Sir,
On Monday (Aug 29), there was a talk show of Akhil Gogoi in news channel News Time. A caller over the phone said to Akhil Gogoi that his Hindi was not up to the mark. To this, Gogoi said that he would try to improve. I would like to remind that language is not a barrier for leadership. Mamata Bannerjee speaks very bad Hindi, but when she speaks entire India listens. So many people speak good Hindi in north India. Have they become leaders?
DMK party chief and one of the topmost leaders in India Karunanidhi simply has no knowledge of Hindi. He speaks Tamil only and sometimes when in Delhi, he speaks English. We need leaders who carry our problems to the national level. When it comes to national level, since Hindi is not popular in South India, the English language is the best medium. The Tamils are never proud of fellow Tamilians who speak good Hindi.
Lalu Prasad Yadav speaks very poor English, but when he speaks the world listens. He went to give a lecture in management studies at the Harvard University when he was the Union railway minister. He spoke in English and in the areas where he was not sure, he carried an interoculator who transcripted his Hindi into English for the listeners. The best thing about the leaders from Bihar, Bengal and Tamil Nadu is that they speak. Whether they know Hindi or not is secondary. The most important thing is that their leaders are not bothered about good or bad Hindi. They just speak without any complex. Actually one should be ashamed when one cannot speak the mother-tongue. Foreign languages can be dealt with later on.
We don’t want pandits in Hindi language. We need leaders who speak for us, be it in any language. Even a dumb person can speak for the oppressed people using sign language if he has the conviction to do so. A leader is a leader. We don’t need a Hindi expert. We need a voice. That voice is Akhil Gogoi. The message is important, not the language.
Yours sincerely,
Dwipen Gohain,
Jyoti Nagar, Dibrugarh-786001.
06-Sep-2011