The British and the Americans don’t like Marathi “chauvinism”
Indianising old (British) names of roads and cities never stirred any fire in me although it arouses nationalistic fervour in some. I disapproved of the recent diktat of Mumbai’s Municipal Corporation (BMC) to make Marathi mandatory (no Hindi or English allowed) for all official documentation although Marathi is my mother tongue and I can read and write it. But my grumbling is one thing; foreigners grumbling another. If they can adjust to the lack of English in China or in France, surely they can adjust to it in India? In fact in India we have no dearth of translators as English is spoken widely.
A brief background
Most major cities have Indianised their names as an anti-colonial measure – from Madras to Chennai, from Calcutta to Kolkata, from Bombay to Mumbai. Also, recently the BMC (helped along by a local political outfit, MNS) ruled that commercial establishments in Mumbai write the names of their shops and businesses in Marathi (along with English or Hindi). There’s a deadline of 28th August 2008.
And now official documents to be Marathi only
I find this irritating and unneccessary but what I find odd is the way the international press has reacted.
This is what the Telegraph (U.K.) says:
Local officials privately admit that though the Marathi dialect most often spoken in the city can be easy to understand, the official version of the language is confusing and a poor substitute for English
Dialect huh. Well, they have also called Marathi a language and I guess we should be grateful for that. Surprisingly, the headline of the same article said that this move would limit “the city’s ambitions of becoming a global commercial hub.”
Why should it? Have countries like France suffered because they made their language the medium for all official documentation? What India lacks is infrastructure and that is the hurdle to growth, not some petty politicking over language! According to me this is a non-issue where development is concerned and could well be temporary.
In any case, the only reason why English is still here as one of the official languages of India is because of India’s innumerable indigenous languages.
This is what the International Herald Tribune says (Reuters story):
The decision to ditch English, the global language of business, in favour of Marathi, a language largely restricted to the surrounding state of Maharashtra, has left some officials struggling to express themselves
I am not sure whether they are upset that Marathi has replaced English and would have been alright with Hindi or whether they are upset about Mumbai ditching English.
This is what the Financial Times (London) writes:
Mumbai’s business elite, which wants the city to become an international financial centre (IFC), opposes the language change. “It will have an adverse effect on the global investment climate in the city,” warns Sushil Jiwarajka, the western regional council chairman of the Federation of Indian chambers of commerce and Industry. Former World Bank economist Percy Mistry, who advised India’s finance ministry on how to help Mumbai realize its dream of catching up with London and Hong Kong, said that an unfriendly business climate would just give companies another reason to choose cities in neighboring Indian states, such as Gujarat, rather than Maharashtra.
Will foreign investors turn their back on Maharashtra because the official communication is in Marathi? Or because of poor roads, lack of power and other infrastructure?
A blog on the Economist magazine site (blogs on these sites are penned by the journalists themselves) says: [The headline is “Watch your mouth in Mumbai”]
BRITISH businessmen working in India were recently warned about the need to abide by local customs, following reports of deals collapsing because of their inappropriate behaviour. Now those heading to Mumbai have one more thing to think about: language…No government documents will be written in English or Hindi…This is going to make life harder for several councillors who do not read and write the language fluently. And non-Marathi speakers doing business with the government could find their translators’ bills soaring.
I am not sure exactly what British businessmen are worried about. Translators’ bills, “inappropriate” behavior or what non-Marathi speaking Indian councillors have to go through.
One of the reactions to this post in the Economist was:
It’s because of stupid regulations like this that India gets a reputation as being unfriendly to business.
Another said:
The businessmen will learn Marathi as they learn now Portuguese and Chinese. What is so tragic in it?
That is exactly what I feel. What’s so tragic in it? What’s so reprehensible about it? I can understand the outrage of those whose mother tongue is Hindi or Gujarati who have trouble deciphering Marathi documents but I have difficulty in understanding the attitude of those who are not from this country.
This issue of changing the official language to Marathi is about regional politicking, it’s about coalition politics, it’s about next year’s elections and it may not even last! Relax guys! Don’t come out with doomsday predictions!
Update 22nd August: Mavin in his comment has brought to my notice that Marathi is already the official language at police stations, ration offices and the land revenue department. The government administration structure, already conducts its affairs in Marathi. The municipal corporation, even in other towns in Maharashtra, issues the property tax and water bills in Marathi. Land survey reports are already in Marathi. Therefore, conducting the affairs of the municipal corporation will not be any drastic change for foreign businessmen…it does not change anything for them. The only change now, is for the non-Marathi speaking corporators who are elected representatives of the people in Mumbai. This makes the criticism of the foreign businessmen by even more incomprehensible.
(Note: This post was written at the suggestion of Arleen, a reader.)
Related Reading: Will English dominate India in another 50 years?
The language issue in India
Does language divide Indians socially?
The multiculturalism of India
The foreigners want everything according to their convenience out of their superciliousness. But your point is valid that they can learn the language the same way they got to do it in China or France. But I suspect they find Indian languages not upto the standard to deserve learning or respect. Having said that, I also hold the view that there does exist freedom of expression so why impose a particular medium for it. Those who agree with MNS may follow them but those who dont should be free to use whatever language they like. In view of fellow Indians I hope this is just an election gimmick and it passes over soon.
One more thing noticeable is that even Indians learn foreign languages like French, German but I have not come across someone who says I’m learning Bengali or Tamil or Punjabi nowadays.
Reema, I agree that imposition of anything is of no use and I am against it. I love your last two lines. It is so good to hear a statement like this from a young person such as you! You have hit the nail on the head! People settle in other parts of India but do not bother to learn the local language, but instead they learn foreign languages! I personally believe that respecting the local language is extremely important because otherwise it gives rise to extreme chauvinism as extreme elements in society like to exploit the insecurities of the local people. – Nita.
Nita,
I am 99% with you, and more power to your pen!
The only point on which I would differ with you is “… I can understand the outrage of those whose mother tongue is Hindi …”. Why on earth must you “understand”?
Vivek, I understand because many councillors in the BMC are from other states but I do not favour any other regional language, except for Marathi. You know I prefer English as the link language for India. – Nita.
I agree that the UK papers are over-reacting. Foreign investors will not really suffer. In any case, they hire middlemen, or they have a local office. They can hire translators. It’s a non-issue and these UK papers should find better things to write about.
Having said that, the decision to dispense with both Hindi and English is a major inconvenience – for non-Marathi speaking Indians living in Maharashtra. Even those who can speak Marathi may not be able to read/ write or understand official terms so well. The common man cannot afford translators. Imagine getting everything, from your electricity bill to property tax statements to all kinds of NOCs and other documents in Marathi
Why cannot they have them atleast in two languages – say Marathi and Hindi? Isn’t Maharashtra still a part of India?
Lekhni, I think Marathi and Hindi is most unfair to people from the South. Also, frankly having Hindi in the BMC I think has nothing at all to do with being in India or being Indian. Does Delhi or Bhopal have Marathi? Does Chennai have Marathi? The constitution allows each state to decide, and Hindi is an official language of communication only at the central level (both Hindi and English), not at the state level. This is as per the Indian constitution and the key word here is “official” and not “national”. India has no national language so having Hindi in the BMC has nothing to do with India.
- Nita
Well Nita havent we brought this on ourselves ? Our media goes crazy at the possibility of a non-English speaker becoming PM even though our most Indians dont speak English. Hindi songs nowadays have more English than Hindi it seems. Our celebrities always give interviews in English. How many books are written in Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu etc. these days ? How can anyone else respect our culture if we dont ?
The need of the hour is that the middle class make sure their kids read literature in Indian languages.
Well, we certainly need to promote Indian literature, agreed. However I feel the English juggernaut has gone very far ahead, and today everyone wants an English education. And as financial success is tied to the language I doubt that the trend will be reversed. In fact the very need for “conserving” itself means that that is what it will become. An effort at conservation. Whether good or bad, I am not saying, because I believe one cannot force anything. – Nita.
I’m totally confused. I thought you said you didn’t like the idea in the first place. And I presume you are not too happy about the foreign media stating reasons why Marathi should not be the official language.
I am from Kerala and my natural language is Malayalam. I have been in Mumbai for the last 3 years or so and I seem to have fallen in love with Marathi. I try to speak as much as I can in Marathi and am proud to do so.
Yet, I find it difficult to follow the official version. Even Hindi for that matter, is pretty tiring. I’d rather we stick to English because of the poly-linguism in India.
I don’t like the idea at all Kris, because like you I prefer English.
But I have no sympathy for foreign businessmen who are reluctant to take the extra trouble to translate from a local language…after all they do it in other countries don’t they? I made that point in my post. – Nita.
They can have any regional language alongwith English, but English should continue
Also, the need is for decent infrastructure in Mumbai, i dont feel good when the US advices it’s residents not to visit Mumbai during rainy season..
I agree with you Vivek. The language issue is a non-issue for foreign businessman (because they can manage very well with translators and need not get emotional about English), although it may be a big issue for us Indians from the political point of view. – Nita.
@Nita:
Wrt your response to Kris, if Hindi-speaking Indians, living in the non-Hindi-speaking parts of India, can get away with not learning the local language of the place on which they have inflicted themselves, why should you expect foreigners to take the trouble?
And since the focus of this post is the British and the American disapproval of compelling the use of Marathi in Mumbai, can’t we keep the imagined problems that might be faced by “other Indians” out of the discussion?
@Vikram:
I don’t know about Hindi, Tamil, Telugu etc.(though I should imagine the latter two are doing well in this regard), but I have a couple of friends in Marathi publishing who tell me that there is a fairly healthy market for, especially, quality non-fiction in Marathi, though of course it could be much better.
@ Lekhni:
//…the decision to dispense with both Hindi and English…//
I am not aware of any decision to dispense with Hindi. I wish there were.
//…Why cannot they have them atleast in two languages – say Marathi and Hindi?…//
Would you DARE to even mildly pose the same question substituting “Bangla” or “Tamizh” for “Marathi”? In any case, most people from the other non-Hindi regions do readily and willingly acquire a working knowledge of Marathi, even in Mumbai. It is only the Hindiwalas who resist.
Nita,
Sorry, I did not notice your response to my first comment. During the row that MNS kicked up some months ago, I actually saw and heard on TV some bhaiya councillors arguing against the use of Marathi in BMC. How can this be tolerated?
[Incidentally, my comment immediately preceding this one seems to have got lost. It's not even showing on my screen as "awaiting moderation"].
It had gone for moderation and it’s been saved. I agree that stopping the use of Marathis is intolerable. They might as well change the name of the city to bambai! – Nita.
Simply overreacting. I would have also overreacted if someone had tried removing Marathi completely.
You have put it very well and I really agree with you
P.S. You wrote
Mumbai to Bombay? Did you mean Bombay to Mumbai? Its a typo I think
I’ve made the correction, thanks. I guess it was an unconscious wish to keep Bombay as Bombay!
– Nita.
I meant *They are Simply Overreacting*… sorry for typo
Oh, but I thought yout were referring to your own comment!
– Nita.
I completely agree with you. Whats with people who anyhow do not know Hindi from the change to Marathi !
I remember that when I had to go for an internship to Paris, we had to translate all documents into French. It was expensive. but was the procedure to follow, and I did.
At times, I do wonder with no national language left at teh end of it, where will be the ‘oneness’ feeling?
I guess for India, its not possible to have a national language with all the language diversity present, hence only state languages will work in the long run.
That’s a good perspective that we all need to see. And more specifically, the foreign businessmen. About the “oneness” feeling it is possible to have a national identity without a common language. There are countries who have managed it quite well. If we in India respect the language of each place we visit, this problem of division will never arise. The division arises because of imposition, which breeds resentment. – Nita.
Whats the problem in transulation?When the same people can do it with chinese and french why not Indian language?
I wud defntly agree with you.
I think it’s ego for those people, they feel insulted that “their” language is being discarded. English isn’t theirs really, we have adopted it, and we can do whatever we want with it. As someone pointed out in the comments, it’s our internal matter. – Nita.
western media over reacting of course ! After all the western business men are not going to spend all their time at Indian government offices also its our internal matter.
On the other side I feel that its better the official documents would be given option to write in regional language or English. (I think its like that in many states).
I liked that – internal matter! That is what it is! – Nita.
Mumbai is the only city where the local language has no place of importance. If you go to other cities in any other state, the local language is the “lingua franca”.
