The language wars in India are so sad.
Most of us don't realize the gravity of the situation we're dealing with.
Words are energy pellets.
Words can be translated but not the connotations they carry.
The connotations also give rise to both imagination and emotions. If language is the vehicle of expression, the denotation & connotation combined are potent enough to change the conscience & the direction of the travellers in that vehicle.
The honerable Home Minister Amit Shah recently said, "Language is not just the medium of communication, in it is also the soul of the nation. Our roots, traditions, history and culture, cannot move forward separately from the Indian languages. We must keep our languages alive and also enrich them."
The gap between the thought and speech is an impairment.
While we can't give up English due to its global spread arising out of the British imperialism in the past, considering that we are an ancient civilization, there needn't be a sense of pride in the language of the oppressor.
In the Be-Know-Do sequence, let's not forget our Beingness.
We must not turn anti-English, but we can surely attempt to be non-English.
It means, English can be our language for the sake of easy of transaction, not thought. That still allows us to be as good in English as anyone else in the world.
Today's zero-summing is hurting us.
A lot of our ills today are due to the impact of the infamous Macaulay education system.
It was a system where one was made to feel that English-ness was the only ticket for escaping poverty, no matter how alien the language was to the Indian way of life.
Post independence, we continued it as a mandatory requirement for higher education, not mindful of the employ-ability for almost all of the population.
Even today, after 75 years of independence, only around 11% speak English as their first language of choice.
What's worse is that we look down upon those who don't speak good English and hold in awe those who do, especially if it carries an American accent.
Ironically, in words of none other than Rahul Gandhi, "The escape from poverty in India became more difficult than the escape velocity of Jupiter!"
Interestingly, the Chinese have not just translated but even sinicized a lot of foreign works, including the Gita, Bible, & Koran.
I believe that if an Indian Muslim student read her religious texts in an official Sanskritized version, i.e., in the vernacular language of her choice, be it Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, etc., she & her faith would be well served.
Currently, she risks being manipulated as she can't understand Arabic, and so is at the mercy of the middlemen. I guess she is somewhat shackled simply because she learns per the translators' vested interests and follows his agenda and not what the text prescribes.
Communication is the key to being upward bound.
In that, the first rule of effective communication is that your language should be aligned with the language in which your listener is having an internal dialogue. So, if Indians speak in English to an English man, it's all well, good, and understood.
Both's proficiency, if matching, adds to the effectiveness.
The distinction that comes to the fore is that between our wealth and wellbeing.
With English, one can get wealthy a wee bit more easily in India, even when very few speak it, and that is our peculiarity worthy of being ashamed of.
It doesn't mean others can't be rich. The issue is, some of us are wealthy just because we speak in English.
When one can't associate with the masses and vice versa because you are somewhat "foreign" to them & they to the you, your psychological well-being is that much compromised.
Nehru's 'tryst with destiny' speech, being in English, remained a speech writer’s joy as almost all Indians at the time couldn't understand the one who delivered it, and vice versa.
Modi is considered as one of the best communicator.
It is time that we get it that Modi's 'global leader' status is not because he speaks in English.
It is, because he thinks in "Indian" and therefore as an Indian PM and representative of his country, he can speak his mind with confidence.
That confidence comes with being at ease with his origin even in the international arena.
In the final reckoning, strength recognizes strength.
Sadly, within India, his speeches in Hindi are well understood by about half of the Indian population!
