Linguistic Nationalism: Tamil Resistance to Hindi
Nalini Rajan
HINDI IMPERIALISM by By Aladi Aruna. Translated from the original Tamil by R. Vijaya Sankar Speaking Tiger Books, 2024, 308 pp., INR 499.00
October 2024, volume 48, No 10

For quite some time now, theorists have given a bad rap to nationalism, by decrying its ‘philosophical poverty and even incoherence’ (Benedict Anderson, 1983, Introduction). Nationalism may not have produced its own grand thinkers; however, linguistic nationalism, being associated with freedom of expression, occupies a pedestal unknown to nationalism tout court.

The book under review is about Tamil resistance to Hindi language imperialism and was originally published in Tamil in 1966 by veteran DMK politician, Aladi Aruna (1933-2004). This was followed by a revised edition in 1993, and posthumously, by updated versions edited by his family members, in 2005 and 2017. This 2024 edition is a very able English translation by R Vijaya Sankar, former editor of Frontline magazine.

Anything written by a politician is expected to be partisan, and this book is no exception. Expectedly every action, nonviolent or violent, by DMK supporters from the late 1930s to the early 1990s is celebrated, whereas the Congress’s and AIADMK’s policies are consistently criticized, even vilified. However, the force of the narrative of the rich history of linguistic resistance to the imposition of Hindi by the Central Government is such that the reader can put aside the writer’s bias and focus on the ebb and flow of Tamil politics during this crucial period in the 20th century.

The language issue was never quite resolved in the Constituent Assembly debates of 1946-1949. Although the idea of a national language seemed important to several members of the Assembly, they were unable to arrive at a consensus. The English language was rejected as a national language, because of unsavoury colonial experience. Since many north Indian States used some form of Hindustani, which is an amalgamation of Sanskritized Hindi and Persianized Urdu, Gandhi mooted the idea of Hindustani as the national language, with both the Persian and Devnagari scripts. This proposal was fiercely resisted by some Hindi proponents who refused to accept the Urdu script, especially after Partition of the subcontinent in 1947. In fact, there were a few divisions among north Indians, with some arguing for ‘pure’ Sanskritized Hindi, with others positing a hybrid form of Hindustani, and with still others lamenting the loss of languages like Bhojpuri, Maithili, Mewari, among others, with the domination of Hindi or Hindustani.

As Aladi Aruna points out, ‘Every language remains an inseparable part of the people who speak it’ (p. 34). This is true of many peoples in the world. For instance, we know of the Irish people’s historical struggle to retain the Gaelic language, the Welsh people’s goal to speak Welsh in lieu of English, the French Canadians’ decision to opt for French in an English-dominant country, and so on.

Congress leaders were oblivious to the diversity of languages in the country and showed a great deal of insensitivity to other language speakers, especially in southern India and eastern India. When the Congress captured power in the Madras Presidency in 1937, with C Rajagopalachari (Rajaji) at the helm, there was an attempt to impose Hindi on the population. The Justice Party and Periyar’s Self-Respect Movement strongly condemned the move. And thus started the first major boycott of Hindi, between 1938 and 1940. The Constituent Assembly debates of the late 1940s reflected this churning, when it came to the question of choosing a national or an official language for India. Finally, in ‘a half-hearted compromise’, to use constitutional expert Granville Austin’s term, the use of Hindi as the official (not national) language after 15 years, namely, in 1965, was accepted by a majority by November 1949. It was also established that English would continue as an official language till 1965.

In a sudden move, on June 20, 1948, the Madras Ministry led by Omandur Ramaswamy Reddiar issued an order imposing Hindi once again on the population. The difference this time was that Hindi was imposed as an elective second language along with other south Indian languages. But when no measure was taken to provide teachers for instructing children in languages other than Hindi, the policy seemed to be no more than an imposition of Hindi on the Tamils. Consequently, the Dravida Kazhagam (DK) movement of Periyar and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) cadre participated in large numbers in the second protest against the State Government order. Finally, in 1950, the de facto compulsory study of Hindi was scrapped in the State.

After Independence, some Congress politicians at the Centre believed in replacing English with Hindi as the official language, but Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru explained to them why English was an indispensable language for Indians because of its importance at the international level. Both Bengali and Tamil protestors had insisted on a policy measure of establishing English as the language of communication, especially between different language speakers in the Indian States. The third phase of the anti-Hindi agitation began in June 1952, with the Central Government’s order to impose Hindi on every department under its control. Leaders and cadres of the DK and DMK carried pots of tar and brushes and blacked out the Hindi names in 600 railway stations within the State.

The biggest agitation by the Dravidian movement and party took place well before 1965, when the imposition of compulsory Hindi in schools and government institutions would kick in. In reality, this agitation began in 1960, with the release of Rajendra Prasad’s Presidential Order that Hindi would be the sole official language in all States from 1965 onwards. DK and DMK leaders, cadres, and students came out to the streets in huge numbers in protest all over the State. After several instances of burning Part XVII of the Indian Constitution (naming Hindi as the official language), self-immolation, mass arrests, police brutality, custodial deaths, and violent retaliation by the protestors, the anti-Hindi agitation spread to other parts of south India and to West Bengal.

Some of the victories achieved were that the Government agreed to amend the Official Languages Act of 1963 and accepted the use of all the 14 languages (at that time) mentioned in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution in the recruitment exams for Central Government jobs, and the Government also agreed to ensure the continuance of English as the official language. In the 1967 State Assembly elections, the Congress Party was defeated and the DMK assumed power under the leadership of CN Annadurai. Till the present day, the Tamil Nadu State has been ruled only by Dravidian political parties.

Be that as it may, the Central Government has continued to impose Hindi on the Tamil population till today, and the Tamils have continued to protest against this imposition. When the National Policy on Education (1968) was drafted, the teaching of Hindi as a policy was enshrined in an official document. While at the primary level, the regional language could be taught in schools, at the secondary level, both Hindi and English would be taught in non-Hindi speaking States. This was the three-language formula.

In Hindi speaking States, school children could learn English and Sanskrit at the secondary level. As the author states, ‘Sanskrit is the mother of Hindi. Both have the same script and grammar. If you remove the Sanskrit words from Hindi, it loses its life and limbs’ (p. 136). In other words, the non-Hindi speakers were burdened much more than the Hindi speakers in schools. After several protests by the Tamils, the three-language formula in Tamil Nadu ceased to make Hindi compulsory for non-Hindi speakers.

In 1986, the Rajiv Gandhi Government’s new education policy led to the opening of Navodaya Government schools all over the country with Hindi as the medium of instruction. Prolonged protests by the DMK government finally succeeded in preventing the ruling AIADMK government led by MG Ramachandran to open Navodaya schools in the Tamil Nadu State.

And to this day, the struggle against the hegemony of the Hindi language goes on.

Nalini Rajan is Dean of the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. She has published six books on political philosophy and three novels.[/ihc-hide-content]