<p>Recently, yet again, the identitarian politics over languages took off over the Centre’s intent to roll out the three-languages initiative through the NEP 2020. Tamil Nadu opposed it as yet another way to force Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states. Karnataka joined in and pushed for a two-language resolution. To me, for the umpteenth time, this denotes how willingly clueless our several governments are over the issue of languages. There’s no question this cornering happens after the Centre’s goading, and the non-Hindi states have no choice but to react. At several levels, such colossal waste of political time and energy diverts from serious other matters plaguing the republic.</p>.<p>Still, let’s focus on the subject at hand. The way I perceive it as an Indian who enjoys the plurality of the Indias that our languages contain in them, is this: Languages, and language identity is so effortlessly instrumentalised, both by the Centre and several states to stoke the basest impulses in our citizenry, for whatever cynical political ends. Rarely are our languages evoked in politicians’ discourse as miraculous cultural troves and as opportunities for cultural and economic enrichments. The risible back and forth from the Centre and the states – the dispensation at the Centre, not just the current one – does an utter disservice to and infantilises the idea of languages as carriers of civilisations, and reduces them to a federal football.</p>.Arbiter decides but is the verdict out?.<p>Permit me to be blunt. If our political class of all persuasions loves our languages so much, why can’t it enable a sustainable environment for these languages to live and thrive through? Let me be more concrete. I may be a Hindi-wallah or a Kannadiga or a Telugu speaker or a Bengali or a Tamilian or a speaker of any other Indian language, who loves their mother tongue and is prepared to live and die for it. (This is no exaggeration; ordinary Indians, as people elsewhere, have done extraordinary things such as laying down their lives for their mother tongue).</p>.<p>If there’s such passion for one’s language, why on earth can that not be channelled into creative enterprise? My love for what my mother tongue means to me should not always require me reacting to a threat to it. Why can’t it always be evoked as an invitation to curiosity, learning, and wonder. And yes, why is it not becoming and providing me with the means to flourish? Why can’t either our Centre or states promise that people can culturally and economically prosper through nurturing our languages? And yes, why can’t we see, and be made to see, that other languages like English for instance, are not enemies but allies in this possible renaissance?</p>.<p>The recent fracas is another manifestation of the hostile, negative and confrontational positioning the languages matter is imparted with. I find it ironic that way back in the past, at the heyday of the colonial empire and before, even as the western powers stereotyped and pillaged the non-West, some of them like Britain chose to invest in knowing the culture and languages of their colonies at some level of depth. Later, and it’s true today as well, some of the great scholars-thinkers of Indian languages, unsurprisingly live and work away from India: Staggering for a country that proclaims such love for its languages.</p>.<p>A great scholar-translator-poet as A K Ramanujam or Telugu scholar as Velcheru Narayana Rao fit nicely with the image of American academia in its twentieth century pomp. A different and equally amazing scholar as Professor G N Devy is an anomaly in Indian academia. One environment views languages as enterprises; the other as instruments. Holistically, who wins?</p>
<p>Recently, yet again, the identitarian politics over languages took off over the Centre’s intent to roll out the three-languages initiative through the NEP 2020. Tamil Nadu opposed it as yet another way to force Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states. Karnataka joined in and pushed for a two-language resolution. To me, for the umpteenth time, this denotes how willingly clueless our several governments are over the issue of languages. There’s no question this cornering happens after the Centre’s goading, and the non-Hindi states have no choice but to react. At several levels, such colossal waste of political time and energy diverts from serious other matters plaguing the republic.</p>.<p>Still, let’s focus on the subject at hand. The way I perceive it as an Indian who enjoys the plurality of the Indias that our languages contain in them, is this: Languages, and language identity is so effortlessly instrumentalised, both by the Centre and several states to stoke the basest impulses in our citizenry, for whatever cynical political ends. Rarely are our languages evoked in politicians’ discourse as miraculous cultural troves and as opportunities for cultural and economic enrichments. The risible back and forth from the Centre and the states – the dispensation at the Centre, not just the current one – does an utter disservice to and infantilises the idea of languages as carriers of civilisations, and reduces them to a federal football.</p>.Arbiter decides but is the verdict out?.<p>Permit me to be blunt. If our political class of all persuasions loves our languages so much, why can’t it enable a sustainable environment for these languages to live and thrive through? Let me be more concrete. I may be a Hindi-wallah or a Kannadiga or a Telugu speaker or a Bengali or a Tamilian or a speaker of any other Indian language, who loves their mother tongue and is prepared to live and die for it. (This is no exaggeration; ordinary Indians, as people elsewhere, have done extraordinary things such as laying down their lives for their mother tongue).</p>.<p>If there’s such passion for one’s language, why on earth can that not be channelled into creative enterprise? My love for what my mother tongue means to me should not always require me reacting to a threat to it. Why can’t it always be evoked as an invitation to curiosity, learning, and wonder. And yes, why is it not becoming and providing me with the means to flourish? Why can’t either our Centre or states promise that people can culturally and economically prosper through nurturing our languages? And yes, why can’t we see, and be made to see, that other languages like English for instance, are not enemies but allies in this possible renaissance?</p>.<p>The recent fracas is another manifestation of the hostile, negative and confrontational positioning the languages matter is imparted with. I find it ironic that way back in the past, at the heyday of the colonial empire and before, even as the western powers stereotyped and pillaged the non-West, some of them like Britain chose to invest in knowing the culture and languages of their colonies at some level of depth. Later, and it’s true today as well, some of the great scholars-thinkers of Indian languages, unsurprisingly live and work away from India: Staggering for a country that proclaims such love for its languages.</p>.<p>A great scholar-translator-poet as A K Ramanujam or Telugu scholar as Velcheru Narayana Rao fit nicely with the image of American academia in its twentieth century pomp. A different and equally amazing scholar as Professor G N Devy is an anomaly in Indian academia. One environment views languages as enterprises; the other as instruments. Holistically, who wins?</p>
