In a multi-lingual, multi-cultural country like India, language plays a key role in the reassertion and reconstruction of identities, underscoring political dynamics. The politics of language and ethnic/cultural identity has been predominant in the Indian subcontinent for long. The late 1930s and 1940s saw violent protests in the region over a move to make Hindi compulsory in 125 schools of the Madras presidency. But perhaps they would do better to read carefully the whole speech of one of their tallest ideologues, Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, on the language debate. Each state has the right to adopt its regional language as the official language of the state, and conduct its business in that language..In a worldview that exalts vegetarianism, the meat-eating, fish-loving Bengalis are perhaps perceived to be at the fringes of “Hindutva”. It was a prime example of how having a common religion is not sufficient to hold a country together; and how differences over language, ethnicity and other cultural complexities, if not handled deftly, could divide a nation, ultimately splitting it. Since then, opposition to the compulsory teaching of Hindi has been a core policy of almost all Dravidian parties. The “Bhasha Andolan” that started on February 21 triggered the assertion of Bengali national identity as a political movement that was the forerunner of the subsequent nationalist movement and the Bangladesh war of independence against Pakistan. Though Hindi was the favoured language to be adopted as an official language (not due to its superiority over other languages, but the fact that it was spoken by a large number of people), the debates of the Constituent Assembly show that the aggressiveness of some over-zealous proponents of Hindi was not taken kindly, and many members pointed it out.
Being a Bengali, I can only hope that he was not pointing fingers at Bangla as this is one of our languages that is the national language of another country (Bangladesh), two others being Tamil (Sri Lanka) and Nepali (Nepal).On Hindi Divas, when Union home minister and BJP president Amit Shah gave an impassioned speech about the “need of our country to have one language, so that foreign languages don’t find a place”, one wonders why he use ‘languages’ in plural! Other than English, no other foreign language seems to be much in use that poses any “threat” to the “preservation of (India’s) culture”. The attempt by the Pakistani government to impose Urdu as its sole national language created huge unrest in the Bengali-speaking former East Pakistan. It would not only create a linguistic elite out of Hindi-speaking people from North India at the cost of all others from the rest of India, but it would be a source of real conflict as it attacks the very principle of diversity that is the strength and spirit of India. Frankly speaking, I do not share that view… Today it stands to the glory of India that we have so many languages from the north to the south, from the west to the cast. It split Pakistan into two, and heralded the birth of a new nation — Bangladesh. “Some of my friends spoke eloquently that a day might come when India shall have one language, and one language only. The anti-Hindi agitation in the 1960s led by DMK brought it to power in 1967.“Hindi Hindu Hindustan” has been a central famous Order made Aluminum ladder agenda for the BJP and for its ideologues in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The North-South divide over Hindi goes back to pre-Independence times. Mr Shah has already declared his intention to hold an Assam-type NRC exercise in West Bengal and chief minister Mamata Banerjee, in her ingenious way, has already challenged it.
