In a big and polyglossic country like India, language policy and language education are important and sensitive issues. In the recent past, the issue of learning or not learning three languages under the National Education Policy has become the centre of a stormy debate in the country. The debate and the cacophony linger on, because the complex issue, having political dimensions, is not going to get a solution very easily. In this context it is necessary to identify the root of the disputes around the matter.
The unwillingness of the state of Tamil Nadu to implement the three-language formula springs from a quite reasonable apprehension that this will ultimately decimate English to a position of irrelevance as a pan-Indian official language. At the base of such apprehension is a lack of trust in the outlook of people who, being in power at the Centre, frame and implement linguistic policies according to their own vision and predilection. People in Tamil Nadu may not be wrong in believing that the option of learning a third language may pave the way for eventual establishment of Hindi as the most dominant language for southerners too. Since the administrative machinery of the Union seems often to be very ardently focussed on opening opportunities to sway the sceptre of the Hindi language up and down the country, it may be feared by many that the threelanguage formula may with time turn into an effective tool in non-Hindi states for replacing other languages in the public sphere with Hindi.
That the policy-makers operating from Delhi are as a general trend inclined towards promoting or facilitating the hegemony of the Hindi language is evident from various facts. Nowadays, even the names or captions of new central statutes framed in English are phrased in Hindi. It is difficult to understand why a law officially written and published in English should have its name in Hindi and only in Hindi. For many years the Central Government has been formally naming its newly established organisations, corporations or institutions in Hindi instead of English.
At the national level there is undoubtedly a growing tendency at work which serves to gradually relegate the use of English in the administrative arena to insignificance or non-existence. Often we hear rhetoric claiming that Hindi is the ‘national language’ of our country, though the Constitution never said that. These events definitely create an atmosphere where people become sceptical about the future of English as an administrative language in India. Tamils and other non-Hindi speaking communities in India will not ultimately profit from the decimation of English in administrative use, because monopoly of Hindi in the national administrative scenario may – and indeed will – turn all other Indian languages into insignificant dialects in the long run. There are examples galore in history which would prompt us to predict such an eventuality.
As for the education policy in question, students theoretically have a choice to learn any language as a third language in this three-language scheme, but it is most likely that there will hardly be any scope in institutions for engaging teachers for many other languages except Hindi in addition to English and the local language (Tamil in the case of Tamil Nadu). For promoting Hindi learning, there are and will always be robust central funds. Things would be better if the State Government should have the authority as well as the funds to decide and implement what other language should be taught in addition to the predominant local idiom and English if the formula is implemented within the state. As for the individual student and his or her personal aspirations, there are ample opportunities in the larger social environment beyond school curricula to get training in any other language.
The language education issue in the context of Tamil Nadu stirred up a nationwide debate which has been continuing for long. Meanwhile, a small yet significant matter has recently come up in news which has a bearing on the issue. Reports say that the Lakshadweep administration, in implementing the current education policies, has recently dropped Mahal and Arabic from the school curriculum in the Minicoy island and has replaced them with Hindi. Mahal is a distinct local language in the insular region with its own popularity and cultural value. Mahal is an Indo-Aryan language and traces its origin to the Old Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit). Banishing even Mahal from the local education system by the administrative authorities of the Union Territory to make room for Hindi cannot be said to be a good or encouraging example for the non-Hindi-speaking regions of the country. The Minicoy islanders may have for the present obtained some protection in the matter from the judiciary, but the issue persists.
If people speaking any regional language sustain a fear that administrative and educational policies framed by authorities sitting far away from the region may ultimately serve to take away the former’s linguistic independence and bulldoze all cultural variations in the country, such apprehensiveness will be detrimental to the promotion of social cohesion in the nation. As a matter of fact, the culture of recognising the dignity of regional languages in India, especially in the official context, has not yet fully achieved the standard of inclusivity which ought to have developed in a pluralistic democracy like ours much earlier. Had it not been so, the number of languages in the VIIIth Schedule of the Constitution would have been much greater than what it is now.
It is not clear why the Central Government has not to this day included many popular regional languages such as Rajasthani, Bhojpuri, Ladakhi, Kokborok, Mizo, Garo, Kachchhi, Khasi, Sikkimese, Mundari and Tulu in the VIIIth Schedule. The VIIIth Schedule excludes English too, though it includes Hindi. We, furthermore, do not understand why Bengali, in spite of being spoken as the mother tongue by the largest community in the islands, has not been recognised as an official language of the Union Territory of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Hindi is a nice language and familiarity with this language may certainly enrich one’s literary taste. As a colloquial lingua franca Hindi surely plays a useful role in many parts of our country. But the role of English as the foremost administrative and legal language in the length and breadth of our country is no less important and profitable.
India is a country of unity in diversity as well as of diversity in unity. The English language in the context of our composite socio-cultural life and multifaceted socio-political dynamics is a suitable cementing agent that can foster unity in India without killing diversity. As English is practically equidistant from all Indian languages and it is nobody’s mother-tongue on our soil, its use in administration, especially in administrative affairs, does have a neutrality which would put all of us in equal or equivalent positions and will consequently protect us against losing our mother-tongues as a result of acquisition of dominant administrative position by any particular Indian language. The Tamil people, therefore, should not be criticised for asserting the fact that the local language and English would suffice to supply a bilingualism necessary for administrative purposes.
We should not forget the role the English language played as a link language in the past in forging a united spirit of nationalism throughout the entire British India which, indeed, was more extensive in size and diversity than the country in which we live today. Today we should not have any hesitation to recognise that English deserves to be continued and promoted as a link language for official purposes throughout India. A rigid attitude on the part of the central policy-makers will only fetch an equally rigid response from regional stakeholders. Only an environment of trust, sympathy and dialogue can help all sides to reach a harmonious consensus in the matter of language education and language application in this polyglossic country. The onus for creating such an environment lies primarily on those who alone have the official power and authority to maintain or decimate the official use of English in the national context.
(The writer is an essayist and freelance contributor.)