On the one hand, English is a colonial language. But I’ve also heard about fears of a ‘Hindi imposition’
I’m going to sneak in some Stalin “Marxism and the problems of linguistics” here. The bold marking is mine:
In this respect language radically differs from the superstructure. Language is not a product of one or another base, old or new, within the given society, but of the whole course of the history of the society and of the history of the bases for many centuries. It was created not by some one class, but by the entire society, by all the classes of the society, by the efforts of hundreds of generations. It was created for the satisfaction of the needs not of one particular class, but of the entire society, of all the classes of the society. Precisely for this reason it was created as a single language for the society, common to all members of that society, as the common language of the whole people. Hence the functional role of language, as a means of intercourse between people, consists not in serving one class to the detriment of other classes, but in equally serving the entire society, all the classes of society. This in fact explains why a language may equally serve both the old, moribund system and the new, rising system; both the old base and the new base; both the exploiters and the exploited.
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Marxism_and_problems_of_linguistics
I’m not Indian but I’m still a Global South person. My opinion is mostly no, we shouldn’t treat any language as a colonial imposition.
First of all, English is a lingua franca, it is almost always used a bridge to connect people with different mother tongues. Most former colonies, except for China, don’t have a non-European language that you can quickly teach 95% of your population to speak.
Second, a language is a product of the whole society, including its proletarians. Russian is also widely spoken in all former Soviet states, although it wasn’t forced down in a colonialist way. It benefits Soviet people as a lingua franca to this day.
Third, favoring/unfavoring a language can alienate some people, so this must be done sparingly.
Fourth, English being widely spoken in India benefits the West, but it also benefits India because it eases economic cooperation for developing the means of production. Also, one day it will be the Global South accepting immigrants from the West.
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No, unless a suitable non-north-indian replacement lingua-franca could be established along with hindi and even then that would bring its own contradictions, and therefore would not be possible.
It is always worth considering what would be the concrete implications for South India if Hindi was the only lingua franca with the current state of north-indian dominated hindutva and intra-nation racism.
A Dravidian language can be recognized as another official language. Either pick the most spoken of the Dravidian language or define a neutral standard Dravidian language that has the most common features of all Dravidian languages, such a thing has been done before.
Either that, or allow the south to be independent.
allow the south to be independent.
This may end up being the correct logical conclusion.
Right, because partitioning India has never gone wrong before.
Separation from India for Pakistan and Bangladesh was a national liberation struggle against hindutva for them. India has acted as a belligerent and fascist nation against its neighbours and its own citizens; it has been 6 decades since independence - what do you propose should be liberation for South India?
Believe me, you will find nobody on here who criticizes India more than me. I firmly believe their government is one of the most fascist and dangerous in the world, with only the US surpassing it in it’s support for Zionism, genocide, and anti-communism in the world today, I’ve even been accused of racism against Indians by apologists (here on Lemmygrad!) for criticizing the country’s failure to adequately address these problems.
However I don’t believe for a minute that balkanizing a region thats already previously been ripped apart twice in recent history with disastrous human cost is the answer. It has never solved anything to forcibly put up borders through countries that didn’t have them in the past.
Furthermore, what justification is there to say that “South” Indians are in need of liberation? As far as I can see both the north and south are equally fascist, happy to voice their hawkish support for war with Pakistan, or their disgusting and unending support for Israel. The only Indians I see who are really in need of liberation are the indigenous people who are literally fighting a war in the countryside to defend themselves from the government, the Naxal movement having come forth largely from this resistance to oppression. I don’t see how this changes if we end up splitting the country into two, we will just get two fascist Indian states at that point.
If you ask me, the solution is the same as it is in any fascist country, revolution, socialism, and for workers to realize that no amount of kowtowing to the west, or blaming their problems on Pakistan and Bangladesh will solve their problems, and that they need to remove their corrupt, evil ruling class and guarantee equal rights for all.
I don’t think we should romanticise naxalite adventurism; they like the CPI (well the Kerala faction anyway) have made great strides against Indian capital but they are the real world equivalent of the separation of the sickle (naxals) from the hammer (CPI), and with that their respective limitations.
South India is not homegenous like it has been said elsewhere and though local parties in power may capitulate chauvinist tendancies there is overwhelming support against North Indian aggression. Kerala itself was one of the first to interview and laud Palestenian resistance during the genocide. There are literal statues of Lenin as you approach the beaches there. There is mass mobilsation for womens rights and targeted poverty alleviation campaigns. Trans rights is bolstered into civic life and healthcare. There is greater than 95-98% literacy rates in a country of about 65%. It took revolutionary marxists to make these reforms possible. And you don’t get pogroms against muslims, christians and lower caste hindus like you do in the North.
