There is renewed brouhaha in the past few days on the topic of a unifying language for India, and whether Hindi is de facto, if not de jure, the national language. And as always, we have all sorts of voices adding to this cacophony. The usual suspects from either end of the spectrum (from “those who refuse to speak Hindi should be treated as foreigners” to “Hindi is a parvenu with a shallower history than almost any other Indian language”), and everything in between are out for their periodic airing under the Sun.
Anyone who knows me (at least any Indian who knows me) knows that I grew up in Delhi. That my Hindi has the same street creds as anyone who claims it as their mother tongue. That if you hear me speak Hindi with your eyes closed (particularly when I’m driving), you can swear that Hindi IS my mother tongue.
And that’s not half of it. My family (the maternal side) has roots in Delhi that completed a 100 years last year. 3 generations (my grandfather, mother and I) did our entire schooling and undergrad education in Delhi. I have as much or greater claim on Delhi as my “home” than folks who have families that migrated to Delhi in ’47.
Back in school in the mid / late ‘80s, we had to choose a second language in class IX. My school for some reason decided to offer only Hindi, and not give the option of Sanskrit. We studied both those languages from grades V to VIII, so it was not that the school lacked the academic chops to offer Sanskrit in grade IX. In fact, our Hindi & Sanskrit teacher (same person taught both) had impeccable credentials - she was the grand daughter of no less a scholar than Mahamana Pt Madan Mohan Malviya, and was herself a gold medallist in her MA in Sanskrit.
A whole lot of us, including those who had Hindi as their mother tongue, were vocally disappointed. Simple reason - Sanskrit was a far more scoring subject than Hindi! Anyway, the school did not change its mind and we just accepted the reality and moved with the flow.
Sometime towards the end of that academic year, the advisor to the school governing council visited our class with our principal. He asked “How many of you would prefer to take Sanskrit as second language over Hindi?” More than half the class of 21 people put our hands up. Maybe he wasn’t expecting such overwhelming numbers, so he changed tack. He then asked a question which I didn’t understand at that time was disingenuous at best.
“How many of you HATE Hindi?”
In my naïveté, I understood his question to mean hate Hindi as a subject. I put my hand up, as did two girls, also Tamilian like me. Unlike me, they genuinely struggled with even speaking the language - one having recently moved from Chennai, and the other a bit before that from London.
The advisor gave a very knowing smirk to the principal, who I must say looked uncomfortable with the whole scenario. Anyway, nothing much happened, and the two went away, presumably to discuss the issue.
That scene and that smirk stayed somewhere in the recesses of my memory till I read a statement today by a minister (thankfully not a central minister) - “those who don’t love Hindi should be treated as foreigners and should be asked to leave India”.
The actual import of that question hit me, and hit me hard, though 35 years have passed since that day.
That was a patently unfair question to ask a bunch of immature 14-15 year old 9th graders, and then to have that “I told you so” smirk.
I can recite Ramdhari Singh Dinkar from memory, and quote Subhadra Kumari Chauhan offhand. I can parse Premchand better than most current students of Hindi. I adore it when my friend Brajesh Bajpai delivers an extempore speech in the purest of Hindi, or my friend Soma Pandey recites one of her latest poems in the language.
No, Mr Dayal, I do not hate Hindi. I hated the subject, much as many kids hate Maths or History. But I hate the fact that you asked this question and put a bunch of naive kids on the spot, and detest that know-it-all smirk you had.
That smirk…
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