The All-India Language

(The Rajaram College, Kolhapur)

The question of a lingua franca for India is no longer one of mere academic interest. The Congress has made up its mind about it; and an attempt is being made in the non-Hindustani speaking Provinces, on the strength of the Congress majority in the Councils, to force its decision down the throats of the people. This move to impose Hindustani on all students at the secondary stage is being stoutly opposed in the South, particularly in the Tamil districts. One Editor of Triveni, Mr. K. Ramakotiswara Rau, who is not a non-Congressman, admits that there are people "who are genuinely apprehensive that a new language like Hindustani is likely to affect adversely the growth of their mother-tongue." If these apprehensions are genuine, they ought to be sympathetically considered and removed, with arguments and authoritative assurances. But when Mahatma Gandhi thinks otherwise, why should his followers adopt a conciliatory policy towards Hindu doubters in particular? In the Harijan for Sep. 10, 1938, Mahatma Gandhi says, "The cry of ‘mother-tongue in danger’ is either ignorant or hypocritical. And where it is sincere, it speaks little for the patriotism of those who will grudge our children an hour per day for Hindustani." But Mr. Ramananda Chatterjee, who, I trust, is neither ignorant, nor hypo-critical, nor unpatriotic, in his editorial note (p. 284 of the September number of The Modern Review) remarks "that the logical and natural outcome of making Hindustani the State language of India under Congress rule would or should be to make it the cultural language too, of those Universities in India of which English is at present the cultural language." "If what we have said be correct," he proceeds to observe, "the development of the Hindustani language would receive a very great impetus, and at the same time the development of other provincial languages would be arrested, for no language, no literature can attain its full stature if it be not the medium of the highest education and culture."

That is how some public-spirited men are genuinely apprehensive about the language policy of the Congress. The Editor of The Modern Review thinks that the Congress has not yet placed all its ‘linguistic’ cards on the table. While on one hand an attempt is being made to teach Hindustani compulsorily at the secondary stage, there is, on the other, no authoritative ministerial statement of policy as to what is to be the position of the regional language in administration and in education. It is often said that Hindustani is to occupy the place now held by English, and it is argued that under the domination of Hindustani Indian languages and literatures will continue to grow just as they have grown under the domination of English! But if Indian languages and literatures have grown during the last eighty or ninety years, the spread of education and contact with Western thought–causes other than that of the political ascendancy of English–have contributed to this growth, which would have been considerably greater if there had not been this domination by English. And then, if English has to a certain extent affected adversely the growth of Indian languages and literatures, the rise of Hindustani to the same position is much more likely to affect similarly all the other Indian languages. English has never been looked upon as the national language; and opposition to it and preference for a provincial language could never be construed as want of patriotism. But with the recognition of Hindustani as the Rashtrabhasha, who can take objection to a person like Mr. Jamnalal Bajaj, for instance, if he refuses to speak publicly the language of the Province in which he has made his home? I have heard of a Maharashtriya member of the Hindi-Prachara Sangha who addresses Marathi-speaking audiences in Hindi, and confesses without any qualm of conscience that he cannot speak his mother-tongue! He who for such conduct under the regime of English would certainly be cried down as a traitor may now be hailed as a nationalist!

To return to the policy of the Congress Ministries, I know that linguistic Provinces cannot be created by Provincial Governments; but they can, if they mean it, by taking the village as a unit, settle the linguistic boundaries within the Province and thus put a stop to all linguistic jealousy and strife. Unfortunately, Bombay is now proposing to partition Maharashtra for administrative convenience! The partition of Bengal is so soonconvenientlyforgotten! These linguistic sub-Provinces now being homogeneous could be allowed to progress on their own lines, Government just taking care to coordinate the progress of each. All officers and upper-grade subordinates who would have to be transferred from one sub-Province to another must certainly know, as at present, all the provincial languages. Then, if the regional language is allowed to rule supreme in its region, I do not think that any cry of ‘mother-tongue in danger’ will be raised. Thus, before an attempt is made to impose Hindustani upon the people, English ought to be peremptorily dispossessed of many positions which it has usurped; and the regional language must, in the interest of the masses, be elevated to those seats of authority which legitimately, almost by birthright, belong to it. Some few people in that case,–people whose activities are not likely to be confined to the region,–would require another language for inter-regional or inter-provincial communication. Such men may study Hindustani and English; for both the languages are more or less indispensable for them. But because these two languages are indispensable for the ambitious few, to impose their study upon all students of secondary schools is manifestly an unjust and unbearable burden. It is this unnatural weightage given to an alien language in our system of education that has made education a waste and a fraud. Education, instead of becoming an assimilation of knowledge and a quickening of thinking-power, has sunk to the level of a parrot-like learning of alien words and phrases. In making Hindustani compulsory in secondary schools, we are merely adding to the already heavy burden of the student. So far as the compulsory subjects are concerned, let him study but one language and that the language of the region, of his environment; and by the time he is thoroughly acquainted with the genius and structure of the regional language, a beginning be made with Basic English and Basic Hindustani. If, as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru says, an intelligent person can learn Basic English in two or three weeks, a student going up for Matriculation ought to be able to pick up a working knowledge of Basic English and of Basic Hindustani within a year. Where then is the need for teaching Hindustani earlier?

