I would like to say my personal views as a South Indian living in SI, from my personal experiences.
Firstly, I have studied Hindi as my second language in school, ICSE syllabus - which was very difficult, but let me say that I don't remember most of what I've studied :p
And, this is the case with most of my class fellows who have opted for Hindi as their second language - it wasn't forced down upon us, it was a choice made. And through we wrecked our heads and scored well, most of us forgot more than half of the difficult words we studied..
So, I do not really agree that studying hindi in schools really has the level of impact that it can replace our mother tongues. We all speak/know Telugu better than Hindi. Sure, our telugu is not as good as it should be, but it's because we have studied english and were encouraged to speak in english everywhere we went, this is the case with all millenial Indians in general TBH... (my case is different, poor at all languages x( )
And THIS, is despite the fact that we live in a place that has considerable Urdu/Hindi influence - culturally.. we do speak our infamous Hyderabadi Hindi or whatever hindi we can in colleges(it's kind of a trend here, in colleges, you'll see 30% peeps speaking in Hindi and other 70% in telugu or english). Even when we go shopping, unless the shop-keeper speaks to us in telugu, somehow we assume that he is hindi speaker and go on in our hindi. And, every shopkeeper here understands hindi..
But it is our culture, our culture here where we live is influenced heavily by Hindi/urdu.. However, the point I am trying to make here is, despite the influence, I have not seen telugu people replacing their native culture.
Which makes me realise that culture is such a personal and deeply ingrained in all of us that, most of us don't change so easily. Even if we do get influenced, if we are aware, we can guide ourselves as to what we can pick up or what we can leave. If a Telugu person likes and imbibes Hindi/urdu language, it's their personal choice. I think in everyone's life there comes a time when they question their identity, and then you start making conscious choices. So in the end, it's personal choice of what you want your identity or culture to be like. I can say this based on personal experience - my telugu or knowledge of telugu is better than what it used to be as a child, so is the case with my friends who have studied in same school, or same kind of schools.
I have never seen people leave their native culture behind, unless they moved to a different state - even then, I have not seen them forgetting their native culture...
Hindi in schools/central government offices and the exposure to it is too little in comparison to what we grow up and live with for most part of the day.
Even the signboards in our state have 4 languages -- Telugu, Hindi, English and Urdu - it's a serious thing in our state :)
So, I really don't see how hindi has been imposed.. I do see how Hindi is a compulsory subject til 7th standard, how it is everywhere on signboards, how it is considered 'official' language in central government alongside English... But I can see where the Union government is coming from too.
Let's be honest that even if any Indian may not know english - he will know basic hindi words like "Khaana", "kya", "kaisa" .. atleast is capable of understanding such basic words - may not be able to read but understand... But not anywhere outside two telugu states could I assume that there would be people to understand basic telugu words... That is the difference between hindi and other national languages. I think the intention of the government was, about 41% of the Indian population speak Hindi in comparison to other languages, and Hindi speaking people are everywhere unlike Telugu speakers for example. In India, if we go to any public space - there will be atleast 1 in 2 who will know some basic hindi words - words of common use, words used for social convenience..
So, somehow during colonial days or even post-independence, people all over India started having a common knowledge of basic Hindi..
And, TBH I never understood how studying simple hindi til 7th is anyway imposition of Hindi... somehow, never got the argument because we never remember what we study then anyway :p .. if anything, it'll make it easy of us to know basic words... can navigate through the country with ease.. Just by learning a few words I don't think our cultural identity suffers a setback.
But IDK, maybe I am not able to see this through fellow SI lenses... because for us here, 90% of the shopkeepers talk to us in Hindi, even telugu shopkeepers know basic hindi. Any public places we go, if they don't know telugu - it's hindiii .
I actually like that there's one Indian language to unify us and make our public movements easier.. But cannot see the argument how it has ever underminded my language - if anything I have not shown much curiosity in my mother language.
We really cannot be blind to the fact that hindi is a commonly known language across India.. adding an additional language to our vocab doesn't take away other languages.. I love how each educated Indian knows atleast 2 languages :)
Edited by Angel-likeDevil - 8 years ago
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