Hindi as a national link language? || Acharya Prashant, with IIT-Ropar (2022)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00My name is Ashish Joshi. I have been following you for the past couple of years. Everything

00:09that I know about spirituality, it somehow roots towards you, which is why I have this

00:15question arises. You've always spoken of the spiritual lineage, right from the sages who

00:20wrote the Upanishads, and then to Jagadguru Shankaracharya, to Ramanujacharya, to Sant

00:25Kabir Das, Swami Vivekananda and so on. In my opinion, what these saints do was they

00:31created a spiritual awakening to bring about a spiritual identity with which the entirety

00:37of Indians could identify themselves with. Now, you have always spoken of this spiritual

00:43identity as well, and you have said language is a primary differentiator for the cause,

00:47how we should always regard Hindi as our mother tongue and how we should propagate it with

00:53all our might. And I do agree with it completely. But the thing is when we talk about creating

01:00this identity for entire India, there are different languages. There was this recent

01:05issue with Tamil language as well. So, I was wondering whether this multiplicity of languages

01:12would create an obstacle in our journey towards creating a common spiritual identity which

01:17we all could share. Thank you Acharyaji.

01:21You see, I have talked of Hindi as representative of all Indian native languages. I have not

01:37even once thought or said that all of India should quit its native language and switch

01:48to Hindi. In fact, I have repeatedly said, if you will listen to the videos or read the

01:56books that the Gujarati should be able to take pride in Gujarati and the Tamil in Tamil,

02:06the Bengali in Bengali, the Punjabi in Punjabi. When I talk of Hindi, it is in context of

02:18the colonization by a single language, English. And the problem is not merely at the language

02:28level. The problem is actually spiritual because it is not a language that Indians are adopting.

02:42It is actually a legacy that Indians are dumping. When you switch from let's say Hindi to English,

02:54it's not merely a change of language. There is a lot else that changes and in that change

03:04there is something very important that you leave behind. When you quit Hindi, you are

03:16quitting not merely Hindi but certain very important values. Similarly, when you imbibe

03:25English, it is not just English that you take in. There is a lot more that is not particularly

03:35useful that you absorb along with the language, new language. That's what I keep objecting

03:44against. In fact, there was this recent controversy. Some movie actor from I think the Kannada or

03:56Telugu cinema, he said that the dubbed movies from the South are doing so well in the North

04:08in the Hindi heartland. So, that proves that Hindi is no more the national language and then

04:15there was some retaliation and such things. When you talk in terms of the South accepting

04:34Hindi as the link language, I see a problem there. How many Northerners know even one

04:50Southern language half properly? How many Northerners even intend to know Tamil, Telugu

05:08or Malayalam? And then you say that Hindi should be the link language all over India. If I belong

05:20to the South, I would say, well, I have no problems. Hindi is an important language. Hindi

05:27is a language of my country. But tell me please, is the onus of learning a language from another

05:36region only on the Southerners? The Northerners will not even try to learn any language apart

05:50from their own? And if you see objectively, a lot of people in the South actually do know Hindi.

06:03They have a working knowledge. In fact, I would say a majority of people in the South can comprehend

06:15Hindi. Even if they can't read or write it, they will comprehend it. But you come to the North,

06:29how many people understand Kannada or Telugu? How many schools even offer a choice? So it's

06:41the Northerners that have done Hindi a disservice by remaining so indifferent to the great languages

06:51of the South. And again the problem is spiritual here. In the North, there is such a deep inferiority

07:01complex that kids are encouraged to learn German or Spanish, even Chinese these days,

07:10compared to Tamil or Telugu or Bengali or Udiya or any Indian language. We call ourselves

07:21Indians, but we are deeply ashamed of India. And you tell this to a parent and he will say,

07:28what will my kid gain by learning Telugu? Opportunities lie in Mandarin. Opportunities

07:37lie in French or Spanish or Japanese or whatever. Now if your definition of opportunity is merely

07:48material, then no one can save you. No one can save you. We think of Southerners as opposing

08:03Hindi. I just do not think that way. In the South, Hindi has largely been accepted. But what do you

08:16want them to do? You want them to stop speaking Kannada and completely switch to Hindi? Is that

08:24the kind of vicious and infantile idea you have? They already know Hindi. They at least understand

08:36Hindi. Won't you look into the mirror and ask yourself, how much of Kannada do I know?

08:44Right now, when people in Delhi talk of Hindi as a national language or a link language,

08:54it makes the people in South both insecure and also resistant, angry. Because they are

09:08seeing the kind of discrepancy and imbalance. There is no reciprocity. And I will side with

09:18my countrymen from the South. Let schools in the North offer a bouquet of at least three,

09:33four Indian languages as optionals. Stop this nonsense. Why are kids learning these so-called

09:43international languages? You have Hindi, you have English. Beyond that, if you want one more

09:52language, let it be an Indian language. And then you will find Hindi gaining respect and

10:01acceptability in the South. The arrangement has to be reciprocal, no? Why should only Hindi be

10:10the link language when you speak to a Tamilian? As a Hindiwala, when you speak to a Tamilian,

10:15why do you expect the Tamilian to know Hindi? Why can't you know just a bit of a smattering

10:24of Tamil? Won't that be respectful? No? And if you can speak a bit of Tamil, you will find he

10:35will happily reciprocate by speaking a bit of Hindi. And that's the way healthy relationships

10:41are. Nobody wants to be dominated. Nobody wants to be linguistically colonized. When

11:00I say Hindi stands for certain values, I am talking of spiritual values and freedom is

11:06one of them. And it's not that only Hindi stands for those values. And it's not that English does

11:17not stand for those values. If you want to have a discussion on the relationship between language

11:24and values and culture, that's a different thing. I have already had those discussions. They are

11:32well documented. Right now, we are talking of the relationship between the North and the South

11:37and the link language matter. Yes, please. I'm sorry, sir. I was not able to express my question

11:54correctly, I believe. It was not exactly about maintaining Hindi as the link language. I wanted

12:01to know how to bring about this spiritual identity in its totality when we have so many

12:09different languages. What do you mean by that? I mean, although the content that you offer is

12:21not language specific, it applies to all the languages and all the speakers. But the content

12:28is generally available in English and Hindi. And how do we convey it to the tens and hundreds

12:36of languages that are spoken in the entirety of India? By translating it. And translation

12:51is not that big a problem. You see, it's already mechanized, it's becoming more and more automated.

12:56It's just that it's not very accurate at this stage. Machine learning will make translations

13:08very accurate. Thank you, sir.

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