South India is better developed than North India says CNN IBN
Yesterday, CNN IBN a news Channel, aired a programme on why South India is better developed than North India. By South they meant the four southern states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.
While the programme was credible and a lot of statistics were given about higher literacy levels and higher per capita income in the southern states, a certain bias was evident…against South India. As if trying to ‘balance’ out the findings, the anchor gave South India’s so-called ‘bad’ points. She disapproved of the Souths’ loyalty to their own languages and hinted that Hindi should be the national language. (This is an ongoing debate in this country and the speakers of Hindi consider that Hindi should be the national language to ‘unite’ the country rather than English. They have a colonial hangover. They find it difficult to accept that English is a global language today. Why don’t we stop feeling inferior about it?) In my opinion it’s best to use English to ‘unite’ the country and at the same time keep our distinct regional cultures and languages alive. I have written a separate piece on this, in a post on multi cultural India on this same blog.
The anchor also considered South Indians ‘conservative’ where women were concerned as compared to North Indian women. There were no statistics given on this, simply a reference to the ‘Khushboo’ controversy, where there was a huge outcry when Khushboo, a film star, talked about practicing safe sex. This particular controversy was dug up by the anchor, to show the viewer how ‘conservative’ South India is, even though it is so highly developed! I found this attitude not only strange, but also a little stupid, as it is an accepted fact that North India is more conservative where women are concerned. There are historical reasons for this.
I felt that the CNN IBN anchor was biased and therefore wrote a letter to the channel in their feedback form. The letter in an abridged version is given below:-
Ref: Survey on Indian States
As you are a national channel please may I suggest to you a few things.
1) You cannot say that the south is being culturally (and linguistically) conservative. The reason is simple: The south has never tried to impose its culture and language on the north. Its the north who is doing it. In any case, why should one culture do this to any other culture? The Americans did it to the Red Indians…made everybody clones. Please understand that no race should dominate the other. I wonder if you know that if Hindi takes over, the regional language dies – as it happened to the regional language of Punjab – Gurumukhi. On the other hand, if you keep English, our regional languages and culture will thrive. In any case English is the language of the world.
2) Please do not say that the south is conservative where women are concerned. It is conservative compared to whom? The north? The north, where women are not safe, where the statistics show that fewer women are educated?
Tell me – do people from Tamil Nadu say that North Indians should speak Tamil? So why do North Indians say that Tamilians should speak Hindi? I am afraid domination like this never works. North Indians are not our rulers. They are one of us. You are one of us. We are one country. We have to respect each other’s religions, languages and culture.
Thank you
Regards,
Note: I want to state that I do not consider people from any state in India to be superior or inferior to another state. People from each state have their good points. North Indians for example are more entrepreneurial as compared to South Indians. Plus, as an army officers’ daughter who has lived in almost all the states of India, my identity is more Indian than Maharashtrian.
Update January 2008: As the discussion in the comments has debated (rather hotly) the desirability of a national language I wanted to add that National language and Official language are two different things. India has no ‘National Language’ but it has several official languages, namely Hindi and English. In the states there are three official languages as the language of the state is included. This is according to the Constitution of India. An official language means:
…a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other territory. Typically a nation’s official language will be the one used in that nation’s courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a language (often indigenous) a legal status, even if that language is not widely spoken.
The term National Language means:
…a language which has some connection with a people. A national language may for instance represent the national identity of a nation or country. National language may alternatively be a designation given to one or more languages spoken as first languages in the territory of a country.
The term ‘National’ language automatically assumes a person’s ethnic origins, and claims to represent people from the same ethnic background. It is clear that in India there is no such thing…at least not yet. Not until we all inter-marry and become the same race. There are many countries in the world which have more than one national language and they are much smaller than India and less diverse!
Related Reading: Discrimination faced by people from the north east of India
Will English dominate India in another 50 years?
Raj Thackeray’s MNS creating trouble for North Indians in Mumbai
Does language divide Indians socially?
Maharashtra changing its official language to Marathi only has got foreigners complaining
More: A post on a blog called Karnatique.com protests the imposition of Hindi and another post expresses its ire that Bollywood cinema (Hindi cinema) is considered “national” or “Indian” cinema, at the expense of other language cinema.
Important note on comments (27th August 08): The comments on this post are now closed. Been planning to do it for some time, but was hesitating, specially as I received some genuine comments in the past week or so. However after seeing the latest exchange about clothes of North Indians and South Indians, I decided that I had to close comments on this post. While there is nothing offensive about the comments, some responses I got were offensive which I had to delete. And just when I had made up my mind to do stop comments, as luck would have it, I was entertained for one last time. One Indian man from Australia told me to remove my photograph from the “avatar” and he used the word “fuck.” While such jokers are entertaining, I have no time for idiots.
I want to thank each and everyone of you for enriching this post with their intelligent comments. I might delete some irrelevant ones when I have the time so please don’t take it personally.
(Comments were re-opened due to requests from some readers)
Some of them in this comments talks as if north indians are behaving like dictators who want everyone to speak in hindi. truth is no body cares what you speak. no north indian force us to speak hindi.
Hi everyone above !!
I love this post !!
I m from North India and from past 4 years in south of india.
When i start the reading post i thought this discussion will never gonna end like any others.
even i wanted to write …in reply to saravanan/vasu/vivek /jasmine..but i waited till i reach here..earlier i thought to writw in support or against of various topics..but now i just wanted to say…
Every Nation ,its people ,culture ,values,languages is unique and lovely and we should respect it truly and heartdly.
I love my INDIA because i love our Diversity !!!
One argument that is always given in support of south indians being required to study hindi is that, it brings unity. Going by this logic, then Christianity could be made the universal religion as it is practised by the largest number of people in the world, and this would bring unity in the world with regard to religion.
There is no advantage in studying hindi. It is not a rich or useful language like english, french, chinese etc.
sreekumar:
i beg to differ with your last line:
hindi might as well become the most spoken language of the globe, if india gets to become world economy no.1 in the future.
India becoming a world power (in the far future) is a possibility, while that of china becoming a world power is a certainity. So does that mean indians should learn chinese.
Going by the figures as given at wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers), hindi (including urdu) has the second highest number of native-language speakers. But that does not make the language any better.
Hindi is nowhere near english in richness and it is not going to change anywhere in the near future, not even if all the south indians are made to switch to hindi.
The size of English vocabulary is far ahead of hindi.
Most of technical and scientific literature in the world are in english. I don’t know if any technical and scientific papers are presented in hindi at all ( not astrology, spirituality, vedas etc).
To those who says that hindi is an indian language and english is a foreign language, I would say that for most south indians both are equally foreign. English provides more opportunities for learning with the resultant progress while, there is no use of hindi other than to communicate with the illiterate north indians, as most educated north indians know english.
sreekumar:
before i proceed i would like to invite you to read this little article which is highly enlightening and highly positive:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_34/b3948401.htm
The article deals with a different matter, about the economic growth of India and China. It says that India has higher long-term potential. The reason given is that the population of india is rising while that of china is set to reduce and become static.
That does not seem to be a sound judgement. Already with water and land scarce India is in a tight spot. How to provide for the new 30 – 40 crore people is a challenge India will have to cope with ? It will certainly provide cheap ( or cheaper ) labour to the government, indian companies and foreign companies. But that doesn’t mean that the standard of living will rise for all indians. There would be greater competition for the scant available natural resources.
Another point is that, the engine behind the impressive indian economic growth is the Information Technology (IT) and IT-enabled services (ITeS) industry which is competitive primarily due to the presence of a large number of people with knowledge of english.
assuming we can count on the chinese govt to reduce its population growth drastically, the ratio of young to old in china might look like this after say 40 yrs. :
1:5 vs india’s 5:1.
therefore young indians might take over china’s industry since all chinese are old and ailing, anyway.
indian workforce would spread into the frigid lands of japan/europe/canada/us and provide young labour there to replace their old ones.
by then indians would have become rich overall and uppitty enough to thumb their noses against a ‘vilayati’ angrezi. self-respect will overtake english vanity and then hum aur hamara will be the catch slogan throughout india.
to give it back for years of oppression and suppression indians might very well decide hindi is the most suitable language to go abroad with and spread hindi to all these countries making hindi the most spoken language in the world, one day!
see? Quite Easily Done (Q.E.D)!
only if the existing western and eastern powers fail to come up with better solutions like robotics, artificial intelligence, automation, nanotechnology, biotechnology etc.
These technologies will make imported labour no longer a necessity for most countries.