Nobody feels that the unity of the country is in danger if in Kolkata – Bengali is prevalent or Tamil in Chennai or Gujarati in Gujarat or Punjabi in Punjab. It is so natural. Why is Mumbai different then?
I have seen many “outside” businessmen speak fluent Bengali in WB and Tamil in Chennai but they speak Hindi in Mumbai. Why???
Hindi or English is anyway the preferred mode of communication between states or people from different states. No problems on that count.
Re – The foreign press. They are no apostles themselves. They are consistently biased, ill informed and forever condescending. Such reports should head stright for the trash bin.
I share your opinion about the foreign press. They are shockingly biased about India. Naturally, many of their correspondents are their own nationals or have been educated there. I wonder if they would ever allow an Indian educated in India to be their correspondent from London? – Nita
Nita I totally disagree with you for once. The names of the cities should stay as they are. The colonial heritage of India is still its own heritage not Great Britain, France or Portugal’s. Its a part of our history Bombay came up largely due to the influence of European powers and the hardwork of Indian people. It should stay Bombay! Lets also be honest here, most of these names are utterly unpronounceable even for most Indians. I still can not get the hang of whatever they call Bangalore or Trivandrum now. English is India’s only hope of staying on as a state.
I also agree that changing the language will have an impact on investment in Bombay. Also just to point out there is no difference between a dialect and a language linguistically the only difference is how widely a language is spoken, compared with Russian, French, Hindi or English the Marathi language is just a dialect. English is an Indian language we will simply have to accept that fact and we will also have to accept the fact that other people may prefer it over other Indian languages. There is no reason to be “emotional” over it. Its just how it is.
Odzer, but I agree with you!
I have no penchant for wanting to change names, and you can read my first sentence. I am totally indifferent to it. However I agree I do not feel strongly that they should remain the way they are, I just don’t care! About the second part, I guess yeah you do disagree! 
But I again agree with your last three sentences…so overall we agree! 
– Nita.
Oh you changed theme
this one looks better for your blog.. 
Thanks! – Nita.
Nothing to worry; as long as the Indian middle class & it’s purchasing power is there, the Westerners would learn any language to do business with us. They like it or not is a different issue & we shouldn’t care much about it.
Personally I prefer English as the language of business. But ‘Marathi’ or/and ‘English’ should be our decision and should not depend on US or Europe’s perspective.
Rahul, well said! They will learn any language, as long as we deliver the goods!
– Nita.
Well… I think its bull shit. Though I personally dont favour the use of Marathi on official papers as Mumbai attracts crowd from the rest of the country and is the financial hub of India, I still think criticism of this move and that too by a foreign paper can not be tolerated!
Absolutely! That is what I am saying! Double standards like this really annoy me. It cannot be tolerated! – Nita.
I am not in favour a regional language being used as the official language in govt documents.. it creates way too many hassles. For example, when I am buying a property I would like to see the old details of the land/prperty. And if I am in a different state, totally unaware of the regional language, I would be screwed. Govt employees are not very helpful when it comes to translation.. I had bad experience translation FIRs (which were in Kannada) for a campus newsletter (while in college)
How does it affect business? It may not affect business on a day to day basis but can effect them in case they get into some legal tangles..
Balu, ofcourse, I feel English is an excellent link language. – Nita.
Your Post on WP homepage!! U must really get tired of listening to people telling this news no?
Thanks for telling me Reema, and I do get this off an on!
– Nita.
@ Nita:
I have resisted commenting on this post because no matter what I say, we will not agree. This is also a very nuanced discussion. I also think we need to see the issue as an issue, without taking personal umbrage about it, just because criticism comes from someone we classify as ‘not us, but them’.
First of all, I have to disagree when you say in response to a comment: “Naturally, many of their correspondents are their own nationals or have been educated there”. Just looking at this post, you cite 4 publications. The Economist does not give journalists bylines by policy but anyone who knows the Economist staff here knows how they assign articles to be written. Of the 3 other journalists you cite, 2 are actually Indians, educated in India (Rahul Bedi and Arush Chopra); only Jonathan Allen of Reuters is not. So I think we are being quite unfair ourselves in meting out criticism of unfairness in this sense. In fact, most of the mainstream publications’ and channels’ India journalists are Indian by birth. How they cover is not a matter just for the editors, but also of their own biases and training (in most cases, lack thereof; one of the biggest issues in coverage that India has such few classically trained journalists, journalism being different from commentary not just in name but in spirit, methods and philosophy.) The test is easier during live coverages where priceless answers come out from the so-called desis. It is important in journalism to have someone who is willing to enquire and obtain information, not somebody who thinks he or she knows everything about a situation just due to an accident of birth.
Especially if we want investment, we have to recognise that the official language of commerce is not an internal matter of a country. It is in effect a protectionist policy, a non-technical trade barrier of sorts. In early stages of development of India, creating such measures would not really encourage investors not least because many Indians are divided on the issue too. A cauldron-of-cultures city like Bombay will find plenty of opponents of the policy within itself.
Nearly all examples cited from Europe seem to overlook one fact about Europeans – their multilingual capabilities and their governments’ commitment to their respective national languages. Besides, companies are free to adopt their own internal languages too. So while chit-chat in Oracle Baden may be in German and in Oracle Geneva may be in French but business meetings and correspondence are in English, which is not an official language in Switzerland at all. So the government does not interfere in the language of commerce either. The costs of translation etc are not really huge for day to day functioning, because most people are multilingual and can manage in many languages. This is unlikely to happen with Indian languages. Additional costs are not attractive to any investors.
We may also be being very optimistic in assuming that somehow we may be able to generate translators – not transliterators – in the required numbers and of sufficient quality. Interestingly the quality of translation can only be judged by a bilingual person who is equally proficient in both languages. Note that I say ‘proficient’, not simply ‘able to speak’ etc. The kind of documents and conversations that need translating particularly in early stages of investment decisions are quite technical which may lead to one of 2 scenarios – a situation where the non-English speaker cannot come up with the right words, or worse (and more probable, I daresay) that the so-called translation is littered with English words. Anybody here offering to translate to Marathi some simple terms occurring in a term sheet such as ‘ratchet’, ‘leverage’, ‘capitalisation’, ‘anti dilution’, ‘convertible preferred’, ‘piggyback provisions’ for starters?
As for learning any Indian language, just like we might learn Mandarin or French, I have to disagree with that, based on my experience. I have learnt – formally and informally – and continue to use several Indian and European languages. My learning experience has been vastly different for Indian and other languages. Both the French and the German government pour millions of dollars in the research, development dissemination of their languages. L’Alliances Francaise and Goethe Instituts can be found in every major city in the world. In London, it is still easier to learn Mandarin than it is to learn any Indian language (although the happiness with which non-Hindi speaking parents send their children to Hindi classes, held by and paid for some borough councils in the UK and paid for by parents in Silicon Valley is quite amazing in itself, when examined against the comments here, but I digress!). Learning Indian languages has been far less easy than pulling teeth from a hen. And I was a willing learner…
Above all, I find it distressing that much as we are making economic progress, our confidence as a people remains so low as to be dented by any and every thing.
This also reminds me of the IHT journalist who called India a ‘client state’ of Japan sometime last year and people got frothing at the mouths. I wrote a piece by piece demolition of his argument, because it had several weaknesses. We did not have to resort to calling him names. Esp considering he was writing about an issue of trade and economics and has a degree in economics. Of all people – most of whom claim not to ‘do politics’ – I am amongst the first to recognise the limits of rationality, especially because that is where politics comes into play but somewhere we need to get over our easily hurt feelings.
The Swiss, often cited as an example of how English is not important to get ahead in trade and business, did not get where they did by being hurt so easily. They just let people be and are happy to take everyone’s money, which, you will agree, is a universal language.
Shefaly, different views are always welcome and it gives the chance to a reader to make up his own mind. I am certainly not rigid in my own views and at times change my mind within a space of a day!
In fact very often people who know me think I am too flexible when it comes to my views, but it is a fact that I can be persuaded with a logical argument.
It was more irritation with the whole thing, the “us” and “them” thing you know.
About the remark about the journalists, that was just off the cuff , and you are are right, it was just an impulsive remark and not to be taken so seriously!
You have raised very valid points Shefaly and I am glad you decided to comment on this post. All points to think about deeply and certainly not be dismissed by any emotional reaction. Thanks. – Nita.
Hi, Nita! Thanks for picking up this idea and running with it. My original interest was with the reaction within India, not internationally. But you certainly chose an angle I hadn’t considered. We mostly-monolingual Americans are fairly oblivious to the political ramifications of official languages — unless it involves illegal immigrants getting government funds!. Business people, no matter where in the world, don’t want to waste time or money. The Marathi-only regulations will cost them both, and I think they’re just complaining about the inconvenience.
Arleen, the comments will have given you a fair idea about the reactions. Very few people are really for it, even the local people as written Marathi is tough to understand. But at the same time, this can arouse regionalistic fervour in people and that is what the politicians are counting on. And that is an excellent point you made…businessmen are only worried about costs. And yes it will cost them! – Nita.
Politicians like to play politics and language is one category. Media loves to predict someone’s doom’s day no matter what the category is.
A person in France can move from Nice to Paris without any problems. But it will be tough for someone from Chennai to Mumbai if we have the language barrier. IMHO.
But from Paris to Nice people speak the same language so there cannot be a problem. India is as diverse as Europe is, if not more. We have to live with our regional differences and not see them as a problem but as something to be proud of that we had an Indian Union much before the EU. Yes there are language barriers but there are solutions. – Nita.
Well pointed out Nita. Though you have chosen to highlight the outsider’s view of our languages, I would comment on the insider’s view. It is saddening to note that the study on the litrature of local languages (Sometimes even Hindi) is not getting the attention it deserves, especially it doesn’t sound chic, with the upper strata of the society in the cities. The regional languages have some of the best litrature and learning in India, but still we want to search for quality, abroad only! This is not Science, gentlemen! We were one of the pioneers in languages. We had Thirukkural’s and Dohe’s before the western languages took shape. When we neglect local languages and don’t find their study appealing, we are losing a big part of the culture in which we were born into. Every one in this world knows what a rich heritage we carry except for we, ourselves!
Destination Infinity
Thanks DI. I do agree, but often people cannot read their own languages properly and this neglect it. We need to have these things inculcated at school level in elite schools. – Nita.
Nita, I think your irritation is justified to an extent. But, I will completely go with Shefaly here as she has written everything possible which I believe in and even more Plus, I can only dream to explain as well as her.
I would like to add here that insistence for changing to regional/local language from English generally leads to disastrous results ( economically, atleast), even in western countries. Case in point; Montreal. Until 1970’s, this city was a happening place ( both culturally and economically) and also the most important financial hub in North America after New York. The summer Olympics in 1976 were held here too. But, after that, insistence of using French everywhere coupled with aggressive regionalism forced many big companies to move out of here one by one ( Toronto was the biggest beneficiary) . Although since last 5-7 years, things have started improving ( again with English becoming more dominant), Montreal still remains a pale shadow of it’s glorious past.
Lallo, My point is why foreigners should criticise this. That was the point of my piece…do you think that we should do what foreigners tell us? I have clearly said that I do not approve of it myself etc…but I think if foreign businessmen protest it’s hypocrisy on their part because they go in for translation in places like China and France. – Nita.
@ Nita:
On that why-not and whether translation bit, my question from the comment is still open
Anybody here offering to translate to Marathi – or for that matter, Hindi – some simple terms occurring in a term sheet such as ‘ratchet’, ‘leverage’, ‘capitalisation’, ‘anti dilution’, ‘convertible preferred’, ‘piggyback provisions’ for starters?
I have already tried it on my MIT-educated, India-born Marathi buddy and the best we could do for ‘piggyback’ was dhukkarpaath but even we know that is not accurate…
oh ..the foreigners have nothing useful do than to criticize ..
but personally i find it stupid to change the language to marathi..
it would be ok if it was hindi..
If i go to mumbai and have to deal somehting officially i would have to face problems..
the main problem is that each state behaves as if its a country..
the whole country is divided leave alone the language problem..
here one state does not give water to the neighboring state ..
we fight like babies..
Yes, I think that the documents should be in English as well, but whether it is in any other regional language, I don’t think it’s necessary. – Nita.
Nita,
//We need to have these things inculcated at school level in elite schools…//
We need to have them inculcated at home. They are too precious to be left to the schools, especially the elite schools in which most teachers snootily look down their noses at the ‘native’, the ‘regional’ and the ‘vernacular’.
