HI
I found this article in Indian Express today. Liked it. Its real food for thought !!!
Congrats on the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of the state formation !!!
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Babble of Babel
-Pratap Bhanu Mehta
On golden jubilee of language-based states celebrate freedom of choice, not just diversity
The States Reorganisation Commission Report — yesterday marked fifty years of its implementation — was a remarkable exercise in political acuity. At one stroke it defused a catastrophic politics of linguistic nationalism by recognising India’s linguistic diversity and giving it some political expression. It also recognised that, to some degree, the language question cannot be resolved by insisting on singular solutions emanating from the centre, and premised on the thought that a nation has to speak a single language.
As Sheldon Pollock has pointed out in his magisterial The Language of Gods in the World of Men, India’s linguistic history is distinctive in many respects. In India language was historically never harnessed to a political project, religion played little part in the choice of language, there was no concept of mother tongue in pre-modern India and no sense of a language tied to a group identity or a particular ethnos. There was no sin of Babel. Linguistic diversity was considered in some sense natural, not a deviation to be corrected. Despite linguistic diversity, different languages could share literary forms, a common intellectual culture and through a range of common references even develop in relation to each other.
The States Reorganisation Commission was an inspired response to the challenges posed by this alignment of language and politics. It saved India that fate of every multi-linguistic society that has tried to impose a single language on the country: civil war. To that extent it was remarkably successful. But there is a danger that we might misinterpret the true lesson of the success of 1956. That lesson is not diversity, but freedom.
We are at a new juncture in the politics of language and statehood. First, there is great pressure for so-called linguistic states like Andhra and Maharashtra to be broken down further. Many of the arguments calling for the creation of new states like Telangana and Vidarbha make sense in light of the realities of these regions. But granting them recognition will involve modifying the 1956 vision. Rather than thinking of states along linguistic lines, we will have to commit to the proposition that not even all the South Indian states will bear the hallmark of a linguistic logic. Languages often need political recognition in a state to flourish. Just think of the appalling state of Urdu simply because it fell through the disjuncture between geography and language. But this is not a premise that should for ever stand in the way of new political and administrative possibilities.
But the second challenge is more complex. The reorganisation of states along linguistic lines also gave some momentum to identifying language with ethnicity: the issue was no longer simply the preservation of Kannada, or resisting the imposition of Hindi, but the whole political fashioning of a Kannadiga identity; Maharashtra went through a similar process during the seventies and eighties. This process can manifest itself in the often meaningless politics of renaming. After all when a culture begins to bother about so much names, there is a real suspicion that all that might be left to the politics of that language is names. But increasingly, this alignment is restricting the choices of citizens: many states, for instance, require university professors to be proficient in the native language to be eligible for increments, in some states there is a periodic assault on English language schools, and the possibility of Tamil-Kannada tension remains more than remote. This is where it is important that we draw the right lessons from 1956.
The moral imperative behind 1956 was not simply diversity; it was respect for the principle of non-coercion: no language would be imposed upon any state against their will. Diversity and non-coercion are different things. The principle of non-coercion suggests that people should be able to exercise their linguistic choices in, logistical constraints apart, a non-discriminatory way. Whatever diversity that emerges as a result is to be cherished, but choice should not be diminished in the name of diversity. This is a principle that states would do well to remember as the preferences of their own populations get more diverse. The creation of a Kannada state to give expression to Kannada aspirations is one thing, to turn it into a project where other linguistic groups — Tamil or English or Konkani — are disadvantaged or deprived of their choices quite another.
Another casualty of the 1956 settlement was a remarkable idea of Nehru’s: he thought of genuinely multi-lingual areas like Hyderabad, Bombay and Madras, as something like cosmopolitan zones, a standing riposte to the idea that language, territory and ethnicity should coincide. These would be the zones where languages and identity would seamlessly meld into each other, creating all sorts of new languages and possibilities. The great virtue of modern India is that in some ways what Nehru thought was true of places like Bombay is increasingly coming to define more of India. The lines of different languages run through each one of us rather than between us. A time might come where the alignment of language, territory and identity will seem as ineffectual as attempts by snooty custodians of language to preserve its purity. But, as the rest of India becomes more diverse, it is precisely these cosmopolitan zones that have become hostage to the politics of identity. Perhaps there is an argument to be made, both in linguistic and economic terms, for carving out these dense concentrations of populations as administrative zones in their own right.
The politics of language in India will remain paradoxical for many years. Take Gurgaon, where most geographical markers have names like, Hamilton, Regency, Ridgewood, Windsor, Princeton, etc. You cannot help feeling sympathy for those who engage in the politics of renaming. But the inhabitants of these same anglicised buildings are giving their children the most complicated Sanskritic names you can imagine. The growth in vernacular press and the burgeoning demand for English are both realities of modern India: identity and instrumentality will both have to blend. Sometimes it is all right to wonder whether we confuse the virtues of Babel with the qualities of babble. Linguistic anxiety will haunt us. But the solution is to draw the right lesson from 1956: the Indian project is not about diversity, it is about something deeper. It is about giving each one the freedom to be whoever they wish to be, in whichever language they choose.