Then the ever increasing indians would be restricted to a fixed land mass. The current situation of india is, 16.9 percent of the world’s population in 2.4 percent of the world’s land surface area. And an additional 30 – 40 crore people (or higher) are projected to be added in the next 4 decades.
this still an advantage ?
hindi still going to flourish ?
sreekumar:
i invite you to have a look at this-
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_pop_bel_pov_lin-economy-population-below-poverty-line&id=AFR.
i think that becomes relevant wrt affordability for automations?
as regards population density/sq km you might agree that india (at 349.2) compares with an affluent country like japan (336.9).
therefore, rather than population density i think we must be bothered about gdp (in millions of usd) which compares as follows for the above examples:
india: 1209686 (world no. 12)
japan: 4,923,761 (world no. 2)
now have a look at this site. it is about skilled manpower availalble in the world. i think india is at no.2 position (after china)
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2095.html
considering that china will restrict its population to one child per family and kill all the extra children whereas india will continue to breed, i go back to my previous conclusion that india can be the skilled manpower supplier to the world 50 yrs hence…
Hey Guys i am north indian
Shame on guys you are fighting as a north indian and south indian
Why dont you love each other
I am really dissapointed i dont know wats going on guys we are brother’s
I cant say anytghing i love Amitabh bacchan and i love Cheernajivi anmd mohanlal too
I dont know wat is it all about people dying of Swine flu and other diseaeses
But we guys are sti9ll fight5ing shame on you guys
You should have used a capital M for Mohanlal. This is discriminating South. Well let the tamasha (I don’t know if this word is North or South Indian?) continue, for this is the true spirit of being Indian ‘Unity in diversity’, eh!
If India becomes superpower, let us assume so atleast, then it would becuase of its enormous english speaking people. Not Hindi. People from the west will not tolerate it if someone starts imposing Hindi on someone.
Hey Frnd its a politician games Hindi kannad telugu i love each languag e
But dear can u think Why English is common in world because majorty o f people speaks english Similarly in India majority speaka hindi i think nothing wrong in it Dear it is just a language dont fight for this reason come to nort6h india we love south indians
and lot of south indians working in my company they lovbed here becoz we believe in people not in North and south
if you have any queries directly conatct to me
my address is ankitcogni@gmail.com
You have again proved your illiteracy up North through your comments. Why don’t you sit down and learn English properly instead of being an abuse to the westerner who equally doesn’t handle his own language properly, often commented by George Bernard Shaw.
The need for national language to be chosen from an Indian language is a symbolic representative of end of psychological slavery to the west. At the same time, it will
indicate a strong emergence of India as an independently developing country.
In every sovereign nation of the world, a national language exists. It is the one which is understood by majority of people as an easy token of logic. Hindi therefore becomes an obvious choice.
What passes comprehension is the fear that southern states, especially Tamilnadu, show when it comes to select Hindi as the national language. May be, their fear is that Hindi will ruin their so-called ancient culture which was developed in thousands of years and they will be left as follower of Hindi speaking Northern region. With this 2 simple questions arise in any rational mind:
1. Is south Indian culture so very different than north Indian that it will completely destroy it, or will it enrich the south Indian culture what Afghan, Turk, Persian, Aryans and so many other races have done to India as a whole.
We today take pride of our enriched, world’s most diverse yet tolerant and harmonious culture, which is of-course the incorporation of so many different cultures. When we become so much defensive and conservative in our thinking, we surely give way to depreciation and lag-behind the others, which is destined to happen to the Chennai’s obstinate anti-Hindi mentality. Someone has rightly
said ” conservative approach has to become liberal, if you don’t do it yourself, time will.”
2. Do the south Indian think they were slaves of Indo-Aryan race? Do they think
Hindi imposition will take away every thing they have and leave them robbed in day-light? Do they think this will mar their progress in some way? Come-on, why do the recite the matras in Sanskrit when it is an Indo-Aryan language? Why do the worship the same god which were originally coined the Aryans? Or,
why do they follow the Hindu religion at all when it has its root in ancients Vedas which were written by Aryans on the bank of north Indian river Sindhu in Sanskrit language not in Tamil, Kannada or Telgu? The point here is, they have absorbed an alien culture in past, which have only enriched their traditional values and faith, not destroyed it.
As far as development question goes, I would say look at any nation other than UK in Europe. Such tiny nations do not need to follow English as their National language for the development, why do we? Does China follow English to beat US in terms of bilateral Trade? Why do we in India need to have English as the language of communication?
I will site a ill-famous debate between Annadurai and Lal Bahadur Sastri:
Anna said with his fuming anti-Hindi ideology
” Hindi should be the common language because it is spoken by the majority. Why should we then claim the tiger as our national animal instead of the rat which is so much more numerous? Or the peacock as our national bird when the crow is ubiquitous?.”
As a quick outwitting reply, then Cabinet minister Lal Bahadur Shastri said
“If the choice of Indian national animal were confined to dogs, pigs and kangaroos, dogs would be have been obvious choice. We simply can not have the alien kangaroo or the domestic pig as our national animal”. With this Anna was left nail-biting.
As Darwin’s survival of fittest principle suggests,” all those who can not adopt the changes will be eliminated, sooner or later”. Hindi has already won hearts in Hyderabad and Bangalore, now this is upto chennai if it wants to eliminate its culture in disguise, or it wants to welcome Hindi as an Indian spirit has always done.
we were better off as slaves of the britts! have you read 2 states by chetan bhagat? u wud see the pure north south divide there.
Have you heard the popular saying that beggars are not choosers. Idea of
slavery can not be accepted in the remotest of thoughts. What is needed is
the change. The change. Change in system. Agitation inside the soul against the
wrong in system. Awaken self esteemed as a son of India. Brotherhood among all
those belong this nation. And on top of above, only one identity: INDIAN.
No south Indian. No north Indian. No Kanndiga. No Tamilian. No Maratha. No Gujrati. Only one identity: Indian.
First get your facts right Christianity is not practiced by largest number of people its Islam. You are saying Hindi is not rich how less informed you are. Are you qualified to make this statement? Do you know Chinese? and which Chinese language are you referring.
The only point I would like to say is why foreign language? Why not any Indian language, in that case Hindi seems to be obvious choice. Respect your own languages don’t hate or disgrace other language. Also there is advantage, in the country where around 50%-60% are literate how many do you think of them know English? Mind you fourth standard pass is considered literate. Are you getting the figures, I think south India in now becoming arrogant because they are getting money due to IT boom. Remember during sixties when entire south was facing drought, the north Indian are the one supported you.
dear friend…the entire india is getting arrogant…not just south.
there is an old saying in malayalam:
‘the uninitiated would take shelter of his umbrella even in midnight’…
well…not exactly an intelligent saying ’cause it cud rain even at midnight (i knew u wud repose with that one..haha)
so…i will turn it a bit:
how abt this one:
‘the unitiated wud wear gucci sun glasses even at midnight’
heck!
again i flounder…
it cud be actually true of so many malayalis…malluland is so full of such new-money uninitiated show-off idiots
Which language would be termed as rich? & which as poor? Which should be called useful & which should be called not useful? Are we to climb down to such debate?
Very good question. I wince when people make declarations about a language being “the richest”. It’s the same reaction when people make claims about a country being “the most diverse”. Rich and diverse are so subjective that unless clear criteria/qualifications are laid down for that particular evaluation, it is no value at all.
i can think of 2 criteria
1. size of vocabulary
2. available written knowledge
True to some extent, but that doesn’t mean we cannot have some subjectivity, or that any and all subjectivity is invalid. I can call a chocolate cake “rich” whereas someone else may disagree with my evaluation. Doesn’t mean that the cake stops being rich for me. What’s this obsession with objectivity and uniformity regarding issues that are by nature subjective? I love how Bangla sounds and I consider it the sweetest language in the world. People who grew up in the US and whose first language is English, would very likely not find Bangla language sweet. Does that mean it stops being sweet for me? No.
Because they are usually not stated as mere statement of personal tastes. They are stated as part of an argument in support of something.
How does one determine the size of vocabulary? The number of words differ in the different dictionaries of the same language. Als, new words enter the vocabulary. What sort of knowledge one would include? The modern Scientific knowledge is best expressed in English – as far as we Indians are concerned. But the knowledge about spirituality & metaphysics etc is better expressed in our Indian languages – again as far as Indians are concerned. Just because Hindi has been perceived to have been imposed on non-Hindi states of India ( & I too share the perception to some extent ) it is rather rude to categorize it as a poor & useless language. Hindi as a link language in a major part of North India at least is well established much much before India became evident owing to historical forces. That usefulness would remain & grow. As far as higher education is concerned I see no other language but English and that usefulness also cannot be denied.
//Hindi as a link language in a major part of North India at least is well established much much before India became evident owing to historical forces.//
Sorry, I meant //Hindi as a link language in a major part of North India at least is well established much much before India became independent owing to historical forces.//
I am not saying that hindi is a poor language. What I mean is, hindi is not rich enough to replace english and become the only official language of India.
Also while people whose mother tongue is hindi don’t have a problem with hindi as a national language, south indians feel that this “hindi as a national language” concept is imposed on them by the numerically superior north indians.
R.Parthasarathy, a tamil who writes english poetry said that, “English is a part of my intellectual, rational make-up Tamil my emotional ,psychic make-up”.
