Author: Jay Bhattacharjee
Publication: Niticentral.com
Date: July 7, 2014
URL: http://www.niticentral.com/2014/07/05/hindi-gets-a-new-fan-club-a-bengali-bhadralok-signs-up-232823.html

The new Modi Government, already quite adept at committing howlers, seemed to have stepped into it some days back, with the English media shouting itself hoarse about an alleged circular of the Union Government to the State Governments that was supposed to be a harbinger of ‘Hindi imperialism’ blah, blah. It turned out that the whole indignation and anger were quite contrived, and the kala sahibs and memsahibs were distorting and manipulating facts. What’s new, here?

In any case, the intelligent and impressive Union Minister of State for Home, Kiren Rijju, quietly punctured the gas balloon of the Angrezi 4th Estate wallahs, when he conclusively proved that the circular pre-dated the new NDA Government and, in any case, was meant for the Hindi-speaking States. However, what struck yours truly was the completely artificial indignation of the English media against a language that is, after all, spoken in some form or the other by the single largest number of Indians. All guns and ammunition were out in force during the two days when the ‘controversial’ circular was being propped up by the Angrezi lovers.

During the last year or so, I have periodically discussed the issue of the colonial mindset of our elite, specially the so-called ‘secular’, westernised, urban lot. Some other sympathetic forums also allowed me to bring up this theme. To get back to Hindi, I have now decided to take the battle to the English-speaking camp, particularly those I have labeled as the ‘Billy Bunter, Enid Blyton chi chi’ club of Gunga Dins and lifelong members of the Macaulay Fan Club.

However, I should clarify. When I say I am a fan of Hindi, I refer to the much-derided ‘Akashvani’ Hindi, or ‘shudh’ Hindi, the language that is much closer to the Indian cultural psyche than the half-Urdu, Persian-derived version that goes under the name of ‘Hindustani’, so close to old Nehru, the Bombay film industry, the ‘seculars’, and the current luminaries of the Hindi small screen. This atrocity I cannot stand. Mainly because as a bhadralok, I cannot understand the atrocious Persian-Arabic gobbledygook that this patois throws at me.

This was not always so. Moving to Delhi from Bombay and making a lateral entry in Standard 9, I had to make the transition from Marathi to Hindi as the obligatory modern Indian Language. No problem here, since Marathi is as sanskritised as Hindi and shares the same script almost fully, barring a few alphabets. The problem was the Hindi teacher and the gender issue in the rashtrabhasha. Now, Bengali does not have the one characteristic of Hindi that plagued me all those years ago; it is gender neutral. So, the brother is always ‘amar bhai’ and the mother is ‘amar ma’. In Hindi, of course, you know how it is. This gender issue hung over my head like the proverbial sword, always ready to strike when the teacher ‘Bulldog’ Yadav chose. Even after all these decades, I still cannot get over the sadistic, cane-wielding bully whose primary targets were ‘Madrassis’ and ‘Bangalis’, as he announced in class a few days after I joined. As he explained, he could not forgive their alleged lack of competence in Hindi.

I managed to get into the good books of Bulldog when he asked the class to explain what ‘sahishnuta’ meant. Now, the boys from the land of the five rivers were stumped, their exposure to Indian culture was some sort of Lahori mishmash of Urdu-shurdu in their homes. Ditto for the UP lot! It is only the sanskritised Bengali vocabulary and the exposure to my mother -tongue that my parents had insisted on, that saved my bacon as I gingerly raised my hand. I tried to remember all the prose pieces I had read in Bangla and offered a tentative translation/interpretation as ‘tolerance’, ‘endurance’ etc. Memory fails partially at this point, I remember Bulldog eagerly swinging the cane, but I also remember plunging further into the battlefield. Explaining the various nuances of the word (that only a Sanskrit origin language can have). I suggested that it had manifold connotations. Finally, the fellow relaxed, convinced that I knew my onions, if not my tandoori roti.

Since then, I have been a fan of Hindi. Much to the surprise of my north Indian friends and associates. These fellows are always bowled over by the rich Hindi vocabulary that we Bongs are familiar with. Never mind the fact that the two languages share a very large percentage of words, but Bengali actually uses the bountiful reservoir of Sanskrit-origin words and phrases on a regular basis. That is why Narendra Modi’s speeches went down so well in Bengal during this election campaign. Can you ever imagine the bhadralok lot warming to the insipid Urdu-shurdu of MMS?

Therefore, I am firmly in the corner that is rooting for Hindi. The kitchen-English 4th Estate wallahs can whine as much as they want. If the other Bongs embrace Hindi as fervently as this writer has done, it is curtains for the Wagah-brigade secularists and the chutney-Mary Angrezi types. Even Mallus and Tamils have confessed in discussions with me over the decades that they can understand much of the Sanskrit-origin words in Hindi. The Kannadigas and Telugu speakers have never had the same mental hang-ups about Hindi that some sections of the Tamils had.

My advice to the proponents of Hindi: forget about the gender issue and the pronunciation. Let the Bong babu mutilate the words as much as he wants – the ‘shas’ instead of the ‘sas’, the ‘bhas’ instead of the ‘vas’. In the end, it is not important. The bhadralok will enhance the vocabulary of Hindi and enrich it with Sanskrit-origin words, while the South and the rest of the East will lap it up. The noun-verb association will be stretched beyond limits, but all in a good cause. And forget about the genders of nouns. It doesn’t matter a tinker’s damn, so long as our ancient treasure chest of words and ideas is protected and people can understand each other.

Rashtrabhasha: Get rid of the junk from West Asia and the world of Kipling (you will know what I mean when you hear some of the Hindi TV announcers, anchor-persons). Let the Bong babu lead you back to a proper ‘shavdhkosh’. Then watch your progress. You will go ahead in life like greased lighting, as the Americans say. Let me give you my ‘shubheccha’.  I don’t want to waste my time wondering whether it is ‘meri shubheccha’ or ‘mera shubheccha’. ‘Aamar shubheccha’ is good enough for me.

P.S. I still don’t know the logic behind ‘police aa rahi hai’ or why the moustache of the macho man is referred to as ‘uski mooch’.