“Hindi” Diktat for Social Media

Language is a means of communication, where one person wants to get his thoughts across to another. In 1947 when India got freedom from the Brits, Hindi was chosen as the “Rashtriya Bhasha” , not only because it was spoken by a vast  majority but also to come out of colonial hangover. In recent days, the newly elected Modi government came out with a diktat that Hindi is to be used for social media interactions by all the state governments. Next day it said that only Hindi speaking states should be doing this. But if we go through the tweets of M.P. CM, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, we find that he too is not following this absurd diktat.

Why this order is absurd has to be understood on many levels. In spite of Hindi being the declared national language, we all know that our country does not have a national language.

Secondly it is only Northern India for which Hindi is the first language. For the rest of us we have our mother tongue as the first language & many amongst us have learnt Hindi from Hindi films, songs and TV serials, therefore using this language does not come easy.

Thirdly pitting one language against the other is the recipe for disaster. When non Hindi speaking people are asked to use English, however pathetic they might be at it, they do not mind but when asked to speak Hindi, they rebel (Tamil Nadu is a good case study). English in India is a language that kinds people together.

Fourthly, it is important to be proud of one’s language but practicality always wins over nationality. Youngsters want to learn English because the one’s with the knowledge of English stand a much better chance of getting a job than a Hindi speaking or any regional language speaking person.

Mr. Modi using a translator while meeting international leaders & delegates is a smart move and he should continue with using Hindi but asking common man to do so is not fair.