Vivek, it is impossible to monitor parents. There is no way to force individuals to do this. – Nita.
Nita,
Marathi is already the official language at police stations, ration offices and the land revenue department. The government administration structure, amongst others, conducts its affairs in Marathi.
Our BMC issues the property tax and water bills in Marathi.
If we were to buy property and get a 7/12(saat-barra uttara) extract from government records, you get them in Marathi. The land survey reports are in Marathi.
So we are already there. Conducting the affairs of BMC in Marathi does not change much from what is already existing.
If Volkwagen or Fiat wish to set up factories near Pune, a substantial part of the documentation is in Marathi. I do not think these investors are cribbing too.
Thanks Mavin. I knew this, but failed to mention this in my post. This is a very important point. I will add it as an update to the main post. – Nita.
Shefaly and Arvind above have said most of what I wanted to say.
//We need to have these things inculcated at school level in elite schools…// – I don’t think ‘elite schools’ should be forced to teach any languages, most of these are private schools, they charge a lot, let them deliver what they promise, quality education- the kind the consumer (the parents) is paying for (English and a second language of their choice). This kind of imposing of languages is only creating resentment AND inconvenience. I know all Indian parents want their kids to learn English, they are being practical, and if English is made easily available, it will remain a language for business, and cease to be the language of the elite.
Only knowing the local language is a huge handicap for the poor, my maid’s daughter moved from Karnataka to Pune, and I couldn’t find a school where she could continue her education in her local language. So now she is learning to sew, cook, embroider and to speak in very basic Hindi and a little English, to be able to find some work. If she had any choice, she would have learnt some Hindi and English from childhood. (She is fourteen now).
That’s true, private schools cannot be forced, but I guess that is the only way to preserve local languages and culture. I personally think it is a good thing, because why elite, all schools should give as much importance to the local language as English. I feel this strongly. I lament the fact that I studied in an elite school where the Marathi I learnt was minimal and in fact stopped learning it in the 7th even though I was studying in Maharashtra. Hindi continued (I was doin ICSC) and I struggled with Hindi and almost failed in the subjec! My tenth mark percentage went down drastically because of my Hindi marks.On the other hand I used to do extremely well in Marathi. I believe that all schools should give as much importance to the state’s language as they do to English or Hindi (or whatever the medium of the school). This forcing people to study just one language, whether english, or local language is ridiculous ofcourse. – Nita
Bzzz…
)
Morons! Let’s see how they like it when we go to their bloody country and criticize their stupid languages!
(PS: I do not bug people!!
I think India is in a position to implement regional languages for documentation. But there should be provisions to get docs translated in other lang. like English, hindi.
The fee for translation for the locals should be less and for goras should be with regards to int’l standards.
Do you know here in Europe if i have to get some document translated it costs like hell.
People (Foreigners) will respect us and the languages implemented only if we want coz the time is at our side.
As far as the press of the goras is concerned, Indians know what to throw in the trash bin right away.
Exactly! There should be provisions for good translation if English is not available. No foreign businessmen should demand English. It is up to us. – Nita.
Nita, I agree that people from the South will find even Hindi difficult, and the 3 language formula that is followed in the South is the best. (okay, used to be followed, Karnataka now has official docs only in Kannada as I found to my horror recently, not English or Hindi.). But at least Hindi is the “national language”, not just an “official language” as English is, so that was the context of my talking about Maharashtra being in India. Shouldn’t they have the national language in addition to the local language?
I am afraid that is a misconception you have. Hindi is not the national language. And thank god. Otherwise by now India would have been partitioned, again. I am totally against imposition of any kind and though I am patriotic if anyone forces me to speak a language, I would prefer to leave this country. But ofcourse what I do not consider an imposition is when I have to learn the language of the place where I have settled. I think that’s reasonable and also in my own interest. – Nita.
@Lekhni
Correction mate. Hindi along with English is official but not national.
@ Mavin:
Bravo! Full marks to you
. In fact, make that A++.
I was hoping someone would do that listing. I could not because I don’t live in Maharashtra and was not sure. But you can add to it the BEST bus conductors, traffic cops and even customs officials at the Mumbai airport. The last two named are always extra cordial if you speak with them in Marathi.
A special thanks for mentioning Form 7/12, the all-important sAt-bArACA utArA , about which I would not expect much awareness on a blog where most people seem to think that malls and multiplexes are development indicators.
@ Lekhni,
//…at least Hindi is the “national language”…//
It is NOT. Please show me where it says so in the Constitution of India, or any other document which will bear scrutiny as evidence before a competent judicial authority.
Thanks for the information about Karnataka. I hope all non-Hindi states follow suit. I would go one step further and insist that in the Hindi-speaking states, the use of Hindi should be absolutely banned and so should English. They must adopt one of the “Madrasi” languages for all official as well as non-official (including domestic) use, and between any two contiguous states the particular “Madrasi” imposed should not be the same.
Nita,
//…it is impossible to monitor parents. There is no way to force individuals to do this…//
I did not use the words ‘monitor’ or ‘force’. I said ‘need to have’ — same as you did.
interesting…India has so many languages but still i don’t see anything wrong in using making the local language official…
I don’t have problems with the commentary too..but at least they should put english sub titles….
the only thing i can’t stand is the hindi commentaryin nation for the olympics… I don’t understand very well and i do not live in north,my local language is tamil,then why should i learn hindi? Well that apart,i have been trying to catch hindi for the simple fact i live in a class filled with people who speak hindi
And ya in tamil nadu i think all the documents are in Tamil
@ Vivek
If you believe that most of the ppl on this blog think malls n multiplexes are development indicators , then i think u r living on a totally diff. planet.
‘Madrasi’ lang.- don’t u think South Indian looks better.
@ Vishesh
I totally agree with you about the subtiltles thing coz i wanna watch lot of good south indian cinema
but simply can’t coz no subtitles r available for these movies. At the same time, i would like a India where every bit of information reaches everybody in the lang. or at least in the subtitles of their choice.
Raghav, ref your reply to Vishesh, I cannot help adding that you have echoed my thoughts. I want this very badly, all films with subtitles of our choice!! See how fast “regional” cinema grows. Do you know I was so eager to watch Sivaji the Boss that I saw it in Tamil? I loved it, although I didn’t understand a word! – Nita.
@ raghav in geisterstadt:
As most people frequenting the N vs. S thread since July 2007 know, I use the term “Madrasi” in quotation marks to represent the sneering, dismissive, couldn’t-care-less attitudeds of the Hindi imperialist towards virtually all aspects of non-North Indian culture. Thus the term “Madrasi” when I use it in quotation marks, includes not only Tamizh, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Tulu, Kodava tak etc., but also Marathi, Konkani, Gujarati, Oriya, Bangla, Assamese, Meitei, Bodo, Kashmiri etc. — in short everything that the Hindi imperialist look down upon and want to dominate over.
//If you believe that most of the ppl on this blog think malls n multiplexes are development indicators , then i think u r living on a totally diff. planet.//
Maybe I am, but that’s another matter. You don’t have to take my word about what you have (rightly) quoted me as saying. See for youself. Just go through the comments on any of the relevant (and some not so relevant) posts on this blog over the last 14-16 months. Of course, depending on your academic and professional background, you may or may not need to read between the lines.
I don’t really care if they strip hindi from official usage in Bombay or elsewhere in India cause its doing no good but english must continue as second language for communication. I totally stand by the decision made by MH govt but small changes like “Marathi or english” wouldn’t do much harm.
@ Nita
Ya, well i kinda feel left out not able to follow Southern cinema coz its big n u realise u r not part of it. I heard about this new Malayam movie coming out by Mohan lal. But i hope to watch it with Malyalee friend.
Another thing that i would like you to comment on are the remarks by a fellow blogger, Vivek. He asked me to read all the comments of the last 14-16 months. But i thought i could save my time and instead ask you to comment as you may be easily the best judge.
// A special thanks for mentioning Form 7/12, the all-important sAt-bArACA utArA , about which I would not expect much awareness on a blog where most people seem to think that malls and multiplexes are development indicators. //
Raghav, I would advise you not to take this statement literally! I know Vivek as a long time commentator and he is a bit cynical (oops, hope he isn’t reading this!) and at times I think people like to vent their feelings…it’s okay. Forget it!
– Nita.
my opinion?
Well, China is fast working its way up the ‘english language’ ladder. That’s the only arena India was beating it at. Once China equips itself with a good stable English speaking population, watch it take over India’s ‘booming’ economy.
English is absolutely necessary in today’s global economy for the financial health of any state. Especially countries like India and China which provide Western companies with bases to outsource to. Letting linguistic pride interfere with economic progress is something I wouldn’t be in favor of …. however, everyone has different priorities … more power to ‘em.
ps: just in these chinese olympics, there were so many people on tv … chinese people … speaking flawless english!!!! would that have been possible a few years ago? Nah! China discovered its weakness and that was lack of english skills and it’s actively addressing that.
Vivek K
Please do not use this word “Madarasi” though I didn’t find it offensive but its weird. I m a telugu and how could anyone call me something that I m not.
P.S. Calling every non-hindi speaking individual madarasi is like calling every Indian Hindustani. Not everyone in India is hindi/hindu and I think its demeaning to address any Indian as Hindustani.
But Shefaly, whether a language (here, Marathi) has existing translatable words for another language (or not) is not a valid criteria, as (I’d think) most languages have the capability to come up with, and add new words as and when necessary. I’m sure that if Marathi was mandated, new Marathi words for all the English terms you mention above would come up, no?
@ Amit:
I was trying hard to stay out of this particular one because I found both Shefaly’s ‘piggyback’ anecdote and Nita’s reaction to it very disappointing; but you have forced my hand.
Let’s face it, colloquial or figurative usage is rarely amenable to translation, and verbatim esays such as DukkarpATh will always produce ridiculous results (in fact Marathi does, I think, have an old expression equivalent to “riding piggyback” — AvaLyA-bhOpaLyAci mOT bAndhaNe — but it is not part of my active vocabulary; so before committing myself I would rather check out its nuances with someone who is really top calss in the language).
Of course that particular example is way too esoteric. You may have heard cricket commentators in Hindi referring to “psychological pressure” (itself a figurative term) as manovaigyAnik dabAv. I have seen, in a state PWD office in Lucknow, a name plate which proclaimed a “civil engineer” as an asainik abhiyantA. In Ahmedabad, at the NID convocation, the row of seats reserved for “visiting faculty” is routinely marked in mandatory and unintelligible Hindi (NID is a national institution) as abhyAgat sankAya. Even to grasp the sheer ridiculousness of it you have to have both Raghu Vira’s dictionary at hand and the ability to figure out the byzantine (maybe “gothic” would be more apt) workings of the mind of the Hindi Officer who came up with this gem.
The point is, all languages with a certain critical mass of users and a rich literary tradition have the innate ability to come up with new words and expressions as and when necessary. In India we are doubly blessed because of the etymology-based constructions made possible by the affinity of many fertile word roots between Sanskrit, Farsi, Greek and Latin. But these things have to be handled with linguistic sensibility and intelligence of a high order. In that regard we are now in a waste land.
Vivek, I’m not about to deprive you of the joy you get by waxing eloquent about that huge bee in your bonnet, which us regulars are very well aware of.
Venting is good.
Yes, translation just for the sake of translation can result in ridiculousness if not done intelligently and thoughtfully. But that’s a given, and I’m not disagreeing with that. My point was that when necessary, new words can be – and are – coined, or sometimes, adopted from the original language (e.g. rickshaw). If for a certain English word/term, there is *currently* no equivalent Marathi word, that is somewhat beside the point regarding what Shefaly said.
@ Amit:
I’m not sure I get you.
Firstly, I don’t see how the “huge bee in [my] bonnet” enters this particular fragment of dialogue.
Secondly, I am quite lost between your “not disagreeing” with me, your point that “new words can be — and are — coined, or sometimes, adopted” (on both those positions we are in accord) and something (I can’t quite figure out what) being “beside the point regarding what Shefaly said”.
Please lift the mists that shroud what I must see.
Bee in your bonnet – the discussion was about Marathi words, and in your third para, you mentioned Hindi words. While two of your examples are amusing, I see no issue with the translation for “psychological pressure.”
Since we are in agreement, I see no reason why you would address your earlier comment to me.
