By M.C. Linthoingambee
There has been huge discussions over and over again in determining an offfiial language of the country. A family in large numbers often have difficulties reaching to a conclusion and likely to most every day events we are just being families fighting over who gets the last candy. The National Democratic Alliance Government has kicked off with a proposal to give more prominence to Hindi with increasing effect through the social media.
It was announced that there were two official languages for India: Urdu and English but as time calls for new occasions the Prime Minister had made vehement remarks to make Hindi the official language that represents India. “Who better than Mr. Modi to promote Hindi as an official language of the country?”, this statement has been in the media highlights recently over the controversies in ascertaining that all states of India must uphold Hindi as its official language. There have been those who have come out in support of the proposal, not to mention the hefty oppositions that deeply intersect to negate the thought of making it a reality. Several leaders has called for the non-imposition of Hindi as the official language of communication like the Tamil Nadu CM and DMK Chief slamming the door shut on such an approach and claiming that such impositions should not be made on non-Hindi speaking sections of the country.
The Official Language Act, 1963 has its own perks of promoting the linguistic heritage that each people of every region holds and thus the Tamil Nadu CM has acclaimed the recent plan as being “against the letter and spirit” because in a global world where social media has reached more doorsteps than we can ever sought to enter in our lifetime if they cannot understand our words than how can we communicate. The people located in ‘Region C’ with whom the Government of India’s communication needs to be in English will not have access to any public information if it is not in English. In the words of several leaders that have been standing by their notion of non-acceptance of imposition, they acclaimed as to why should Hindi be given more priority over other languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. PMK founder S. Ramadoss said the BJP in its election 2014 manifesto, had promised to develop all languages with a rich history and culture. He also called for declaring all 22 languages in the VIII schedule of the Constitution, including Tamil, as official language and “thus put an end to the Hindi imposition controversy.” Another circular announced a prize money of Rs 2,000 to two employees who do their official work mostly in Hindi. Rs 1,200 and Rs 600 will be given to the second and third position holders respectively.
Truth to the matter is there is not a country like India with its rich cultural and linguistic diversity and yet, co-exist as one. It is also true that the features of one person in the north is different to that of the south and the feature of the person in the west differs to one in the east. This is something we cannot deny and over the years, the country has paid immensely in order to make its huge family function. It is true that for most people in the northeast or in the southern states of India, Hindi bears an unfamiliarity as we are not in use to it frequently. But when we travel to the northern states, our daily dose of work requires us to talk to vendors, rickshaw walas, etc and we eventually tend to learn the rudimentary basics, which is just enough to make small conversation but we cannot be calling ourselves a total genius over the command of the language. Truth be told, it is hard. Learning things do not come by usually in a day or two specially if it comes as an imposition. We exist in what we would like to call as a democratically sound country and not that of a dictatorial ground so it would be wrong in giving special benefits by making Hindi bias on people’s parts. In the words of every great leader, we are all children who has been raised well enough to abide by our own decisions and in knowing that we are given the expected freedom in making these choices.
The decisions of any person speaking and having a preference to any language should be left on them. It would be fundamentally incorrect to dictate a certain affiliation into making a person of non-Hindi speaking state grasp on the language. As citizens, it we should make it a duty to safeguard the listed and non-listed categories of language that is outspoken by the majority and those unknown minority. Let’s face it, it’s not everyday that language barriers are broken and yet, we can communicate and make it through signs even without vocabularies.