Studying in mother tongue instils values, aids better understanding: Chief Justice
"Whatever position I have reached today, my teachers and this school have played a significant role in it. The education and values I received here gave direction to my life. My journey in public speaking began on this very stage. Through speech competitions and cultural programs, I gained confidence. It is because of those opportunities that I am what I am today," he said.Reflecting on his experience studying in Marathi, Justice Gavai reiterated the importance of mother-tongue education, noting that it fosters a deeper understanding of concepts and builds a strong moral foundation.The visit culminated in an emotional tribute by current students, leaving the Chief Justice visibly moved. The CJI felt proud and deeply emotional after the heartfelt tribute given by the students, the release stated.- EndsMust Watch
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They see massive funds being allocated for Hindi to be made a language of the United Nations Organisation. Speakers of Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam see this and understand the politics behind it. They, too, are citizens of this republic. They, too, are entitled to cultural dignity and state resources. But Hindi gets a differential treatment by the Union government, privileged over others. Why must one learn Hindi? Is it a repository of global knowledge? A gateway to world literature? Would a Tamil speaker feel drawn to Hindi for these reasons? The answer is no. Nor is Hindi a bridge to the country's many languages. Translation initiatives, by Sahitya Akademi, National Book Trust, remain sparse and focused mostly on creative literature. Most of these works are already more widely accessible in English. Once again, Hindi appears optional, not essential. It is unfortunate that the BJP continues to feed the illusion that Hindi is now receiving its rightful place through measures like introducing it as a medium of medical or engineering education. These initiatives were announced with fanfare and quietly abandoned when students rejected them. Yet, the party continues to boast of these policies, misleading Hindi speakers and offering them a false sense of linguistic pride. They live in a bubble of self-deception. Today, Hindi's most potent function is not literary or cultural but political. That explains the opposition to it. The Hindiwalas often say that it is the politicians of these non-Hindi states who oppose Hindi whereas the people are learning it. That is exactly the point. There is no opposition to Hindi as a language but Hindi as the vehicle of North India-centric majoritarian politics. Hindi is vital to the project of Hindutva. One must ask why the ideologues of Hindutva, most of them from Maharashtra, choose Hindi as their language of power? The answer is not cultural, but demographic. The Hindi belt is the largest reservoir of the imagined Hindi/Hindu majority. Here, Hindutva manufactures its strength of numbers. How is this number fabricated? Those who identify Hindi as their mother tongue are often either Bhojpuri or Maithili or Bajjika speakers. Hindi is not their first language. But they are counted as Hindi speakers which helps swell the number of Hindi speakers. Those who remember Partition can recall how Urdu speakers entered Hindi as their mother tongue. The battle for Hindi and against Urdu was fought in the medium of Urdu. This was to inflate the numbers of the Hindi speakers. In this sense, Hindi is not a language but an instrument of majoritarian politics. Three years ago, a Bengali friend from Jabalpur told me of an interesting event. A senior leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – himself a Bengali – addressed a gathering of Bengalis in Hindi in a bold, even insolent, gesture. His reasoning: Bengalis, he claimed, originally migrated from Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh, so Hindi is their true tongue. They must adopt and own it as their language, he insisted. This is the logic behind the RSS slogan in Bengal: 'No Durga, No Kali; Only Ram and Bajrangbali.' To replace Durga with Ram is to overwrite Bengali cultural identity with a north India-centric Hindi-ised Hindutva identity. Similarly, the elevation of the deity Vamana over Bali in Kerala represents an effort to impose a Sanskritic, North Indian order on Dravidian memory and Malayalam culture. Let there be no ambiguity about the project of this political Hindi: the Hindi promoted today is not the Hindi of Gandhi, writers and poets like Premchand, Mahadevi Verma, Muktibodh, Agyeya or Omprakash Valmiki. It is not the syncretic Hindi that embraced Urdu. What is seen today is a purified, Sanskritised and sanitised version, purged of 'foreign' words, molded into a Hindu tongue. This is a resentful, weaponised Hindi, the Hindi of Hindutva. That is why political scientist Suhas Palshikar warns that leaders like Raj Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray, if they continue their dalliance with Hindutva, will soon find themselves ensnared by this Hindi. Hindutva and Hindi are no longer separable. Why else would Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis advocate Hindi, or Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan champion it in the Telugu state? The answer is clear: both are emissaries of Hindutva's politics and Hindi is now its standard. Hindi speakers, too, must confront this uncomfortable truth. For their own sake, and for the sake of Hindi, they must begin the difficult task of disentangling their language from the ideology that now speaks in its name. The sooner this happens, the better. For Hindi. And for the republic.
