Isn't it Time We Give All Languages the Due Respect They Deserve?

(This story was originally published on 11 July 2022. The Quint is republishing this piece from its archives on the occasion of Hindi Divas.)

In the last few years intolerance has hit a new high in the country. For instance, there was the recent heated debate around whether Hindi should be the ‘National Language’.

I, too, was looked upon with skepticism whenever I spoke Hindi in Bangalore, a city I visited frequently in the 80s. As the years passed, Hindi almost came to be regarded as a natural second language there. I realised that Bangalore being India’s IT capital, it attracted a lot of people from North India, so a number of locals (including house helps and cab drivers) considered learning Hindi a necessity to get jobs.

This constant tussle between languages reminds me of the iconic film 'Chupke Chupke'.

In one of the scenes, David, a character actor, tells Dharmendra,“Tum bhasha kaa nahin, ek aadmi kaa mazaak udaa rahe ho; bhasha apne aap mein itni mahaan hoti hai ki uska mazaak udayaa hee nahi jaa sakta. (You are not making fun of the language, rather mocking the person. Languages can’t be made fun of since they hold a high stature)”. The film uses humour and wit to deal with the language divide.

Similarly, the songs from Ek Duje Ke Liye, including ‘Tere Mere Beech Mein’ and ‘Hum Bane Tum Bane Ek Duje Ke Liye’, are such a beautiful fusion of Hindi, Tamil and English.

All the languages blend together in a harmony, without any dominance being displayed. The film follows the story of a Tamil man (played by Kamal Hassan) and a North Indian girl (played by Rati Agnihotri), was probably one of the biggest hits of 1981 and is still considered to be a classic. Praised for the performances and music, Ek Duje Ke Liye highlighted the struggles the couple had to face to be accepted by the society and their families.

Very recently, the debate on Hindi being India's national language was ignited once again after South actor Kiccha Sudeep said, "Hindi is no longer a national language," when he was asked to respond on KGF-2's 'pan-India' success despite it being a Kannada movie. Ajay Devgn reacted to Sudeep's comment in Hindi disagreeing with him. This led to a heated exchange of tweets between the two, with Sudeep highlighting the issue with Hindi imposition.

Here’s what I’m wondering - did the issue warrant such extreme reactions? For instance, Kangana Ranaut going on another tangent to state that Sanskrit be made the national language.

Of course, there were some well-articulated responses too. Actor Madhoo said in a video posted by Brut that by being labelled as South or North Indians, we are not going to get anywhere. She pointed out that not knowing Hindi, not even enough to get by, is not a good thing.

Madhoo added that films of Shah Rukh Khan have never been dubbed, but still watched by most non-Hindi speaking regions. In fact, Madhoo’s own movie Roja became a national hit after being released in a dubbed Hindi version.

Let’s look at some of the leading ladies of Bollywood.

Waheeda Rehman, Hema Malini, Rekha, Rakhee, Jaya, Sharmila, Moushmi, Sridevi, Jaya Prada and Deepika Padukone have all had hugely successful careers in Hindi cinema, but no one ever complained about language being a hindrance.

In fact, all of them have had successful marriages/relationships with North Indian men too. Would we brand them as traitors? Not just Hindi, these actors have also starred in regional language films and shone in them as well. So do we keep arguing about the superiority of one language or celebrate all languages?

Coming to the states, we all know that it’s practically impossible to think of being in Mumbai and not speaking Hindi at all.

Large parts of West Bengal speak Hindi, despite Bangla being ranked as the 7th most-spoken language in the world, filled with over 200 million native speakers.

Then there’s a beautiful mix of Hindi and Urdu in Hyderabad. More than forty per cent of the residents speak Hindi, and the language has been taught in schools for decades.

There’s also Tamil, the oldest living language in the world, dating back to over 5000 years. Tamil is spoken by 78 million people across the globe. Tamil, Telegu, Kannada and Malayalam were the language of courts, and hence privileged.

While India has 22 official languages, Hindi is in fact the 3rd most-spoken language in the world.

This brings me to the point that, as usual, us North-Eastern folks are completely ignored in the language debate.

The tendency to constantly argue about whose language is better is actually quite juvenile. All it shows is a prejudiced support for one's own language.

Instead, let’s celebrate the diversity, lyrical quality of all languages. Look at author Geetanjali Shree, who won the International Booker Prize for her book ‘Ret Samadhi’, which was translated into English by Daisy Rockwell. Tomb of Sand is the first novel translated from an Indian language to be recognised by the award.

This never-ending banter will not get us anywhere. It’s high time we give all languages the due respect they deserve.

(This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)