Language and National Identity

The language skirmishes keep errupting on twitter with #StopHindiImposition, #StopHindiImperialism, …. trending everytime somebody shares another incident of local languages or English being substituted with Hindi.

Most of the times the immediate response from Hindi speakers is that Hindi is the national language (which is quickly striken down as a falsehood), followed by claim that we need one language for the unity or existance of the country, English being the language of the colonizers is not acceptable, thus Hindi is the only option.

The fundamental question to be asked with respect to this discourse is do we need one language to form a nation state. Some may point to the European example of nation states, each with its own language. Billig in his book Banal Natinalism (1995) questions this basic assumption of the need of one language to base a nation on. “Nationalist in attempting to create a separate nation, often will create a language as a distinct language, although they might claim to be creating the nation on the basis of the language, as if the latter were an ancient ‘natural’ fact”

His assertion is followed by multiple examples from Europe where languages are labelled as a particular language as part of the formation of the nation state rather than  on clear cut linguistic demarcation. He rightly points out that spoken languages in practice most of the times were a continuam as we moved from point A to B rather than regions with language A ending at one point and language B starting in the adjucent village.   One of his example is about languages spoken on the French and Italian borders where same/similar language is considered dialect of French while across the border it is considered as dialect of Italian.

“a dialect is frequently a language which did not succeed politically.”

This reminds me of Kokani, Varadhi, and other forms of Marathi and the Kokani struggle to be acknowledged as a separate language.  Similarly Bhojpuri, Maithili, Braj and other languages that are considered dialects of Hindi and consumed by it creating the ‘Hindi Belt’ in the minds of all the ‘south Indians’ tweeting about #StopHindiImpostion.

Hindi similarly is pushed again and again as the National language from the seat of power. Keeping the pride alive in regional languages thus is not just about the language and culture but about not letting go of the political clout. Unity under the banner of one language thus is marginalization of everybody else not speaking that languge.

Reference:

Billig, Michael (1995). Banal Nationalism, SAGE