The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research
I found this article in Indian Express today. Liked it. Its real food for thought !!!
Congrats on the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of the state formation !!!
*******************************************************************
Babble of Babel
-Pratap Bhanu Mehta
On golden jubilee of language-based states celebrate freedom of choice, not just diversity
The States Reorganisation Commission Report — yesterday marked fifty years of its implementation — was a remarkable exercise in political acuity. At one stroke it defused a catastrophic politics of linguistic nationalism by recognising India’s linguistic diversity and giving it some political expression. It also recognised that, to some degree, the language question cannot be resolved by insisting on singular solutions emanating from the centre, and premised on the thought that a nation has to speak a single language.
As Sheldon Pollock has pointed out in his magisterial The Language of Gods in the World of Men, India’s linguistic history is distinctive in many respects. In India language was historically never harnessed to a political project, religion played little part in the choice of language, there was no concept of mother tongue in pre-modern India and no sense of a language tied to a group identity or a particular ethnos. There was no sin of Babel. Linguistic diversity was considered in some sense natural, not a deviation to be corrected. Despite linguistic diversity, different languages could share literary forms, a common intellectual culture and through a range of common references even develop in relation to each other.
The States Reorganisation Commission was an inspired response to the challenges posed by this alignment of language and politics. It saved India that fate of every multi-linguistic society that has tried to impose a single language on the country: civil war. To that extent it was remarkably successful. But there is a danger that we might misinterpret the true lesson of the success of 1956. That lesson is not diversity, but freedom.
We are at a new juncture in the politics of language and statehood. First, there is great pressure for so-called linguistic states like Andhra and Maharashtra to be broken down further. Many of the arguments calling for the creation of new states like Telangana and Vidarbha make sense in light of the realities of these regions. But granting them recognition will involve modifying the 1956 vision. Rather than thinking of states along linguistic lines, we will have to commit to the proposition that not even all the South Indian states will bear the hallmark of a linguistic logic. Languages often need political recognition in a state to flourish. Just think of the appalling state of Urdu simply because it fell through the disjuncture between geography and language. But this is not a premise that should for ever stand in the way of new political and administrative possibilities.
But the second challenge is more complex. The reorganisation of states along linguistic lines also gave some momentum to identifying language with ethnicity: the issue was no longer simply the preservation of Kannada, or resisting the imposition of Hindi, but the whole political fashioning of a Kannadiga identity; Maharashtra went through a similar process during the seventies and eighties. This process can manifest itself in the often meaningless politics of renaming. After all when a culture begins to bother about so much names, there is a real suspicion that all that might be left to the politics of that language is names. But increasingly, this alignment is restricting the choices of citizens: many states, for instance, require university professors to be proficient in the native language to be eligible for increments, in some states there is a periodic assault on English language schools, and the possibility of Tamil-Kannada tension remains more than remote. This is where it is important that we draw the right lessons from 1956.
The moral imperative behind 1956 was not simply diversity; it was respect for the principle of non-coercion: no language would be imposed upon any state against their will. Diversity and non-coercion are different things. The principle of non-coercion suggests that people should be able to exercise their linguistic choices in, logistical constraints apart, a non-discriminatory way. Whatever diversity that emerges as a result is to be cherished, but choice should not be diminished in the name of diversity. This is a principle that states would do well to remember as the preferences of their own populations get more diverse. The creation of a Kannada state to give expression to Kannada aspirations is one thing, to turn it into a project where other linguistic groups — Tamil or English or Konkani — are disadvantaged or deprived of their choices quite another.
Another casualty of the 1956 settlement was a remarkable idea of Nehru’s: he thought of genuinely multi-lingual areas like Hyderabad, Bombay and Madras, as something like cosmopolitan zones, a standing riposte to the idea that language, territory and ethnicity should coincide. These would be the zones where languages and identity would seamlessly meld into each other, creating all sorts of new languages and possibilities. The great virtue of modern India is that in some ways what Nehru thought was true of places like Bombay is increasingly coming to define more of India. The lines of different languages run through each one of us rather than between us. A time might come where the alignment of language, territory and identity will seem as ineffectual as attempts by snooty custodians of language to preserve its purity. But, as the rest of India becomes more diverse, it is precisely these cosmopolitan zones that have become hostage to the politics of identity. Perhaps there is an argument to be made, both in linguistic and economic terms, for carving out these dense concentrations of populations as administrative zones in their own right.
The politics of language in India will remain paradoxical for many years. Take Gurgaon, where most geographical markers have names like, Hamilton, Regency, Ridgewood, Windsor, Princeton, etc. You cannot help feeling sympathy for those who engage in the politics of renaming. But the inhabitants of these same anglicised buildings are giving their children the most complicated Sanskritic names you can imagine. The growth in vernacular press and the burgeoning demand for English are both realities of modern India: identity and instrumentality will both have to blend. Sometimes it is all right to wonder whether we confuse the virtues of Babel with the qualities of babble. Linguistic anxiety will haunt us. But the solution is to draw the right lesson from 1956: the Indian project is not about diversity, it is about something deeper. It is about giving each one the freedom to be whoever they wish to be, in whichever language they choose.
The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research
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