And it should be said any seperatism should include socialist revolution with aim to submlimate the balkanisation otherwise you will just get a repeat of Eastern Europe. And I would like to stress I wasn’t advocating for this as a primary solution, it was a reply in the context of contradictions in addressing language chauvinism.
Is discontent with Hindi dominance and racism within India a large point of discontent for South Indians? If so to what extent would you say it is? I imagine if that were the case the government or atleast the BJP would like to keep the country together on the basis of religious nationalism, and thus try to curb this behaviour and thinking.
The South is not a monolith, and perspectives on the use of Hindi depend on the area. Tamil Nadu, for example, is known for having widespread anti-Hindi sentiment. In places like Telangana, Urdu is widely spoken, especially among Muslims, so there is likely less resistance to spoken Hindi, and many natives often speak Hindustani as a second language. In the past few years due to the IT boom many North Indians have come South and with it has come some anti-North sentiment although moreso on a personal interaction level than a political one.
Language is 100% a sensitive issue in the South however, and if Hindi is pushed to the point where it displaces English, it could be a very big political disaster for the central government.
Dravidian languages, while linguistically part of the same family, are incredibly different from each other the way that Standard Mandarin and Cantonese might be. They also have different scripts and no Dravidian language is major enough to be considered the “most common” so it’s doubtful that would be possible.
A constructed Dravidian language or English would probably be the main way to go. However, English is likely to remain in place due to the South’s need for connection between both the North and the West (especially in the case of IT).
Ok after doing some research it appears we’ve all been coming at this from a false premise, India doesn’t have english as an official language to begin with, in fact there is no official language in India.
They recognise a handful of languages from various parts of the country as “recognised languages”, and they have both Hindi and English as languages that are used by the federal government, but there is no overarching “official” status that any language, including Hindi and English have, unlike many other post colonial countries.
Nobody is required to learn Hindi or English in their schools, and it’s up to local legislation what languages are taught. I’m quite surprised considering how fascistic India is with most other things.
Edit: As a side note, where are our Indian comrades whenever a bunch of outsiders are making guesses and theories to try and understand this country? Help us out guys.
Yeah I wish there were more Indian comrades here. They know the most about this and their views are the most important.
Nobody is required to learn Hindi or English in their schools, and it’s up to local legislation what languages are taught.
That is true for government-run schools, which generally teach in the state language. Wanted to add that for private schools (which are becoming more popular for those who can afford it due to how badly liberalization has gotten public education), the parents can decide which language medium school they want to send their children to. Oftentimes, this is English medium but can also be in the local language. Urdu medium is also a popular choice in Muslim-majority areas.
I’m quite surprised considering how fascistic India is with most other things.
Despite the efforts of the BJP, India is as of now still a state built on federalism. Unfortunately, the push for Hindi is just one part of the plan to dismantle federalism and secularism in India, which would be a disaster considering how culturally different even neighboring states are, let alone North vs South India.
Interesting to know.
And yeah, I have no trouble believing the thing about private schools, it’s the same where I live, where people send children to “international” curriculum private schools where they are taught in English and share the classroom with mostly children of expats, I’m pretty sure this is a thing in every single non English speaking country at this point.
Yes, the roots of Colonialism should be torn out where ever it is found, it also enables the hideous labor exploitation and outsourcing by way of removing a language barrier between the UK>India which hurts workers on both sides.
Also for ‘Hindi Imposition’ I am not well versed enough to give a take on this, this is a UK perspective so il defer knowledge to others.
India has several hundreds of languages if you count indigenous and regional ones, out of which only 25 or so are even officially recognized by the state. I think what a lot of people don’t know is that It’s not just a Hindi vs sough Dravidian issue, but rather a local vs national language problem. India has always treated it’s indigenous communities poorly, as well as those that belonged to tribes or low castes, and imposing Hindi, or any other language over them is seen as an attempt to crush their identities.
Like what Napoleon did with French to France, but with Hindi to India. Something like that.
Note - France had many local different Gallo-Romance languages in that area, like Occitan, Normand, or Picard, that were institutionally and thus societally discouraged when French was standardized.
Let alone other languages like Alsatian or Basque
Thanks for bolstering my silly comment with more tangible data!
No problem!
Yes, under a socialist revolution. No, under capitalist federation bolstered by Hindutva.
Although English is colonial, it helps in maintaining the federal balance between states in India. Replacing English with Hindi would anger non-Hindi speaking states especially in the South. Replacing it with a constructed language would be unlikely since English has benefited India’s economy (one of the major reasons why Western companies outsource IT to India instead of China is because India has a large English-speaking population).
