Latest news with #Devy
Indian Express
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
In Mumbai, the privileged rarely get slapped for not knowing Marathi. Does that mean we shouldn't learn it?
In his 2024 profile of Professor G N Devy for the New Yorker, Samanth Subramanian writes: 'The purpose of the colonial imposition of English, he [Devy] wrote in his 1992 book, After Amnesia, was not so much to 'civilize India as to institutionalize the British view that India was uncivilized.' After Amnesia positions Indian languages like Gujarati, Marathi, and Kannada against not only the engulfing influence of English—a common villain of post-colonial thought—but also that of Sanskrit before it.' As Subramanian explains, Hindu nationalists view Hindi as Sanskrit's spiritual successor. For them, shuddh Hindi is our country's true linguistic identity, the language that should grace the lips of all who live in India, that is Bharat (That Hindi itself evolved over centuries and carries more than a strong whiff of Persian is, of course, never acknowledged). Through his work with the People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI), Devy has made it his life's mission to combat this notion. The PLSI conducts nationwide surveys to 'map India's motley splurge of languages' and preserve vernaculars and dialects, particularly those of vulnerable communities. This meticulous, academic approach adopted by the PLSI to contest the 'engulfing influence' of Hindi is remarkable, but also a rarity – more often, Hindi's clash with regional languages only sparks violence. In recent weeks, a brace of government resolutions issued by the ruling dispensation in Maharashtra has caused much political discontent. The first resolution, proposing Hindi as a mandatory third language in primary schools, was condemned by the opposition and branded as a nefarious 'imposition of Hindi'. The government first reacted by nixing the word 'mandatory' to make the study of Hindi optional, but later, revoked both resolutions altogether. While making these announcements, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra was at pains to clarify that his government 'had always given the highest priority to Marathi'. These words did little to assuage his critics. Protests were planned, demonstrations held, and, in what has become a hallmark of political activism in our country, civilians suffered as strongmen flexed. In the latest incident in Mumbai, a group of men affiliated to the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) were caught on camera assaulting a shopkeeper, allegedly after demanding that he speak in Marathi. The attack made headlines and further roiled troubled waters. Even a former commando, Praveen Teotia, waded in to warn against using language to 'divide the nation'. The warning is nothing new. In India's cosmopolitan centre of film and finance, getting slapped over the language you (cannot) speak is not uncommon. Unless you're protected by your bubble of elite privilege. Zealous party workers who seek to establish regional dominance through physical force find it easy to punch down. The target of their ire is almost always the watchman, the delivery guy, the shopkeeper. A working-class migrant is twice condemned: First, as the interloper who usurps jobs, and second, as the rogue who disrespects the local language, if only by not knowing it. In truth, you can live and work in Mumbai for years and have little engagement with Marathi. When your days are spent in glass-and-steel corporate parks, high-rise condominiums, and chic cafes, Marathi rarely intrudes into your life. You know it exists around you but you only catch glimpses of it, like looking at cars speeding in the opposite direction. On the rare occasion that someone speaks to you in Marathi – a bank employee, say – and you politely ask them to switch languages, they comply without demur. Annoyance, if any, finds expression in a frown, nothing more. You are, after all, a valuable customer with a dizzyingly high limit on your credit card. It would not do to upset you; slapping you for refusing to speak Marathi would be out of the question. Every time I see reports of Mumbaikars being beaten for not knowing Marathi, I wonder if it is my privilege that has protected me during my 15 years in this city – or just the fact that I've not yet run into an ardent local politician. This thought is chased by another: Do migrants, like me, have a duty to learn the local language? This question has troubled me for years, though evidently not enough for me to learn Marathi and put it to bed. I tell myself that when I was growing up in Kolkata, I knew many people whose Bangla was rudimentary at best. I never demanded they learn my mother tongue, so why should the same latitude not be offered to me now? But it's not just about language. If you strip off the machismo, the coercive demand to learn the local tongue mutates to the more reasonable expectation that new settlers should respect local culture. That is a valid ask, no doubt. Marathi – like every other regional language in India – needs to be recognised and feted. Our linguistic and cultural diversity should not be subsumed by a monolithic identity. But if the fight is truly against the imposition of a single language upon thousands of local bhashas, then being unfamiliar with any one bhasha can never tantamount to disrespect. In fact, given our linguistic richness, even the bhasha you consider to be your own may begin to sound foreign in a neighbouring village. In the New Yorker article about Devy, Subramanian presents an endearing example to show the kaleidoscopic nature of Marathi, and indeed, all Indian languages: 'Kolhapur was just an hour north of where Surekha had grown up, but her version of Marathi was so different from Devy's that when he first visited her family, he told me, 'I made them laugh.' … The papaya has a feminine gender in Devy's Marathi and a masculine gender in Surekha's. 'Even today, when we go to the market to buy fruit, we try to correct each other', he said.' Languages, even when they're different, can happily coexist. As long as one doesn't seek supremacy over another. Banerjee is a Mumbai-based lawyer and writer
The Hindu
24-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Linguist calls for cultural unity among speakers of Dravidian languages
Linguist Ganesh Devy has called for cultural unity among Dravidian languages. 'We should all realise that no language is our enemy. Tamil or any other South Indian language is not the enemy of Kannada,' he said in Dharwad on June 22. 'There is no point in harbouring hostility towards speakers of Tamil or any other southern language, or vice versa. Our real opposition should be directed towards Hindi imposition,' he said after inaugurating a symposium 'The Identity of the Kannada Language organised by the Karnatak Vidyavardhakh Sangha. Prof. Devy emphasised the need for unity among the Dravidian language-speaking States of the south to launch a collective resistance against Hindi imposition. He said that population growth in south Indian States is declining, while the population in Hindi-speaking northern States is increasing. Delimitation (reallocation of Lok Sabha constituencies) based on population in the future is likely to reduce the number of constituencies in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Kerala, and an increase in the north. As a result, southern States could have reduced representation in Central politics, he warned. He said that southern States must stop quarrelling among themselves and recognise this emerging political marginalisation. 'We must understand northern Indian politics, and coexist peacefully. Why fight between languages? Earlier, the British followed a divide-and-rule policy. What's happening now is similar. People speaking Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Marathi are being divided and ruled. This must end immediately,' he said. Veteran writer Sangamesh Savadattimath said a controversial statement by a so-called scholar about the origin of Kannada language had awakened the pride of Kannada speakers, likening them to a sleeping lion that has now risen as a roaring tiger. He noted that occasional provocative remarks by certain Tamil and Marathi chauvinists continue to stir Kannada pride. However, once the response comes out, those voices fall silent. 'It is unfortunate that regardless of which government is in power, the struggle to preserve Kannada continues,' he said. KVS president Chandrakant Bellad released Bhashe-Buduku, a book edited by Santosh Hanagal, the presence of KVS general secretary Shankar Halagatti, Dhanvant Hajavagal, Veeranna Waddin, and Sanjiv Kulkarni.
