By Ananya S Guha
The language issue has come up in Karnataka, as a resistance to Hindi. The Kannada Chief Minister’s demand for a separate flag is of course overdoing things. If every state demands a separate flag then where is the country? Sociologists and political scientists have always spoken of sub- nationalism in the country. If sub- nationalism takes on overtones of nationalism, then matters become complicated. Having regional flags is like having a nation state. The language issues in the country are varied and complex. There is a multiplicity and diversity in local levels having at the same time an allegiance to a single country. This singularity is a political dimension and the cultural dimension is plural. Pluralism then hinges on nationalism, which is varied and complex. Languages change even after few kilometres of geography. There are languages which are not scheduled, but they are languages all the same, revealing the spirit of a community or tribe and its very ethos.
But what prompts a Chief Minister of a state to say this, is indeed revealing and unmasks some unpalatable truths. It is jingoism which makes people say that there is one National language, and that it is official. Then what happens to the states which have their official languages, sometimes more than one? When we bind the country culturally, what is this one culture? The homogeneity and heterogeneity of a huge diverse country is the very issue of cultural complexity. Cultural unity will come only when such heterogeneity falls in order and is not discordant with the many languages in a country. Geography is in a sense, history. The change of landscape is change in culture, language, racial looks, food habits and even religion.
So what is happening is reaction. You thrust your language on me, I will revert the entire process. So if Karnataka says that all who come there must know the language, must compulsorily learn it, then in a way reactionary forces beget other reactionary ones. These things happen because we have an overdose of the language syndrome. Of course we know that Hindi is for official communication, but we converse in the language we feel comfortable with. That is why the Indian who speaks two or three languages stands out as an individual owing loyalty to the country, in the different languages he or she speaks. The colours of languages and cultures invest the country with innate strength and beauty, manifest in efflorescence of say, the Urdu language. It is history which presides over such flowering and assimilation of cultures. To quarrel with history can have disastrous consequences, fall outs being seen today rather ominously. To strike issue over a particular language, instead of seeking diversification in a culture spread with linguistic wealth can only have reactions such as that of the Chief Minister of Karnataka. The southern states especially Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have a history of separatism or separatist fights.
The entire issue revolves around the premise that this may be articulated by other regions. The political situation is tenuous, not because of political instability at the centre, but because of the flimsiness of projected superiority of culture and religion. Added to it is the myth of the cow, cow vigilantes and the obfuscation of religion, history and now language. The singular philosophy of the thus professed is antithetical to what the country is.
These are not good augury. Nor is the professed desire to devise a flag for the state. It indicates a reversal of history and turning back the clock. But why is this happening is the question? Perhaps because the reversal of history is working the other way too. The strict emphasis on a cultural monolith in the country! Then a linguistic one, then of course the sanctification of a particular animal, all these bludgeon history, and tend to divide the country leaving a fractured consciousness of the oneness, we have all been talking about.
Unless we learn each other’s language or adapt to cultural sensibilities of area specific people in this vast country, we will not be divested of ethnic moorings. We have to disperse as people, race or community members. This will not strike a discordant note but will be in harmony with the overarching diversity in the country. This will counter any strategy to make the country a huge monolith ignoring the other cultural streams revolving around it. Above all history is assailed in the most devious manner, the past is blacked out and obliterated, as if it did not exist. A rationale is being built for a country which existed even in very nascent stages with a super structure of technology. In other words the country existed even before it’s birth. These are difficult times and we are grappling with paradoxes, contradictions and projecting the inadmissible.
Languages are many, the country is one, the many language issue or the one language formula if it disrupts nationalistic formulations, the essence of which is quintessentially one, then there can only be severance and bedlam of chaos.