The Hindu editorial, Thursday Oct 14
IT IS BY now accepted wisdom that the diversity of India is best represented by a government that is itself an alliance of divergent political, cultural, and linguistic currents. The advent of coalition governance has done much to bring together elements previously thought to be irreconcilably inimical. A few decades ago, it would have been difficult to conceive of a government that accommodated a range of regional interests, much less spoke in a multiplicity of tongues. Yet almost imperceptibly, the transformation has happened. At a recent Cabinet meeting, Lalu Prasad held forth in his inimitable brand of Bhojpuri-Hindi even as the ministerial contingent from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam sat listening uncomprehendingly. The DMK Ministers did not fly off the handle; they politely asked that they be provided a translator who would help them decipher Lalu-speak. The Railway Minister has himself given up his Hindi fetish and now speaks a version of desi English that has won him a legion of fans among the chatterati.
The credit for starting the trend must go to Deve Gowda, the first South Indian Prime Minister to head a coalition government. Mr. Gowda spoke English and Kannada but no Hindi, which meant he could barely communicate with such self-proclaimed Hindi aficionados as Mulayam Singh, Sitaram Kesri, and Ram Vilas Paswan. He learnt the language and went on to deliver his first Independence Day address in Hindi. Of course, Prime Minister Gowda lapsed into Kannada every so often, and sometimes with comic results. Few can forget the Kesri-Gowda language tussle towards the end of the latter's short tenure. (When the former used the Hindi word `nikkamma,' meaning incompetent for Mr. Gowda, the latter retaliated by calling him `akkamma', that is, elder sister). By the time the Vajpayee Government took over, much of the inter-regional tensions had dissipated, replaced by a tenuous truce prompted by the necessity to hang together. Who could have imagined that a day would come when Tamil champion Muthuvel Karunanidhi would cohabit with the Hindi-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party? Yet the alliance did happen — between the party that would have no truck with Hindi and the party that would brook no language other than the `Rashtra Bhasha'. The DMK-BJP partnership proved to be shortlived but that was on account of ground-level incompatibility.
India has come a long way from the time the Hindi belt dominated decision-making. The Constitution itself decreed that Hindi would be the official language with English remaining in official usage for the first 15 years as a transitional arrangement. Jawaharlal Nehru was in favour of adopting Hindi but thanks to his broad vision, he foresaw the role of English in building India's future. In 1959, he assured Parliament that English would remain an associate language without any time limit. However, creeping `Hindi imposition' led to the anti-Hindi agitation in Tamil Nadu. Following this, the Central Government reiterated Nehru's assurance that English would remain the official associate language so long as the non-Hindi speaking people wanted it. It is true that not all politicians have adapted themselves to the changed circumstances in the relaxed style of a Lalu Prasad. Recently, Chief Minister Mulayam Singh took strong exception to the Uttar Pradesh Governor's advocacy of English. The Samajwadi Party chief must know that today an estimated 100 million Indians (a figure extrapolated from the 1991 Census data) claim some knowledge of the language. Besides, the popular mood has long bridged the North-South gap. After all, A.R. Rehman holds sway in the North and Khushboo had a temple built to her in the South.