Similarly, as a keralite i am emotionally attached to malayalam, while i use english as a language for attaining knowledge and communicating with non-keralites. I don’t have any attachment for hindi. My nationalism is rooted in malayalam.
I don’t mean hindi is a useless language but i personally, as also most south indians, don’t have any use of it. Yet i had to study it all along my school years in kerala.
i born in North India and also studied four languages….punjabi, hindi, english and sanskrit…….its not only south indian people have to learn extra languages….north indians also have a problem…..even most of south indian does not know Hindi…….
We are all indians(Hindus) still ve fight each other…..only this is the reason british ruled us…….In punjab state, sikh wants only punjabi and separate country from India…In Assam, people does not like Hindus and say they r different from rest of India…Now, Christianity creating problem in South India…. Terrorist from Pakistan and Arab Countries want to destroy whole Hindustan………We have already got India Name…….our counrty should call Bharat or Hindustan…..Shame on us!!!!!!!
As long as people live with blind beliefs which they learnt from their brainwashing social system rather than using rational thinking for finding out the truth in the issues around them, our people will continue fighting which each other. Thus a hindu, christian and muslim will continue blaming each other for everything wrong happening in their lives. North Indian and South Indian will fight with each other. It is the shear lack of respect to each others culture and religion which is becoming the stumbling block towards rapid economic and social growth in India. Unfortunately there are more people in India who want to get involved in attacking each other for their petty selfish motives under various dubious banners than doing some work to help the mother nation.
@ srekumar
\\hindi is not rich enough to replace english \\
kindly refrain to give your opinions about languages which you have not learnt enough
Hindi is on par with English and even ahead in certain aspects at any level of use and thought
Sreekumar,
I entirely agree with you that Hindi cannot be made the only official language of India. I would go further and say that it must never be made the only official language of India. I also agree with you that Hindi may be useless for all non-Hindi states. That is natural and that feeling must never be assumed to be anti-national in any way. Also, Hindi must not be made compulsory in any state at any level. But the fact that it evolved as a link language amongst the masses cannot be denied. In fact, if it was not made a compulsory subject, it would have spread as a link language in South India too. But that is that. Its job is only as a link language amongst the masses. At all other levels, the link language should always be the state language in the state and will always be English amongst the educated. I am a doctor and in a medical conference the interaction will always proceed in English.
english is a west germanic language…so says wiki. however the greatest success of english is that you may even find hindi in it…it is a borrower language which borrowed from one and all
Vasudev, google video has a documentary series titled ‘Adventures of the English Language’. Look it up. It’s fascinating.
righto! thanks!
Many may find it hard to believe today, but the rise of the English language, when it was almost crushed by Normans and their imposed French and Latin, is the story of the rise of the poor underclass masses (who spoke English as it was then) over the ruling elite. It also was the story of liberation from the Rome domination of Catholicism. The printing of Bible in English, instead of the then sanctioned Latin, was a huge social struggle in liberty. As English grew in prominence, Latin and French began to fade from the then UK. Queen Elizabeth I had to address her military in English – the first time ever that English was used by royalty in addressing the masses. The rest, as they say, is history.
Ps- we can thank the Dutch for the f-word.
robin-hood?
Vinod,
//…we can thank the Dutch for the f-word.//
This is a new one for me. I know that there was a famous Dutch aircraft manufacturing company (1912-96) with a name sounding uncannily close to the noun derived from the verb you allude to. Indian Airlines for a few years used their famous F-27, with its over-the-window wings.
Other than that, Dictionary[dot]com mentions that the word is “akin to” the Middle Dutch word (ca. 1500 AD) for “to thrust”. Fair enough
.
But the first English appearance of the word in print (without the fig-leaf of asterisks etc. — that came later) is recorded in William Dunbar’s poem 1503 poem Brash of Wowing. This means that it was already a well established word by then in English.
Dunbar’s use of it in print is reported in OED 2nd edn. (which carried the word in full), on which one reviewer, writing in The Guardian, commented: “How the human race procreated before that date is not known.”
Nita,
Please delete the first “poem” in “Dunbar’s poem 1503 poem” above.
Interesting topic, and my opinion is it is ur wish to speak one language, not by enforcing by some one. Who cares hindi,tamil or anyother languages in technical studies..the only language for us is ENGLISH,
And south indians not required to speak in hindi as they have a seperate language, And why south indians must study hindi, They have their own language and they are rich in culture and oall , even tamil is one of the ancient language in world, and hindi is nowhere compare to tamil. (im a keralite), and why hindi is calling for national language? The hindi guys are requested to check the history of hindi and tamil. Then tel me what language is great?
and tamil is not a single language inSouth india there is telugu kannada and malayalam..
The ppls who s crying for hindi are big foools and its their bad dream that all india will spk speak in hindi soooner…
jithin…
then why most tamil actresses are north indians? if tamilians can feel great by saying that their wishful other halves are northie cuties why shouldn’t tamilians also adopt the language spoken by most of their wanted belles?
Vasudev,
Heroines in tamil or south indian industry is due to various reasons.
1) North Indian girls are fair.
2) South Indian Upper caste girls who are equally fair as north indians but they are not opting films as career.(You can have many example like in earlier days Sri devi,Jaya pradha,Savitri,Wahida,Hema malini,Rekha..etc.)
Now a days girls from upper caste in south india are not preferring to join films as they have lucrative NRI grooms to settle or any other reason like having career in other industry as Film career for heroines in south is not that respectable.
So, South indian film industry is looking for north indian girls.So, the heroines are adopting the southern conditions and learning the south languages to earn a bread.
Having North indian actresses doesn’t mean to adopt North indian language (hindi) for south indian people….So, do you mean when jayaprada,sri devi,hema malini & rekha had acted in north indian language Hindi film industry ..do you mean north Indians has to learn telugu or tamil …?
See, the reason for learning a new language is simple.When you are earning your bread from particular state one should adopt the culture and language of that state..like “being a roman in Rome.”
kumar
so let us look at it this way:
every tamilian wants to romance with a fair skin (which means he detests his own black skin).
while all those actresses you mentioned were earlier in the hindi film industry the hindiwallahs have come to terms with their own north indian fair skins and rejected the south indian actresses.
i do not agree that south indians are not into acting. if you see any of the acting shows on sun tv you would find that candidates aren’t lacking. it is just that southies are by and large short and ugly and dark skinned and their own men do not prefer them.
so, if the tamils fancy these white skinned, tall, aryan looking northie females and dream of having offsprings from them then they should also have no objection to adopting the language of these belles.
Wow! Racism, casteism and elitism all in a single comment. Let’s not just restrict this to Tamilians. People ALL over India worship fair skin (that would include God’s own country Kerala too) and there isn’t a chance that they would ever let a dark skinned woman be a heroine, I don’t think they’d even want a dark skinned woman as a sidekick, maybe as a maid or something. Also lets not pretend dark skinned people don’t exist in other parts of India and that they exist only in TN. That would be a gross misrepresentation of the true diversity of India. We are all horribly racist and casteist and one of the most divisive races on earth.
“so, if the tamils fancy these white skinned, tall, aryan looking northie females and dream of having offsprings from them then they should also have no objection to adopting the language of these belles.”
Commercial tamil movies are made keeping in mind young males in the 18 -25 year group who are the primary consumers of mindless cinema. Let’s not use that as an indicator of the preferences of the entire population. Anyways, I dont even know why I should bother explaining this considering that sleeping with goris is the ultimate dream of every chauvinistic Indian male .
rags…true about kerala. but at the most kerala had imported really talented actresses from andhra. otherwise all have been and continue to be pure mallus only, whether short, dark, fat, ugly but mallus or southies. of course the current age movies are more of the dancing baby types but we have our own homebred mallu dainty, pretty, fair skin babes. no imports from north.
in fact some of the top young actresses today in malayalam are fairly dark skinned and very ordinary (real life) looking. but they can express every emotion very nicely and that counts.
Vasudev,
You look at anyway this is the way it is:
“every tamilian wants to romance with a fair skin (which means he detests his own black skin).”
Infact, Every Indian wants to romance with the fair skin (Upper caste people male or female).Ofcourse most of the Indian black skin person wants to look fair… its true.Even a North indian Dalit person who is Black in color wants to have romance with a upper caste girl who is fair and beautiful .. its natural..:)
“while all those actresses you mentioned were earlier in the hindi film industry the hindiwallahs have come to terms with their own north indian fair skins and rejected the south indian actresses”
There were no rejections all the heroines i mentioned were successful even the new entrants are also there in all years like presently deepika padukune,aishwarya..and it will continue.
“i do not agree that south indians are not into acting. if you see any of the acting shows on sun tv you would find that candidates aren’t lacking. it is just that southies are by and large short and ugly and dark skinned and their own men do not prefer them.”
See, quality girls means i mean good looking and eligible to be a heroine in south indian films from upper caste south indians are not opting acting as a career the only last brahmin girl you can find is trisha in tamil and in telugu its Laya and most of the good looking upper caste girls are not being alllowed by their families as more lucrative career options are available without spoiling the family image.
