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No one is saying that regional language people stop communicating with each other in their mother tongue. The point is that we should agree upon one universal language, apart from english, in India that most Indians can speak and understand reasonably well so that there are no barriers in communication. Hindi is the officially chosen national language of our country as it is spoken in lot more states than marathi or tamil or malyali or punjabi or gujrati etc. I don't know why some people always fret and crib about it!
Ok. Let me say that as far as learning Hindi is concerned, I am not at all against learning Hindi. I myself learnt it in school (being a Marathi in Maharashtra). I do not absolutely have anything against the language as such.
But I do not agree your view that we should agree upon one universal language. Why? Do we really need one universal language in a country like India?We already have English and Hindi as two official languages for inter-state communication. Why insist on making it a _national_ language? Please note that most of the south Indian languages are very much different from Hindi. As a Marathi, I could pick up Hindi easily while learning in school. But Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malyalam are much different from Hindi. How do you expect Tamil person to accept Hindi as a sole national language? You are looking at the country as a whole homogenous entity. But it is not. No doubt, we are still united and share many things among us (other than language) and thats what India is! Accept diversity!
Imagine to be a Tamil person who wakes up with Tamil, eats Tamil and sleeps Tamil .. suddenly told that Hindi is his national language which he should start learning. Doesn't it sound totally irrational? One (actually not one .. but many millions) needs to learn his or her national language!! That itself disqualifies Hindi as a sole national langauge of India.
Please note that most Maharashtrians are absolutely okay with Hindi as national language. I was also one of them. But learning about the whole of India and also struck with Marathi identity crisis in Mumbai, I have started opposing Hindi as sole national language. Yes, Hindi was officially chosen as national language by the parliament and the proposal was put by none other than an originally Maharashtrian MP (Mr. Dhulekar) from Jhansi, UP. All north India and Maharashtra MPs also supported it. But all south India and Bengal MPs opposed it. The tally was equal. Dr. Rajendra Prasad (the president) voted for Hindi to make it national language to be made after 15 years. But as you may know, it neevn happened due to anti-Hindi agitations in Tamilnadu. So, do we really need a sole national language when the only candidate (Hindi) is opposed by equal number of MPs as it is supported by?
Coming back to the title ... nothing is wrong in not learning Hindi or even learning it. For a Marathi or Gujarati person, it comes automatically as he grows up and watches bollywood flicks, migles with friends, starts his working life. But for south Indian, it is not automatic. He really has to _learn_ which may be stressful. Now, whether to take stress to learn it which has its own benifits is solely his/her personal choice.
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