Hindi as a national link language? || Acharya Prashant, with IIT-Ropar (2022)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...   Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articl... ➖➖➖➖➖➖  Video Information: 16.05.2022, IIT-Ropar, Greater Noida, U.P.  Context:  What is nationalism? Is nationalism good or bad? Is nationalism in India easy? What is the origin of Indian nationalism? What is relation between Nationalism and Vedanta ?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00My name is Ashish Joshi. I have been following you for the past couple of years. Everything

00:09that I know about spirituality, it somehow roots towards you, which is why I have this

00:15question arises. You've always spoken of the spiritual lineage, right from the sages who

00:20wrote the Upanishads and then to Jagatguru Shankaracharya, to Ramanujacharya, to Saint

00:25Kabirdas, Swami Vivekananda and so on. In my opinion, what these saints do was they

00:32created a spiritual awakening to bring about a spiritual identity with which the entirety

00:37of Indians could identify themselves with. Now, you have always spoken of this spiritual

00:43identity as well and you have said language is a primary differentiator for the cause.

00:47How we should always regard Hindi as our mother tongue and how we should propagate it with

00:53all our might. And I do agree with it completely. But the thing is when we talk about creating

01:00this identity for entire India, there are different languages. There was this recent

01:06issue with Tamil language as well. So, I was wondering whether this multiplicity of languages

01:12would create an obstacle in our journey towards creating a common spiritual identity which

01:17we all could share. Thank you Acharya ji.

01:21You see, I have talked of Hindi as representative of all Indian native languages. I have not

01:37even once thought or said that all of India should quit its native language and switch

01:48to Hindi. In fact, I have repeatedly said if you will listen to the videos or read the

01:56books that the Gujarati should be able to take pride in Gujarati and the Tamil in Tamil,

02:06the Bengali in Bengali, the Punjabi in Punjabi. When I talk of Hindi, it is in context of

02:18the colonization by a single language, English. And the problem is not merely at the language

02:28level. The problem is actually spiritual because it is not a language that Indians are adopting.

02:42It is actually a legacy that Indians are dumping. When you switch from let's say Hindi to English,

02:55it's not merely a change of language. There is lot else that changes and in that change

03:05there is something very important that you leave behind. When you quit Hindi, you are

03:16quitting not merely Hindi but certain very important values. Similarly, when you imbibe

03:25English, it is not just English that you take in. There is a lot more that is not particularly

03:35useful that you absorb along with the language, new language. That's what I keep objecting

03:44against. In fact, there was this recent controversy. Some movie actor from I think the Kannada or

03:56Telugu cinema, he said that the dubbed movies from the South are doing so well in the North

04:08in the Hindi heartland. So, that proves that Hindi is no more the national language and then

04:15there was some retaliation and such things. When you talk in terms of the South accepting

04:34Hindi as the link language, I see a problem there. How many Northerners know even one

04:50Southern language half properly? How many Northerners even intend to know Tamil, Telugu

05:08or Malayalam? And then you say that Hindi should be the link language all over India. If I will

05:20belong to the South, I would say, well, I have no problems. Hindi is an important language.

05:27Hindi is a language of my country. But tell me please, is the onus of learning a language

05:36from another region only on the Southerners? The Northerners will not even try to learn

05:48any language apart from their own. And if you see objectively, a lot of people in the

06:02South actually do know Hindi. They have a working knowledge. In fact, I would say a

06:13majority of people in the South can comprehend Hindi. Even if they can't read or write it,

06:21they will comprehend it. But you come to the North, how many people understand Kannada or

06:32Telugu? How many schools even offer a choice? So it's the Northerners that have done Hindi a

06:45disservice by remaining so indifferent to the great languages of the South. And again,

06:55the problem is spiritual here. In the North, there is such a deep inferiority complex that

07:05kids are encouraged to learn German or Spanish, even Chinese these days, compared to Tamil or

07:13Telugu or Bengali or Udiya or any Indian language. We call ourselves Indians, but we are deeply

07:23ashamed of India. And you tell this to a parent and he will say, what will my kid gain by learning

07:32Telugu? Opportunities lie in Mandarin. Opportunities lie in French or Spanish or Japanese or whatever.

07:41Now if your definition of opportunity is merely material, then no one can save you. No one can

07:53save you. We think of Southerners as opposing Hindi. I just do not think that way. In the South,

08:12Hindi has largely been accepted. But what do you want them to do? You want them to stop speaking

08:19Kannada and completely switch to Hindi? Is that the kind of vicious and infantile idea you have?

08:29They already know Hindi. They at least understand Hindi. Won't you look into the mirror and ask

08:41yourself, how much of Kannada do I know? Right now, when people in Delhi talk of Hindi as a

08:52national language or a link language, it makes the people in South both insecure and also resistant,

09:04angry. Because they are seeing the kind of discrepancy and imbalance. There is no reciprocity.

09:12And I will side with my countrymen from the South. Let schools in the North offer a bouquet of at

09:33least three, four Indian languages as optionals. Stop this nonsense. Why are kids learning these

09:43so-called international languages? You have Hindi, you have English. Beyond that, if you

09:51want one more language, let it be an Indian language. And then you will find Hindi gaining

09:59respect and acceptability in the South. The arrangement has to be reciprocal, no?

10:06Why should only Hindi be the link language when you speak to a Tamilian? As a Hindiwala,

10:14when you speak to a Tamilian, why do you expect the Tamilian to know Hindi? Why can't you know

10:21just a bit of a smattering of Tamil? Wouldn't that be respectful? No? And if you can speak

10:33a bit of Tamil, you will find he will happily reciprocate by speaking a bit of Hindi. And

10:39that's the way healthy relationships are. Nobody wants to be dominated. Nobody wants

10:51to be linguistically colonized. When I say Hindi stands for certain values, I am talking

11:03of spiritual values. And freedom is one of them. And it's not that only Hindi stands

11:15for those values. And it's not that English does not stand for those values. If you want

11:21to have a discussion on the relationship between language and values and culture, that's a

11:29different thing. I have already had those discussions, they are well documented. Right

11:35now we are talking of the relationship between the North and the South and the link language

11:38matter. Yes, please.

11:44I am sorry, sir, I was not able to express my question correctly. I believe it was not

11:57exactly about maintaining Hindi as the link language. I wanted to know how to bring about

12:03this spiritual identity in its totality when we have so many different languages.

12:13What do you mean by that?

12:14I mean, like, your domain, mostly, I mean, although the content that you offer is not

12:22language specific, it applies to all the languages and all the speakers. But the content

12:28is generally available in English and Hindi. And how do we convey it to the tens and hundreds

12:36of languages that are spoken in the entirety of India?

12:41By translating it. What else?

12:49By translating it. And translation is not that big a problem. You see, it's already

12:54mechanized, it's becoming more and more automated. It's just that it's not very accurate at

13:02this stage. Machine learning will make translations very accurate.

13:09Thank you, sir.

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