“so, if the tamils fancy these white skinned, tall, aryan looking northie females and dream of having offsprings from them then they should also have no objection to adopting the language of these belles”
Well, to tell you North indians are not the only aryans.If you go by the Aryan theory most of the upper castes of south indians are also aryans.They are tall,fair and good looking.
Can you say a harijan or a girijan or a mali caste person from UP or Himachal or Punjab is an Aryan ?
No, you are on wroung side.All north indians are not aryans.And all north indians are not fair or tall.If you see OBC’s,SC and ST people in North india .. DO you think they are fair ?
Similarly, Not all south indians are fair.Just i said, in south indian also SC’s and ST’s are dark skinned.
So, Color of a person wont make any difference its the talent.
Adopting a language is purely a issue of where we are staying.When i was in Germany i use to speak German Not telugu or English.. Otherwise germans will laugh at me and they wont respect.as i was getting my bread and butter from Germany i started learning and speaking german.similarly when i was working in gujarat i learned Gujarati.. its a salute for the land and culture which is giving us bread.
“See, quality girls means i mean good looking and eligible to be a heroine in south indian films from upper caste south indians are not opting acting as a career the only last brahmin girl you can find is trisha in tamil and in telugu its Laya and most of the good looking upper caste girls are not being alllowed by their families as more lucrative career options are available without spoiling the family image.”
Can’t believe the amount of racism, colorism and casteism that goes on in an Indian’s mind. India really is one sad pathetic country with pathetic people.
Rags,
Your comments are off topic.The explanation is to make Vasudev understand that North indians are not the only one who are fair or tall or having Aryan characteristics.
More important is the language adoption should be as per the state we reside and work.
Hope you got the point.
rags,
//…most of the good looking upper caste girls are not being alllowed by their families as more lucrative career options are available without spoiling the family image…//
You mean family image is negotiable against how lucrative a career option is! Interesting!
That comment was not made by me. I would never say something like that considering that I don’t place too much of importance on family name and other kinds of archaic ideas.
Vivek,
that comment is made by me and the context is as under.
I mean to say that south indian Upper caste girls who are fair and eligible to be a heroine in south indian films are not choosing the film career as it may spoil the family image.So, they are choosing other professions which wont spoil the family image.
This is the reason why we find North indian girls as actresses in south indian film industry.
Kumar,
Other than apologising for my error in addressing my comment to the wrong party, I still stand by it.
For me personally, caste is a non-issue, but let us at least get our information on cultural history right (this is wrt the ‘Menons are pure Brahmins’ assertion made by Guest).
As for popular commercial films, if those are going to form the basis of serious discourse of any kind, then I am not part of that discussion.
rags,
My apologies. That response was to Kumar’s observation of August 5, 2009 at 10:15 pm, which you quoted.
Who is a Aryan & Who is a Dravidian ? Till this date nobody has given us a proof of imaginary race’s that exist in india?
The reason for south indian film industry to prefer a north indian girls is very clear. it is sheer economics.
All those girl who fail to pass through rat race of bollywood try there luck in south indian films and directors prefer them as they are economic option for them.
Again a that north indians are fair and tall and south indians are short and dark is nothing but a stereotype created by britishers and we still follow that.
Actually i am myself a north indian but now working in south india and i have found many fair and tall people here and they are not essentialy brahmins and belongs to other caste
Language is two way affair and in mixed language marraiges both have to learn and adjust for each others languages.
Children of such marraiges would be multi-lingual
This is the trend i have observed in european union.
One of my French Colleague has a Polish Wife both speak a bit of each others language and his two children speak both French and Polish along with english.
Infact this trend would start in india
I am a Tamil. When I was a kid I used to think that north Indians are all fair. Now I have several north Indian friends and only one is fairer than me. Others are all darker and blacker than me. It is indeed comical that we Indians are still debating who is fairer and who is not. It is a leftover of the slave mentality due to centuries of enslavement under the British. You must know, the Lord of Love Kama is considered to be dark in color according to Hindu scriptures. Similar was Krishna. There are beautiful girls/boy all over India and there are ugly girls/boys all over India. I have seen some of the most graceful and beautiful girls from north east India. But nobody seems to talk about that…
kumar,
//…the reason for learning a new language is simple.When you are earning your bread from particular state one should adopt the culture and language of that state…//
THANKS! This, is the point that many people have been trying to make on this post for close to three years. I hope your logic applies both ways.
I also hope you agree that it is grossly unfair to seek to ram one particular language down the throats of everyone in a multilingual, multicultural country such as ours, under the specious argument (not endorsed by the Constitution) that the said language is “THE national language.” Especially when those whose mother tongue happens to be that language refuse to honour their part of the bargain, to reciprocally learn one other modern language of the country.
And finally, I trust you will agree that it is perfectly reasonable for the losers in the deal to protest against the high-handedness of those seeking to run down the local language and culture while imposing their own.
Well its simple
Be a Roman in Rome.
Be a Telugu in AP.
Tamilian in TN.
Kannadiga/Tulu in Karnataka.
Marathi In Maharashtra.
Gujarati in Gujarat.
Bengali in Bengal.
Oriya in Orissa.
Punjabi in Punjab.
Kashmiri in Kashmir.
Malayali in Kerala.
Konkani in Goa.
Kutchii in Kutch.
We are blessed with lot more languages and culture sorry i couldn’t mention them .. here are somemore…Thats why we got about 14 or more National languages.Telugu is also our national language.
Hindi/bhojpuri in UP.
Hindi in MP
Hindi/Bihari in Bihar.
Vivek,
Sure, some other logic applies both ways.
“He vishwachi maaze ghara”
Naveen:
He vishwachi avaghe maaze ghara.
Ghaatyaa! Muga giluni maanya kara.
Anyatha tujhi gheuni khabara
Phiraveena mi naangara tujhyavara
translation please! we are yet to accept marathi as the national language. you are no4 candidate in the que
Vasudev, Marathi is already a national language along with some other 15 languages. No need for you to accept it .. its in Govt gazette.Pls check.
vasudev,
For your information, Marathi is one of the 22 languages currently listed in the VIII Schedule of the Constitution of India. Ergo, it is a national language. No one has claimed it to be “the” national language. So the question of its acceptance or otherwise by whoever is the “we” you refer to is besides the point. Such high-handed claims in respect of their language are a prerogative of the hindi imperialists.
i am sorry. what i meant was, accepting it in the same level as what hindi is being touted like the ‘nation-level language’. what do you call that?
anyway, my que is as below:
1) english?
2) hindi?
3) tamil?
4) marathi?
Hindi is one of the national language & is accepted to those whose mother tongue is Hindi.
What do you mean by saying Hindi a national level language ..?
Do you mean the more the population or what you mean ?
Further clarification.If one goes thru the constitution of India there is no national language status to any language.Its only the official language status given to 23 indian language along with English.Their is no national language.
kumar
there is an impetus given to hindi.that is undeniable. there is a strong govtl move to make hindi ‘the’ nation-level language of communication. all govt letters come in dual languages (eng/hin) and this says that hindi is being given prominence over other languages and that tells me that hindi is being promoted as a nation-level language. besides, there are many competitive level tests for hindi and many organisations give prizes and scholarships to guys who are good at learning hindi. all this is centre funded.
some years back when e.k.nayanar was the cm of kerala he received a letter from delhi in hindi. being a lively character he promptly sent his reply to delhi in malayalam. so that is state pride for you.
on the level of pitching a national language priority, yes. i think they select the most spoken criteria.
@kumar
Your language concern is logical. But don’t tell me that South Indian Brahmin girls are getting NRI grooms and settling outside. I am settled abroad for so many years and have also travelled nearby EU countries but I have hardly (not even 5%) seen a fair Southie girl, they are all (or most-95% and remaining 5% I give benefit of doubt, not that I have seen these 5% fair) dark here like they are in S India. So I don’t know where abroad these fair SI girls are settling , please tell me a region where I can find fair SI girls. I am serious, please don’t take me wrong.
An interesting phenomena, I observe that the %age of South Indians (including Tamils from Sri Lanka) settling abroad is more than North Indians and this really gives a wrong impression of Indians in mind of the natives (read goras). Because of this majority dark (SI) population Indians in general are perceived as dark people and looked down upon and us Northies are thought to be pakis rather than Indians. Also you know dressing sense of SIs.
Though now most of them are aware of the Aryan-Dravid divide but to many I still have to show wikipedia and history facts to substantiate on color difference.
And please don’t count Rekha, Hema , Deepika as fair, they were just normal colored. But yes, they are fairer as they are SI brahmins, as per AD theory many NIs (aryans) moved to south to offer prayers and perform religious duties in SI temples and their descendants now are the fair people in SI.
I really don’t understand that at every blog SIs try to give the same exceptions when you can easily go and see the difference between Chennai and Delhi (or even Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Kanpur, Lucknow and down Bhopal too), please look at the majority population and not exception.