Amit,
The spirit of the discussion was about the “availability” of mutually compatible vocabulary and expressions across languages, and by extension, about translation. (There was also a subtle subtext to some of the comments — not Shefaly’s — that while the absence of these things was OK for Imperial Hindi, it was unpardonable for the “inferior” pradeshik languages, especially Marathi).
I don’t know what your mother tongue is, but if you ask an unbiased (against English) speaker of natural [as against "national"] Hindi, I suspect they would have an issue with manovaigyAnik dabAv. It is only slightly less ridiculous than Agantuk sankAya>, because the individual component words sound more familiar. In more “natural” Hindi it should be mAnasik tanAv, and I am sure there would be an even simpler, more natural expression, which perhaps Shefaly could cast light on.
//In India we are doubly blessed because of the etymology-based constructions made possible by the affinity of many fertile word roots between Sanskrit, Farsi, Greek and Latin. //
Can someone tell me if there are fundamental similarities among the grammars (not words) of Sanscrit, Greek and Latin? My Indian friend said that the three languages sharing the same root is only the view of some westerners and their edvidences are no more than a few similar words.
There were no natural barriers between India and Greece and later Rome, but their cultures seemed too different for a common language origin.
I am very interested in hearing the opinions of Indian thinkers. Thanks.
So much has been debated here already
How many of us have actually tried reading an official Marathi document? Our language does not have technical or scientific or engineering words, so new words are made up based on Sanskrit. Very few people understand these words because very few people know Sanskrit.
Foreign countries spend millions of dollars to research and update their languages. We don’t. If you pick up a copy of Sakaal or Ma Ta, you’d notice that we use unbelievable amounts of English words in our day-to-day communication. The common man does not know Marathi words for simple things, there are many, try conversing five minutes in Marathi.
So I think first we have to start speaking pure Marathi with each other. Then think of imposing it at an official level. This move sounded to me like painting a wet wall or yet another attempt to blindly ape the Chinese.
@ Amit:
Languages certainly evolve but the way many Indian languages have evolved is by adopting English-isms and modifying them a bit. e.g. there is a Toodiya Gunj in Gwalior (Victoria Gunj, actually) and we used to go Gunj-ing in Lucknow (a trip to Hazrat Gunj, then the most interesting commercial area for students to loiter, eat and watch films). Language purists, who fight for linguistic hegemony, do not aim for that sort of evolution. For completeness’s sake, it is worth mentioning that languages, where much money is poured into development and dissemination, also have not evolved sufficiently despite keeping up.
Investors, I am afraid, won’t wait for linguistic evolution. They work on different time scales and at the moment, so does the rest of India.
Besides if you want to see a real experiment in what a Tower of Babel may look like, please look up references in the most recent EU expansion and the impact it has had on the translation services landscape in the European Commission. It really has not been easy to find Polish to Swedish translators!
@ Vivek:
Actually ‘maanasik tanaav’ is the right translation which is why in my original, long comment I pointed out that we do not need transliteration from which meaningless monstrosities such as ‘manovaigayaanik tanaav’ and indeed ‘dhukkar paath’ might result.
In Hindi, like in many other desi tongues, many words from other languages have been adopted and modified. Tatsam-isms (hah!) of the kind you mention are exclusively (ok, not exclusively but mostly) heard and seen in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. As linguistic competence goes, I salute those who can muster these words in the course of a live conversation. Far be it from me to criticise those who know more words in my mother tongue than I do. But your point is more about universal comprehensibility and understanding of the idea behind the words – which is the point of communication. That is where tadbhav-isms would be more appropriate.
However, such as in your ‘abhyaagat sankaaya’ example, where we have imported entire concepts from another culture – did we have ‘visiting faculty’ when there were gurukuls operating? – translation which will have the contextual relevance, popular currency as well as ease of adoption becomes tall order requiring linguistic as well as technical competence the combination of which is often difficult to find. Especially in educational systems where compartmentalisation and early specialisation is the norm. Indeed ’sankaaya’ should not really refer to individuals at all, but to a department but in English ‘faculty’ is used colloquially to mean both a person and a department (not to mention a capability which sets off this argument on a very different tangent).
@ Priyank
That is a good point.
Most who can read Hindi should be able to read Marathi since the script is the same (except for the ‘l’ in ‘Sakaal’ and there may be things I do not know since I never learnt to write Marathi).
I have tried these Hindi-only experiments with friends who boasted better marks than I did in our last public examination in Hindi. I find myself the only one still going on – with some difficulty as the discussions become more complex – after about 5 minutes.
@ Priyank,
//Our language does not have technical or scientific or engineering words, so new words are made up based on Sanskrit.//
I agree with you after the comma, not before it. Agriculturists and artisans had (and still have) a tremendous amount of indigenous technical vocabulary, some of it fertile enough to serve modern needs with minor modifications. I did a pilot project documenting this more than a decade ago in remote areas of three different regions (the Konkan, Desh and the mAvaL in Western Maharashtra). I was wonderstruck at how much there is.
The problem with Marathi (and with some other Modern Indian Languages) is that their modern lexicography, which commenced under British patronage in the latter half of the 19th century, was dominated by “learned” people (from the so-called upper castes) who had no use for anything that involved getting one’s hands dirty, so they just ignored that branch of the language. It naturally follows that under such circumstances, when the need to coin new terms arises, people fall back on Sanskrit (with which, because of the poor knowledge of that language which you allude to, they do a bad job) rather than going to the living roots.
//The common man does not know Marathi words for simple things…//
Not really true, if you go into the interior areas. In fact I find all over India that wherever literacy levels are low, the spoken language is rich and vibrant. Of course these things are rapidly changing.
A particularly unfortunate thing about Marathi is the decline in use of vAkpracAra (mhaNI) — idioms, proverbs, colloqualisms. This makes the spoken language of the educated classes very limited and drab. And of course we are losing out on a lot of rich vocabulary and ideas that these contain.
I agree that we need to speak with each other in Marathi much more than we do, but not that the legitimate instatement of Marathi as official language should wait upon that.
//…like painting a wet wall…//
I assume you have heard of a technique called “fresco”. And how do you think children pick up language?
Shefaly,
//Indeed ’sankaaya’ (et seq ad ult)//
Exactly my point! Isn’t it strange that people like you and me, who are merely fascinated with language, should be appreciate this but not the Hindi Officer? Another (more common) horror is the uDAn sankhyA of IA and AI flights, using a cardinal term instead of the ordinal kramAnka.
@ Shefaly:
I missed your comment on abhyAgat sankAya. While you are right about whole concepts that are imported, wouldn’t something as simple as mehmAn shikshakgaN do? It may not be exact, but neither is “faculty” when it stands in for “faculty member”.
Whew! Almost everything worth saying has been said/discussed already here
I agree w/ Nita w r t “My grumbling is one thing; foreigners grumbling is another”.
======================
1.My rendu.paisa, as a very proud S. Indian. And one who has spent enough time in both hemispheres to have some kind of life experience ~~~
2. In whatever context, the use of the word “Madrasi” comes across as incredibly offensive – even within inverted commas. To me it’s even more offensive than the term “Punju” or Punju Puppy”
3. A house divided against itself cannot stand up to outside threats.
As long as we have the good old N/S divide in India, and the various uber-snobbish attitudes Indians have towards our own native languages in govt. documents ( try buying land in Karnataka), the arrogance of the mono-linguistic US and UK’ers will continue to ‘lord’ it over us.
4. I am shocked that we have our youngsters spending hours and hours learning to talk “American” or “British” for some coolie labour call-centre.
Yet, we lay out the spoons and forks for the unwashed tourists who sit at our tables in India without giving it too much thought.
My point is: get with the program, people! If I can speak in French when I am in France ( I do), then by gosh I have enough spine to get my European guests to say Thiruvanthapuram and Thiruvalluvar during their stay in India
Pride in our monuments/culture/history can express itself gently without the “sell-out” element that most of us modern Indians still succumb to.
Want proof?
5. Shilpa Shetty – she of the post-Independence, TV show fame, actually *curtsied” before that old bat in England. The Old Bat being she who is paid for by her fellow British folk. Was there any reason in the world for Ms. Shetty to curtsy before an expensive, fading british monarch?!? Or – far far worse – to refer to the old bat as “her highness” on the Indian TV showKoffee w/ Karan?!
If we don’t stop respecting our varied native languages ( along with all the diverse issues they justifiably raise), then we simply open ourselves up to attack by the insecure, Western, world.
@ Vivek:
You mean ‘atithi shikshakgan’ since we are sticking with tatsam-isms (a foul word that, I agree).
I suppose so but some words, more than others, are so imbued with specific meaning that the scope for confusion remains enormous.
@ Shefaly:
If you insist on etymological harmony OK, atithi. I gave up being finicky about such things after I saw, while driving in the English countryside in the mid-1970s, a shop sign that read “Delikatesserie” with which, contrary to my predilections, I fell in love.
Sorry, I accidentally clicked “Submit” prematurely. Yes, the scope for confusion remains, but can be resolved by consensus and matching praxis. When the electronic calculator was first introduced in India, the Marathi termed coined for it was gaNanAyantra. Later, when the computer arrived, some people started using the term for that. Then the academy for standardising Marathi (its name eludes me at the moment) got into the act and decided that a computer should be called sangaNaka, which gained currency very rapidly.
Similarly, for a long time Marathi has used the word pAradarshikA for slides (some writer just coined it and it stuck). When I mentioned this to a school headmistress in Allahabad she was thrilled, and issued a diktat that no one in her school was to thenceforth use the word “slide” in Hindi. The process of imbuing with meaning comes with custom, and with the spontaneous simplicity of a coined word.
After reading the post and some of the comments, it appears to me the discussion seems to be getting more nuanced and, thus, more confusing.
The move by BMC to make Marathi as the only official language strikes me as a particularly narrow and exclusionary move, and not just for foreign business, but also for Indians. And I say that as a true-blue, Marathi-as-my-mother-tongue speaking Indian.
1) Mumbai is India’s financial capital, and as such is amazingly cosmopolitan. Many non-Marathi speakers do learn enough pidgin Marathi to get by for their daily lives, and many do not. However, to limit the official documentation to Marathi is to raise the barriers for trade, business, policy and (official) communication. At a time when much of the non-English speaking the world is trying to educate its citizenry in English, this move by BMC is extremely narrow-minded. To wit, China, S. Korea, Japan all have government sponsored programs to educate young and old in English – not because they don’t love their native languages any less, but because they realize if they do not *include* English — the de facto language of international business — they (the towns, cities, zones, etc.) will lose economically to other geographies where it is accepted.
To exclude even Hindi from the list of official languages is downright foolhardy. That is to ignore the large swath of populace in India who do speak Hindi, regardless of whether or not it is “official” as described (or not) in the Constitution. It does not make business sense, just as it does not make common sense either. [And for those who make the counter argument that why not make, say, Malayam or Tamil also an official language, one would say that those languages do not constitute a "sizable" percentage of population in Mumbai. More learned readers, I'm sure, would know these numbers.. but I hope they see the point.]
2) Making English *also* an acceptable language for official communication does not have to mean that local languages will necessarily suffer. Note how these very countries mentioned above have bilingual/ trilingual education.
There is no reason why English cannot be an additional “unofficial” but accepted language for official communication. No reason, of course, apart from linguistic/ nationalistic pride. And perhaps costs of translation.
To ignore Hindi and English is to ignore the reality on the ground, something that the BMC councilors sitting on their high chairs maybe predisposed to. More likely, they are probably playing to their political base, which perhaps explains this policy.
After all, all politics is local, as someone wisely noted.
3) Smart people who are non-native speakers and/or foreigners, of course, will learn the local language so they can gain an upper hand over those who do not speak it (and make it easy for themselves to conduct their daily lives), whether it is Portuguese, Mandarin or Marathi. So it is when one is a mere traveler to a foreign land, and so it will be when one is settled or living there. And this includes non-Marathi speaking Indians who have settled in Maharashtra.
Imagine, for a moment, if every metro in India made its native language as the only acceptable official language (I sure hope that is not the case today), the barriers for other Indians (as for foreigners) will have raised tremendously. Labor mobility will likely decrease, as will trade and business. Unless the plan is to make that metropolis economically starved, it wouldn’t make any common- or business-sense. [As a matter of fact, having lived in Bangalore and having had tremendous trouble deciphering Kannada-only forms, I have experienced this barrier first hand. Of course, the smarter solution would have been to learn Kannada in the first place, but as many will see, that is a real hurdle.]
