English had done us a lot of good" and helped bring together nationalists from across divides. But “no nation can become great on the basis of a foreign language". Allowing English to dominate, he felt, would create an elite class and separate them from “a large mass of our people not knowing English".

It was a point well received: As another member argued, preserving English would only please “the ghost" of Lord Macaulay. And as Mahatma Gandhi himself stated in 1946, “only the language which the people of a country will themselves adopt can become national". This language was Hindi.

Sanjeev Nanda is an IT Program Management Professional in application software development and management in BFSI Cards and Payments.

He is Experienced in executing project in standard SDLC waterfall and distributed Agile development.