Official language treats Indians as Lallu of Hum Log. Hindi Diwas won’t address that issue

Official Hindi is the product of official English, which has inherited the tone, vocabulary and expressions from colonial administrative discourse.

Illustration: Ramandeep Kaur | ThePrint

The first episode of 1984 Doordarshan serial Hum Log is perhaps the best example to show the emptiness of the debate on official language. It begins with an interesting discussion between two main characters, Lallu and Nanhe.

Lallu, a Hindi medium student, is applying for a lower grade clerical post. For his convenience, he prefers to have the Hindi version of the job application. Despite his best efforts, Lallu fails to understand the bureaucratic jargon used in this form. He requests his brother Nanhe to help him:

लल्लू: अच्छा ये बता कि अधोहस्ताक्षरी का मतलब क्या है? (Tell me what is the meaning of adhohastakshari?)

नन्हें: अरे लिखा तो है ‘अंडरसाइंड’। (It is written here ‘undersigned’.)

लल्लू: और इसका क्या मतबल है? (What does it mean in Hindi?)

नन्हें: अरे लिखा तो है ‘अधोहस्ताक्षरी’। (It is written here adhohastakshari)

लल्लू (झुंझुला कर): अरे ये कहना क्या चाहे है ये फार्म बनाने वाला, ये बता? (What exactly does this person want to say?)

नन्हें (दार्शनिक अंदाज़ में): वो कहना चाहता है कि ‘हे हिंदुस्तानी लल्लू, अगर तो अँग्रेजी में न समझा तो मैं तुझे हिन्दी में भी नहीं समझने दूंगा’। (He simply wants to say: ‘Hey Indian Lallu, if you can’t understand it in English, I won’t let you to understand it in Hindi either’.)

This conversation is very relevant to underline the fact that Hindi versus English debate is meaningless. The state uses a bureaucratic language that intimidates citizens, expects them to behave in a certain manner, and above all, establishes its hegemony as a supreme authority of administration.

In a way, Lallu seems to ask three specific questions: What is official about the ‘official language’? Is it all about Hindi versus English? What kind of relationship this official language forms with ordinary Indians, ‘we, the people’?

What is ‘official’ about the official language?

The term official language, broadly speaking, refers to four key forms of state communication.

First, the parliamentary language in which legislative proceedings are to be conducted. Second, the executive language in which official orders are to be communicated. Third, the legal language in which conflicts are to be addressed. And finally, the administrative language, which is used to communicate with citizens.

The Indian story of the official language, however, is slightly complicated. The colonial state actually invented a new language of order and command and subsequently introduced it for establishing effective communication with native subjects.

The East India Company regime adopted English formally as the official language in 1835. This crucial move was not merely a symbolic act to establish racial supremacy. There were practical reasons that forced the Company to evolve a language that might be useful for administrative purposes.

This official language was very different from the language in which the cherished values of European Enlightenment were celebrated in England. More specifically, it had two key features. First, it was based on the assumption that native Indians were inferior and backward-looking, hence they would have to be adequately educated and trained. Second, the purpose of official communication had to be always defined in relation to ‘law and order’.

It is worth noting that our national movement, especially the Gandhian stream, posed a serious challenge to this imagination of the official language. Gandhi not merely questioned the dominance of English but also argued for a polite and democratic form of political communication.

The postcolonial story of the official language

We must remember that language had been a highly contentious political issue in the late 1940s. Hindu-Muslim communal divide had already transformed Hindi and Urdu as religious entities. The Partition of India on religious basis further intensified this linguistic dispute.

The Constituent Assembly debates on language show that a section of Congress, especially Gandhians, was in favor of adopting Hindustani as the official language. On the other hand, there was a powerful lobby that wanted to have Hindi and even Sanskrit as the language of administration. Despite these differences, there was a consensus that future India must have its own official language.

This was, nevertheless, an easy question. English had been the language of administrative transactions and political negotiations. It was practically impossible to replace English with any other national language at that time.

The Munshi-Ayyangar formula was the way out to solve this stalemate. According to this formula, English was to continue as the official language along with Hindi for a period of fifteen years. It was also suggested that the Parliament should have a right to take a final call in this regard.

Capable English and weak Indian languages

The reorganisation of the states on linguistic basis further complicated this question. The introduction of Hindi as the official language in the non-Hindi speaking states was severely opposed and criticised, especially in southern India. It was seen a kind of linguistic dominance of the north over south.

In order to deal with such complicated debates, the Committee of Parliament on Official Language (also known as the Pant Committee), proposed in 1955 that English should be continued as official language even after the given time frame of 15 years. The Official Language Act 1963 was the direct outcome of this proposal.

This law, in principle, accepted that English should be allowed to function as the main official language along with Hindi. It also recognised the relative incapability of Hindi and/or other Indian languages. For this purpose, the government was given the responsibility to develop the linguistic capacity of Hindi so that it could be evolved into an effective medium for official transactions.

Tone, vocabulary, jargons

The continuance of English for administrative purposes is justified on two counts—the relative incapability of Hindi as an official language and desirability of national integration, especially to respond to the anti-Hindi agitation.

However, there is a deeper structural problem, which is almost ignored. India adopted a highly egalitarian Constitution based on the idea of people’s sovereignty. At the same time, we inherited the administrative structures deeply rooted in colonial imaginations of Indian society. This imbalance created the possibility of an inevitable conflict between two languages of everyday politics: the language of democracy and language of rule.

Electoral politics expresses itself in the language of democracy. Political parties mobilise voters as people to claim their adherence to republican values. However, the moment political class assumes the role of an administrator, it begins to speak in a different language: the language of rule.

The official Hindi, in this sense, is the best example of this language of rule. As an artificial language, it is the product of official English, which has inherited the tone, vocabulary and expressions from colonial administrative discourse. In fact, official Hindi is equally alien to people’s sensibilities and linguistic engagements.

It seems that the official language has not yet been fully democratised. And, unfortunately, no one is bothered about it.

Hilal Ahmed is a scholar of political Islam and associate professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi. He tweets @Ahmed1Hilal. Views are personal.

(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)