Kareena , Karishma , Minisha, Isha Sharwani and countless (agarwals, bachchans, dutts,khans) in Bollywood are fair.
Only exception from SI is Ash who belongs to Bunt community of south which has some foreign origin, you can think of it like ‘Kalash’ community in Pakistan.
Also, why do you give exceptions that some NIs are black and some SIs are fair, it was all dark India earlier but after Aryan invasion, north kept becoming fairer over the History and native dravidian population moved to South , the remaining left Dravidians in North are the dark people of North mostly, low castes you are right.
Personally, I count only Iyers and Iyengars and Menons in south as pure Brahmin whom I have seen in 90% of the cases as very fair or fair but never dark. Rest of the Brahmins in south are false?impure brahmins or upper castes.
For references please read, Aryan-Dravid Theory and about each and every thing I mntioed at Wiki, you will find them true.
@rags
racism is everywhere. Europe has stopped talking about it in public because its a matured society. We are growing and will mature probably in another 50 years or so.
Though in closed doors you will see how racist they are, West Europe think East Europe to be inferior, East Europe thinks Central and West Asia to be inferior and more and more you move east you will find the most discriminated one , ofcourse till you reach the boundry of Caucasoids somehwere in Bihar or Bengal and then an entirely differnt race mongoloid-austroloid starts.
Take fact as fact, race is a reality and we have to accept it. We can’t just say that Humans are homosapiens and all races can interbreed with each other and have offsprings and hence are all same. We are different and we should accept it and we should accept that Racism is a reality.
Guest:
I would generally treat your comments with the contempt they deserve. But “…Menons in south as pure Brahmin…” !!!!!!
I wonder what the Menons visting this blog have to say about that. Any takers?
well…vivek…while you got a point there i cannot blame our ‘guest’ also since menons seem to have so much of namboodiri blood in them (not an illegal mix but legally married blood).
basically i am not yet too sure what a menon is. they are landlords but were warriors and soldiers by occupation. by caste they claim to be kshatriyas or vaishyas (depending upon the situation) but their women are really very fair, tall, handsome!
I am sure atleast the Menons I know would be repulsed.
repulsed of what, rags? ask me. i am a menon myself (from mother’s side). if you mean the namboodiri thing, it was quite common in kerala those days. only the eldest namboodiri ‘had’ to marry an ‘antharjanam’ (a brahmin lady) ’cause it was only for him to have the power over the gods.
the younger brothers mostly preferred the fair and beautiful menon/nair girls who were (it seems) better looking than the brahmin girls. besides most of the menon girls were better educated than the brahmin ladies who had lots of restrictions in life. this was a legal marriage and the offsprings were also legal.
yes it was legal for namboodiris ( young and old) to enter into ‘legal’ relationship with a menon woman of their choice, and after sometime move to another who caught their fancy, in the process providing the menon woman with land, gold and ‘namboodiri blooded’ children making her tharavadu (lineage) rich. then another namboodiri would enter into the same kind of ‘legal’ relationship with the menon lady presenting her with more land, gold, …
Vaudev/Sreekumar,
Am I right in believing that your references are to what is traditionally known in Malyalam as a sambandham? If so, then I think a little bit of explanation about that custom (which is part of the common-law traditions among the Nairs) needs to be explained. It has also not clearly emerged that the Menons are part of the Nair hierarchy, distinct from both the Brahmins and the various ambalavasi communities.
sreekumar is right. this used to happen frequently in menon/nair tharavadu in kerala but not in all tharavadus.
yes vivek…sambandham.
menons are part of the larger nair family which also includes panicker/kurup/pillai/nambiar/menon and god alone knows who all.
menons or nairs were never ambalavasis. ambalavasis are the sharody/imbrandiri/nambeeshan/moosad and i think sreekumar can provide more info.
and menons or nairs are definitely inferior to nambooris.
talking about the custom why it used to happen- those days a nair house used to have unlimited children. many of them girls. nambooris or nambeesans did not have that many. women strength fell in those houses and they were forced to look outside their community. the next available one was the nair (to which level only can they have sambandham). so it was a win-win for all. nairs get property/gold/diamonds/rubies for the act. nambooris get a life partner/or partners. but why communism took shape in kerala was due to this recklessness of both namboori and nair men who were long john silvers in collusion.
vasudev,
I don’t quite see the connection between Nair-Namboodiri alliance traditions and the rise of communism in Kerala, but that would be a separate topic of discussion, way off-topic than we already are.
I am sure has been studied to death, especially by American scholars stunned by communists anywhere on earth winning a democratic election during the height of the cold war.
vivek..
i think i have explained it in details in one of nita’s articles elsewhere. the gist of the matter is the casteism that used to prevail in kerala, rampant exploitation of females among other exploitations and men taking to communist ideologies surprisingly led by younger namboodiri-nair generations. ‘marumakkathayam’, wwas yet another reason why ’sons’ rose against ‘uncles’. but all of that i have detailed before.
as regards communists winning democratic elections, the real commies have been suppressed as naxalites and the pseudo-commies are the election winners.
Guest:
” But don’t tell me that South Indian Brahmin girls are getting NRI grooms and settling outside.”
No one roams in public wearing a caste label.If you couldn’t find any south indian brahmin girls its possible, as they got married and they live with their husbands and families.It depends on your financial and social status which will determine your social circle & what kind of neighbourhoods you are living in.
” I am settled abroad for so many years and have also travelled nearby EU countries but I have hardly (not even 5%) seen a fair Southie girl, they are all (or most-95% and remaining 5% I give benefit of doubt, not that I have seen these 5% fair) dark here like they are in S India”
I dont know the stats, what % upper caste people are there in South India.But most of the upper caste people in south india are fair.
“So I don’t know where abroad these fair SI girls are settling , please tell me a region where I can find fair SI girls. I am serious, please don’t take me wrong.”
You can find yourself and have a research on that rather arriving at figures.
“Northies are thought to be pakis rather than Indians. Also you know dressing sense of SIs.”
I dont know about this.Rather what i heard is we can mostly determine seeing the face whether the person is a Hindu or Muslim due to some facial features.
“Though now most of them are aware of the Aryan-Dravid divide but to many I still have to show wikipedia and history facts to substantiate on color difference.”
Ofcourse i accept the color difference betwen Aryan and dravidian race.But you cant say entire south indians are Dravidians or entire north indians are Aryans.I had given you example of BC’s SC’s & ST’s in north india who speak Hindi and are dark in color.you can check the stats this dark north indian population is significant where you cant call north indians are fair. Example Mayawati a north indian ..is she fair..do you mean fair north indian means like Mayawati.?
“And please don’t count Rekha, Hema , Deepika as fair, they were just normal colored. But yes, they are fairer as they are SI brahmins, as per AD theory many NIs (aryans) moved to south to offer prayers and perform religious duties in SI temples and their descendants now are the fair people in SI.”
I accept what you are saying most of the upper caste people in South india had migrated from north india to perform duties, not just brahmins but kshatriyas and other upper caste people also.
“I really don’t understand that at every blog SIs try to give the same exceptions when you can easily go and see the difference between Chennai and Delhi (or even Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Kanpur, Lucknow and down Bhopal too), please look at the majority population and not exception.”
Do you mean the BC.SC & ST population in north india who are dark is not significant..? you are on wroung side.
“Kareena , Karishma , Minisha, Isha Sharwani and countless (agarwals, bachchans, dutts,khans) in Bollywood are fair.”
Kareena ancestors are from Afghanisthan and peshawar they are Aryans so they are fair.Minisha is a nepali again same thing counts,Why you are not counting the SC,ST & BC population of north india who are dark.WHy only exceptions..of some upper caste people.
“Only exception from SI is Ash who belongs to Bunt community of south which has some foreign origin, you can think of it like ‘Kalash’ community in Pakistan.”
Suniel shetty also belongs to Bunt community and he is not fair.And you cant compare Bunt community with kalash of pak which is totally a different race (cocausian).Bunts are of Aryan race.
“Also, why do you give exceptions that some NIs are black and some SIs are fair, it was all dark India earlier but after Aryan invasion, north kept becoming fairer over the History and native dravidian population moved to South , the remaining left Dravidians in North are the dark people of North mostly, low castes you are right.”
I accept most of the upper caste people in India are of Aryan race and the others of dark complexion are of dravidians.But there is no north south divide here.As there is a migration of Aryans till the tip of peninsular india.
“Personally, I count only Iyers and Iyengars and Menons in south as pure Brahmin whom I have seen in 90% of the cases as very fair or fair but never dark. Rest of the Brahmins in south are false?impure brahmins or upper castes.”
This is Absurd.Do you mean the telugu,Kannada,Malyalee,Tulu & other tamil brahmins are not Pure & they are false…:) Somewhere your thinking process got strucked…:) Do you know how many brahmins are there in south india and what are their roots ?
“For references please read, Aryan-Dravid Theory and about each and every thing I mntioed at Wiki, you will find them true.”
