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Getting Personal About Language

I grit my teeth as I write, but my dear friend Rajeev Srinivasan has apparently gone off the deep-end, given the content of his last two columns. It's not the 'deep-end' part that is hard to type, it's the word "friend". It's difficult not to take my friend's comments on language personally. As RS well knows, language and culture are very personal things.

What starts out as a column on language, degenerates quite rapidly into the same old: Hindu good, non-Hindu, bad; North Indians bad, South Indians good (but not all South Indians, only some). In other words, my kind good, anything else bad. Embedded in both pieces are infrequent references to some sort of cultural unity. These are token phrases, given the overwhelmingly divisive theme of the columns.

To err is human, they say, and RS has erred big-time this time. In Part I, referring to the languages of northern Indian states RS writes, "These languages are completely alien to the South Indian -- the words might as well be from Swahili." What he appears to be saying is if your don't know a language, it must be rot. Brilliant!

But, there's more. The columns repeatedly refer to "Hindi", when it isn't Hindi at all. My friend's ignorance, or to be generous, his confusion, surrounding Hindi, Urdu and Hindustani is astounding. It could be a deliberate attempt, I suppose, to divide Indians into the "pure" and "polluted". But, to give my friend the benefit of the doubt, ignorance, I'm sure, prompted him to declare:

* Hindi "has a rather poor literature." Uh, how would you know?

* Hindi "has no particular liturgical importance" And you call yourself a Hindu?!?

* Urdu "has become the lingua franca of Bollywood film songs."

How many times do I have to tell you dear, that's not Urdu you're listening to.

* Hindi "belongs to a narrow culture, that of the Gangetic Plain." There's a "Gangetic" culture? Oh, you mean "influenced by the Mughals."

In your rush to bash Indian Muslims, RS, you trip over the same rope over and over again. Hindi and Urdu are not the same language. You and others of your ilk have no problem distinguishing Italian from French, or even American English from British English. So why this mental block and disrespect for some Indian languages? Are you sure you're not (gasp!) a progressive, bending over backwards to please the West?

And, I didn't know you were into fusion. Why else would anyone suggest that a lyricist use Hindi and Urdu interchangeably in one verse? Would you also advise someone to write a column avec francais interspersed with English? Well, given Indians' awe for things Western, maybe you would!

It isn't about language at all, is it? It's about the polluted Indians you and others in your camp would like to see eradicated, like some airborne disease. But, since genocide has such an ugly ring to it, instead, you want the Indian government to treat us like second -- or third -- class citizens. Let us stay, let us live, but under a different set of laws and cultural standards than you who are allegedly pure. Separate and not so equal.

Language, or more specifically, my friend's version of 'Hindi' (for the rest of us, that's Urdu and/or Hindustani) is a cover to promote bigotry and hatred among Indians in India. In this case, to pit Indians who are Hindu against those who are Muslims. As if Indians didn't harbor enough hate, based on skin color, caste, socioeconomic status, literate/illiterate, gender, let's make sure religion, language, and "ethos" aren't left out of the mix.

That RS has been vocal about his feelings towards Indian Muslims is evident in his writing. Yes, he does cover it up with ...it's not Muslims (or Christians), it's the way the Indian government has protected them. Why does the phrase "whining spoiled brat" suddenly come to mind? "He got more milk than I did! Make him throw it up so I can drink it now! Waaaaah!" But, never has the anti-Muslim, anti-anything-different-than-me message come through more clearly than in my friend's pseudo-treatise on language.

The premise is crystal clear: "chaste Sanskrit"= pure Hindu = the only kind of Indian there is.

Here are some other gems:

"...garden-variety Hindi that seems to be in vogue in the North." Malayalam evolved as a language, but the rest of us just pick and choose a new one each day, it seems.

"...Sanskrit-heavy Hindi, Southerners could relate to.." There is only one Hindi. The Hindi that's not Urdu or Hindustani, by the way.

"...why India needs to give the language of its most bitter enemy, Pakistan, any great respect." How about respecting the languages of India, then? Hindustani and Urdu, along with a host of others, are languages Indians speak.

"To us [Malayalis], Sanskrit is not alien; and our languages have precise analogs for Devanagari, so that Sanskrit can be written exactly in Malayalam, Kannada or Telugu scripts." Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't written Hindi called Devanagari? And the difference between these two Devanagaris is...?

But, here's the crowning jewel (referring to the lyrics of Ishq bina from Taal):

"...apparently sufi qawwalis or some such."

Tsk, tsk, RS. And here I thought you were genuinely interested in the lyrics.

If you must announce your prejudices towards a religion, RS, at least follow the rules of a language you obviously do admire and couldn't communicate effectively without (English). `Sufi' refers to a religion. In general, names of religions are capitalised in English. Unless of course, one scorns it, as you apparently do. I also wonder, would you have added "or some such", if the song were based on a Malayalam verse?