This issue (of the local language as only official language) has to be looked at from a higher/national context, not from the narrow context of Mumbai only.
I will leave you with one question: Would Bangalore or Mumbai have prospered as much as they have done, if they accepted Kannada or Marathi as the only languages?
Atul, you have the typical attitude of many Maharashtrians but I am afraid your question as to whether we would have prospered if we have marathi as the only language is very debatable. I think what made Maharashtra (or Karnataka) hospitable for those from other regions is the skilled and educated labour which was easily available and reasonably good governance, availibility of infrastructure (as compared to the home states) and so on. Ofcourse, the attitude also mattered as the down-to-earth attitude where people of these states did not insist that others did not speak their language helped to make others comfortable. But I don’t think it was in any way critical to making Maharashtra a successful state. If marathi had been the only language from the start, then the infrastrucuture of good translators would have been easily available …tell me, don’t Indian businessmen suceed in America? Don’t they learn English? Or do you think that America needs to have Hindi as one of it’s official languages to “welcome” Hindi speakers? Please think as to why America attracts so much talent from all over the world, what it is that the country has that makes people make a beeline for it. – Nita.
@ Atul:
Your clarification at the outset that you are “a true-blue, Marathi-as-my-mother-tongue speaking Indian”, gives me a reasonably good picture of the terrain I am on. So I won’t even begin to argue along lines that unsettle your more-nationalist-than-the-nationalists, eager-to-lick-the-boots-of-the-master-race hamereku hindi chalenga. I would just like you to ponder on the following:
Several decades ago, Kolkata (then Calcutta) was important not only as a commercial centre but also as the capital of a first-time-ever united India. The Bengalis were never the kingpins of that scheme of things, but the cultural and linguistic identity of Kolkat was, and remains to this day, Bengali.
Chennai, traditionally always ranked after Mumbai and Kolkata but still a major metropolitan centre, also has a sustained identity as a Tamizh city.
So why should Mumbai (and now Bangalore and Pune) not assert their linguistic identity forcefully. The Hindi imperialists are bound to flood every nook and cranny of India. Does that mean that they are to be allowed to trample over local cultural sensibilities in every place that they go to?
You are right about non-Marathi speakers picking up Marathi in Maharashtra, but most of the time this unfortunately tends to exclude the Hindi imperialists. The aberration has to be righted in a manner that will be remembered by them and their descendants for centuries to come.
@Nita, @Vivek:
I wouldn’t know what the “typical attitude of many Maharashtrians” is that you refer to, so I’ll skip that. I shall also skip other thinly veiled ad hominem arguments.
1) But you do underscore the point (which I only hinted at, I’m afraid) of the timing of this decision. If Mumbai had indeed made Marathi as the only accepted language on the eve of Independence or shortly thereafter, things would indeed have been different; there would be a larger infrastructure, and greater acceptance of this linguistic identity. At the same time, one wonders if Mumbai would indeed have grown as it did to its present stature, or have languished or relegated to (or even behind) the status of Kolkata or Chennai.
My assertion is that Mumbai is the greater city (economically, multifariously, educationally and culturally) precisely because it was more open and accepting then and now, far more so than Kolkata or Chennai have been. People of all languages flocked to it because they could make a better life for themselves there than elsewhere. In my mind, this also explains (partly) the loss of Kolkata’s status, as Vivek points out. Whether such influx of linguistic immigrants has been good for Mumbai is another discussion, and depends on whom you ask.
2) To your question of whether America needs to have Hindi as an official language to “welcome” Indians, I’ll say this: have some patience. California is already white non-majority, with the abundance of Chinese, Hispanics and Indians, among many others. Already Spanish is taught in many schools at junior and middle levels. California requires bilingual notices and official documentation. In 50 years’ time perhaps Hindi (or Telugu or Gujrati) just might be next, if current immigration levels continue.
[There is tremendous opposition to Spanish and other languages as "official languages", as I'm sure you are aware of, which makes me shake my head. The attempts by the (declining) white majority to force English as the only language reminds me strikingly of the attempts to make, say, Marathi as the exclusive language. Does anyone else see the parallel, and perhaps the inevitable turn there?]
3) Finally, the argument “if A, B, and C cities have their own languages, so why not Mumbai as well” strikes as equally exclusionary. One could extend this to all cities and we would soon get into a ridiculous situation where none of the cities would accept anything beyond its boundaries. Surely this would be far detrimental in economic and growth terms to Indians themselves, never mind any foreigners.
4) To undo or “right the wrong” sounds to me as narrow at best or revengeful at worst. If the intent of linguistic requirement is to prevent or slow down the rush of people from other states (say, Hindi-speaking states) from settling in — and there may be *some* good reasons for it (environmental come to mind) — then that’s a whole ‘nother discussion. But to undo the openness so far is to cause great socio-cultural friction, which I’m sure we have witnessed in the past 15-20 years.
The underlying theme, I suspect, is closely linked to immigration from other Indian states, a point I hesitate to go into much, lest this should result in an all-out flame war. [Nothing irks people more than a perceived insult to their identity, I'm aware.]
But it strikes me as *inconsistent* that on the one hand, Mumbai wants to invite more investment for its development (which is in competition with other cities and states), while on the other hand it is trying to raise barriers. Am I alone in thinking this?
***
I am all for preserving the local language. And I do favor that immigrants (both external and internal) learn the local language where they settle. Smarter ones will indeed do just that. But in my humble opinion, places that are more accepting of other languages have a lower barrier and thus are more desirable to live, at least economically speaking.
Nothing will make me happier than a foreigner speaking in Marathi. But that’s a long time coming, so I won’t exactly hold my breath.
To paraphrase Geoffrey Pullum, to make Marathi as the (only) official language is about as urgently called for as making pau-bhaji the official food.
*tongue firmly in cheek*
Atul, as you have written this comment with both me and Vivek in mind, I find it very difficult to reply to you. I vehemently disagree with many of Vivek’s opinions, although I feel he has a right to them. However I do not agree at all with the reasons you have given for Kolkata’s decline, not at all. The issue is very very complex and political. Neither do I consider myself knowledgeable enough to list the reasons for Kolkata’s industrial decline.
However as you might be aware I am against forcing of any kind of any language on anyone. Whether it is Spanish or Marathi or Hindi. I feel that under no circumstance should Marathi be imposed on non-marathi speaking people and under no circumstances should Hindi be imposed on non-hindi speaking people (here I am referring to those who live in the south of India as it is quite clear that Maharashtrians [that is what I meant by typically and not meant as an offensive term] have no objections generally and nor do Guraratis, in Maharashtra at least). If necessary the documents should be in four languages. For some strange reason many commentators are under the impression that I favour having Marathi as the official language of documentation and I have read my post many times, and I think I am quite clear that I do not favour it. I still don’t understand why people are trying to convince me of something that I already believe in! It can only be because they have perhaps not read the post but only the comments.- Nita.
@Nita
I do see your point. Thanks for explaining.
Calcutta’s reasons for decline from its once top status are several, among them being the moving of the Capital status to Delhi in the early years of 20th century. Those are exogenous. Internally, I suspect, but need more proof, that Calcutta has been more closed culturally and linguistically than Bombay has ever been. Those who have lived there must know more than I, so I will stop here.
I did forget to mention one point though, which Shefaly listed. That many European countries do pour millions into promoting their language worldwide (Alliance Francaise, Goethe Institute, etc).
To preserve and promote Marathi, it should be mandatory in schools until the 10th grade atleast. (I do not know if that is the case today.) Perhaps we need Marathi institutes globally that teach them where a significant population exists (Boston, Chicago, SF Bay Area come to mind). I know the BMM exists and holds its conventions in various cities, but am not aware of any long-running training schools for Marathi.
I also believe that Mumbai has a right and should control its growth — not for economic reasons, but for quality of life, environmental, and infrastructural reasons — but language is not the means of doing so.
That’s another discussion, so I’ll save it for later.
@ Atul:
//If Mumbai had indeed made Marathi as the only accepted language on the eve of Independence or shortly thereafter…//
You would undoubtedly be aware that Mumbai, right from the 18th century, had the reputation of being home to aTharA pagad jAtI. The linguistic organisation of states came nine years after independence and six years after the enactment of the Constitution of India. The creation of Maharashtra and Gujarat came a further four years later. These were the only two non-Hindi-speaking states which had no problems with Hindi. As I said in my earlier [presumably one of what you call "thinly veiledad hominem arguments"] comment, we were the hamereku Hindi chalenga bootlickers, eager to demonstrate that we were more loyal to the Indian “nation” than anyone else. We steadily gave up our own language(s) in favour of an alien language of a self-serving majority whose only interest was to completely fill up the vacuum created by the departure of the British.
The Gujaratis at least had financial muscle to give them self-respect. The Maharashtrians were reduced to the condition described decades earlier by Savarkar (albeit in a different context pertaining to the whole of India): asuni khAsa mAlaka gharacA mhaNati cora tyAlA.
Righting past wrongs seems to be very much the tenor of our times globally (against injustices committed during WW2, for example), even though sometimes only as acts of tokenism. So I see absolutely nothing wrong with setting right a genuine wrong. And after all, it is primarily the Hindiwallahs (and now a few English-speaking foreigners undoubtedly taking their cues from Hindi imperialists claiming to speak for the whole of India) who resist the local languages wherever they chose to inflict themselves. Surely such heinous acts deserve to be repaid with bloodied noses? Not only by Marathis but by all “Madrasis”.
You probably find my style of expression rude and offensive, so let me refer you to more or less the same argument presented very politely, elegantly and eloquently by the late, venerable Kakasaheb Gadgil, and documented by eminent historian Ramachandra Guha:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/2003/04/13/stories/2003041300240300.htm
Nita,
//If necessary the documents should be in four languages…//
Why four? Just two — Marathi and English. chAr tar bajula rahilyA, tisrI bhashasuddha yeu deNyAce ajibAt kAraN nAhi. ANi hindIvAlyA toNgyAnnI sAdhyA bhuvayA uncAvalyA tarI tyAnA ThecUn kADhale pAhije.
This is an interesting post and I thought I’d just leave a quick comment! I’m not a businessman of any kind, but I am from the UK. To me it seems a good thing that Indian cities etc are being renamed as an anti-colonial move (British imperialism being a deeply shameful period of my countries history of course) and implementing local languages into official discourse is just something outside elites will have to deal with. Economists etc always give these threats that business will flee from a country if you make it less accomadating, but if there is money to be made some, business will adapt, they’ll just have to invest a little bit more time and patience.
“I share your opinion about the foreign press. They are shockingly biased about India. Naturally, many of their correspondents are their own nationals or have been educated there. I wonder if they would ever allow an Indian educated in India to be their correspondent from London? – Nita”
I don’t think you can write off the press of the entire planet because many right wing papers/media outlets don’t have a problem with neo-liberalism and supporting business in any way. I imagine the Indian press is biased towards India. Every country on Earth has a media set up which is set up first and foremost to cover the nation they are based, and are, as you mentioned, made up by that nations citizens on the whole. Thats the same everywhere. In the UK there are some papers on the left and in alternative media who do employ people who aren’t British, and also don’t forget that here in the UK there are British-Asians who have family links with countries such as India and Pakistan and therefore hold a unique view of things.
Looks like you picked up on a casual remark I made and proceeded to dissect it. I have already responded to this same criticism. A comment space is a conversation space, and one tends to say certain things that needn’t be dissected in an intellectual manner.
– Nita
@Vivek
I am aware of Mumbai’s long standing reputation, and indeed the making of Indian states on linguistic demarcations, though R Guha’s article filled in some holes in my knowledge. Thanks for that.
A couple of tangential points:
- My dad would likely have a great chat with you; and I wouldn’t mind it either
- I had to laugh when I read the Marathi vaakya you wrote Nita. Some hilarious verbiage I hadn’t heard in a long time.
On that note, it’s back to irregularly scheduled programming or me.
I am all for preserving the local language.
I find that term – preserving – used in relation to living languages, amusing. Languages should be used, not preserved.
One preserves antiques, paintings and other not-in-use artifacts from the past in a museum, not a living language.
@ Atul,
Thanks, I’ll look forward to the occasion.
@ Amit,
That is a very valuable point you have made. To add to it, a live language is always evolving.
@ kennedy121,
//…implementing local languages into official discourse is just something outside elites will have to deal with.//
I assume that by “will have to deal with” you mean “will have to come to terms with”, or in more blunt terms, “if not…they can lump it”.
