26-05-2025
- Politics
- New Indian Express
How Hindi and fund crunch ‘unite' southern states in protest
Hindi is like the Aurangazeb of Indian languages. The Mughal emperor was ruthless when he aggressively stretched the borders into the Deccan and beyond. History tells us that both have been expansionists and steamrolled rivals into insignificance. Delhi's noble intention has been to 'unify' India that lay 'tukde-tukde' by a legion of regional languages. With a unifier — that's Hindi.
For southern states, Hindi had already ceased to hold the old charm. They have been busy exporting techies, doctors, nurses, and teachers in huge numbers to foreign lands and earning dinars and dollars (ignore Trump's new remittance law). Job markets in Mumbai and Delhi no longer fascinate them. And for the hardcore Bollywood fans, the Khans have begun to speak in Tamil and Malayalam in the new digital era. The two prime reasons to try out Hindi have thus died a natural death.
New Delhi clarified that the National Education Policy did not compel anyone to teach Hindi. It only wants every Indian to learn three languages. It can be Sanskrit (like some of the big northern states have now decided to go for) or any other Indian language. Quite big-hearted in its approach. All schools run by the central government (CBSE and KV) chose to teach Hindi as the third language, citing convenience.
Given that a lot of Indian students are migrating to foreign universities for higher studies, can they opt for Spanish, German, French, Arabic, or Chinese as their third language? The quick retort comes with a snub: it is more about one's culture and values. Not everyone is a linguaphile. Some love to learn languages; some do not.
