Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'British gave us English and Democracy' that was published in Newsband

British gave us English and Democracy

The NDA government is trying to popularise Hindi. The government can, if it so chooses, adopt measures which persuade more people to adopt Hindi willingly. But beyond that, it’s best to leave language to personal choice. It’s a fallacy that a nation needs a single language to get by: even small nations such as Belgium and Switzerland have three and four respectively.

There is enormous demand for English because it is seen as the language of opportunity, global business and access to jobs; for that reason even politicians who promote Hindi send their own children to English medium schools. Why someone should have problem when people are speaking the language they're comfortable in. This attempt to forcefully impose Hindi on the public by the BJP/NDA will only reduce their chances of winning non Hindi speaking states.

India is essentially the job handed over by the British. We are seized by thrill at every year that pass by after independence and we owe it to the fact that we have a huge bolsters in the form of the Secondary English Converts who have made it possible. The entire infrastructure being British getting in Hindi is like not quite forgetting the contribution of Aurangzeb whose name appeared in the ruling dispensation’s hate list and had his name removed as a road name. It is better that someone drives home the point that spread of Hindi was the direct consequence of the rule of those who were affiliated to the Persian language.

At one time, it was Aurangzeb who singly as a king handled the power. Democracy brought power to the people. Such a country like India where most of the states have their own local languages as their official as well as for communication, it’s not fair to impose any other language. We should be able to sustain the language which we use worldwide.

Imposition of anything is counter-productive and repulsive. Let the things take their own course. Previously all foreign channels like Star Plus etc were telecasting in English. Now they are all Hindi. Everybody sees Hindi movies without being imposed.

We learn English not because of any slavish devotion to our departed colonial masters or a sense of inferiority about our own culture but quite simply because it flies better and further than any other language in a globalised world. It is one of our natural advantages, to be nurtured, not neglected. Hindi and the South sometimes become a little adversarial. So don’t force Hindi down their throats.