Ek gaon mein ek kissan raghu thatha

The above sentence or rather dialogue is from a 1981 Tamil movie “Indru poi Naalai Va”(Go today, Come tomorrow), directed by K. Bhagyaraj. For those who have heard this dialogue earlier, they can directly relate it to “Tamilians” and “Hindi”.

Along with it, there is also a common complaint or rather assumption that “Tamilians” in particular are reluctant towards Hindi and sometimes even hate the language.  As I’ve spent majority of my days in “Tamil Nadu” (as of now J ), I feel that I can try and comment on this.

Ok, I’m not going to argue the same old facts that Sanskrit & Hindi came from Persia & Arabic and Tamil is the oldest Dravidian language etc.,  This is a different script and screenplay.

To put forward my points clearly, let me start with history..

The only state or province in India from ancient times, that was not ruled or not much impacted by Mughals, Nizam, Mauryans or simply “any kind of Hindi" speaking empires – is the modern day Tamil Nadu, then called “Thamizhagam”.

The Chera’s, Chozha’s & Pandiya’s ruled most of this area & for long. The Vijayanagara empire’s rule for 2 centuries (1370 to 1565) and the Nizam of Hyderabad & Nawab of Carnatic’s rule during 18^th century (supported by French & English) did not impact at all, as there were continuous rebels and oppositions from within the province. Other south states like Kerala, Karnataka & Andhra Pradesh had impacts from Middle-east trades, Mauryan empires & Nizams respectively.

The point made here is that no form of Hindi ever dominated or even entered Tamil Nadu. It was always seen as a foreign language.

During independence, it was calculated that 41% of India spoke or used some kind of Hindi, and in a hurry to have one national language, an order was passed that Hindi (in Devanagiri script) should be mandatory in all states and become the official language within 15 years of independence. English was allowed as an official language in the interim until 1965.

This led to a major protest from those areas where people have never pronounced a single Hindi word. And South Indian scripts are totally different to the Devanagiri script. You too will agree that nobody will like a foreign language to be made official in their state.

I’m not supporting this protest from the angle of blocking Hindi, but totally disagree with the 15 years’ time frame for an entire state to adopt a foreign language as official language and be proficient in it (And that too – to replace a local language which is arguably older & rightful than Sanskrit..!!) and also with the way it was handled.

This protest was led by Mr Annadurai (former CM of Tamil Nadu) supported by other South Indian states & even few supporters from West Bengal – requesting continuance of English as second official language. Major achievements of this protest were 1) continuance of English as the second official language and 2) conducting public services exam in all regional languages.

This also meant that Hindi could not be declared as the national language of India. So what if India doesn’t have a national language? Even the United States of America doesn’t have one..!

Actually, If not for Mr Anna and team, we wouldn’t have been able to market ourselves well enough to grab the I.T advantage ahead of China & other such countries. (I mean – we would have spoken English anyways, but not as good as today when it is an official language).

The political parties in TN who came to rule later, used this protest as a weapon to gather quick votes, and simply aggravated the emotions of innocent people by provoking them against the language.

Even now, one must accept that the impacts of those protests do exist. With India being largely & falsely represented by Bollywood & Cricket alone, the bias continues in the minds of many.

And to include, those reality shows on TV which are focussed on Hindi & Bollywood, but use the term "India", like India's best singer, India's best dancer etc., These only add up the irritation.  (Tamil & Malayalam channels also have reality shows and they use terms such as "Tamil Nadu's voice hunt", "Kerala's super singer" etc.,).

Also, In January 2010, Gujarat High court (bench headed by Chief Justice S J Mukhopadhya) gave decision against 'issuing directions that packaged commodities must contain details about goods in Hindi'.

So, no Indian citizen is under a compulsion to know or learn Hindi as such. It purely depends on the person, his/her mother tongue and his/her interest.

I’m not quoting the above as a justification or excuse for a Tamilian to not know Hindi – but just to help some people understand what it means on a bigger picture. If you come across an Indian who cannot understand Hindi, he/she cannot be blamed. On the other hand, if that person struggles in a place without knowing Hindi – it is their own fault, to not to have shown interest in learning it. The same applies for other languages also.

And whether you learn or not, every language has it's history & culture and must be respected.

Going forward, these kinds of arguments and issues will only divide India (further!). Being a secular country, just like how we don’t force any religion on others, language should also not be forced.

As we are hyper active in the global job & trade market, it is better to adopt English as a common language (where we are able to market our products & services efficiently), while we use our respective regional languages in our day-to-day life. Try to practice this and the south-north differences will vanish by itself.

I know that this blog is already late by 10-15 years, but hopeful that it is never late enough to change the perception of few people.

Till then, long live raghu thatha..!

And yes -my usual routine of explanation of Tamil words used in the blog:

The title dialogue is from a scene in a Tamil movie, where a guy visits the girl's house to learn Hindi from her brother in an attempt to woo her, but fails to pronounce it properly...! Rehtha tha becomes Raghu thatha, where, Thatha in Tamil means Grandfather..!