If you have any questions on Aryan invasion of India and Aryan Race i can readily give answers i read right in my school days.
So what if people are dark skinned? Is that a disease or something? Why are you guys making such a big deal out of it?
“An interesting phenomena, I observe that the %age of South Indians (including Tamils from Sri Lanka) settling abroad is more than North Indians and this really gives a wrong impression of Indians in mind of the natives (read goras). Because of this majority dark (SI) population Indians in general are perceived as dark people and looked down upon”
Why is that supposed to be a “wrong” impression? Aren’t south Indians Indians too ? Why shouldn’t they be representative of India? Oh, Iget it, the racist Northies would never want to identify with the south population. Besides if Northies are satisfied sitting in their cow belt is that that the south Indian’s fault? If they were qualified they could have migrated too, who’s stopping them?
“Take fact as fact, race is a reality and we have to accept it”
Looks like some people just can’t accept the diversity of India. Seems like if someone is short and dark they are not ‘representative’ of India as the guest has kindly pointed out.
Maazyaa matey hey adnyaana
doora saaronee karaave waachana
Aadhee shikaave artha dnyaana
‘Kabhara’ pathana karitaannaa
Naveen,
Hey! Is your surname by any chance Thosar?
My ability to understand Marathi lies in my knowledge to parse, concatenate and understand Sanskrit and also in being a ‘Hyderabadi’. Did you know that Hyderabad has a 200-year rich Marathi culture integrated into its own? Hyderabad can boast of a 100-yr old ‘Marathi Granth Sangrahalaya’ still very active (while many in Maharashtrian towns are closing down). And did you know that Govt. of AP recognizes Marathi as a ‘minority’ language and actually funds programs by Vivek Vardhini, the Marathi educational society in Hyderabad? Did you know that to secure admission into any of the professional colleges setup by Vivek Vardhini, a very important criteria you need to fulfill is being a Marathi? And did you know that (while Shiv Sainiks ram down Telugu name-plates in Shirdi) Marathi is prominently displayed in many parts of Hyderabad?
Not that every Hyderabadi would know Marathi, but people raised in some localities most probably will. And I am glad that Marathis in Hyderabad are not forced to ‘convert’ into a bunch of Telugus in the so-called Telugu land.
Naveen,
I am aware of most of the things you mention. In fact during the Nizam rule, Marathi was one of the official languages of Hyderabad state owing to large parts of the state (present day-Marathwada and Vidarbha — then called Berar — being Marathi-speaking areas). The other three official languages were Urdu, Telugu and English. These facts are borne out by the postage stamps, currency notes and coins of Hyderabad State.
I think you missed the significance of my single-line query followed by a smiley. Your quartet in 17th-century Marathi (admittedly far superior than my effort) reminded me of the style of Samarth Ramdas, whose original name was Narayan Thosar. He did not have direct descendants, but did have an extended paternal family, and the surname Thosar, though not very common, is still found in Maharashtra.
And perhaps you also missed the sarcasm in my quartet. Its speaking voice is the present-day Hindi imperialist and it is addressed to the Maharashtrian (“ghati”).
Postscript.
Naveen,
The point you make in your last paragraph is well taken. It is true that Marathis in Hyderabad were never forced into becoming “a bunch of Telugus”. But almost all of them voluntarily learnt Telugu. I know at least half a doen Hyderabadi Marathi families whose members are equally at home in Telugu as in Marathi. If you have been following this blog long enough, you may recall my observation at some point that Hyderabad, Lucknow and Varanasi are (albeit for different reasons) the only truly cosmopolitan cities in India. In places like post 1960s Mumbai (and post-1947 Delhi) people from alll over India merely share the same space without culturally rubbing off on each other.
Vivek,
Marathis in Hyderabad contributed immensely to Hyderabad as Doctors, Professors, Intellectuals etc and I don’t think anybody in Hyderabad have any qualms and complaints about them. But from my own experience, the thought that all Marathis in Hyderabad know either Telugu or Urdu is a blatant myth.
Naveen,
I did not say “all” Marathis, but certainly the old families who were part of the élite group you mention. Equally, many of the Andhra élite — both Hindu and Muslim — in the Nizam’s administrative service knew good Marathi.
Another important group in this category is that of the Kayasthas from UP who held important positions in the state. For them Urdu and English were the languages of common discourse, and most of them had a working knowledge of Telugu. Fewer would know Marathi.
Vivek & Naveen,
The old marathi population in Hyderabad do speak telugu.Infact my marathi friends in Hyderabad speak good telugu just as a telugu people.
I dont know much about the new marathi migrants due to IT.
Yes, you are right here. Marathis and Kayasthas played a prominent role in releasing Hyderabad from the atrocities of Razakars.
Vivek,
Rashtrasant Tukdoji not Samarth Ramdas. Not sure how important he is in Marathi literature but his poems are very interesting and Sanskrit-ee. Found it a while back and added it to my favs.
http://www.gramgeeta.org/gramgeeta/i_gramgeeta.htm
Naveen,
Tukdoji Maharaj’s language was very 20th century, the kind that the common people, not very highly educated, would understand (in this context, I am not sure what you mean by “Sanskrit-ee”). In the little I have heard or read of his compositions I find a marked (though perhaps less elegant)influence of Tukaram’s style, whereas what you wrote seemed more like the ideas that Samarth Ramdas would express.
You can put down my misimpression to my lack of familiarity with Tukdoji’s compostitions. In fact the first time I saw and heard him I was quite put off by the fact that, despite a rich tradition of Marathi folk music to draw upon, he chose to borrow tunes from Hindi film songs for some of his abhangas.
No clue how I missed this post..but seriously! Whats wrong with people? Skin colour , the way we dress , languages etc etc..what is happening over here?
Maybe you guys should start comparing each other – and if you find you are slightly less ‘whiter’(or for that matter ‘darker’) than you someone else , better go get tanned or use some fairness cream…
As for the language problem – well if are going to live in a particular state , we need to speak the local language , so that you talk to the locals! We all have a right to speak our different languages and well each and everyone of them have a legacy worth carrying forward. English is a language which has helped bond the country , where otherwise it won’t be possible and those of us who speak English aren’t becoming more English than we already are!
you mean like: house niggers?
if you are referring to the English part – well you will be speaking the local language , I was talking about communication in the larger context(i.e. for official purposes) ;
In fact I have come across people who speak many of the Indian languages. It is easier for them to carry on their business. It is a two way process. As you go along you pick up bits and pieces of the other language. Let us take the eg of an Indian conducting business with say a French.
They might in the beginning need a translator, but as they continue , the French man is bound to pick up bits and pieces of the local language or even learn it to give himself the chance of interacting with more people. Similarly the local man will pick up bits of French and might even learn the language to help his trade.
Language is about communication as much as it is about trade. Trying to focus on a “culture” is seeing one part of it. We are living in a world where we interact , we have multiple identities. BY trying to focus on this language or religious or a regional identity , we Ignore our other affiliations.
We should also remember what we speak is different from what we write in.
And let me point out that the reason why you asked me the question in English is because you want me to understand and reply.
But if you meant the skin colour part of it – pardon me if you don’t get my sarcasm
not at all sir! you understood me correctly: the ‘house niggers’ sans skin color.
all the regional fighting taking place on the blogs and other online communities are a precursor to the upcoming fight after 2026.
There is a freeze on the number of seats in parliament until 2026. As population is the basis of allocation of seats of the Lok Sabha, the first delimitation of constituencies after 2026 will bring a significant change in the the proportion of seats, and hence political power, held by various regions. The hindi heartland with its continuously growing population will increase its proportion of seats, much farther from that of today. The southern region with its better family planning will be the biggest loser, having a reduced proportion of seats in Lok Sabha, with the resulting erosion in political power.
The north indians will then make a renewed effort to push hindi down the throats of south indians.
sreekumar,
That is a very pertinent point you have made. It can of course be preempted by starting a sustained campaign now against the defreezing of LS seat allocations in 2026. But the only thing it may serve is to preserve the status quo on the regional balance of power. The dictatorial dominance of Hindi all over the country will continue, because the net direction of migration for livelihoods will incrementally be North to non-North.
So what has already been attempted by the scumbag bhaiya bully corporators in the Brihanmumbai Mahanagarpalika will also happen — and successfully — in Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and many other “madrasi” metropoles.
The sellout in parliament by the MP from TN, Azhagiri, volunteering to change the spelling of his name to “Alagiri” to please the phonetically illiterate north-Indian master race, is indicative of the shape of things to come.
sreekumar
if you look at administrative post occupancies you may find that most ias/ifs jobs are taken by bihar/up/chattisgarh etc. these new breed officers have a different viewpoint, fortunately. let’s wait for 2026 to happen. plenty of things can change in the meantime.