I’m afraid you waste your sweetness on the desert air: in India right now, we have a mind-boggling mass of politicians and a vociferous middle class aspiring to the glories of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation who, in pursuit of material prosperity, think nothing of trading away fundamental rights, civil liberties, indigenous knowledge, rights to livelihood, environmental sustainability…the list can go on. Language and culture, then, are a far cry.
I dont think Mumbai had been anything close to what it’s today had they made marathi the only language for official comminication
And comparing success of indian businessmen in USA to that in Mumbai is incorrect, as those indian businessmen don’t learn English after going to US, for them English is an indigenous language which they learn in India itself.
Moreover, Mumbai is made by “outsiders” only, as i dont see any “local” person making it big in industry, business, bollywood or anything…
Of course, what has helped Mumbai is, non imposition of Marathi and frequent use of Hindi and English.
This is the truth , which everyone knows but some deny it
add to above
moreover US need not learn Hindi as they dont require outsiders to come there, but Mumbai HAS to be cosmopolitan as they NEED “outsiders” there if they want to continue as one of the major commercial hubs of the country
@ Atul:
//I had to laugh when I read the Marathi vaakya you wrote Nita//
malA khara tar “ulTe TAngUn miriCa dhUr dyAyalA havA”, “suLavar CaDhavAyalA havEt” asE abhijAt mArga suCale hote. paN tyAsaThI nishkAraN sAdhansAmagrI, veL, paisA vagaire ugaC kashAlA vAyA davaDA? tyApekshA “TheCUn kADhaNe” hA dhopaTmArga navhe ka? ANi gadkaryAnI vakhaNaleyA “dagaDAncyA deshA”la dhonDyAnci vAN tI kasalI?
@ Shefaly:
Just noticed your reference to Toodiya Gunj in Gwalior (if I recall correctly, it is in Lashkar?). It reminded me of a railway station in Bihar (on the Patna-Ara line if my memory serves me right), the name of which is written as Twining Ganj in English and Tuddi Ganj in Hindi.
I also remember someone telling me that Rae Bareli was a corruption of “Library”, the first of which in mofussil Awadh was apparently established by the British in the cantonment they set up there.
A penny for your thoughts.
I support the move for Marathi to be made mandatory.Businesses thrive on good business practices and systems put in place by local governments.As long as they are in place,businesses will adapt.Language as far as business is concerned is a minor issue.Business thrived in MH because of practices and economic policies drafted in the 1970s.
Vivek K,
I always read your comments with interest.Please correct me if I am wrong, but in regards to your reference to Savarkar in “Asuni Khas Malak Gharacha,mhanati chor tyala” isn’t that a line from “Paravashata Paash Daive” and isnt it a geet written by “Veer Vamanrao Joshi”.
Just wanted to know about it, as I love the rendition by Dinanath Mangeshkar,unless you are referring to something else altogether.
//That is a very valuable point you have made. To add to it, a live language is always evolving.//
That may not be true. Wen Yan (文言) has stayed the same and live for at least over 2000 years till decades ago due to political reasons. One can revive it today and it would still be a vital language. In fact Chinese artists still use it to inscript (creatively) in their paintings. It is also my favorite language.
The key to understand this phenonmenon is that when a medium (such as a language) frees itself form its form, it becomes formless, a sort like a “naked” language. That way it will stay the same but never looses its youth. For example, a large part of mathetical language has reached this stage. And, as a more specific example, the set of natural numbers [1, 2, 3...] has no need to evolve but will never loose its mathematical descriptive power (an Indian invention, by the way).
The ultimate sign of a language at this “naked” stage is that, it stops getting richer, but begins getting more pure, simpler.
A language is like
Nitin Mahajan,
You are right about “Paravashata…”, and after your query, I checked it out. Your are right. It is by Veer Vamanrao Joshi, from the play raNadundubhi. I mistakenly remembered it as being from Savarkar’s sannyasta khadga.
My profuse apologies for the citation error.
Yes, the recording by Dinanath is wonderful; so is Vasantrao Deshpande’s; and Asha Bhonsale’s is only a notch less so. I recently heard Vijay Koparkar singing it at a concert in Ahmedabad.
Wishing to have a document in Hindi I approached the Indian Embassy in Muscat, Oman. Not only did they seem total Anglicized in their documentation – but despite pestering several officials, not one could suggest a location for the work to be done. I applaud the Maharashtra state government’s decision to protect the status of their language.
@ Atul and @ Vivek:
The repeated use of the word ‘preserve’ rankles with me but I am realistic about how languages do not all have an automatic right to ’survive’ or ‘live’. Both of you may be interested in Mark Abley’s “Spoken Here”, a travelogue in languages. I bought the book in Boston when I worked there for a time, with a generous friend letting me use his B&N card for a discount
I reviewed it soon after.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/RFFX3MGH1MDJ0/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
//But ofcourse what I do not consider an imposition is when I have to learn the language of the place where I have settled. I think that’s reasonable and also in my own interest. – Nita.//
Somehow I am uncomfortable with any kind of impositions. Also this move might discourage free movement of citizens within the country, will that not divide us further? I remember sitting with a map of India, and wondering where we would like to settle down, never a thought about language or culture crossed our minds- it’s our country, every state, every village, every street, every culture, every region of it, I remember thinking….this new move of imposing languages might mean we are amongst the last generation of people who can think like this.
Will the nest generations of Indians feel comfortable taking jobs in regions where they do not speak the local language? Then are we all going to stick to working in our native home states? This was a concern a friend’s son recently expressed, he said his line of specialization should get him best opportunities in Gurgaon…(he has a Punjabi mum and Marathi dad) so what about children from mixed marriages?
Learning any language of choice is what I suggest, let people decided what languages they wish to use learn, those who are keen to learn regional/local languages are welcome, those who wish to learn French and Spanish or Hindi or Sanskrit or Latin should be free to do so too. Aren’t we living in a democracy? Practicality and economics will probably dictate the languages chosen. Otherwise we will have Coaching classes for languages people really wish to learn, and languages learnt at school will be like forced Sanskrit we all never learnt.
Maybe I think this way because when I go to a new place I go out of my way to try and pick up the language and haven’t considered that people might consider it an imposition.We were in china for 8 days but I was learning chinese words for 15 days before that. that’s just an example. when we were in Bangalore I had picked up Kannada. If I stay in a place for 5 years or more, I would become passable in the language. I would do it out of a natural curiousity, love and respect for the local culture and language and for my own interest. It’s very very difficult for me to identify with people who have no respect for the local culture they are in (I am talking of those who settle for 10 years and cannot speak the local language) and therefore I made that statement. Also, do you think that people from villages in India who migrate to America, think it is an imposition to learn English? I doubt it. They look at it from the practical point of view, even if they don’t respect the American culture. They will never think of it an imposition. I always wonder why a person who settles in another place thinks of learning the local language an imposition. We are as diverse as Europe, if not more, and we need to respect each other. However I don’t mean this to sound harsh. If someone is really against it, ofcourse he/she shouldn’t be forced. However in this case perhaps conditions need to be created where the language has to be learnt. I am sorry, but this is what I believe. I do not think that the local people learning the language of settlers (however intelligent and business able they are) helps economic development. Also I find it extremely odd that people prefer their home states if they have to learn the local language in another place. If this is how they feel, if they feel they can let of business opportinities or job opps, they can stay where they are. I don’t think any region or state will mourn their loss because no truly intelligent and enterprising person will ever let go a business opportunity because he has to learn the local language. The Gujaratis in Maharashtra have learnt Marathi and they have thrived, but they needn’t have learnt it. They did it of their own volition. There was no imposition.
- Nita.
I also think the reason behind the popularity and usefulness of English is also the way it grows and includes words from other languages.When everybody says TV, Television, Computer and Telephone, the coining of new never used (or used only in official documents) words in local languages is a wasted exercise. What is the use of words that are never going to be used? This is the main reason why our languages are not popular even amongst us, we fail to see a language is only alive if it is used…and the way it is used is the only way it will live.
@ Shefaly:
I don’t recall having ever used the expression “preserve” a language, unless you are interpreting my call for imposing the “Madrasi” languages on the Hindi imperialists as a plea (what a pathetic word, like begging) for preserving those languages.
//…languages do not all have an automatic right to ’survive’ or ‘live’…//
I’ll reserve my comment on that one until I know what you actually mean. Prima facie I find repulsive the implication that I believe in such a thing. It is repulsive, and if you are implying that Hindi does have this kind of right, that implication causes to boil over all the rage I harbour for the likes of Madanamohana Malaviya, Seth Govindadasa, Purushottamadasa Tandon, Rajendraprasada, Balasaheb Kher and Morarji Desai.
[Note: My non-North-Indianisation of the spelings of the first four names in the above list is deliberate. Since you know terms such as tatsama, you would, I am sure, be familiar with samAsa, even though not, perhaps, comfortable with its actual use].
More after I have seen the article to which you have provided a link.
What about foreigners living in india and not learning any local language..nowadays western people are coming to india to do the jobs, and not just to visit, even in my company there are many foreigners from last 2-3 years and they dont have plan to leave either…BUT they have not learnt any local indian language..Reason?? because we all know English and are eager to speak to them in English..
same is the case with mumbai, where “local” people all know Hindi and are eager to speak….and no one can deny that to survive in Mumbai one need Hindi more than marathi
so comparing people going to US and people going to mumbai is not correct, as in US nobody is eager to speak to us in our language and we go as it’s in our interest not theirs…whereas in mumbai, they depend on “outsiders” and are eager to speak Hindi
@ indianhomemaker:
//Somehow I am uncomfortable with any kind of impositions.//
…except, of course, the imperialistic imposition of Hindi on non-Hindiwallahs — even in their homelands.
//…this move might discourage free movement of citizens within the country, will that not divide us further?//
“Good fences make good neighbors” (Robert Frost, 1914)…especially when the neighbours are Hindi imperialists (italics mine).
//…wondering where we would like to settle…never a thought about language or culture crossed our minds…//
That’s exactly the grouse we “Madrasis” have.
//…it’s our country, every state, every village, every street, every culture, every region of it…//
You mean “OUR” country. Yes, there is enough evidence over the last six decades to show that you think of the whole of India as YOUR jagir.
//…this new move of imposing languages might mean we are amongst the last generation of people who can think like this.//
On the contrary, the next generations will awaken to a hitherto carefully concealed realisation, that there are many more languages in the country than the imperial Hindi sought to be fraudulently imposed on the rest of us as THE “national” language for six decades.
//Will the next generations of Indians feel comfortable taking jobs in regions where they do not speak the local language?//
Well, the last three or four generations have not felt any discomfort — the imperialists because they were confident about getting away with not soiling their tongues with some funny “Madrasi”, and the rest of us because we did not question the prima donna status arrogated by the Hindi imperialists to their own language. The difference henceforth will be a modification of the rules of the game. If you want the freedom to live and work all over India, you must first and foremost learn the language of the place on which you choose to stay.
//…are we all going to stick to working in our native home states?//
A most attractive idea, at least as far as the Hindi imperialists are concerned.
//Learning any language of choice is what I suggest, let people decided what languages they wish to use learn…//
Interesting! This thought never occurred to Hindi speakers for the last sixty years. Ulta chor kotwal ko daante?
//Aren’t we living in a democracy?//
You tell us.
@ Vivek:
It isn’t clear in my remark but I am not implying your comments including references to ‘preservation’ of a language. Many other comments however do mention such a thing. I am not always able (or keen!) to engage in debate with all who express different points of view.
My comment is beyond the narrow confines of Hindi or Marathi but a broader observation based on what is going on with languages that do not ‘keep up’ with the changing communication needs. The book I mention is a great account of many such wonderful but woefully inadequate languages. Alas, this book, along with many others of mine, is still in a box but I particularly recall the story of a language (Boro I think from NE India) which has a word for ‘to fall in the well unknowingly’.
Hi Nita All I wanted to say was the choice of which language people learn should be the learners. Not everybody has a knack for learning languages. Some may be good artists or mathematicians, but not good at languages. Like you, I enjoy and converse, rather funny-ily for the locals, but enough to shop and ask for directions in many languages
….but I know I am no-good, and don’t pick much more, also I would rather read a book or read a blog post or listen to music. In no way does my attitude reflect my respect or disrespect towards the locals (I have lived in many parts of India), the fact is I have never thought the culture was much different, didn’t think anybody cared what languages I spoke, or which God I worshiped…
Do you really think it matters to anybody but me how many languages I learn or don’t learn? Does my learning Tamil, Telugu, Bengali or Marathi really enrich the culture/language of the place?
