Today 14th September is celebrated as Hindi Diwas all over the country. It has a history of its own.
On this day on 14 September 1949, the official language of the Union of India, Hindi and script Devanagari, was recognized at the constitutional level.
The question is that even after 70 years of independence, why are we unable to provide knowledge-science courses in Hindi, mother tongue and regional languages? Why has Hindi not become the language of market and employment?
Special on Hindi Diwas: National Education Policy- 2020
September 14 is celebrated as Hindi Diwas all over the country. It has a history of its own.
On this day on 14 September 1949, the official language of the Union of India, Hindi and script Devanagari, was recognized at the constitutional level.
Section- 343 said-
“The official language of the Union shall be Hindi and the script Devanagari and the form of numerals shall be the international form of Indian numerals. The English language will continue to be used for official purposes for a period of 15 years.
In this regard, the Official Language Commission was formed in 1955. Thirteen suggestions were made by the commission in the process of fully establishing Hindi as the official language.
On which no concrete steps have been taken by the government. Before 1965, the Official Language Act came in 1963.
Which is again amended in 1967. Under this act, the assurance to establish Hindi as an official language by 1965 is again extended indefinitely, the biggest reason for which was the fierce opposition to Hindi in non-Hindi speaking areas.
Also read our other The Magadha Times & Magadha Times Hindi
For this reason, it was said-
“Even after 26 January 1965, the English language, other than Hindi, will continue to be used for all the official purposes of the Union for which it has been used before.”
This system has been going on since the constitution came into force till date. It is our misfortune that due to government policies,
Hindi is still working as an assistant in the official language and as a foreign language as our main official language, it remains the base language for official purposes and talks, letters, records.
Hindi language and we Indians
Language opens the way to knowledge, but in our own country, the over-dependence of all of us on English has deprived the students of even villages, towns and cities of science and technical knowledge due to lack of English language knowledge.
If we look around us, a student taking science education in Hindi up to school distances itself from science and technical courses at the time of admission to higher education due to the necessity of the English curriculum and English language and lack of textbooks in the Hindi language.
Special on Hindi Diwas: National Education Policy- 2020
It is the failure of our education and language policy that he is celebrating another elixir of independence, on the other hand, even after so many years of independence, we are unable to provide knowledge-science courses in Hindi, mother tongue and regional languages.
Whatever little is being available, it is only a translation and not of a standard. Due to this difficulty of language, many of our talents are not getting a chance to come to the fore.
Rabindranath Tagore has also said-
“We have lost our eyes and put on glasses”. After getting these goggles, more buttons and felt started to appear. Today these spectacles can be seen the most in the centre of intellectual discussions and debates.
Hindi language and our new education policy-2020
Keeping in mind the need of today to advance the Indian education system systematically and systematically, the Government of India has implemented the New Education Policy 2020.
Which remains a topic of discussion at the national and international levels.
In the New Education Policy 2020, all those questions arising concerning the language have been understood and made a part of the new education policy, which is being discussed on every Hindi day in the whole country and that is the question of language.
Under this policy also one of the recommendations of the Official Language Commission 1955 has been included in the recommendation for knowledge and learning of Indian languages.
Whereas earlier in 1968 the Kothari Commission (1964-66), which is called the first step in the history of Indian education, declared education as a subject of national importance. aims at compulsory education for all children up to the age of 14 years.
To encourage the teaching of the Sanskrit language and recommend the implementation of the three-language formula. The biggest availability of the Kothari Commission was the introduction of the three-language formula.
Because this was the time of linguistic movement where the states were being separated on the one hand linguistic basis and on the other hand Hindi was being completed 15 years of being made the official language.
At the same time, there was fierce opposition to Hindi in South India. In the midst of these adversity and linguistic disagreements, the Kothari Commission brings the three-language formula, which was an important suggestion in the development of the Hindi language.
After the recommendations of the Kothari Commission, comes the National Policy on Education in 1986.
This policy is amended in 1992 and it is said that most of the suggestions of the 1968 education policy could not be translated into the program, because there was no concrete plan of implementation, nor were clear responsibilities fixed.
For this reason, keeping in mind the new challenges and social needs, a new education policy has been prepared.
In the education policy of 1986, there is no specific instruction regarding language.
The main objective of this policy was to link education with innovation, technology, technology, science and values. About languages, it has been said that the question of the development of languages was considered in detail in the Education Policy of 1968.
There is hardly any room for improvement in the original recommendations of that policy and they are as relevant today as they were. But the policy of 1968 was not followed uniformly across the country.
Now this policy will be implemented more actively and purposefully”. As much as the new education policy 2020.
The question of language as a medium of instruction has been clearly raised in the New Education Policy-2020. For which a sub-chapter titled ‘Multilingualism and the Power of Language’ has been kept.
Recognizing the power of language as a medium of instruction by the Government of India, various provisions and suggestions have been made in this education policy.
It stated that “young children learn and grasp meaningful concepts more quickly in their home language/mother tongue.
The home language is usually the mother tongue or the language spoken by the local communities.