And High Schools need not make provision for the teaching of English and Hindustani at all. The few intelligent and ambitious people who want to learn a language for inter-provincial communication should study any languages they desire at special schools of Indian languages which should be established in provincial capitals. There, up-to-date methods for the teaching of living languages can be used; and in big cities facilities for conversation and social intercourse can more easily be provided.

I object to the teaching of Hindustani at the secondary stage, for it is bound to give it a wrong emphasis which cannot but be subversive of the dominance of the regional language in exactly the same manner as the domination by English has come to be. Our service-hunting and service-securing educated people are compelled by their very circumstances to accept and applaud every idea that emanates from authority. Their opinion, even when they profess to be educationists, is therefore to be accepted with great caution. For years untiringly they have emphasized the value and importance of English, and now with the same ready thoughtlessness they will wax eloquent on the supreme need of compulsory Hindustani. Have we not learnt enough from an experiment carried on for over eighty years, but must perforce try a similar one with the same pathetic hopefulness?

But the Congress, it seems, does not want Hindustani only for the Federal Administration and for purposes of inter-provincial communication. In the article referred to before, Mahatma Gandhi says: "We must break through the provincial crust if we are to reach the core of all-India nationalism. Is India one country and one nation or many countries and many nations? Those that believe that it is one country must lend Rajaji their unstinted support…..The Congress is wedded not to a majority; it is wedded to all that which will make this nation great and independent in the least possible time." In his pamphlet on the Question of Language (p. 16) Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru expresses the hope that "a Basic Hindustani should be the all-India language, and with a little support from the State it will spread with extreme rapidity allover the country and will help in bringing about that national unity which we all desire." This national unity appears to be of the same kind as the German unity which the German Imperial Government tried to force upon Poland and upon Alsace-Lorraine. I must confess I cannot appreciate this national uniformity, for that is what unity means then, however indirectly forced upon the people. What with the activities of Hindi Prachara Sanghs, and what with the Congress curricula for secondary education–this concerted attempt to teach Hindustani not only to the few who do require it for purposes of inter-provincial communication and who ought to study it, but to all students at the secondary stage, coupled with the pseudo-nationalist grandeur with which it is proposed to invest it, cannot but tend to make the provincial languages a superfluity–a costly superfluity as it may be called some years hence. What becomes then of the Congress policy of the State in regard to language as defined in the resolution on Fundamental Rights? "The culture, language and script of the minorities and of the different linguistic areas shall be protected." But does not Mahatma Gandhi, in the article referred to before, clearly express his opinion that "we may not make a fetish of Congress resolutions?" Pandit ]awaharlal Nehru also assures us that, "while the common language of the country should be Hindustani, the provincial languages should be dominant in their areas." The assurance conveyed by the Congress resolution is unnecessarily wide for the minorities, but unjustly narrow for linguistic areas. Arranging the educational course in such a way that the educated should inevitably come to treat the regional language as of secondary importance is not the way of making it dominant in its area, is not to guarantee its protection at all. The over-solicitude for the culture, language and even the script of the minorities is in itself a weapon to strike the majorities with. The other day Principal K. S. Vakil, an educationist, presiding at a lecture on the all-India Language, observed in his presidential remarks that a University for Maharashtra founded at Poona, using Marathi as its medium of instruction and of examination, was not to be thought of in view of the few Parsis, Gujaratis and Muslims who are living there. So the medium of University education must at present be English, which would later on make room for Hindustani as the all-India language but never for Marathi! Another Principal of a Government College in Maharashtra, speaking in a conference called by Government to express its opinion whether it was desirable to have a provincial University teaching all its subjects in the provincial language, airily remarked that a University, if it is not to belie its name, must be universal, and must cater to the needs not of any particular Province but of the whole country! Does not such an attitude infringe on the domain of the regional language? Is it calculated to stifle the cry of mother-tongue in danger? In cities we see ladies and gentlemen going to Hindi classes, and these enthusiasts are woefully deficient in a knowledge of their mother-tongue! It is this un-natural nationalism that fills one’s mind with serious misgivings regarding the future of provincial languages.