//I do not think that the local people learning the language of settlers (however intelligent and business able they are) helps economic development.// I don’t either. English and Farsi thrived only because it made practical sense in those times to learn these languages.
//Also I find it extremely odd that people prefer their home states if they have to learn the local language in another place.// Normally it would be odd, (unless they just can’t communicate) but after what happened this Feb I don’t find this very odd, for e.g. migrants from UP and Bihar, might, in fact, should, prefer their home states if they are not able to learn the local language here, in present day India such issues can easily become a matter of life and death!
I will confess something to you Indian Homemaker. I am not good at languages either!
Except one language and that is English. I know Marathi but not as well as English! As for my Hindi, it’s worse. And for my attempts at other languages my husband always laughs at me. 
When in Bangalore, I used to go to buy vegetables with a book in hand and as a result entertained the sabziwalis and I might add, endeared myself to them too! 
It’s the attitude which counts, not proficiency. 
And I can assure that a lot of resentment that people feel comes about because of arrogance.
P.S.
In Maharashtra people from the north expect others to speak to them in Hindi (working class people who don’t know English) and this has caused a lot of hatred. I know, I am living here. I speak to maids, cab drivers and security guards, factory workers, they are the ones who resent the people from the north. These people are not educated, and have a tough time communicating in another language…they see marathi serials etc, read marathi newspapers, if they can read that is. There is a slum next to my house, and it’s divided in half…marathi speakers on one side and Hindi speakers on another. They hate each other. The divide is between the working classes, not people like us. You should read my post on this issue, here. . It will give you an insight into this. Because you and me can discuss this ad infinitum, but it makes no difference. Because the resentment is not between people like me and people like you, not in any significant way.- Nita.
@ Vivek Khadpekar I did not say anything to support the learning of Hindi anywhere, I have maintained that the choice of languages learnt, (or God’s worshiped, faith, clothes, education etc) are all personal decisions and should not be imposed. Although I have good command over Hindi (ICSE Board), the other three members in my immediate family know no Hindi. I have felt the frustration of my children, the inconvenience of all the time that could have been used in learning some other skill, instead of wasting their precious time over a language they can barely communicate in, despite so many wasted years. Finally I found NIOS board as a blessing, for my son to free him from the burden of a forced second language in ICSE/CBSE Board!
When I say ‘our country’, you and every other Indian citizen is included in that ‘our’. When I say all India is ours, it’s also because I can not say which State we belong to, I come from a family where we have members from all over India, from Jammu and Punjab to Tamil Nadu and Kerala. It saddens me to think that our coming generations might think twice before getting into inter-regional alliances! Or they’ll escape all this mess and settle abroad- I hope neither happens, I hope good sense, unity in diversity, democracy and patriotism in it’s truest sense prevails:)
The problem of learning local languages is faced by all of us, not just Hindi speakers. Why not let each of us find out how we manage, instead of enforcing any learning on (any of) us. …and I still hope the next generation can say with pride that every culture, every state in this country is theirs…and they too can say “so long as it’s in India, ‘never a thought about language or culture crossed our minds…’ ” only then will it really be democracy.
@ indianhomemaker:
First of all, my unconditional apology for presuming that you were a Hindi-speaker/north Indian. The overall tone of your comments strongly suggested that.
//The problem of learning local languages is faced by all of us, not just Hindi speakers.//
But it is predominantly the Hindi speakers who arrogantly DEMAND that everyone from all over India MUST speak/read/write THEIR language, while they, of course, cannot be bothered to learn the local language of the place they live in for decades. I agree that learning new languages is not everyone’s cup of tea (especially adults, and most especially Hindiwallahs), but nobody expects proficiency — only a gesture of an effort to acquire basic, functional skills. If a Bengali, a Tamil, a Malayali moving to other parts of India can pick up such skills, what is so special about the Hindiwallahs that they demand exemption?
//I hope good sense, unity in diversity, democracy…in it’s truest sense prevails.//
…as long as the package does not include the requirement for the Hindi imperialists to learn assorted “Madrasi” languages! Right? And where, pray, had such thinking disappeared to over the last six decades?
Vivek K, I just remembered this letter in Boston Globe that you might be interested in, regarding Robert Frost’s line you quoted.
@ Amit,
Thanks for that link. This ambiguity of sentiments in Frost’s line is of course well-known, but Bottiger’s articulation of if is perhaps more lucid than others I have come across (which means “not many”; I am not an Eng. Lit. type).
My own attitude is of a spirit kindred with Frost’s later line which you quote, “…something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” This is very much in keeping with Tagore and Gandhi saw India and the world. But you will agree that, for it to work, the traffic has to be two-way. The neighbor who “moves in darkness,” is best kept firmly out, or must have the light thrust in his face.
Mr Khadpekar
Just i read a very interesting thing by you
you said “Manovaigyanik Dabav” should be “Mansik Tanav” in more natural Hindi..but i dont agree to that, both have different meanings
i’ll tell parallel English words for the same
Manovaigyanik dabav=Psychological Pressure
Mansik Tanav=Mental Tension
I dont think “psychological pressure” and “mental tension” are same thing, though the two are close but not identical..and cricket commentators use the word “Manovaigyanik dabav” because the players are under “psychological pressure” and not under “mental tension”.
one more thing, as you said
\\ Good fences make good neighbors \\
i dont think one who have an idea of India as a single country, would prefer fences/boundaries across states…
Mr. Mittal,
By “natural language” I mean that which comes spontaneously with the spirit of the language in question. “Manovaigyanik dabav” is translatese. The bhAvArtha is correctly, aptly and adequately conveyed by “manasik…” (whether “dabav” or “tanav” is not really that important). One finds many examples of such translatese in the MILs, just because the people coining/using the terms don’t apply their minds. I have already given two quite stupid examples in my exchange with Shefaly earlier in this post.
A very common one I see all the time, and feel irritated with, is the use of “ek” for the indefinite article “a/an”. The very concept of ‘article’, indefinite or definite, is alien to our languages. We have adjectives of number and demonstrative adjectives, not articles. Thus it is natural Hindi to say “Vivek Mittal achchha aadmi hai”; it is unnatural (translatese) to say “Vivek Mittal ek achchha aadmi hai.”
Similarly, reverting to cricket commentary idiom, “Tendulkar ne aakramak ballebaji karte huay ardh shatak banaya” is translatese; kar ke is more natural.
Such linguistic horrors are partly due to cultural illiteracy and partly to intellectual laziness. An example of the latter, which I have already cited, is uDAn sankhyA vs. uDAn kramAnka for “flight number.” The former is “number” in a cardinal sense, whereas the intended sense is ordinal, for which the latter is the more appropriate term. It just happens that the commonly used English-Hindi dictionaries don’t draw this distinction. Or if they do, the former is usually the first entry and users are too lazy to go to the second.
I hope you understand that by citing these examples I am not gunning for Hindi (I have enough other bases for that
. Such idiocies are, in varying degrees, common to all MILs. It is just that in Hindi there are not too many people who question them; in other languages there are.
Mr. Mittal,
I forgot to add a common idiocy of translatese sentence construction:
Shri Joshi, jo sansthAn ke pramukh hain, ne kahA ki… — which is a very English way of writing — versus sansthAn ke pramukh Shri Joshi ne kahA ki… — the natural way of Hindi.
Mr Khadpekar
Yes you are right about most of the things, but as you may be aware, in north speaking pure Hindi is not considered fashionable anymore (and i dont think it was ever), so most of the people in north dont understand many of pure Hindi words which are derived from Sanskrit …..But I consider myself as an exception as I always enjoy the beauty of a language whether it’s pure Hindi of Bhagwatisharan Verma or wonderfully beautiful English of Jane Austen or ultra decent Urdu of older Hindi films (dialogues written by the likes of Majhrooh sultanpuri or Kaifi Azmi)
I don’t quite see the problem. These international news media report to their respective readership. These are articles for the west/international communities, and so I don’t find it at all appalling that they have these “doomsday” predictions. I find the general outline of what these papers are saying, to be completely acceptable.
As for the update, you seem to be missing the point. English and Hindi are still/were widely used in most government offices and official documents. The ruling, from what I understand from your first paragraph forces just Marathi. It isn’t a case of English + Marathi and hence these people are going to have to figure out a way to work around these problems.
Need we remind ourselves that language is the reason we are even competing with China?
As far as I know, I think you missed the point DD. Our electricity bills, house tax bill etc are in Marathi only and as for my property documents all in Marathi. Only. – Nita.
@Mavin:
“Nobody feels that the unity of the country is in danger if in Kolkata – Bengali is prevalent or Tamil in Chennai or Gujarati in Gujarat or Punjabi in Punjab. It is so natural. Why is Mumbai different then?”
Because Mumbai claims to be a cosmopolitan city? The “melting pot” of Indian cultures? You can’t have your cake and eat it too!
I did understand that! I am NOT FOR Marathi. I am defending “their” right to comment about policy decisions within our country as it may affect businesses in their countries!
And I still don’t quite understand the logic, “they learn french/chinese/spanish” so why can’t they learn Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali, Gujarati…
@ The Depressed Doormat:
“These international news media report to their respective readership.”
I am afraid with the web making everything borderless, and esp considering Nita in India can and does read these publications, these media have no clear readership any more. Even if they were catering only to the western audiences, they are not homogeneous any more; people like me live here and take issue with poor reportage and bad analysis and lost context. That said, I also happen to think that “somehow ‘they’ cannot criticise us” is an emotional point, with which Nita agrees (see her response to my first very long comment, where I cover most of the points you raise here and many more).
Dear Vivek Mittal,
Thank you for narrowing the scope of this discussion to Hindi as a language of North India and not of the whole of India. It creates the space for more cordial and meaningful discourse.
By bringing in the topic of “pure” Hindi (which I never mentioned) I am afraid you have steered the discussion off on a tangent. Linguistic purity is the obsession of a class (usually from the so-called “upper-caste”; educated, urban) of people for whom that is an indicator of their imagined superiority. They will go to weird extremes to banish vocabulary rooted in another language – especially if that language is associated with a mleccha culture.
The reality is that no live and evolving language can ever be “pure”. It must borrow vocabulary from other languages for alien objects and concepts or to express new ideas. To sustain these borrowings, it must internalise them in keeping with its own personality and genius. The ridiculous examples I cited earlier illustrate the lack of such awareness and sensibility.
Let me illustrate with an example from Gujarati. It is one of the three or four Modern Indian Languages which retain masculine gender common nouns ending in ‘o’ in the singular number. In the plural, the ‘o’ becomes ‘A’, e.g. ordo — (‘room’); ordA — (‘rooms’). The ‘A’ ending also applies to case inflexions, e.g. ordAmAn (‘in the room’; in Marathi this would be kholIt or kholImadhyE; in Hindi it would be kamrE mEn. ). [Note: in Hindi the case ending becomes a separate word; in Gujarati and Marathi it is suffixed to the dhAtu].
Now the beauty of Gujarati is that, when nouns from English ending in ‘o’ are borrowed (and construed as being masculine) they follow the rules of Gujarati, e.g.:
radio [n.s.], radiA [n.pl.], radiApar [loc. case];
photo [n.s.], phota [n.pl.], photAmAn [loc. case].
Thus the words ‘radio’ and ‘photo’, taken from English, have been so seamlessly internalised that the average Gujarati speaker does not even realise that they are alien. I don’t think this was mandated by Academia; it just happened spontaneously. No one cared whether it was “pure” or not, although Gujarati has also had its share of Dr. Raghu Vira and his faithful followers who had created “pure” equivlents.
There is a subtle sensibility underlying this which I find missing in “manovaigyAnik dabAv”, “abhyAgat sankAya”, “uDAn sankhyA” and similar other monstrosities.
@ Vivek:
“Linguistic purity is the obsession of a class (usually from the so-called “upper-caste”;..”
That may not be the case. I am now looking for an article I recently came across on an Indian news site which suggested that the large numbers of OBCs in government offices has meant the rise of tatsam-isms of the kind that most urban, ‘upper caste’ people struggle to comprehend. This, the author(ess) contended, is their linguistic revenge. I wish I had saved the URL – it was incendiary from some people’s perspectives but totally in line with my experience in the Hindi belt.
