The Native Idiom in Marathi

(The Rajaram College, Kolhapur)

Some twelve years ago the famous patriot, Mr. Vinayak Rao Savarkar, who had just been released from jail only to be interned at Ratnagiri, by a series of three articles published in the Kesari disturbed the self-complacency of Marathi writers and readers by advocating a boycott of words of Islamic origin. As was natural, his voice did command a hearing. His eloquent and impassioned advocacy startled many and pained not a few. It was looked upon as ill-conceived, inopportune, impracticable and, what is more, un-national. Some contended that such a short-sighted policy was the outcome of an inferiority complex and might prejudice the healthy growth of Marathi itself. True it is that Mr. Savarkar’s agitation for boycott of Persian and Arabic words was but his reaction to the anti-Hindu policy of Muslims clearly evident in the direction of the development of Urdu and in the attempt to force it, as the Ruler’s language–in fact the language of a minority–on all subjects in States like Hyderabad, thus giving deliberately a death-blow to other predominant Indian languages there. Mr. Savarkar was also, no doubt, influenced by the achievements of the famous ‘Nagari-Pracharini Sabha’ of Benares. Those who opposed Mr. Savarkar had neither his religious zeal nor his burning sympathy for those Marathi people who form an integral part of Maharashtra, but who, living outside the British territory, had been condemned to labour under heavy linguistic disabilities. Mr. Savarkar’s citics were sometimes ingenious but always superficial. The controversy went on in the press for some time and appeared to die out.

In a critical article that I then contributed to the ‘Vividha- Dnyana-Vistara’ I pointed out that a boycott is certainly a legitimate way of ventilating a grievance and of focussing public attention upon the necessity of redressing it; and that people ought not to take fright at the word. But a boycott rarely lasts long enough; and people again sink into supine in-difference. I, however, looked at the question purely from the linguistic point of view and showed conclusively how Mr. Savarkar ought to agitate, not so much against Persian and Arabic as against English words which are still flooding our speech. I further pleaded that love is more effective and constructive than hate; and that, therefore, instead of impotently hating non-Hindus by fits and starts, Hindus should learn to love Hindus deeply and steadfastly.

The boycott movement would not have received a new lease of life but for an audaciously threatening speech by a Muslim at a meeting of the Subjects Committee of the Maharashtra Sahitya Sammelan held at Kolhapur in 1932. Somebody had tabled a resolution protesting against the disfiguring of Marathi by using uncouth foreign words. As I myself had been a sinner in this respect, I was looking forward to a ferocious but amusing attack on myself. Before the attack was made, however, a Muslim who was attending the conference, not because he looked upon Marathi as his mother-tongue but because he wanted to see carried through a resolution recommending that Persian and Arabic books should be translated into Marathi, got up and threatened that if an attempt was made to drive Persian and Arabic words out of Marathi there would be a clash between Hindus and Muslims. This sudden outburst did not cause so much as a ripple in the meeting; but it gave me a rude shock never to be forgotten in life. It was a challenge, not to accept which might betoken pusillanimity.

If the Muslims of Maharashtra accept Marathi as their mother-tongue and Maharashtrians as their brethren, they have every right to take part in determining the lines on which Marathi should progress; but if they feel otherwise it is high time it be made plain to them that any interference by them with Marathi will be most seriously resented.

Since then in the press and on the platform I have been agitating for a boycott of all foreign non-Marathi words; and when last year I was elected to preside over the deliberations of the Maharashtra Sahitya Sammelan at Jalgaon, I took the golden opportunity to devote my presidential address to a discussion of the same subject. It is a sad commentary on the perversity and degeneration of our educated minds that a courageous attempt at self-help and self-determinati6n should meet with opposition at the hands of, our own people. As was to be expected, I provoked opposition on all sides. But I patiently studied and attempted to answer the ingenious arguments of my opponents, among whom I might mention Mr. S. K. Kshirasagar of Poona and Prof. S. N. Banhatti of Nagpur as the most thought-provoking; and I am glad to admit that but for this varied, opposition I would not have got that insight into the question to which I lay claim now.

A boycott of non-Marathi words has to be organized, not at all as a demonstration against Muslims or the English but merely for the purpose of making our people more alive to the intrinsic value of Marathi words. We ourselves more than foreigners have been the enemies of our own language. That in the past Marathi continued to exist and religious literature continued to grow was due to the illiteracy and conservatism of the masses, to the selfless religious zeal of our saintly writers, and to the indifference of our foreign rulers who never thought of making any systematic attempt to kill the language of the conquered by educating them in the language of the conquerors. During the comparatively short period of some one hundred and fifty years during which Maharashtra enjoyed a Marathi government, our rulers unfortunately did not understand the political importance of a people’s mother-tongue and so could not give it the attention which was its due. The language drifted on, living a very unnatural life. The advent of the British rule has been from the linguistic point of view a boon to us. A new class of writers arose who had studied English and Sanskrit literatures, who were anxious to express themselves in cultured dignified Marathi, and who have given us a new secular literature of which we are justly proud. But unfortunately these learned writers had studied little Marathi. Marathi has all along been a neglected subject in schools and in the University, and so though on one hand these writers have enriched Marathi with Sanskrit words, they have, on the other, impoverished it by consciously or unconsciously neglecting words of humble Marathi origin. The resulting loss has been incalculable, though not quite irreparable yet. Even when Marathi works are read, but little attention is paid to the writers’ skill in choosing and using words. In a recent magazine article by Mr. D. V. Kale I noticed that he has used the homely word ‘phutira’ to express the sense of ‘fissiparous’ which English word is known to all our educated people. The word ‘phutira’ is connected with ‘phuta’ (= dissension, separation) and requires no explanation at all, but only a few readers would have noticed it.

