Viswanathan K's Thoughts

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...

The rise of Hindi. How and why did it happen? When languages clash for dominance, writes Peggy Mohan in Wanderers, Kings and Merchants , here is how things proceed. “Hindi, Braj and Awadhi did not sit down at a table to resolve their differences, shaping themselves into a single language with the best features of all… Like nature (the fight) is red in tooth and claw.”   Braj and Awadhi were older languages, with literature of their own. And yet Hindi won. Why? “There is nothing like being situated in a large urban center of commerce and political power (i.e., Delhi) to give a language an edge, even if the inner circle is speaking something else.” British rule then sealed the dominance of Hindi: “In British times, Hindi began its growth as a modern language of literacy, all the languages spoken in its sphere of political influence declared their loyalty.” Inevitably then: “As the size of the (Hindi) shadow grew, more and more of the one-time competitors found themsel...