This or that?!

This post is a part of Incredible Blogger Marathon Challenge

The task is to select an article from any newspaper and discuss.

I have chosen an article from “The Hindu” dated June 18, 2017. (link)

India is diverse in many aspects. Linguistic diversity is one among them. After independence, the leaders reorganised the states of India on the basis of the language. There are almost 1652 languages, and the official languages are Hindi and English. So it’s natural to get confused on choosing a language apt to be a national language/link language.

When people from different states of India meet, I bet this would be one of the most discussed topics, one side supporting Hindi and the other not supporting (I wouldn’t say oppose). I try to avoid but couldn’t escape such discussions. What I observed is, both sides are ready with answers, and their aim is to make the other one accept it’s opinion, and neither of them is willing to listen to what the other one says and this discussion will go on forever.

Some of the not so controversial points from those conversations:

Hindi should be the link language because 41% of the Indian population are native Hindi speaker- 1
Why should the rest 59% speak it for the sake of 41%? Why is it considered superior over other languages? -2

Why are you resisting to learn something new?-1
Why are you imposing? It’s my rights to decide whether to or what to learn. We have been doing good for thousands and thousands of years without a uniform language.-2

why you are against Uniformity?-1
A nation needs Unity, not Uniformity. India is diverse, why are you trying to paint it in monochrome?-2

why can’t you accept Hindi when you accept a foreign language, and most people are inaccessible to English?-1
So is Hindi. It is as foreign as English to some people.-2

When you move to the other states will you be learning a new language wherever you go?-1
Yes. If I am capable of having jobs in different states, I am capable of learning the new languages too.-2

Why won’t you add Hindi to your list? Why are you so against Hindi?-1
We not against it. We oppose when you impose. We will speak a language if we want to. We are against your intention-2

(I have excluded many points).

And this is a never ending tug of war. Neither of them is right or wrong. But if this goes on forever it will create a cleft, and anything which creates a gap between people is not good. We have to put this conversation to rest for few more decades.

The author of this article, Ramesh Krishnamoorthy suggests a solution to this problem. He feels that “sign language” should be the link language of the country. He feels that it should be a part of the school curriculum and within sixty years 80% of people will be able to communicate this way.

Given the situation, it’s better to learn sign language. We can have the above conversation without draining our energy for as long as we wish, without worrying about grammar or vocabulary.