I stumbled upon Nita’s blog on language today. As I was scrolling down to drop my comments abt this blog, I was astounded to find one Indian commenting abt another Indian on the colour of their skin, identity, so on & forth. I’m from Singapore where it’s not about whether I’m a Hindi,Telegu,Malayalam,Tamil,etc..Here they generally would call us Indians,Malays,Chinese & Eurasians. Also, people from India or of Indian origin are generalised as Indians all around the world. Some self-proclaim superior race in other parts of the world would uncouthly call us “Blacks” or “Dogs”, regardless whether we are fair or dark-skinned Indians. So why are we arguing or should I say…”constructive criticism” among ourselves? Why do we look up to the sky & spit…wouldn’t that spit fall back on your own face? India is becoming a super power, but it’s disgraceful that issues as belittling as the colour of our skin is an issue of argument (worst still that it’s among ourselves!). If you’re living in another part of the world with people of other races who are of Non-Indian origin, then you’d realise that it doesn’t matter if you’re a White or Black / North or South Indian. It only matters that if we Indians contributed well & successfully for the progress of the country’s economy, you are looked high upon as an Indian but if you were to be a liability to the society, the rest of the Non-Indian community would point a finger accusatively at us & would generally say “You Indians…!”. So, let’s respect one another; let’s adopt the “live & let live” policy towards each other. Please look beyond your nose; the world is larger & more unforgiving than you can ever imagine. Hence, to win the race of “Superpower” we unite as “One Indian” & let the world look at us as “The Great Indians”. JAIHIND TO MOTHER INDIA.
the comment is not true i am also living in northindia i don’t think it is developing
Be aware: Hindi Imposition is coming again!
Recently, in a meeting of the Council of Boards of Secondary Education, Union Minister Mr. Kabil Sibal has strongly told that Hindi, the National Language according to him, should be taught in all the schools of the country to strengthen the unity and integrity of the country. Can the following be the inferences-
1) A Union Minister as well as a leading Supreme Court lawyer blatantly lies that Hindi is the National Language of India. Who is going to save the Government and the Supreme Court?
2) Hindi people would never learn to live in peace and harmony with equality to all Indians and their languages. Their simple policy is ‘Rule or Be ruled’.
3) For some Hindi people, Hindi and Hindustan (not India) is more important than India and its larger interest. Their idea is that only Hindustan, Hindi and its people are the actual India and all others are just extra fittings to India and should obey and follow the culture of Hindi and Hindustan as if Hindi people are the masters of this country and others are subordinates to them.
4) Both Congress and BJP are no different in their language policy. They don’t want to respect the diversity of the people of India. Congress could do these sort of things even when they don’t have a absolute majority in the Government.
5) Unless the non-Hindi states act together, non-Hindi people will have to succumb to Hindi, being created by the Hindi people as the National Threat to the harmony of India.
Thennavan, Exactly i followed this news about kapil sibal statements.They need to be condemned.Hindi is just one of the official language in India and can never be India’s National language.
Congress is front runner in imposing Hindi on non – hindi states.BJP atleast respects local culture.like kannada and gujarati cultures and language in Karnataka & Gujarat.
Hi all,
I came across a great article on langusge in India…i like to share this.
(Link)
(Kumar this link has been put up several times in this post, in fact several articles from Vasanth’s blog have been linked to this particular post by the author himself. If you just search the earlier comments you will find that this blogger has also expressed himself freely on this blog and has taken the advise of the other commentators as well. I will give you a link to the very first comment that Vasanth made here:
http://nitawriter.wordpress.com/2006/11/02/the-language-problem/comment-page-1/#comment-6084
http://nitawriter.wordpress.com/2008/02/06/do-local-mumbaikars-resent-outsiders/comment-page-1/#comment-89315
Please note that vasanth also wrote comments under the name of Surya, which he admitted later on. Vasanth has written a lot of comments on this post, and you will read them if you follow the comments from the start.
Thanks. – Nita
Its cool guys u all have so much time for this. Well for your info. we all are looked as “Indians”, outside this country. Australians did not attacked a marathi,telgu or a UP wala.Britishers have ruled whole Indian and not just hindi speaking folks or bengali speaking folks. China and Pakistan are threat to all of us. Are yaar swine flu bhi rang,boli aur majheb pooch ke nahi hota.
South India and states like Maharashtra, Andhra are much developed than north for sure. But is it really just because of people of these states. UP has given maximum number of Prime Ministers to India, Bihar is producing maximum number of IAS, West Bengal has a heritage city Kolkata which was more to business than what today Mumbai is. You all aware of history of your respective states but have you ever gone through the rich history of North East?
As per my info, Hindi was made a national language by Britishers to create a conflict b/w Hindu and Muslims, and to which they were successful and the result was The Muslim League. We are gujrati,marathi,hindi,kannada,tamil etc just because we are born like that, we have not earned that so why are we so proud about it, what the hell have we given to our culture except fighting in blogs as it is safe we don’t need to face any one in internet.If our birth parameter is so important then why not fight for the whole human community?(we are born as human being right???)
Ram,
After 63 years of Independence isn’t it high time we started looking at ourselves through our own eyes and judging things by our own experiences?
Correction: 62 years.
Vivek, i don’t know what you meant by the “high time we started looking at ourselves through our own eyes and judging things by our own experiences?”. If looking at ourselves confines your boundary with just your state then I don’t really it is the right time. I wonder why south people are filled with hatred against the north people.
Ram,
//If looking at ourselves confines your boundary with just your state…//
That is your interpretation. I think my meaning is quite clear. I was only responding to your “…we all are looked as [sic “Indians”, outside this country…”.
As Indians, most of us (except those who have been brainwashed into believing that to think so is antinational) have multiple identities. If foreigners (including those who ruled us for close to two centuries) do not know this and decide to look at us as a homogeneous people, surely that is their problem. Why should we have to conform to their perception?
//I wonder why south people are filled with hatred against the north people.//
Simple: Recall Newton’s Third Law of Motion, moderated by the Second Law of Thermodynamics as stated by Kelvin. Alternatively, look into a mirror.
Vivek, you are mean and evil!
Vinod, you’re indeed the Devil
Well thank you for your suggestion Sir but I have been seeing myself in mirror from my childhood and I don’t need to try that again because I know what am I but I think you are not blessed with something that you feel you should watch your image in mirror daily. Or is it that when you look into mirror you see an image of a north guy in the mirror and you hate him? Oh! if that is the case then probably you should confirm this to your parents…
And if you still manage to recover from the truth you have just discovered then read again my comments and try answering what I have asked.
Ram
somehow i have always had this feeling:
look into the mirror and one sees only that, which one wants to see. if one wants to have a true impression of himself, one should take a snap and let the photo tell it all!
Ram,
I find you not only need to be told about reading, you also need to be educated about the difference between ‘looking’ and ’seeing’ and the psychological processes governing them.
Ram,
//As per my info, Hindi was made a national language by Britishers to create a conflict b/w Hindu and Muslims, and to which they were successful and the result was The Muslim League.//
I don’t know where you got this information from. It would be nice to know. The nexus between the Hindu-Muslim conflict and the national language conflict is very tenuous, and is historically confined to just North India, commencing in the last couple of decades of the 19th century. The Hindi-as-the-”national”-language debate commenced at a slightly later date. It was a purely Indian creation, cutting across the political ideologies of those most involved in it. I do not want to make this a long comment. It is more than adequately documented — quite a bit of it on the internet.
I quoted that just to clear that Hindi was never forced by north people. I did not mean that Hindi should be made national language.
I sometimes wonder that before independence how were the extremists like Bhagat Singh, Chandra Shekhar Ajad,Raj Guru… used to communicate with each other for their missions. If we can discover that language then probably that can be our national language as I don’t think at that time they fought with each other on language issue
Ram,
//Hindi was never forced by north people.//
I repeat: It is more than adequately documented — quite a bit of it on the internet.
//…extremists like Bhagat Singh, Chandra Shekhar Ajad,Raj Guru…//
If you want to call them “extremists” that is your problem. It is a free country. But please don’t north-indianise “Rajguru” by breaking his surname into two parts (you may, if you wish, write “Sukh Dev” instead of Sukhdev). We “madrasis” tend to have lots of surnames and names with more than two syllables. Please respect our cultural right to be “different” on that count, even if you find it anti-national just because it does not conform to North Indian norms.
Just to make life more interesting for you, his full name was Shivaram Hari Rajguru (a total of three words, not five). The custom among us “madrasis” or Maharashtra is that we follow a full-name sequence of [given name] – [father's given name] – [surname]. We don’t use styles such as “Siv Ram, ‘ess’ batta ‘O’ Hari”.
Wow what an observation!
Let me guess dude, when you wake up in the morning daily,
you feel how bad is this world, how bad are all the people around you.
You feel agitated towards the God that why has he sent you here amidst dumb and bore living creatures.
Well trust me buddy it is not that bad as you think. Forget this cyber world for some time and go out ,meet different-different people, enjoy the environment, you will definitely feel good.
