JOIN USThe office of the governor may be ceremonial and, if at all, equipped with limited powers.But the institution of the governor is highly symbolic and is meant to reflect the aspirations of the people and the democratic process of which it is part.
Every word and action of the governor is, therefore, far more important than one would have expected of such an office. In this context, the maiden speech in Hindi of Karnataka Governor Vajubhai R Vala to the joint sitting of the legislative assembly and council on Monday needs to be condemned as it went against the spirit of the occasion.
While Vala may have done nothing wrong technically, what was deplorable was the fact that he chose to speak to an audience of Kannada-speaking legislators in Hindi despite the fact that most of whom did not know the language.
Booklets of translations in English and Kannada may have been provided to the legislators but that is small consolation as the gathering had to sit through the occasion unable to figure out what Vala was saying as there was no live translation of his speech.
It may be difficult for native Hindi-speakers to digest this but the fact is south of the Vindhyas, and that includes the Karnataka legislature, most people follow English better. This was one of the reasons why after independence, Parliament decided to have English along with Hindi as the country’s official language. Many are of the misled view that Hindi is the national language. This is not the case.
All languages under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution including Hindi share the same status. Vala’s address in Hindi is equivalent to a governor from Karnataka insisting on addressing say, a North Indian legislature in Kannada.
Even with the necessary translations provided, would that not have caused a major furore? That being the case, Vala should have respected the local knowledge base and culture and spoken in English as he obviously does not know Kannada.
The BJP’s stand that since Hindi is not a foreign language it is alright for Vala to make his speech in it is a weak defence. Vala’s disdain for English flies in the face of India’s current reality where this language is much sought after, understood and indeed the preferred mode of communication of the middle-class. Not just that, English is an aspirational target of the underprivileged who see in it a way out of their difficult living conditions.
By making his speech in Hindi, Vala may have done his bit to fuel apprehensions among non-Hindi speaking states that the Central Government and its representatives are trying to impose the language on the south, in many different ways.