Manipulating Census Data: From British Raj to Hindi Raj
The External Affairs Minister of India S.M. Krishna has informed parliament yesterday that the Indian government is undertaking efforts to make Hindi as one of the official languages of the United Nations. He said “We are taking active measures to make Hindi an official language at UN. A high level committee is looking into it”. Currently only Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish are considered as the official languages.
This comes close on the heels of another language related issue in the Indian parliament. Members of the BJP, Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) threatened to walk out after Minister of State for Power Bharatsinh Solanki volunteered to speak in English when he realized that his speech to the parliament in Hindi was not being translated due to technical issues. Traditionally parliament proceedings (Upper House and Lower House) are available in both English and Hindi which are the two official languages of India (India does not have a national language).
Former union minister and Member of Parliament from Tamil Nadu T.R. Baalu said “What is the use of we sitting here if we don’t understand (what) the minister is saying?” But BJP leader Gopinath Munde said “Hindi is our national language. Nobody should oppose to it”. One of the RJD members was also head commenting that “No work will be allowed to take place in English; it’s a language of slavery”. Interesting comments to say the least.
Language is a very sensitive issue in India. Even the so-called nationalistic and “Hindu” parties and organizations like the BJP, VHP and RSS will not bulge an inch when it comes to the language issue. This is one of the key reasons why these organizations do not have mainstream support particularly in South India and Northeast India. People in these areas know that these parties want a brand of nationalism that is not inclusive.
The various governments that have ruled India have done a very good job of propagating the Hindi myth along with imposing Hindi. They have done this by inflating the history of Hindi, by manipulating census data and by grouping languages as a subgroup of Hindi when there is no scientific evidence for that grouping. Of course we all are well aware of the role that government-run media plays in the imposition of Hindi.
Many of us will be surprised at the extent to which governments all across the world manipulate population data fit their needs. India is no exception. You are likely to get an accurate picture of the number of people who speak a particular language from organizations like Ethnologue or from Microsoft Encarta rather than from any government including the government of India (more later on in this article).
We are told that “Shravakachar of Devasena” is the first work of classical Hindi literature. It was written in 933 ACE (about 1067 years ago). But there are some real issues with such an early dating for Hindi as a language. The modern Devanagari script emerged only in the 1100’s. In addition Sufi mystic and musician Amir Khusrow in his work “Pahelis and Mukaris” is credited with using the term Hindavi for the first time (Persian for “language of Hind”). This was in 1283 ACE. Hindavi is now what is considered as Hindustani.
Hindustani as we know is a language and a tradition that was greatly influenced by the Mughals (who mostly used Persian language in their courts but were Turkish). In the early 18th century two standardized forms of Hindustani emerged namely Hindi and Urdu (these are almost identical languages except for the fact that Hindi predominantly uses Devanagari script today and Urdu uses Persian).
How can Shravakachar of Devasena be the first texts in Hindi when the modern Devanagari script emerged only about 250 years later and the word Hindi did not exist in the lexicon? If Sharvakachar of Devasena is indeed in Hindi then it is by default the first Urdu text as well (it would obviously be one of the Hindustani texts also).
Most of us are taught and led to believe that Hindi is a language derived from Sanskrit. But this is an indirect connection and not the whole truth. Hindi is part of the Indo-European language family which also includes Sanskrit (Sanskrit is one of the older languages in this family but not the oldest). Within the Indo-European language family Hindi specifically is an Indo-Iranian language.
Hindi is a dialect of a language called Shauraseni (a language spoken around 1000 years ago near Delhi). Shauraseni itself is a language influenced by Persian and Turkish in addition to Sanskrit (Shauraseni incidentally is also the language that gave birth to Punjabi and Konkani). Shauraseni was used for creating classic Jain epics including Shatkandaagama and Ksyaayapahud. Why do Indians always highlight Hindi’s indirect connection to Sanskrit but downplay its direct connection to Shauraseni, Persian, Arabic and Turkic?
Let us now examine how the government of India manipulates language data. According to Ethnologue the number of people who claim Hindi as their mother tongue is approximately 182 million. According to Encarta it is 200 million. But in the 2001 census the Indian government said that the accurate number is 258 million. Even if government estimates are correct, Hindi is the mother tongue of only about 21% to 25% of India’s population.
This is only half the story. Think of what happened to the languages of Bihar in the last 200 years. The languages traditionally spoken in Bihar are Magahi, Bhojpuri and Maithili. Although millions of people in Bihar speak these languages (Bhojpuri alone is spoken by about 33 million people) they are not constitutionally recognized nor accounted for.
In 1881 Hindi was made the official language of Bihar (although few people in Bihar spoke Hindi at that time). After independence this policy was reinforced by the Bihar Official Language Act of 1950. From the 1961 census onwards all these languages speakers were counted as Hindi speakers in spite of the fact that these Bihari languages are as old if not older than Hindi and they are distinct languages and not dialects of Hindi.
History repeats itself in the state of Rajasthan also. The Rajasthani language although considered as a distinct language by many including the State of Rajasthan and the UGC, is still considered as a dialect of Hindi and counted as such.
There is another deeper problem. In general we do not have a good understanding of the languages spoken by the tribal people of India (SC/ST). Very rarely are the languages spoken by them accounted for properly. They are small in number in each state but overall they make up 24% of India’s population.