But after all, is it necessary for the building up of a nation that this diversity of language ought to be gradually done away with? However ideal it may be for a nation to have only one language and one religion in its land, this ideal state of things cannot continue for long, and is impossible in a vast country like India. Ultimately a country has to learn to foster a national spirit, not by destroying this diversity but by subordinating claims of language and of religion to those of the nation. If this multiplicity of language were to make room for some one language, only in central legislation and administration and in inter-provincial communication, no objection would be taken to the proposal; but then no solicitude for the minorities should be allowed to touch the supremacy of the provincial language in provincial legislation, administration and education–primary, secondary and university. The minorities can claim to receive only the primary education in their respective mother-tongues, and that too not in rural areas but only in provincial capitals and district towns.

For building up a nation the proper solution of the language problem is not enough. Religion also has got to be reduced to the innocent position of private belief, having nothing to do with the, civil and penal law of the country. Turkey has succeeded in doing it; and even if we cannot do it today, we must never lose sight of it as the ideal to strive for. Religious bodies as such must be prevented from doing any such indirect missionary work as education, and social relief and uplift. Such work ought to be done by the State which has no religion, or by a public body like the Servants of India Society which is scrupulously non-religious. As long as the State allows a religion to carry on, however peacefully, its anti-national encroachment upon another, national unity must necessarily become a mere dream; for every such activity by one community isbound to provoke an equally strong and anti-national reaction. True national unity can never be achieved untilthe people of a country discipline themselves to adhere to certain non-religious principles and adopt a strictimpartiality towards different communities.

The Indian National Congress perhaps cannot avowedly adopt this policy. If Hindustani isto be chosen as the Indian lingua franca because it is understood by the largest number of Indians, why should not Devanagari–or any convenient modificationthereof–be chosen as the one script for Hindustani when it is intelligible to an equally large number of Indians? Why should Congress "agree wisely" as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru put it, "that both should have full play"? If Urdu script is to have full play it can have and ought to have full play only in that region in which Urdu is the regional language. Pandit Nehru argues that both the scripts–in Devanagari and Urdu–are part of the genius of our language and around them have gathered not only literatures peculiar to the scripts, but also a wall of sentiment which is solid and irremovable. This solid and irremovable wall of sentiment appears to be the only true and intelligible reason for making an un-national concession in favour of the Urdu script. Script is not, and has never been an essential part of the genius of any language or literature. Sentiment may favour anyone script; but sentiment is not reason. In India scripts have in the past undergone changes from time to time. Sanskrit works were written and studied in Kannada and other scripts; and the Khrista-purana of Father Stephens is not less Marathi for being printed in the Roman script. If the comparatively unimportant question of script cannot be fearlessly and impartially tackled, how can we solve the far more important questions of language and of religion? Shall we always allow ourselves to be baffled by this wall of sentiment, even if it be not founded upon reason?

If sentiment, even where it is manifestly unreasonable, is to be so scrupulously respected, is language a thing so remote from sentiment that its sacrifice, however gradual and concealed, should be demanded of a people on pain of being branded unpatriotic? A language with a rich heritage of literature and centuries of un-interrupted literary activity–a language inextricably bound up with the life and culture of a people–is a living monument of the distinct entity of the people speaking that language and bears testimony to the family likeness that characterises them. It keeps alive their past, supports them in the present, and holds out some promise for the future. It is not merely as the embodiment of any culture, but as the embodiment of their own culture that it is loved by the people. No wonder that the question of language cannot but arouse passions.

Is it a fact that no country can be said to be a nation that has not one language as its Rashtrabhasha? That it is desirable that there should be an Indian lingua franca for the convenience of all those activities that are inter-provincial, I readily admit, but that, as a common medium of expression, it is essential for that national unity which we all desire, carries little conviction with me. If small countries like Switzerland and Belgium, and bigger ones like Canada and South Africa can foster a spirit of unity without lowering the status and authority of the regional languages, India ought to be able to do so, and India can achieve it if we support Basic Hindustani only for federal administration and inter-provincial communication, and desist from making any attempt, direct or indirect, to give Hindustani that position in non-Hindustani Provinces which English unfortunately occupies today, but will, it is to be hoped, not continue to occupy for long.