Closely associated with this inattention to homely expressive words is a strange and strong infatuation for words of foreign origin, which infatuation is certainly a symptom of our slavish mentality. Words of foreign origin are considered fashionable, dignified, expressive, musical–in short, indispensable; while corresponding words of Marathi origin appear harsh, barbarous, and only fit to be discarded. Notwithstanding the fact that ‘Rao’ has been an honorific peculiar to Maharashtra, names like Appa Rao, Baba Rao, Bhau Rao, Tatya Rao are supposed to sound ludicrous while Appa Saheb, Baba Saheb, Bhau Saheb, Tatya Saheb are looked upon as very honourable! The word ‘barobara’ (= with) though of foreign origin is looked upon as correct and decent; while the native ‘sangen’ which means the same thing, which has always been used in literature and which is still used by lakhs of uneducated Maharashtrians, is felt to be vulgar! What a piece of cultured snobbery!

It is true that at the time of writing in Marathi our educated men have coined a few new Sanskrit words like ‘sahanubhuti’ to express new ideas. But the number of such words required is bound to be small. Our educated men have never even attempted to coin hundreds of new Marathi words required to express innumerable new things in everyday life by the uneducated no less than by the educated people. When writers on law wanted a word for divorce, they brushed aside ‘kadimoda’ and ‘ghatasphota’ as not quite dignified and coined that ugly word ‘lagnavichcheda’; but if they had looked into ancient works like Kautilya’s Arthashastra they would have come across the word ‘bandha-moksha’ which has the force of tradition behind it. Similarly ‘ushnata-mapak-yantra’ is too long and learned a word to displace ‘thermometer’; but if a simple homely Marathi compound like ‘tapa-nali’ (= fever tube) had been formed, it would have been as simple and expressive and become as current as ‘aga-gadi’ (= railway train). The English ‘golden mean’ was rendered literally by ‘suwarna-madhya’ which will make no sense to lakhs of people, literate but innocent of English; but when it was recently pointed out how Kalidas had used the word ‘madhyama-krama’ the distinguished author of ‘suwarnamadhya,’ with a selflessness very rare in these days, immediately dropped his own in favour of the older and more intelligible word of Kalidas.

The indifference of the educated has resulted in making their everyday speech a shameful hotch-potch of Marathi, Persian and English and in removing the literary Marathi farther and farther away from the homely forceful speech of the masses. In the speech of the illiterate there are innumerable useful words like ‘yerawali’ (= earlier than the time fixed) which ought to be at once accepted and elevated to the literary rank. This will put a stop to further impoverishment and deterioration of Marathi and will foster a healthy spirit of self-respect and self-reliance. Showing a decided preference for words of pure Marathi origin and for words current in the speech of the masses, and attempting to form new words from Marathi stems with the help of Marathi prefixes and suffixes cannot by any stretch of imagination be made to imply hatred of non-Marathi people. This policy of self-respect and self-reliance may be safely followed by all the living languages of India. It will enrich them and at the same time strengthen them.

But conditions prevailing are so unnatural that homely Marathi words cannot be recalled by the educated without a special effort, and thus arises a necessity of boycott of foreign words. The boycott becomes imperative, not because we want to make a demonstration against non-Marathi peoples, but because we want to create a difficulty and make our educated men pause and think.

It will be unwarrantably optimistic to say that this movement has succeeded. But it is, no doubt, gaining ground. A change in the right direction is to be seen in the newspapers which are following the lead of the ‘Dnyana-Prakash’ in using ‘nabhowani’ for the ‘radio.’ From among authors of repute Mr. N. C. Kelkar has now been converted to the new principle of Swadeshism in language. With a rare moral courage he has publicly declared that this aspect of the question had never struck him before and that he has all along been guilty of preferring, knowingly or otherwise, foreign words to pure Marathi words. The second convert is the humourist-dramatist Prin. P. K. Atre whose name requires no introduction. He was converted more by the magnetic personality of Vinayak Rao Savarkar than by impersonal arguments of which he is impatient and which he can blow away from himself just with a puff of humour, But the work ahead is still immense. A nation-wide awakening isnecessary. Not until the use of English words in Marathi speech is looked upon by every educated man as an unpardonable sin against his mother-tongue, can it be said of the movement that it has succeeded. Persons who are mentally sluggish or exhausted take shelter behind scepticism and offer only plausible criticism. Much time is wasted in refuting the arguments of those who seem to oppose merely for the sake, of opposition.

I do not know if this question is pertinent to the languages of the South, but the southerners should still pause, think and make sure that there is nothing wrong with their languages; and even then, they cannot object, I hope, to the wholesome principle of self-respect and self-reliance, which demands that we should always give our first preference to words of our own native origin, and that when new words are required for expressing new ideas they should as far as possible, be formed out of native elements after the manner of other native compounds. This is the principle of Swadeshism in language and this word, I think, is less misleading than that of purism.