Therefore, as far as possible, at least up to grade 5 but preferably up to grade 8 and beyond, the medium of instruction shall be the home language/ mother-tongue/ local language/ regional language.
Thereafter the home/local language will continue to be taught as a language wherever possible. Both public and private schools will comply.
The highest quality textbooks in all subjects including science will be made available in the mother tongue.
Any gap, if any, exists between the language spoken by the child and the medium of instruction, will be closed.
The three-language formula was reintroduced in the development of the language and it was said that it would have at least two Indian languages.
Along with Sanskrit, Pali, Persian, Prakrit, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia languages will also be included as an option and will be part of the curriculum.
Our mother tongue is the language of communication and communication of our people and wider people. This is the heritage of our nation, if we cannot create a sense of self-respect towards them, then we cannot have a sense of self-respect towards our nation as well.
Mahatma Gandhi has also said-
“Why are there no mistakes in my mother tongue? I will cling to it as a child will cling to its mother’s chest. This can give me life-giving milk. If the English want to usurp the space it doesn’t deserve, I will hate it fiercely, it may be a learning object for some people, not millions, not millions.”
In the Wardha Education Scheme 1937, Mahatma Gandhi had spoken on the compulsion of mother tongue in education. But over time his ideas also became a part of intellectual debate.
In the New Education Policy-2020, an attempt has been made to revive mother tongues. No nation indeed becomes strong until its land, that is, its people are not strong. Our mother tongues represent this large and wide population.
When this people’s group is strong, then our Hindi language representing it will also automatically be strong, because the word store of Hindi is made up of words from its mother tongue, regional dialects and Indian languages. In such a situation multilingualism is not our weakness but our speciality.
In the words of Dr Zakir Hussain-
“Hindi is the thread that will weave the flowers of different mother tongues into a beautiful necklace for Mother India”.
The greatest feature of our Constitution is unity in diversity. Five fingers together make a fist. The identity of Hindi as a language in our multilingualism is like the fist that gives a feeling of power as Hindi despite having different fingers, ie languages.
It is necessary to have an education policy for the development of the nation. Just as the medium of education of China’s knowledge and science is their own language. Their market is also operated in their own language. The same should happen within our country as well. But here the situation is quite opposite.
The medium of knowledge and science in our country is a foreign language. It is the irony of our country that even after being a multilingual nation, even today, from courts to administrative systems, foreign language is used. We have become free but are still living in linguistic slavery and the youth of our country are suffering from an inferiority complex towards their own language.
The New Education Policy 2020, after 34 years, raises questions of language development on a large scale, which were not explicitly raised before that in the Kothari Commission of 1968 and the National Education Policy of 1986.
This education policy issued by the Government of India is a policy to pave the way for the future education system of India and the progress of the nation.
If this policy is not implemented sincerely and like its earlier policies, it will become a mere document.
As happened with the Wardha education scheme in the mirror of history, in which many such points were raised, including the use of mother tongues, which due to not being implemented properly, remained only suggestions and documents.
In such a situation, the new education policy must be implemented effectively.
This will not only enrich our languages, but our young generation will also be able to find new avenues of knowledge through their mother tongue, regional language and Hindi and contribute to the development of the nation.
According to a report by UNESCO, there were about 7000 languages in the world by the year 2000, out of which about 2500 languages were endangered.
It is estimated that by 2050, 90 per cent of languages will be extinct. In India, 1652 languages were recorded in the 1961 census.
But when the 1971 census made it a rule not to record languages spoken by less than 10 thousand people, then only 108 languages were recorded in the country in that census.
Hindi Diwas and the crisis of other languages: Many dialects and languages are slowly dying out
Literature is the mirror of society. It is only from the local literature of any society that we get to know about its past and present way of life, its moral values, its nature, its beliefs and way of life. But for the creation of literature, words are also needed and those words are found only through dialect or language.
Along with creating literature, these words become ornaments to decorate it and the same words also fill the taste in any literature.
With the knowledge of the words of the language or script, we read particular literature and enjoy it, entertain and acquire knowledge.
If there is no speech or language, then man will remain dumb. Obviously, the more languages or dialects a person knows, the more avenues will open for the growth of his wealth of knowledge.
But when the language or dialect dies, neither one will be able to read nor understand that literature. In this condition, along with the language, the literature will also die.
The real danger from languages of status
In order to keep pace with the times in this global era, as much as it is necessary to know more and more dialects, it is equally important to upgrade and enhance our language.
But this is not happening. We are suffering from an inferiority complex towards our language and especially the dialects.
Due to this mentality in our country, our Hindi in front of English and our dialects in front of Hindi are losing their respect and self-respect.
English has become the language of the rulers and big people, and this country’s own Hindi has become the language of the common people. English is used in the Supreme Court and High Courts of the country.
The work of the Government of India is also mainly carried on in English. Big bureaucrats also talk in English. And if you want to glorify someone, then if you know English, you stir up an officer in English itself.
The same situation is with Hindi or regional languages at the lower level. On the whole, like big fish, big languages are swallowing up languages and dialects spoken by fewer people. This crisis of spoken languages is not endemic but global.
