{"id":3844,"date":"2014-06-22T23:13:48","date_gmt":"2014-06-22T17:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bhagwad.com\/blog\/?p=3844"},"modified":"2014-06-22T23:13:48","modified_gmt":"2014-06-22T17:43:48","slug":"lose-the-stupid-focus-on-hindi-india-is-not-homogeneous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bhagwad.com\/blog\/2014\/rights-and-freedoms\/lose-the-stupid-focus-on-hindi-india-is-not-homogeneous.html\/","title":{"rendered":"Lose the Stupid Focus on Hindi &#8211; India is not Homogeneous"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 55%; max-width: 478px; min-width: 300px; float: right; margin-left: 1em;\">\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 75.104603% 0 49px 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/455316805?et=V7VXkGWXQsl3vIRvFAl_Mw&amp;ContextMore=on&amp;sig=xtbKzs2U5AptFWMvEvO5LpBdlk-jNL7qinvhZ-evMns=\" width=\"478\" height=\"408\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 4px 0 0 10px; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/455316805\" target=\"_blank\">#455316805<\/a> \/ <a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\" target=\"_blank\">gettyimages.com<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The recent debate on <a href=\"http:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/india\/Jayalalithaa-BJP-allies-oppose-Centres-move-on-Hindi-Shiv-Sena-calls-Odishas-ban-on-Hindi-shocking\/articleshow\/36893608.cms\">increasing the importance of Hindi<\/a> is amusing. When you scratch beneath the surface, you see that the dominant thought driving these &#8220;pro-hindi&#8221; types is that India is a homogeneous country. Either from ignorance, or wishful thinking, these deluded individuals including the entire Sena brigade (Shiv\/Raj whatever) and these enthu RSS types keep pointing to other countries wistfully. &#8220;Look at France!&#8221;, they say. &#8220;OMG see\u00a0Japan! They have one language throughout their country and they&#8217;re super awesome. Yay for\u00a0one national language!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Poor guys. In their na\u00efvet\u00e9, they want to pretend that India is something it&#8217;s not. The populations of countries like France, Japan, Greece, Russia etc are not disparate. They dress the same way, have the same facial characteristics, share a common cultural heritage, and eat the same food. Their language hasn&#8217;t been <em>imposed<\/em> on them. It&#8217;s organic. No one in Japan stood up and said &#8220;Today we will all speak Japanese!&#8221; That&#8217;s because they didn&#8217;t have to. When the entire population is highly homogeneous, having one language is a natural outcome.<\/p>\n<p>Hardcore hindutva types want to reverse causality. They think that by writing a declaration on a piece of paper, they can suddenly ignore the hard fact that India&#8217;s population is not homogeneous. In fact, it&#8217;s a lot more like Europe with each state corresponding to a different country. Try making all the member states of the EU settle on one language and watch the fireworks fly! They might be united under a single currency, but the same language? Forget about it.<\/p>\n<p>These chest thumping jokers are being unnecessarily sentimental. A language is nothing but a sequence of sounds to communicate ideas. No need to get emotional about it. Language is a tool, like a screwdriver. You use the best tool for the job. And while Hindi works well in many places in India, it&#8217;s a very poor tool everywhere else. You wouldn&#8217;t try using a screwdriver to hammer a nail would you? So why would anyone want to impose Hindi when it&#8217;s useless? Drop the foolish sentimentality.<\/p>\n<p>Like it or not, for official communications spanning several states, English is simply more practical. Court judgments when written in English can be read by judges in other states without translation. And while a lot of people in a particular area won&#8217;t speak English, even fewer of them might be\u00a0familiar with Hindi. In a situation where there is no universal language, you simply use one that happens to be most convenient even though its flawed.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine the horror of translating each and every court judgment into 24 languages. Lunacy! As if our judicial system is not already burdened enough by paperwork. Not to mention that each and every nuance of a judgment and its references will have to be converted to something else. Bloody insane if you ask me. While\u00a0these dudes supporting Modi go on about good governance, they have no problem throwing the entire bureaucracy into chaos and making the mess 100 times worse than it already is.<\/p>\n<p>So zip the Hindi bullshit. It&#8217;s stupid and illogical. Don&#8217;t go around getting attached to any particular language. If you feel comfortable with something, use it. Otherwise don&#8217;t. You have no business trying to tell <i>others<\/i> what they should be comfortable in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s nothing special about Hindi. It&#8217;s foolish to get sentimental about a language. Like it or not, India is more like Europe than a regular country, where each state has its own mode of communication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rights-and-freedoms"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Lose the Stupid Focus on Hindi - India is not Homogeneous<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bhagwad.com\/blog\/2014\/rights-and-freedoms\/lose-the-stupid-focus-on-hindi-india-is-not-homogeneous.html\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lose the Stupid Focus on Hindi - India is not Homogeneous\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There&#039;s nothing special about Hindi. It&#039;s foolish to get sentimental about a language. Like it or not, India is more like Europe than a regular country, where each state has its own mode of communication.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.bhagwad.com\/blog\/2014\/rights-and-freedoms\/lose-the-stupid-focus-on-hindi-india-is-not-homogeneous.html\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Expressions - Bhagwad Jal Park\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-06-22T17:43:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"bhagwad\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@bhagwad\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@bhagwad\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"bhagwad\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.bhagwad.com\\\/blog\\\/2014\\\/rights-and-freedoms\\\/lose-the-stupid-focus-on-hindi-india-is-not-homogeneous.html\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.bhagwad.com\\\/blog\\\/2014\\\/rights-and-freedoms\\\/lose-the-stupid-focus-on-hindi-india-is-not-homogeneous.html\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"bhagwad\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.bhagwad.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/06c9c710885b810f1dfe3779fc346b23\"},\"headline\":\"Lose the Stupid Focus on Hindi &#8211; 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