It was the summer of 1964. VK Krishna Menon, who was no longer India’s high-profile defence minister, was slated to deliver a lecture at Maharaja’s College in Kochi. The student union council representatives requested Menon to speak on the anti-Hindi agitations in Tamil Nadu. The agitation had peaked the preceding year, after the passage of the Official Languages Act.
Instead, Menon devoted most of his speech to the United States’ war in Vietnam, predicting the superpower’s humiliation, recalls PV Krishnan Nair, former secretary at Kerala Sahitya Academy and a student union representative at the time.
Even if Menon’s nonchalance regarding the language imbroglio cannot be generalised, it is a fact that there have been no recorded anti-Hindi agitations in Kerala—neither before nor after Independence.
Kerala’s tryst with Hindi
If anything, there was a pro-Hindi sentiment in the Travancore and Cochin princely states, and even in Malabar. In fact, the Cochin and Travancore Legislative Councils passed separate resolutions demanding that Hindi be taught as a compulsory subject, in 1928 and 1931 respectively. The resolutions called Hindi a language that could foster a “spirit of unity” and a “spirit of nationality”.
KM Seethi, then a leader of the Congress—who later switched to the Indian Union Muslim League—moved the resolution in the Cochin Assembly in 1928. He also brought to the House’s notice that the intelligentsia of the state and a girls’ high school in Cranganore had demanded the passage of such legislation.
Hindi was also the language of the freedom movement and MK Gandhi’s efforts to establish the Hindi Prachar Sabha seemingly had a role in popularising the language in Kerala. This week, Kerala is marking the centenary of Gandhi’s historic encounter with Narayana Guru. The two leaders needed an interpreter since Narayana Guru couldn’t speak Hindi or English, even if he was fluent in Sanskrit.
Hindi is taught as a compulsory subject in Kerala’s schools. Although learning the basics may not suffice to communicate in the language, Hindi isn’t Greek either, to most Malayalis. In fact, even after the spate of anti-Hindi agitations of the 1960s and 1970s in neighbouring Tamil Nadu, Kerala was open to the prospect of Hindi becoming the ‘national’ language.
It would come as little surprise then that K Kamaraj, then Congress president, recommended a Malayali to chair the Central Hindi Directorate in 1966, at the height of these protests. A Chandrahasan, former Principal at Maharaja’s College and a Hindi professor, succeeded Hindi poet Vishwanath Prasad—a diplomatic measure.
According to former Kerala Legislative Assembly speaker Therambil Ramakrishnan, Kamaraj was advised on this count by Panampilly Govinda Menon, the first Prime Minister of Cochin, who also served as the chief minister of Travancore-Cochin and Union Minister of Railways.
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Menon’s prescience
In a way, VK Krishna Menon was prescient about the bifurcation of the erstwhile Madras state, just as he anticipated the Communists capturing power in Kerala.
“Don’t split up the erstwhile state of Madras because Madras will become a bastion of fanaticism and separatism,” Menon wrote.
Instead, he advocated the creation of a ‘Dakshin Pradesh’. The fear he expressed in 1955, of the Communist Party coming to power in Kerala, also came true. Even his distrust of ‘Sardar’ KM Panikkar regarding state reorganisation turned out to be valid.
Menon was bestowed with the sobriquet “Formula Menon” for being “India’s global envoy” from 1947 until 1957. He formulated solutions for ending the Korean war and even defusing tensions between China and the US.
“When somebody went to him with a problem, he would come up with a formula, whether it was Korea or US-China or Suez Canal,” said Jairam Ramesh, author of a treatise on Menon, A Chequered Brilliance.
While Tamil Nadu was in the midst of the anti-Hindi agitation, the people of Kerala began to learn Hindi as an additional course. According to historian MGS Narayanan, this was usually taken up after graduation along with typing, to seek jobs outside the state.