90% of languages are on the verge of extinction
According to a report by UNESCO, there were about 7000 languages in the world by the year 2000, out of which about 2500 languages were endangered.
It is estimated that by 2050, 90 per cent of languages will be extinct. In India, 1652 languages were recorded in the 1961 census.
But when the 1971 census made it a rule not to record languages spoken by less than 10 thousand people, then only 108 languages were recorded in the country in that census.
In the Census of 2011, only 121 languages spoken by more than 10 thousand people have been recorded, out of which 22 languages are recorded under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, which are used by only 96.71 per cent of the population.
On the other hand, the “People’s Linguistic Survey of India” conducted from 2010 to 2012 has accepted the existence of a total of 780 languages in the country.
This survey does not have the standard of 10,000 users. Therefore it can be compared with the linguistic data of the census of 1061.
In this way, we have lost 872 languages in a span of 51 years from 1961 to 2012. When this is the condition of languages, then dialects can be imagined.
Inferiority is also killing the bids
Due to the inferiority complex towards dialect and culture, our milk dialects are in the most danger. The real reason for their danger is the perception of regional cultures as inferior or backward in comparison to the mainstream cultures.
Dialect or language is an integral part of our culture. These cultures also take their shape by developing not in one year or two years but thousands of years.
When we consider our culture to be backward or inferior in front of the mainstream culture, it is obvious that we will hesitate to publicly reveal our dialect as a sign of backwardness.
If we consider the data of Census of India for the year 2011, then in it –
A total of 19,569 dialects and languages have been recorded, whose speakers are said to be 121 crores. Of these, 121 languages were spoken by more than 10 thousand people.
But it is a matter of concern that there are 10 languages of our country which have less than 100 speakers left.
At the same time, 81 Indian languages have been kept in the vulnerable category, including Manipuri, Bodo, Garhwali, Kumaoni, Jaunsari, Ladakhi, Mizo, Sherpa and Spiti.
According to the online chapter of the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Threatened Languages, there are 197 languages in India that are vulnerable, endangered or extinct.
Languages on the verge of extinction include Ahom, Andro, Rangkas, Sengmai, Tolcha etc. Among them, Rangkas, Tolchha etc. languages are spoken in the Himalayan region.
Tribal dialects most at risk
Most of the endangered languages of the country belong to the tribes. Tribes also have many sub-castes and they have equally different types of dialects.
For example, in Uttarakhand, there are sub-castes like Jad, Marchha, Tolchha, Johari, Ran etc. of the Bhotia tribe and their local dialects.
The main tribes of the North East include Kuki, Adi, Nisi, Angami, Bhutia and Garo. But these 7 tribes also have about 220 sub-castes and those sub-castes have the same number of dialects.
Of these, only 5 people who spoke the dialect or language named Chaimal in Tripura were left till a few years ago. The most dangerous language situation is in Andaman and Nicobar, where the population of Jarawa, Great Andamanese, Shompen, Onge and Sentinelese tribes is less than 500.
They all have different dialects. They’re also used to be a Bo language, with the death of the only woman remaining to speak it on 26 January 2010, a language about 65 thousand years old also died. In Uttarakhand also, the population of the Raji tribe is about 600 and they have their own dialect whose existence is in danger.
Among other tribes of Uttarakhand, Tharu and Buxa being plains, their language is Hindi, but among the hill tribes, Bhotia, Raji, and Jaunsari have their own native dialects. Among them, Jaunsari has even had its own script, which has become extinct.
According to the latest census, the population of the Bhatia tribe in Uttarakhand is 39,106 out of which only 7,592 have written their mother tongue Bhotia. Similarly, 5,809 have registered their mother tongue Hindi, 5,765 Garhwali, 13 Jaunsari, 13,150 Kumaoni and 88 Pahari. Out of 88,664 people of the Jaunsari tribe, 589 have registered their mother tongue as Garhwali, 8,547 in Hindi and 78,477 in Jaunsari and Jaunpuri and 584 in Bavaria.
UNESCO’s Vulnerability Classification
UNESCO has classified languages into 5 categories according to the sensitivity of the languages. The first of these is a secure language that is spoken and understood by people of all generations.
In the second category, those sensitive languages have been kept, which can be spoken by the children of the house but only at home. Those in the vulnerable category are those languages that children do not use as their mother tongue in their home.
Among the critically endangered sections are those languages which are spoken only by the elders of the household.
The present generation understands them but does not use that language with their children. Those in the fifth category are the most endangered languages, which are used only by the grandparents, but only partially and only occasionally.
The plane is also a big problem
In fact, the crisis of languages is not new. The main reason for this is economic, due to which people have to migrate far away from their village and culture. Like more than 25 lakh people of Uttarakhand live in Delhi. Culturally dominated languages like Hindi and English also tend to swallow dialects.
The higher the dominance of the language in which political activities take place and the more the dialects lag.
Wherever languages like Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Gujarati are used as official languages, languages like Hindi or English cannot swallow them.
That is why all languages and dialects must be protected and social organizations should also encourage them along with getting state encouragement.
