ஞாயிறு, 8 ஜூன், 2008

Love for Tamizh and the national language question

As with my blind love for my country, i also had a gr8 love for my mother tongue - tamizh.I thought it as an insult to study tamizh as a 3rd language(English & say Hindi/Sanskrit/French ... as the 1st & 2nd).So i studied Tamizh as the 2nd language till my 12th std, i never even contemplated changing to French/Sanskrit to boost my overall score(these things are specific to my state where usually tamizh was difficult to score compared to the rest).
I've to confess that tamizh is not a easy language to learn, especially the grammar & poems are really tough.But nevertheless i scored high as i learnt the language with gr8 pride.Coincidentally my top score in 10th exams was in tamizh,i still feel really proud about it & also remember the marks that i scored:-) At the same time i never had an ill-will towards other language, probably due to my national outlook.So i learnt hindi privately and learnt till praveen purvadh - my teacher told me it's equivalent to an M.A degree. I even thought that every person should learn hindi also.
But i had a radical change of mind, during my college days, w.r.t national language Hindi.I no longer think it is necessary to learn it compulsorily.The reason being hindi is another language just like any other indian language.So there is no need to elevate it at the expense of other languages.I think all the indian languages, including hindi, are our national languages. The argument that hindi is spoken by majority of the people in india does not hold ground.It is used to justify but that seems a flawed argument.Simply b'cos the majority number of people speak a language does not mean it should be preferred over the rest.The same applies in the religious sphere as well - it is for this precise reason that India is a secular state not a hindu state.
All said, learning a language is a individual's choice. But what irritates me is projecting hindi as the language of our country at the expense of other languages.One example is the bollywood conducting indian cinema awards w/o entries from other regional languages and also the national awards which invariably goes to an undeserving hindi film very often(Hum Tum comes to my mind). After all i do know that language is for communication & nothing beyond, but still..:-)