Why Hindi must not be imposed in North-East

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Some states in the North-East are upset over the Centre’s plan of promoting Hindi as a compulsory subject in schools across the region. Civil society organisations have already condemned the move in no uncertain terms over what they feel is nothing short of language imperialism by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

However, there is still confusion over the actual status of the policy. Union Home Minister Amit Shah stated that 22,000 Hindi teachers have been recruited in the North-East, and all the eight states of the region have agreed to make Hindi compulsory in schools up to Class-X. On the other hand, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has told the local TV news channels that the state government was yet to receive any official communique from the Centre on the policy. It is also possible that Shah was testing the waters to see if it was an opportune time to implement the policy.

Be that as it may, the plan is fraught with detrimental and irreversible consequences. To begin with, the North-East is a collage of languages, religions, and ethnic groups. Possibly, very few regions in Asia are as diverse as the North-East. According to one estimate, there are around 300 languages in the North-East, and 70-80 among them have already landed in the endangered category with the most in Arunachal Pradesh.

The focus of the Government of India ought to be in preventing their extinction, instead of focussing its energies on promoting Hindi by making it a compulsory subject in schools. Learning in an unfamiliar language fuels a sense of alienation from one’s own culture, whereas learning in the mother tongue helps develop a better sense of self. The extinction of any language is an irrevocable loss for all humanity.

Language is an extremely sensitive issue in the North-East. Many smaller ethnic groups are already insecure, and concerned over the imposition of the language of the majority community. Such examples can be found across many states in the North-East. In Assam, while the tribal groups have despised the imposition of the Assamese upon them, the Assamese mainstream communities have themselves engaged in ferocious agitations for the language over the past several decades. With the large-scale influx of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, Hindi speakers from other states in India, there is genuine fear among the Assamese that the language would go extinct in the near future.

The 2011 census revealed that in Assam, the number of people speaking Assamese, Bodo, Rabha, and Mishing have declined, while the percentages of Bengali- and Hindi-speakers have increased between 2001 and 2011. Given this, the aggressive promotion of Hindi is bound to add fuel to the fire in a state already restive, and vying for immediate attention from the government on the unresolved issues such as illegal immigration, flood and erosion, Climate Change, and unemployment.

Hindi, even if it were to be promoted, could be done in a manner that is not counter-productive to the larger goal of accomplishing the nation-building project. The North-East needs efficient governance, and not a policy that fuels alienation from the mainstream. Change is a gradual process and cannot be forced through a diktat, especially in a culturally-diverse country like India.

Our leaders, especially those in power, would do well to understand the prevailing situations in the different states in the North-East, its cultural differences with the states in the mainland, and why the concept of ‘Hindi, Hindu, and Hindustan’ could engender centrifugal tendencies. History is replete with examples of how cultural superimposition creates tension and discord—and language is an important marker of culture.

Rajeev Bhattacharyya is a Guwahati-based senior journalist. 

Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.