Crack the language code

In the early 1980s, the then leader of the Congress parliamentary party CM Stephen had circulated a note at one of his frequent press conferences. The note, in English, caused a reporter of a Hindi paper to politely suggest to Stephen that he should consider preparing such notes in the national language. “Sure”, he said without batting an eyelid. “It will be in Malayalam next time”. His remark unsettled the Hindi proponent who did not know how to react.

The Congress leader did not follow through with his promise and those of us who covered that beat had the benefit of reading the stuff the party put out in English. But the issue that the journalist raised then, and the way different leaders react to that kind of a suggestion, still leaves the question — what is our national language? — unsettled. The answer can be varied depending on whether you are a Hindiwala or not.

For those who come from the Hindi heartland, Hindi, of course, is the national language even though, for the rest of us, it is only an official language. English, with which they may at best have a working familiarity, is a global language, not national, even if it is also an official language. Languages other than Hindi are local, not national again.

And that is why language as an issue has continued to remain in focus from the time of Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri. It gains some currency and concern once in a while, like when members of the MNS in the Maharashtra Assembly caused a ruckus over another member taking the oath in Hindi and not Marathi.

While in Maharashtra the issue has acquired another dimension — the dignity of the Marathi manoos — language has become a symbol of sub- regionalism in non-Hindi states to such an extent that the line between regionalism and parochialism is blurring. Whatever the dictionary meaning of these two words, the first represents a broader positive characteristic of pride in the language, culture and ethos of the region, while the latter, parochialism, is seen as being narrow and prejudiced. Often, there is quite a bit of confusion between the two and of late the prejudiced version, as was evident in Maharashtra, has come to represent sub-regionalism. Even Sachin Tendulkar was upbraided by ageing Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb for claiming that he is a proud Maharashtrian, but an Indian first, and that Mumbai belonged to the country, not just Maharashtra.

Quite apart from fringe political parties and forces that thrive on the distinction between the local and the non-local, social activists and writers in local languages too seem to see language as the visible face of that sub-regionalism. That is why even a demand for jobs for locals takes on a linguistic hue, though there may be no question of cultural identity involved in those jobs.

The MNSs of the world are definitely wrong. There is no question about that; but their side of the story deserves some consideration too. In Bangalore, for instance, you can find non-locals, who are not temporary migrants but have made this their home, in many cases for more than a decade, not only managing to get along without a knowledge of the local language but actually taking pride in their inability to do so. Try that in Chennai or Trivandrum: you will find that you simply cannot get along even for a few weeks.

In Bangalore, like in Mumbai, the resentment against non-locals for their disinclination, even refusal, to integrate with the local cultural ethos, seen first in whether they try to learn Kannada or not, may become sharper.

A large part of this problem is economic. The locals seem to nurse a grievance that the non-locals have somehow cornered all the economic advantages the city offers; better jobs and better living standards. That is a perception more than reality. It is becoming a bit of reality because even low end jobs — masonry and carpentry — are increasingly taken over by those from the Hindi heartland. Those who need such services in fact prefer north Indian labour because they seem to have a relatively better work ethic and they are certainly less expensive.

This trend is quite contrary to what one witnessed in the first four decades after the country achieved its independence. In those decades it was usually the high-end and highly skilled jobs that drew migrants from all over the country to the city. Post liberalisation, when the labour market for knowledge workers exploded in the city and drew migrants in lakhs, no one complained because other services that supported the knowledge industry grew in the same proportion and offered opportunities for the less skilled at the lower end of the market.

Competition in this space and the reluctance of migrants to merge with the local landscape compounds the problem. The solution lies in those who make the city their home at least making an attempt to adapt to the local milieu. The most obvious is to learn a bit more than asking the locals to swalpa adjust maadi.