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Kerala and Sanskrit
According to poet K Satchidanandan, president of the Kerala Sahitya Academy, it was Narayanan’s hypothesis that Malayalam could claim the legacy of Sangam literature along with Tamil. It proved decisive in bestowing the language with classical status.
Among all the major south Indian languages, Malayalam is the most Sanskritised. According to linguists such as Suniti Kumar Chatterji, modern Malayalam has more in common with Sanskrit than with Tamil. While this theory was later supplanted by the view that Malayalam is a proto-Dravidian language, the Sanskrit influence on the language is indisputable.
With Hindi also drawing much from Sanskrit, such a common thread might be another reason for Malayalis finding Hindi more palatable than the Tamils. The domination of Nambudiri Brahmins in the state also gave Sanskrit an exalted status in the past, akin to learning English today. According to Satchidanandan, Sanskrit was rich with scholarly works, and hence was much coveted.
In fact, a hybrid language called Manipravalam—an amalgamation of Sanskrit and Malayalam—was in spoken in Kerala in the 12th and 13th centuries. Although it was limited to certain classes like the Nambudiris, Manipravalam played a role in the standardisation of Malayalam itself.
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Kerala’s ancient cosmopolitanism
Unlike the more inward-looking and resource-rich Tamil Nadu, Kerala has always been in contact with the outer world—long before the Portuguese, the Dutch, or the British set foot in India. Kerala’s cosmopolitanism and cultural pluralism isn’t a recent phenomenon and nowhere is this more exemplified than in Kochi.
At the Gujarati Street in Mattancherry, Holi and Onam are celebrated in equal measure. A Jewish synagogue and the Coonan Cross Church co-exist in perfect harmony in the same vicinity. There are naturalised Sikhs speaking chaste Malayalam on Banerji Road. Even Islam came to the shores of Kerala through trade and not through conquest.
Today, the crucible of culture extends across the state, with migrants having become a regular fixture. There are over 35 lakh migrant workers in Kerala—over ten per cent of the state’s population. It is estimated that roughly the same number of Keralites work outside the state in India.
Kerala is more dependent on these migrant workers than the other way around, and the state has been making efforts to integrate them better. It also launched the ‘Surili Hindi’ programme to make Hindi more appealing to native students.
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Much ado about nothing
It is not my contention that Malayalis are any less proud of their language than Tamils, but nor are they language chauvinists. Keralites have a much broader outlook. It wouldn’t come as a surprise that Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a household name in the state.
However, any attempt to impose Hindi, or to undermine English as a link language, is likely to meet with resistance even in Kerala. In 2022, when the Official Languages Committee headed by home minister Amit Shah came up with a recommendation to increase the usage of Hindi, the state saw a mild uproar.
That doesn’t mean Kerala can make common cause with Tamil Nadu on the three-language policy—unless the issue is linked with more pressing concerns such as the delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies. Much ado about nothing—that is the general sentiment in Kerala regarding the Hindi imposition row.
Anand Kochukudy is a Kerala-based journalist and columnist. He tweets @AnandKochukudy. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)
1. For an average Malayali, finding a job is the ultimate objective. If they were to learn Hindi or even Vietnamese to get a job, they would do so. It has always been pragmatism over principle.
2. Contrary to the projected image of Kerala being progressive and cosmopolitan, Kerala is the most superstitions, casteist, communal and male chavunist society like rest of India. Thanks to their disproportionate presence in the media, especially English, they were able to hide the ugly part well for long. Follow Malayalam media for a month, the truth will reveal itself (the difference between their public persona and private conduct).
3. Migrant labourers might be getting paid well, but ask a Malayali in Kerala, they would spit fire and fume as to how these Biharis and Odhias are spoiling Kerala. Just like any other state in the South. So much for their cosmopolitan culture.
4. They will cite some spectacular event to portray their ‘highness’. Exception don’t make the norm. And, every society can cite such exceptions.
Even Karnataka had no problem with Hindi. It is only for past few years that the anti-Hindi disease has been spreading from Tamil Nadu.