Now Basic Hindustani will comprise those words of common occurrence which are common to both Hindi and Urdu, but their number cannot be very large; and, though enough for ordinary conversation, Basic Hindustani cannot go a long way in expressing the complex ideas of a civilised society. And from where should these new words be taken? There is the crux of the problem of Hindi versus Urdu. Mr. Ramananda Chatterjee admits that he can grasp the substance of discussions and speeches in Hindi–in the language used by Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya for example; but he cannot understand what is said in Urdu–in the language used by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, for instance. What is Mr. Chatterjee’s experience is the experience of all non-Muslims in India and also of uneducated Muslims who have a working knowledge of Hindustani. A study of Basic Hindustani will not enable them to follow speeches and discussions in Urdu. If writers in Urdu had recognized the cultural and all-India importance of Sanskrit words and developed it, but not on narrow communal lines, the difficulty which confronts us today would not have arisen at all. If the movement of Hindi has been in the direction of Sanskritization, be it noted that thereby Hindi has become more intelligible to people all over India, and therefore the movement is to be recognized as more national than narrowly religious. The movement of Urdu in the opposite direction has tended to make it more and more alien to the common culture of India. "Sanskrit," says Ramananda Chatterjee (P. 127 of the August number of The Modern Review)is an Indian language and is genetically connected with all the main north-India and middle-India languages, and even South Indian languages like Tamil have a large Sanskritic vocabulary. Therefore it is far more natural to draw from Sanskrit than from any non-Indian tongue. And, there is an advantage in having recourse to Sanskrit. If any modern Indian language enriches itself thereby, the wealth can be easily shared by other modern Indian tongues."

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru says that it is absurd to coin new words from Sanskrit or Persian for well-known and commonly used words in English or French or other European languages. But this tendency, however uneconomic, is perfectly natural. People desire to be self-sufficient and self-reliant. When they want new words to express new ideas, they coin them from elements already existing in their languages. It is this natural practice that keeps up the word-creative power of a language; and it is not the privilege of the educated few. The Marathi word aga-gadi (fire-waggon) for the railway train was not coined by learned men at all.

Mr. Nehru says that it is absurd to consider Hindi as the language of the Hindus and Urdu as that of the Muslims; and he points out how Urdu is today the home language of large numbers of Hindus in the North. Urdu has become the home language of many Hindus in the North in exactly the same manner in which English has become the home-language of many Parsis, and of Jews and the Goanese in Bombay. Moreover, it is no use ignoringwhat Indian Muslims say repeatedly, that they do look upon Urdu as the language of the Indian Muslims. Why does HisExalted Highness’s Government make Urdu compulsory for Muslim boys and girls, even at the primary stage, if it were not that it does look upon Urdu as the mother- tongue of Muslims? I have seen Muslims in Gujarat and in other parts of India who have in recent times renounced their regional mother-tongue and adopted Urdu instead; and the policy of Government, which perhaps does not think it desirable to regionalize different peoples of India, has materially helped the Muslims in this respect.

But neither with Muslims nor with Urdu have I any quarrel. If writers in Urdu feel justified in their efforts to approximate it to Persian, they are at perfect liberty to do so, and no blame can attach to them. But it must be made clear to them in particular, and to the people of India in general, that Urdu can never be accepted as the national language of India. Muslims in the South, I read, are welcoming Hindustani, and no wonder, for they might hope the step would bring them nearer to their language, Urdu. His Exalted Highness’s Government in the South, while making Urdu the medium of all education–Secondary and University–is never tired of claiming that it is promoting the cause of the national language of India! So far as I know, no Congressman of note and influence has repudiated or challenged this claim. Very recently at the Bombay Broadcasting Station, Hindi which was understood all over the Province was made to give way to Urdu, and Adab Aziz took the place of Namaste! Such things are not likely to inspire people with confidence in the cult of Basic Hindustani.

Before I conclude, I shall briefly state my position and my suggestions:

(1) It is desirable that there should be an Indian lingua franca that should be made in course of time the sole language of the Federal Administration and of inter-provincial communication. Its script should be Devanagari, though place names may be transliterated in Urdu and Roman scripts.

(2) Hindi should be accepted as the Indian lingua franca; the few Persian and Arabic words that are current in ordinary speech should not be excluded from it. With this one condition the Hindi people should be free to choose on which lilies their language should progress. Otherwise the Hindi people themselves will rue the day when Hindi was elevated to the position of Rashtrabhasha, and will bitterly reproach those who will take liberties with Hindi out of political considerations. I for one will not tolerate any non-Marathi adopting Marathi with a view to modifying it to suit his political ambitions.

(3) In non-Hindi Provinces, Hindi should be a voluntary subject at the secondary stage. A working knowledge of Hindi should be expected of all graduates; but the language of legislation, administration and education, primary, secondary, and university, must be the regional language. In internal affairs neither Hindi nor Urdu should be recognized. Only to those who do not belong to the region will it be open to address a court or public officer in Hindi.

(4) A minority speaking a language other than the regional one and residing in urban areas can demand only the primary education in their mother-tongue.

(5) In secondary and higher education there should be no alternative to the regional language. The alternative will at once be a challenge to the regional language that ought to become supreme in the area.

(6) Urdu should become predominant where Urdu-speaking people are in a majority. It is for the Urdu-speaking people to decide on what lines their language should progress.

(7) The ‘regional language’ means not the mother-tongue of the ruling family but the mother-tongue of the majority in that region.

(8) In order that the regional language should come into power, Government must notify today that from such and such year all University education will be imparted only through the regional language, and that there shall be no option.