Rajasthan #5: Language

A couple of things from our Rajasthan holiday resonated with what I had read in Peggy Mohan’s Wanderers, Kings and Merchants. When I commented to the hotelier it was good for tourists like me that everyone spoke Hindi, his reaction surprised me. No, he said, it’s only Jaipur that has adopted Hindi. The rest, he said, have been learnt Hindi because (1) none of the state’s languages are recognized in the Indian constitution; and (2) the most common medium of education in the state is Hindi.

 

He then added that a couple of MLA’s in the recently concluded state elections took their swearing-in oath in Marwari. But then had to re-take it in Hindi as well since (obviously) you can’t take a constitutional oath in a language not recognized in the constitution. Ironic? Amusing? Hurts? You decide.

 

We are Marwaris, he then added proudly, we speak Marwari. I remembered Mohan’s point that many languages in north India that we take to be dialects of Hindi are, in fact, closer to other languages. Like Bhojpuri, she said, which was closer to Bengali than to Hindi.

 

Back home, I was reminded of his (and Mohan’s) point when I used Google Translate to get the meaning of Rajasthan’s state slogan, “पधारो म्हारे देश”. Since I didn’t know how to type in Hindi, I typed the words in English and hoped Google would (auto) detect the language. It did. As Gujarati. It reiterated both points – it’s not Hindi; and Marwari isn’t a recognized language.

 

And here I thought only the non-Hindi belt feels Hindi is being imposed…

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