Well if you choose not to take my suggestion( for which I am 100% certain sure you will not), just for your information, I was definitely not trying to “north-indianise ” the names, it was just my lack of knowledge for which I apologize.
But still this does not prove any thing, I have not come across any historic event which says North Indians have ever tried to force Hindi on South until I came across this blog and some other related articles of the same author .I was under the impression that issues like anti -UP, anti – south by MNS and ShivSena(hope this time I have not “north-indianise ” the name) respectively, the national language issue , south vs north etc are just mayhems of some political games which some politician indulge in but I was wrong and as you rightly said Indians are different but again on brain storming this thought I conclude every individual is different so mean you hate every one except you. Oh! We are back to square one then. You should read may reply again from the beginning and follow what I suggested you. Good Luck Pal.
listen to ’sarcastic vasu-speak’:
[China and Pakistan are threat to all of us.]
China is not a threat to the commies of Kerala and Bengal. they always supported insurgency, even while india was struggling during the second world war and beyond independance, when we faced china during the indo-china war and even today the commies would like to hand over india to china and that includes many in your north-east.
likewise some muslims in india would like india to be annexed with pakistan (not the other way round. like some paki commented: india is a country which broke away from pakistan)
[Hindi was made a national language ]
all major indian languages are national languages. hindi is predominantly spoken in up and mp (i may be wrong). up promotes the maximum numbers of people to rule india because of their population. The seat division was conveniently done based on state population and therefore up represents the total ignorance of the country based on their combined population power they voted hindi the ‘language of communication’.
[UP has given maximum number of Prime Ministers to India,]
not that we never had better options, i am sure. something wrong in the way we devised the electoral system.
[Bihar is producing maximum number of IAS]
nothing to do with ’serving the nation’, let me assure you! IAS fetches the maximum amount of bride-money in Bihar.
[West Bengal has a heritage city Kolkata which was more to business than what today Mumbai is]
all thanks to the britts who somehow liked kolkatta and made it prosper. see what has happened to it when the garland was handed over to the locals? mumbai was made the mumbai of today by the combined efforts of all the indians. next mumbai will be torn apart by the ‘marathi-only’ people.
Hi,
Some factual errors.
Punjabi is the language of Punjab not Hindi.
And both criticisms make no sense to me.
If I am loyal to my language, what is the problem of others? Maybe some people, who have no loyalty to anyone or anything cannot tolerate the loyalty of others.
Secondly, what is bad in being conservative? Americans have been holding on to the traditions of their Constitution for 300 years. So is their conservativeness an evil? Conservative means holding onto our traditions. So the news anchor meant to say that our traditions are bad? So much for their love of India.
NorthIndians expects sourth Indians to speak Hindi… When english is dominating the world, why should we waste our time in learning Hindi which is of no use at all. Instead we can devote much time to learn good english and converse..Everybody has to respect their mother tongue(including north india languages) and since english is widely accepted, Learning Hindi is not compusory. If anybody is interested, they can learn on their wish. North Indians prefer to learn Spanish and Frenach rather than SouthIndian languages though they live in South India…
no nita and no posts? despite the fact that at this moment at least 10 people are online! say something, u guys! let us not make nita drop her trp ratings. even some old post comments are welcome. go for it guys!
hi vasudev. <this is to saz <hiiii!!! I am in swityerland land now. sorrz for the bad spellings. its the funnz keyboard. its going to be some time before i return.
hi neetz!
njoy da swizerland!
the swiss r both gud & bad.
the bad kind u met on my anecdote of a bhubaneshwar trip whn i got thm to waste their puri trip.
the gud ones are like wht my sis told whn she went to swiss alone with her children. when her son tripped & fell dwn alighting out of an alpine train and strtd blidng.
thr wr mny who rushd to hr hlp (lone woman) and brot along bndages and spirit based antiseptics and drssd her son’s knee.
she still rembrs thm fondly (dusn’t lke it whn i recount the bd swiss).
its ok u had a bit of the booze. be fair. dnt blame on kybord ot typos. right nw i’m drunk on three beer cans and cn go fr three more.
r u plnning to buy a swiss dairy & settle dwn thr?
nt a bad idya.
alps bng so cls by.
quite romantic (hic!)
bye & tc
vasudev, btw, the keyboard there is different. Instead of the Y they have the Z. guess its something to do with the german.
– Nita
When you talk about the richness of the lagauage it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own, not as an offshoot of another tradition, and it must have a large and extremely rich body of ancient literature.
Hindi is no where a match…that’s the reason we got our National Anthem in Bengali and not Hindi.
Langauges like Bengali,Tamil,Telugu, Kannada have a great literary tradition. Thats why have been termed as the classical languages on India.
Hello Debating Indians,
Our forefathers wanted to stay together and left with us such a beautiful country with so many schools of thought. Lets not destroy anything by imposing and cloning. The negative attitude towards Hindi is due to the fact that the policy makers are trying to find the easy way out rather than the justified way out. We should not shy away from English because of its colonial hangover. Its not at all possible to reinstall a different language in place of English in our daily life. Hindi, like other languages should be treated as a regional language. In that way, all states will be able to grow and develop parallely keeping their individual flavour intact. Although, all of each one of us has individual preferences, still should we really like it , if every city of India looks like New Delhi? And, ofcourse, if a native from Tamil Nadu wants to write poems in Hindi , that will be wonderful too. Hindi is just another regional language like Tamil and Gujrati. No regional language of India should be made so large that it overshadows the other regional language.
Arnab:
BRAVO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Queations:
1. Why there is topic North Vs South? Do you think North India means including all states in India except 4 states in South India? Do North India and West has same culture? Do North and East india has same culture?
2. Just a gen. question. What are the items in the North Indian’s breakfast? I was there in Delhi and I didn’t find any breakfast item except Aloo Parantha or Chohle Bhature…
In AP, we have
1. Dosa( again so many varities)
2. Idly
3. Mysore Bajji
4. Pesarattu ( Toor dal ka dosa)
5. Upma
6. puri
7. chappathi
8. Lemon Rice
All these we prepare @ home for breakfast.these are main items. APart
from these there are lot of other items too.
Please don’t include items like Noodles, Bread, BRead Omlette as these NOT indian (but Continental or chineese) items.
Also I found (Esp in Hyd or BLR) every nook and corner you can find Breakfast centres, xerox, internet and basic needs in remote colonies also. But In delhi and NCR, they are confined to single locality and its difficult to get these.
You can find this diff iff if you live HYD/BLR and some time in North India….
Hi to all,
I am a person who travelled almost all parts of India and around the world. I am from Chennai and i don’t speak Hindi!. I had personally got abused by some jokers in the north telling me that people from Tamil nadu should start using Hindi!!. I did not answer them even a word because that’s there mind set .The world is seeing our great country as a place where culture originated and we have various diversity and still we are united. It is these diversities like languages which making us unique and stand apart from others with colors. I take this opportunity to ask every reader not to force any language to any one. Yes Hindi is our national language I do accept this but will that only help us to be united? if so I am sure we Tamils will welcome Hindi. If you are still with Hindi as national language think about hockey (our national game) where it is now. People who say hindi is our national language and every Indian should be able to speak Hindi, will they ask every Indian to follow hokey also since it is our national game!! Or they will support cricket which is not our national game but the whole nation is freak about this game!!
‘South India is one of the fastest growing regional economies’ -http://www.thehindu.com/2009/10/06/stories/2009100659310700.htm
NOTE: “South India’s stable law and order, high literacy and large pool of skilled labour ”
*************************************************************************
CHENNAI: Mike Nithavrianakis is the new British Deputy High Commissioner in Southern India.
He succeeds Mike Connor who left India last week after a four-year tenure in the southern region.
Speaking on his new post, Mr. Nithavrianakis said, “It is a huge honour to represent the United Kingdom in southern India and I look forward to visiting the many interesting places in the southern region, which has one of the fastest growing regional economies in India.”
He said that Chennai was considered the capital of India for automotive components and healthcare. Hyderabad was India’s bulk drug capital and Kerala was one of the most attractive tourist destinations in the world.
The large number of British investments across the south was a response to the social and physical infrastructure for which the region is recognised. South India’s stable law and order, high literacy and large pool of skilled labour had always attracted companies wanting to do business in India and an increasing number of Indian companies in this region were investing in the UK across a whole range of sectors, he added.
“The British Council works with State governments, education and training institutions and thousands of young students seeking a quality higher education in the UK or the benefits of world-leading UK expertise and training. We have recently had a very successful business event in Thiruvananthapuram,” he said.
just one appeal sir, if you don’t mind! please keep ‘karela’ out of the sweet happenings! we in ‘karela’ believe in going ‘bitter’ so that we can savour our own unpleasanteries and experience a whole new way of self-realisation and independance without having to share the loads of ’sweet nothings’ and endorsements from some white skinned british ’shylocks’ with whom our ‘historicals’ aren’t yet cleared.
thank ye!
Guys,
Other intersting thing…
You can see Crow more than Peacock…..but still our National Bird is Peacock