Ramanuju Devanathan
Every Nation has its own communication language. No controversy has erupted in any Nation on language, because of solitary existence of a particular language. However, in India it is a long time controversy on official, national and Link language. If we have a look at Ancient Indian History, one can safely conclude without any controversy that Sanskrit was the Link language among the kingdoms in India.
However, this status seemed changed in the later years. The change in the status of a Link language was the co-happening of the rulers. As such the Link language was coterminous with a particular ruler of a region. This was the reason that sometime Sanskrit, other time Pali and sometime Prakrit language dominated and became Link language as per the choice of the ruler. To be more explicit, the rulers who followed Jainism or Buddhism adopted Pali or Prakrit as their Link language, whereas the followers of Sanatana Dharma i.e. Shaiva, Vaishnava, Shakta, Ganapatya and Saura traditions of worship preferred Sanskrit, though they promoted other languages also. Thus, this language controversy is not new to India, but a dead old issue of our country. When India became independent, the leaders were in a dilemma on the issue which language was to be made the communication language of India.
Later, when the opinion poll was conducted, the then President of India cast his vote in favour of Hindi, why and how he cast his vote in favour of Hindi is a different story. From then onwards Hindi became the communication language of India. Now, Hindi is widely spoken by the most of the people and understood almost by every Indian, thanks to movies films and various media. This circumstance led the Government to make Hindi as official language of the Nation. Here it is to be noted that Hindi is recognized only as Official Language and not as National language by the Constitution. The leaders of yesteryears made a provision that as long as Hindi is accepted by all the States or people of India, English will continue to be the communication as well official language of India. Over 65 years of democracy have lapsed, still we adopt English as our communication language. This cannot be digested by any Nationalist. Hence, it is time to wind up English once for all and think of a viable, practicable and acceptable alternative. As this is a sensitive issue as far as the Indian States are concerned, one cannot take a hasty decision and impose a language on the federal States.
Moreover, language is interconnected with the culture of the people and represents their heritage. It may be mentioned here that a long as British ruled us, there was no language issue. But when India became independent, we started our quarrel and clashed against one language or the other. There was no authority to check the fighting factions among our leaders or rulers that made us to raise our unanimously decided on behalf of Indian people the continuation of English as Link language till all the States accept Hindi and Hindi became capable of being the Link language. This wrong decision taken at that time complicated the issue further and made it to be a strong political weapon in the hands of the language fanatics and politicians. The States like Tamilnadu, Paschim Bengal, North Eastern States and Jammu & Kashmir etc. resisted the decision. It is true to some extent, in Jammu & Kashmir the local languages Dogri , Kashmiri and other dialects are almost at the verge of extinction because of the domination of Hindi, and English. Of course, beyond doubt the language Urdu also contributed to this factor. The people of Tamilnadu also fear that accepting a National language other than English will make Tamil or extinct. Obviously, the politicians make the issue more complicated and inject the feeling of hatred against Hindi in them. Just as a lie told repeatedly makes one to believe it, if the politicians talk about and against a common Indian Link language, the people are forced to believe and a sizable population come to streets and agitate. This attitude prevents the Union Government from taking any decision on this issue. Certainly, the decision on a Link language had to be taken at the time of independence or at the time of passing the Indian Constitution, in which our leaders of yesteryears utterly failed. As a result this is being confronted by us. In Tamilnadu, during anti-Hindi agitation several youngsters sacrificed their lives. Though in other States, this kind of agitation never took place, however, the extremity of anti-Hindi mood could well be perceived.
At this crucial juncture, what the Union Government could do is not to trigger the feeling of the people or even the politicians of the Non-Hindi speaking States and make them start an anti-Hindi movement afresh. At the same time, the Government that means the persons who hold the position of governing, particularly the Ministers should mind their language and do not make such statements which provoke the people. If even one life goes on this issue that would harm smooth governing. The Union Government should approach in a polite and slow phase without hurting the feeling of the people, till the people of all States voluntarily accept Hindi as Link language, till then the existing arrangement be continued. Another solution to this issue is giving a serious thought of making Sanskrit as Link language which would not face that much resistance among the most of the States except Tamilnadu that could be tackled in a phased manner and convincingly. As Sanskrit being the language of not any particular State and being used from Himalayas to Kanyakumari in performing all rituals, as such being a neutral and common language, it deserves the status of Link language and could be easily adopted by the Union Government with lesser efforts and with less opposition and resistance.
(The author is Principal Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan)
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