Language and regionalism..

This may be considered as a sequel to the previous blog. Here i am putting my take on language and regionalism.. 

Let us look at language as an axis of distinction and try to debate its efficacy in the Indian scenario. Let me not go into the State reorganization committee and its reports. That will be just a debate for the heck of it. Instead let us look at some historical evidences vis-a-vis language as a basis of division.

Many obituaries have been written about India and Indian democracy right from Mirza Asadullah Khan Galib in 1827 (Chirag-i-dair) to many many western liberals as early as 2000. All the obituaries were attributed to multi language and multi ethnic virtues, heritage and culture of India. The fact is that all of them were proved wrong to the amazement of many western observers and few Indians as well. 

In my opinion (Largely influenced by Dr Ram Guha), one strong reason for this is our rich linguistic tradition and division of India on basis of language. Let me substantiate this with historical evidences rather than putting my own arguments.

Indian national congress in the 1920s spearheaded by Mahatma Gandhi reconstituted the provincial committees on linguistic lines to foster administrative unity and efficacy. Congress also made promises that the states in India will be reorganized on linguistic lines post independence. Immediately after independence Gandhi advocated division of states on linguistic lines. 

Joseph Stalin, the Russian dictator tried to impose Russian throughout USSR without giving freedom and recognition to other languages. He was quoted as saying “ A national community is inconceivable without a common language and that there is no nation which at one and the same time speaks several languages”. This lead to the language policy of USSR where learning Russian was made obligatory (Source: Epilogue of "India after Gandhi" By Ramchandra Guha). We all know what happened to USSR in 1991.

Closer home, in 1956 when India redrew her map based on linguistic lines, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) did not recognize the separate state for Tamils and tried to impose Sinhala as the sole language. The county was torn by armed rebellion for over 50 years.

Jinnah warned the people of East Pakistan soon after independence that “Without one state language, no nation can remain tied up solidly together and function and that state language of Pakistan was Urdu and the people of East Pakistan have to take it up sooner or later” Bengali was never recognized as an official language of Pakistan and in 1971, we had a torn Pakistan. And today Bengali is the official language of Bangladesh.(Source: Epilogue of "India after Gandhi" By Ramchandra Guha)

There are many many such evidences in erstwhile Europe and USSR.

While we may think that language is a barrier and linguistic distinctions may foster balkanization, in reality it’s not so. On the other hand language has provided the basis of administrative unity and efficiency. It has also lead to an efflorescence of cultural creativity, as expressed in film, theater, fiction and poetry. 

It is Utopian to have these barriers vanished (It need not be considered as a barrier. Pride in one's language, in India, has rarely been in conflict with broader identification with the nation as a whole. Examples of secessionist movements in Nagaland (1950s), in Punjab (1980s) and in Kashmir (1990s) have affirmed religious and territorial distinctiveness, not a linguistic one)

Sociologically speaking, the “in-group” feeling is inevitable. Nationalism and regionalism stems from this and it’s a group phenomenon. Rashtrakavi Kuvempu who gave the world the “Vishwa manava Sandesha” (ವಿಶ್ವ ಮಾನವ ಸಂದೇಶ ) in the same breath said “Kannadave sathya, Kannadave nithya”(ಕನ್ನಡವೇ ಸತ್ಯ ಕನ್ನಡವೇ ನಿತ್ಯ)

Belgaum ,Aishwarya rai and Vishwa Kannada Sammelana.

I am writing this essay in continuation with the ongoing debate i am having with few of my friends on the issue concerning the recently concluded “Vishwa Kannada Sammelana” at Belgaum.

The issue which has created the controversy amongst us is the participation of Aishwraya Rai Bachan in the event as one of the Ambassadors for the language. There are other small debates on necessity of such events and that these events only increase linguistic barriers and regionalism amongs people of India. There is a powerful school of elite thought that linguistic division of states is harmful to the human spirit in general and democracy in particular. Let me try to address these issues.

Let me put my view about participation of Aishwarya rai in the event here. I will talk about my opinion on regionalism and language in the next blog.

First things first, the Vishwa Kannada Sammelana at Belgaum was just not a Kannada festival but largely a political event. Its arguable that the political dimension was indeed necessary for the cause of Kannada. Belgaum was carefully chosen since it is the border district and is a major zone of contention between Maharashtra and Karnataka. Belgaum has a significant Marathi speaking population and we have had sporadic secessionist movements in the area. Government of Karnataka has been progressively trying to consolidate its position in Belgaum. It has been officially declared as the second capital of Karnataka. Given the delicate geographical and linguistic position of Belgaum and in the wake of the Mahajan commission report, the choice of Belgaum as a venue was quite obvious. No other venue would have given the government the same political mileage.  No wonder the next event is planned at Kolar bordering Andra Pradesh. The subsequent event may be in Kodagu.

Politically, Aishwarya Rai bachan was an excellent choice as a participant in the Programme. Lady of Karnataka origin, brought up in Maharashtra (Mumbai), settled into a Hindi speaking, Mumbai based high profile family,  former miss world, Padmashree awardee, brilliant actress  and arguably the most beautiful woman in the world. She ignored the threat from a strong regional right wing pro Marati shiv sena and attended a kannada event in a politically sensitive area of Belgaum. Government in Karnataka could not have asked for more. Aishwarya rai’s presence has scored a huge political score for the Government of Karnataka vis-a-vis Maharashtra trying to consolidate its position over the border areas of Belgaum.

Keeping politics apart, lets try to debate if Aishwarya rai was the right choice for the event?. The arguments in favour of her presence are very powerful. Mostly it is to do with her many credentials which are recognized around the world. It is argued that she represents the Kannada people particularly the youth to the world. Given that this was the Vishwa (world) Kannada sammelana, Aishwarya rai having world recognition was the right ambassador.  It’s argued that only because of her presence and of course Narayan Murthy’s presence, the event got recognition on the front pages of the leading English newspapers including the Hindu. It is further argued that  her presence has taken the message of the event to the world.

The counter argument is predominantly coming from some of us who do not have anything against Aishwarya rai but are little upset about the choice of Aishwarya rai as an ambassador for the language at the event (and by the way she spoke Kannada , Listen to it here). It has certainly not gone well with certain sections of the society. Let us look at it from first principles. What was the message of the event? According to me the message was to get the world to acknowledge and appreciate the language, its richness, its diversity and its heritage and the same time promote it as much as possible locally and globally. It may be too early to say whether it has achieved this objective. Moreover we hardly have any metrics for its measurement. But let’s look at the ground evidences. It’s true that the event was featured in the front pages of English newspapers, but not beyond Karnataka. The regional newspapers in Tamil nadu did not even report the event let alone the foreign newspapers. None of the major electronic media reported it.

Secondly, we cannot have a brand Ambassador for the language who does not know how to even speak few sentences of it. How can we just accommodate someone just because she is beautiful and famous? What are her Kannada credentials?  She has not acted in a single Kannada film. She cannot speak a few sentences in Kannada.  Agreed that she is a brilliant woman, but did she fit properly as the Ambassador for the language?  I feel we just compromised on certain values for Glamour and popularity.