Such venom directed at languages you don't know and can't even recognise.

I can hear some of you now, "You don't know what you're talking about, you haven't experienced what we have." You're right. I haven't. I wasn't raised to think one Indian culture or language is better or worse than another. I wasn't raised in the "Little Indias" that flourish now in each part of the US, where Indians can pick and choose from this kind of Indian or that. Back then, we were Indians. Some of you know what I mean. Those of you who grew up or live in India among a kaleidoscope of cultures and languages, where you have learned to respect your own and those of others.

Others of you, however, come from a very different place. It's the place where people who feel threatened are. When faced with the "different", you attack, you react. It must be an awful feeling, to be in your own country and not understand what people around you are saying. Even the basics become daunting. The feeling is somewhat familiar to me. When I moved from Midwestern US to Texas as an adult, I felt I was in "a whole other country," as a state slogan said. It was a strange experience, trying to learn a new vocabulary, nuances and the twang of Texan English. But at least it was still English.

I also know what it must feel like to travel from state to state in India where people have totally different native languages and cultures. As a student who was thrown into a German high school (after studying French for five years) I floundered and was resentful of my father's new job. And on visits to India I often forgot whether daiN was right or baiN.

It is a helpless feeling, that loss of control over something so simple. If I dwell on these experiences now, the feelings are not all pleasant. But, it doesn't mean I hate German people or disliked Munich then. And I don't blame rickshawallahs who didn't see me point to the right when I said "left."

Why are Indians so threatened by those who are different? Why do some hate other Indians so much? And if it isn't hate, why divide people with such inflammatory words? These are the same sentiments that allowed people around the world for generations to say "You are inferior because I don't like the color of your skin." Is this what you want for India? To continue this cycle of hate and bigotry?

Generation to generation, Indians are taught to hate because of religion, language, skin color, gender or how someone makes a living. Some of you preach revenge as the only means to progress, the only way for India to succeed. And you do so under the guise of patriotism, nationalism. Is your ultimate goal to shape a better future for India? Or, do you want Indians to keep looking back, not to learn, but to make someone pay?

It seems the majority of Indians remain mired in the muck of India's past, refusing to take responsibility for their own future, preferring to believe they are victims of 'history'.

Enough already.

India has moved on without those of you who are still tallying up the sins and mistakes of your past. Yes, your past. You who talk about a better India, a better Indian, you are who made India what it is today. You sat by as politicians controlled your lives. Your only claim to fame as Indians in recent times is Independence. You thought you could rest on the laurels of your parents, your grandparents. Some of you did so because you had no other choice, others had every advantage and opportunity, squandering them looking out only for themselves.

I cannot speak of what drives a resident Indian to promote prejudice; one would think it would be in their best interests to live and let live. From my vantage point as an Indian living in the US, it is also incomprehensible why some successful Indians settled here are now hell-bent on destroying the homeland they left.

These non-resident Indians have joined forces with a group of privileged resident Indians -- Indians who have the luxury of leaving poverty and corruption halfway around the world or dozens of floors below. These Indians can afford to discuss which language is better than another or what some Muslims and Christians did centuries ago. When combined, NRIs, returned NRIs and advantaged RIs are a force to be reckoned with, armed as they are with the ability to read and write, financial security and a soapbox.

And what are these advantaged Indians doing? They promote the following agenda: to succeed, Indians must exact revenge -- make everyone who ever did anything to some of us, pay. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." They did it to us, now we'll do it to them.

India's age-old tradition continues. Those who have money, time, words and opportunity continue to use those who have not as pawns. When the next bomb goes off, when the next priest or pandit is murdered, the "haves" will watch from afar and plan their next move.

Part I of Rajeev's column contained a most beautiful passage, one that must resonate with every Indian, every person who cannot separate who they are from the language they speak,

"This ethos, of the palm-fringed Arabian sea-coast, of lazy cargo barges floating down the quiet backwaters, of the heights of the Western Ghats, of pilgrimage to Sabarimala, all this to me is only fully expressible in Malayalam, the native tongue that has evolved alongside the culture."

It is clear my friend understands what language means to people. I doubt he believes only Malayalis can feel so passionately about or be permitted to fully express their culture through language. I have to hope this is true.

No one Indian language can fully or even adequately express the cultures of India, of its people. One has to wonder why anyone would declare, implicitly or explicitly, that any language could, or that one is better than another. One also has to question the motives of any Indian who provokes another by saying their language, their culture could be eradicated like some disease -- be it a columnist from Kerala or a politician from Delhi.

Reeta Sinha is a librarian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. She can be reached at reetasinha@yahoo.com

Reeta Sinha