Union home minister Amit Shah’s suggestion at the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Languages Committee that Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English in Indian states should be taken in the right spirit. Aware that any attempt at promoting Hindi as a national language is likely to be misinterpreted by certain groups which have been trying to create a Hindi-phobia, the minister made it clear that it would not replace local languages but could act as a unifying factor.
Presiding over the meeting of the Committee, Shah said that the importance of Hindi was bound to go up as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided that the medium of running the government should be the official language. The minister rightly pointed out that time had come to make the Official Language an important part of the unity of the country. That is possible only when people of different states who speak different languages communicate with each other in a common Indian language, implying Hindi.
Shah also emphasized the need for making Hindi more flexible by accepting words from other local languages. This, it is generally agreed, is the best way of propagating and promoting the language. This could also help break the resistance to Hindi by a set of people in some Indian states. One important step forward in this direction would be reprinting Hindi dictionaries after revisions.
It is equally important to impart elementary knowledge of Hindi to students right up to class X so that they can communicate in the language easily. With the right kind of teaching, they can better appreciate the language which has a rich history and has borrowed freely from many other languages.
The BJP-led NDA government is working hard to promote Hindi as it can be the biggest unifying factor for a country as diverse as India. While there is no denying the importance of English, which is our biggest colonial inheritance, Hindi is the most popular language of India, thanks chiefly to Bollywood and the TV entertainment industry. Hindi films and songs are watched by people across the country and Bollywood songs are hummed even by those who are not conversant with the language. This also explains the popularity of Hindi films in foreign countries, especially Russia and China.
It is, however, important to remove misgivings about the imposition of Hindi among certain groups who have protested over the issue several times in the past. The government must make it absolutely clear that regional languages will not only be respected but also be patronized as they are an inalienable part of our syncretic culture. But there is definitely the need for a common language that can act as a unifying factor in a diverse country like ours. And this must be a language cutting across the class divide. Nothing fits the bill better than Hindi.
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