Many of these tribal groups speak languages that have Dravidian origins and not Indo-European. Some examples are: 1) one of the biggest tribal groups in MP is the Gondi people. The Gondi language is a Dravidian language 2) The Koya language (Dravidian) is spoken by people in Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra, and Chhattisgarh. But for the most part languages such as these are included as “Hindi dialects” (20% of the population of Madhya Pradesh are tribals who speak languages that are distinct from Hindi. Yet Hindi is the only official language).
It is interesting to note that the Indian Census Bureau counts Urdu and Hindi as different languages (although they are not) but then claims languages like Rajasthani, Magahi, Bhojpuri and Maithili as Hindi or dialects of Hindi (which they are not). Does this make any sense? How does government of India arrive at 450 to 500 million mark for the number of Hindi speakers in the country?
According to 2001 census 258 million of us claim that Hindi is our mother tongue (this number is highly exaggerated because we know that languages like Chhattisgarhi, Rajasthani, Magahi, Bhojpuri and Maithili which are distinct languages are included in this 258 million. The real number is around 180 to 200 million which is what is stated by Ethnologue and Encarta).
Then the government adds the approximately 60 million Urdu speakers to the 258 (if you add Hindi and Urdu, then it is not ethical or correct to call this combined group as Hindi alone. Why can’t this combined group be called Urdu or Hindustani or Indo-Iranian?).
The census bureau then adds 120 million on top of the Hindi-Urdu combination. The government believes there are 120 million of us who speak Hindi as a second language. This is a total farce. Educated Indians who travel and migrate to different parts of India can speak more than one language. But rural Indians are not bilingual to the extent that the government is trying to suggest.
Bilingualism is misunderstood in India. A Hindi speaker from Delhi can go to Gujarat and conduct business using common words, terminologies or phrases. But this does not mean that a Gujarati is bilingual and can speak Hindi. It is important to note that Bilingualism (and claims of bilingualism) is one of the strategies used by human beings to preserve their mother tongue (and therefore culture).
If there are 120 million Indians who claim they speak Hindi as a second language (highly unlikely) then this necessarily is not good news for Hindi. Bilingualism in a way is a measure of opposition to the second language. If there is no resistance then something called language shift would have taken place (where the mother tongue would be replaced by the second language).
I am not addicted to any language nor am I anti-Hindi. But based on the way the language data is collected and interpreted it is very obvious that the government of India is interpreting it in favor of Hindi. It is a gross exaggeration to state that about 500 million people in India speak Hindi. A straightforward look at the data clearly shows that the actual numbers are far less.
The BJP and the RJD politicians who objected to English being spoken in parliament are right when they say that English is the language of slavery (it should be noted that Hindi is much more closely related to English than Hindi is to Tamil). However, English is also the official language of India as per the Indian constitution and Indians should be allowed to speak in English wherever they choose to including the parliament.
When a government perhaps knowingly misinterprets data and promotes one language over the thousands of languages spoken in India and allows only one language to be spoken in the Indian parliament then what should be the term used to describe this language and those who are behind this movement?
Is Hindi becoming the language of the cultural imperialists?
“Language is power, life and the instrument of culture, the instrument of domination and liberation” – Angela Carter
Related posts:
- Should Hindi Be Taught In All Indian Schools?
- Promoting and Preventing the Tamil Language From Extinction
- India and United States Should Stop Census
- Tamil is Part of Indian Heritage
- History of India: The First Indians
Category: Culture & Religion
What ever be the debate on this topic, One can manage in all the Indian states if he knows Hindi but can not do so with languages like Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu etc.
S.R. Ayyangar,
I have heard this argument before. It is “wishful thinking” than something that is based on facts or research.
Hindi as a language is only as effective in rural Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh or Assam as Tamil is in Uttar Pradesh or Haryana. My mother tongue is Malayalam. As a kid when I travel to rural Tamil Nadu my Malayalam got me nowhere although these two languages are very closely related. This is even true in southern parts of Tamil Nadu which is less than 100 kilometers from the Kerala border. In border towns you can get away with speaking in either of the two languages.
I face similar issues when I travel to Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka as well. I find it hard to believe that somebody who speaks Hindi can communicate better in these southern states than I can with Malayalam.
I have also traveled to many places in north including Bihar. I did not have any trouble “managing”. I believe that you can “manage” in any language in India. There is nothing unique about Hindi in this regard. You can do it in English, Urdu, Malayalam or even sign language.
Verbal communication as they say is very overrated.
Hello Ayyanger
I respectfully disagree to the comment that you can manage in all indian states including southern states with Hindi.
I have lived for years in South, and have found people knowing only local language or they know english(imposed language)
This makes me learn tamil during my student days being a north indian. And now from past 10 year in Maharashtra, I have learned marathi. I can manage in almost all indian states and have great respect to all the indian languages including Hindi, my mother tongue.
But I agree, that I have learnt these languages out of compulsion, but not out of choice.
Language is a very touchy thing for Hindu fundamentalists. As is everything related to the imagined Hindu identity.
I never cease to be amazed at the things people use to separate themselves into groups. Skin color, caste, language, gender, nationality, economic status, location, ideologies etc.
After thinking about this, I’ve concluded that it’s in our nature to create groups one way or another. And we’ll just use whatever is at hand. If none of the above things are present,we’ll use eye color if we have to, but we must have segregation!
Good points Bhagwad. India has no business promoting Hindi only at the United Nations. India is a lot bigger than Hindi or a certain brand of Hinduism (visitors are advised not to eat beef, kiss, hold hands or wear a short skirt during Commonwealth Games in New Delhi). We are slowly falling into the same trap that our neighbors are trying to get out of. Economic recovery has given birth to a new very intolerant version of Hinduism. I hope reason will prevail.