@ Shefaly:
I would indeed love to see this article. But prima facie the phenomenon you report seems in keeping with the “Sanskritisation” thesis of M N Srinivas. Of course it extended far beyond language, but language was certainly part of it.
In the limited context of modern, official Hindi, I would refer to as “pseudo-Raghuviraism” what you call “tatsamism”.
Marginally off-topic, I am reminded of the late Vasantrao Patil, CM of Maharashtra. An astute politician, upright and well-liked by most people, he was only marginally educated, and totally at the mercy of his largely Brahmin speechwriters who peppered his speeches with so many Sanskritised tongue-twisters that Patil came across quite pathetic when he read out anything. This, of course, was the reverse of what you report — the Brahmins exacting revenge for their lost glory.
Shefaly,
In Maharashtra the “linguistic revenge” of the traditionally depressed classes resulted in the emergence of Dalit literature which, after considerable initial resistance by the “upper” classes, has now come into its own as a respected part of mainstream literature.
It is also interesting that Mayawati of UP, arguably the most influential Dalit leader in India today, discovered all her icons in Maharashtra — Phule, Shahu and Ambedkar.
Mr Khadpekar,
Maywati’s icon include Mr Periyar too..
About languages, yes Hindi is language of north india only ..but I wonder what is your take on Sanskrit as i feel other Indian languages like Marathi,Bengali, Oriya, Telugu, Kannada derive many words from Sanskrit..so i believe Sanskrit has a wider reach in India (Plz correct me if i’m wrong)..Here i mean that Sanskrit can’t be singled out as a language or north or south but has a much wider reach..
and about Tamil i’m told that it is a pure language from different origin and dosn’t derive any word from Sanskrit…but then i wonder about the names of Tamil people which seems to come straight from Ramayana or Mahabharata
I hear names of Tamil people like
“Muralidharan” – it’s a name of Lord Krishna
“Parthasarathy” – as in Geeta Arjuna was referred as “partha” and Krishna was his “sarathy” so this name also mean Lord Krishna”
“Radhakrishnan” -Radha and Krishna are a couple in Mahabharata
“Ramanujan”- Means Lakshman as Lakshman was “Anuj” (Younger brother) of Lord Ram
There are many examples like that…
Nita,
The only problem with this new theme is that, the moment I press ’submit’ the text disappears altogether. I find that even in my request for correction, what I actually wanted to insert is still missing . Do you think [;] could be a problem character string?
Let me rewrite the whole last sentence of the para as three and hope for the best:
The ‘A’ ending also applies to case inflexions, e.g. ordAmAn — ‘in the room’. In Marathi this would be kholIt or kholImadhyE. In Hindi it would be . [Note: in Hindi the case ending becomes a separate word; in Gujarati and Marathi it is suffixed to the dhAtu].
Hmm, not sure what you mean, but I hope it’s all there now. – Nita.
Vivek Mittal,
As far as I am aware, Periyar (“Mr. Periyar” is tautologous) was a later addition to Mayawati’s pantheon. She adopted the first three not because she had any special love for Maharashtra, but because her late political guru (whose name eludes me at the moment) cut his ideological teeth as a student in Maharashtra. But better check this out with an academic who has kept track of Mayawati’s career.
Regarding Sanskrit, I am not sure what you are getting at. Sure, a lot of the words of many of the MILs can be etymologically traced to Sanskrit, but that does not validate the simplistic observation, which many people make, about its being the mother of all (or most) Indian languages. Languages, like rivers, evolve through a series of confluences of several streams. Unlike rivers they can, because of their human vectors, cross all kinds of topographic obstacles.
On your observations regarding Tamil, I do have some ideas, but they are clustered around [a] the Aryan invasion theory; [b] caste; and [c] physical and social mobility across geographic space. I do not think a detached and objective discussion on these controversial topics is possible on this (or any other) blog. Let us not start another war zone here.
Nita,
Yes it’s OK now, except the full stop is needed only after the closed bracket, not before it. So you can delete my request of 5.04 p.m. and also this one.
@ Vivek Mittal:
//Radha and Krishna are a couple in Mahabharata//
Radha is NOT mentioned in the Mahabharata. The primary source dealing with her (and also with Krishna’s days in Vrindavana) is the Shrimadbhagavatam. The most elaborate treatment of Radha and Krishna as divine lovers is in Jayadeva’s 12th century work Gita Govindam, to the full online text of which I had provided a link sometime back to Dr. Nishith Dhruv (I forget which post this was on, but it is within the last two months).
For some Vaishnava sampradayas in different parts of India, Radha is a deity in her own right.
Mr Khadpekar
There’s no question of any war or even any controversy or anything like that..this was a curiosity in me..and i thought you may throw some light…
Vivek Mittal,
I did not mean to suggest a war between the two of us. Those truly are controversial topics, and a blog is a pretty public forum in which you cannot moderate either the tone or the content of a discussion.
I often saw some americans pointing to Indians during their conversation like, “Did they change it from Bombay to Mumbai?… well it used to be Bombay since a long time huh” and they get answers like,” Yea they did” and not more than that. Unfortunately I always was a passer-by when this happens and never really got a chance to deal with such incidents directly.
What they need is an answer that you wrote here. I love the two words here Nita: ‘anti-colonial measure’. That would deliver the slap straight on their face. I love this measure from our governments. It tells them that we’re no africa to loose our roots easily.
Well the next step for us Indians should be to come up with a totally new concept of managing the differences. Be it languages, ethnic differences or anything. I am all for any brainwash measure by our government which will give equality and harmony in the end. Influential bloggers like you should consider writing articles about political parties like Paritran . They receive much lesser attention than what they actually need. May be writers like you can help spread the word.
Thanks Vinay. Yes, I understand perfectly why people want to change names. about Paritran, yes I have read about it, but as I am not a political creature, I avoid writing about political parties. Haven’t written a blog post about any single party so far. However if Paritran figures in some particular issue which I feel strongly about, then I will certainly write about them, whether they figure in it positively or negatively. – Nita.
“Victoria Falls” always bothers me. An African waterfall shouldn’t have the name of a british bandit queen. I didn’t even know it’s located in Africa because of that name.
come come,the expats are just airing their feelings how would you like it if you were in a foreign country where suddenly all the signs and paperwork was changed from english(which i presume you understand) to another language which you don’t ?
As for the nationalism
Yawn!just remember who built your major cities
guquin:
Hello chinaman nice olympics.for that we will call beijing as peking ,happy!
Krenim,
Both beijing and peking are just different approximations of the original Chinese pronunciations. “Victoria Falls” is different, it has a referal.
“bandit queen” speaks a historic fact.
“chinaman” speaks something else.
I hope you understand that.
Also, thanks for pointing out westernized cities and the Olympics, I don’t consider them succuss, they only provide a way not to fail, and, eventually provide a chance for that way to fail.
vivek mittal
August 27, 2008 at 4:14 pm
and about Tamil i’m told that it is a pure language from different origin and dosn’t derive any word from Sanskrit…but then i wonder about the names of Tamil people which seems to come straight from Ramayana or Mahabharata
I hear names of Tamil people like
“Muralidharan” – it’s a name of Lord Krishna
“Parthasarathy” – as in Geeta Arjuna was referred as “partha” and Krishna was his “sarathy” so this name also mean Lord Krishna”
“Radhakrishnan” -Radha and Krishna are a couple in Mahabharata
“Ramanujan”- Means Lakshman as Lakshman was “Anuj” (Younger brother) of Lord Ram
There are many examples like that
I think I have written about this somewhere else. But if you want me to repeat I have no probs. All these names you pointed out are mostly used by Tamil Brahmins (read Iyers and Iyengars) .They are a distinct sect by themselves and they are not genetically related to the native Tamils. Nevertheless I have to admit their contribution to Tamizh language is no less significant . When a country is flooded with immigrants who speak a different language then in due course of time a lot of new words will find their way into the language the natives speak. Tamil doesn’t have the following consonants. ( Muralidharan – There is no ‘dha’ consonant in Tamil. Parthasarathy – No ’sa’ consonant either. Ramanujan – No ‘ja’ consonant . Radhakrishnan – No ’sh’ consonant. ). What you have pointed out are names that are used by a particular sect of people and by no means are they a part of Tamizh language. I would be ridiculed if I say ‘Kaapi ‘ (Tamizh lingo for coffee) is English. The same way none of these words are Tamizh either.
Regarding the language issue:
I feel, regional language is must… because people in cities might understand English but people from rural area will definitely not understand English.
So, any official documentation should have both, English and regional language.
E.g. Birth Certificate in Pune is in both languages, viz., English and Marathi. And you get it printed in any of the language preferred by you.
@ Nita
This will interest you, considering the French are often held up as examples of linguistic pride
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7594910.stm
Marathi-s have no hope for getting justice from a Hindi dominated India. It was Maratha-s who first started India’s freedom struggle against foreign invaders. It was Maratha-s who gave India’s freedom struggle a proper direction. And what did they get in return? Nothing but abuses. It is time for Maharashtrians to understand that if Maharashtra had been an independent nation, it would be the richest in whole of the South East Asia. We do not need crumbs from a decrepit India.
Marathi needs to be an official language in Maharashtra simply because there are many people in towns and villages – outside Mumbai, Pune and other cities – who do not have a strong proficiency in English. (Even though it may be difficult for a person like me, who has lost a bit of his own Marathi mother toungue, having lived (unfortunately) abroad for several years).
It may be good idea for English to remains as a secondary language in the official documents to facilitate ease for Indians coming to Maharashtra from other states.
lots of punjabis who settled in chennai speak chaste tamil. that’s because those whom they have to deal with regularly neither understand hindi nor english.
the pride of local lingua first appeared in madras in the 60s. they even burnt some trains. but look at it now. latest is that hindi is more prevalent and preferred than tamil. people know which side of the bread is buttered!
Ye, what a nice discussion and blog entry as well. Why is is that the ‘Uttar Bharatiyas’ are not supposed to learn a single language other than their mother tongue Hindi and compulsory English? The south Indians, who speak languages that don’t have close resemblance with Hindi need to compulsorily learn Hindi, and bring down their marks in school and college. That is why CBSE toppers are not from south at 10th level, it seems but they are the greatest geeks in India!
If ‘north Indians’ are not compelled to learn any one vernacular language at school level like Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, then they deserve to be called ‘north Indians’ or ‘Uttar Bharatiyas’ only, and the saga will continue of all this discussion and all with no solutions. Whereas, contrast this to non – Hindi people, they are considered real Indians by the ‘Uttar Bharatiyas’ only when they are able to speak Hindi!!
Are the north – Indians superior to others? Reminds me of Hitler’s Aryan Supremacy which some north Indians seemed to have got in them in the form of ‘North Indians Supremacy’.. And it is not their fault, they are already striving for basic education. It is ALL YOU PEOPLE’s fault who haven’t compelled the Hindi – speaking people to make any one Indian language compulsory apart from Hindi. I am sure they will willingly accept it too, at least those who do not have the ‘uttar bharatiya’ imperialist ambitions.
And Hindi being the official language in BMC? These are real imperialists… Having being lived with many a UP – people and the so called brass of educated people from Kanpur – Lucknow, I know very well the language that these guys understand. Biharis are the worst case, thanks to Lalu’s education policies. Raj Thackeray’s goons (or rather anti – imperialist fighters depending on which side you are) gave them an answer. You guys go ga ga over violence, but it is a normal occurence in many parts of UP and Bihar.
And funny no one criticizes ‘Uttar Bharatiyas’ for their wrongdoings like removing Marathi from BMC, and also no criticizes Abu Asam Azmi and SP leaders for uinfuriating violence, promise of sending some 20 thousand goons, distributing sticks, to which Raj Bhai went on to give answers in their language.
God save ‘non – Uttar Bharatiyas’!
Tamil has been the language of official communication in TN for several years now. But no one even seemed to notice it. The real problem in Maharashtra is that Maharashtra has allowed Hindi speaking people settle in big numbers and continue without assimilation of any sort. Even in TN we have a large number of Telugus and some Malayalis and Kannadas, but believe it or not almost 90% of Telugus consider themselves more as Tamils than as Telugus. The fact that they are telugu comes up only when they tell their caste. This sort of assimilation has been achieved because the people who migrated were more than willing to adapt to the local culture and the locals never wavered from the strong passion they had towards their language and culture.