The English intellectual can't ignore Indian languages anymore or will end up legitimising the flawed Hindutva argument about the revenge of the subaltern.
‘Mother kept pouring water in our eyes whenever the burning became unbearable. She pushed our bodies deep into the blanket, making sure not a single part was exposed,’ my father said.
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Biased article! Author is still living in the Colonial era. Today more and more Indians are realising importance of preservation of their languages/culture which were systematically ridiculed and destroyed. Go and try to teach the importance of English to Germans/Japanese/Chinese/Russians/Italians/French. You don’t understand your own culture equate secularism with language and not respecting diversity. The flawed thinking that English= Intellect is doing much harm to our country. These bigot’s don’t realise that even a beggar talks in English in their UK/US country.
Moreover, you give much importance to a language which has its many words derived from Sanskrit and Hindi.
Comparing soulless language such as English where, aunt and uncle aren’t differentiated shows that mind if the author and the language itself is too narrow.
Learn to respect your culture, we respect cows and you ought to respect the sentiments of the people in country. You people regard the superstition of the Vatican/ demon/devil/church as respectful but disrespect yours own, shameful. You can’t have antichrist or anti prophet views in developed and Muslim countries. Just because India is a tolerant/secular country which gives you freedom of speech at a much grander level you people dare to spew poisonous views, hurt sentiments. Most people of these type of views in their constant pursuit of westernisation adapt their bad things mostly instead of good things, blindly follow something which has always been better in own home in order to please God knows who. Try to understand your culture and it’s emotional depth unless you have a propaganda like Greta toolkit.
Writer is a dishonest fake,wanna be Marxist,Gandhian,nehruvian . Any school goers here who were asked to write an essay on the cow. And if at all as a 5-15 year old, will you say gaay hamara maata hai. His fake intellectual pretensive core is repulsive to say the least.
Dear friends, let us not split hair. Every language is to be cherished and spoken as per your choice. Many people cannot read and write in their mother tongue. Parents want their children to study English, speak English and feel proud when their children do so. Let’s face it, English makes things easy in today’s world. So what if its foreign language. If we can wear jeans, tshirts etc why not English. Technology, medicine and IT need English.
Fundamental premise that English gives you intellect is flawed.
This article is an example with lot of jibber jabber and nothing concrete.
Two words which stood out in this was secularism and gaay and I couldn’t resist giving my 2 cents.
Author needs to do a quick check on word secularism. It does not mean equality of religion. It means state is out of religious institutions literally. And this proves the point English does not give you intellect.
Gaay status cannot be understood with this ‘English intellect’
Since human learned farming and settled on plains, gaay has been a constant companion in our evolution till now. Gaay’s association with Kanha gives it divine status in our culture.
So no I am not ashamed of saying cow is our mother or gaay humari mata hain.
From your intellect it is quite clear that gaay indeed is your mother.
The article seems to be unapologetic about the Hindu cow sentiments no matter the author tries to make a distiction between its Gandhian origin as opposed to that of Sanghi hate machine. The claims of secularism notwithstanding , the connection sought to be made with the so called arrogance as one tries to objectively explore/ translate the gau/ ‘gau sentiment’ to Indian English is far fetched and looks to be in bad taste !
In our schools, we started the Gaay essay as ‘Gaay ek paalthu jaanvar hai’. This translates perfectly into english without inviting ridicule nor losing it’s meaning. Unfortunately ‘Gaay hamari maata hai’ was drilled into your head. It is not wrong . It is the belief of a large group of people in India. And with a slight ‘majority is right’ belief, you believed it was true. Then when you were introduced to a world outside India through english, through your travels or your friends, suddenly you realised that from the perspective of the whole world, the majority does not believe that ‘gaay maata hai’. That clash in beliefs need to be addressed in your self. Also, the bane of democracy where we believe that ‘majority is right’. Majority is not right. A whole group of people can together take the stupidest decisions. Usually it is the lone dissenting voice that could have more reason.
More than the inability to translate ideas or emotions, it is more our emotional insecurity and fear of ridicule that prevents us from translating properly. After all, english is the native language of some part of the world and people there do use it to express their ideas and emotions.
The cow example of you taken depends on “Majority is Right” just because more people in world don’t consider cow as sacred animal you are suggesting we should change our belief isn’t it? Of course english is native in some places, but we are not native of these places. Basically by just adopting the language we cannot also adopt the culture.
The real tragedy is that we have become a country of people who have no mastery over any language. We may claim that we have the largest English speaking population but how many of us can actually claim command over it?
On the other hand entire cultures die when a language dies. In fact demeaning the local language has been the key weapon in the hands of colonial forces in India for the last thousand years. It is exceptionally effective – in the first half of the millennium (well into the second half actually), it was Farsi, Turkish or whatever the occupying forces thought was intellectual enough. Since then it has been English. Of course we should learn to speak in English but then the emphasis should be on learning it properly, however as a second language to your mother tongue – not a mish mash of words (just listen to any “Bollywood” interview) which bear no resemblance to what you will hear from a learned one or read in a book. And yes, it is okay jot to know English as long as you are articulate in one of the Indian languages – preferably your mother tongue.
Mother tongue or mother’s tongue? the two can be quite different. Like Bhojpuri and Hindi. No?
In the English language paradigm, Mother Tongue and Mother’s Tongue both mean the same. What you say is a dialectical difference. Such dialects are there in all languages all across the world. Even English within the English speaking areas has it’s own dialects. In days of yore, the English spoken in East End of London was distinctly different from that spoken in the South End of London. And in India, our dialects change almost every 100 kms or so. Just than the Hindi dialects have been highlighted as distinct languages, as though they are some unique feature of the Hindi language. Just like one who speaks Bhojpuri may not understand the Hindi spoken in Western UP, one who speaks the Kannada of the old Mysore region may not understand the Kannada spoken around Hubli/Dharwad. I can give you similar examples in Bengal and Maharashtra too. But they are not distinct languages, they are just dialects.
Just for info- Bhojpuri is linguistically closer to Bengali than Hindi…hence Bhojpuri can’t be considered to be a dialect of Hindi.
Gaay hamari mata hai’. The correct translation of this is that “ Cow is our mother”. This is because that is what is the real meaning of this sentence, no matter which language you choose to translate this in. We are not referring to The cow as a domestic animal, rather treating it with all the respect and love which we would give our mother. It is the arrogance and perhaps deliberate illiteracy of the author and his kind that he refuses to acknowledge our culture, our ethos, our heritage, our religion and perhaps also feels ashamed to do so. After all we don’t refer to other domestic animals as our brother, sister, father and mother. This special privilege is only for cow.
This deliberate and stupid mistake has also been made when “translating” our religious and texts in English and other languages because authors use the coloured lense of their own cultures to translate the books. But what is really unfortunate is when our brother Bharatiya do this like this’d author of this article
To sum up, दो शब्द अंग्रेसी के क्या बोल लिए, के तुम अपने आप को फंने खान समझ बैठें
फंने खान अंगरेज़ी भला क्यों बोलेगा?सभी भाषाओं का सम्मान करें
Arguments put forth by the writer are valid but do not address the issue adequately. Secularism has nothing to do with English or Indian languages – it is more to do with deep, basic attitudes of people to tolerate differences in inward thinking and outward appearances. Can I truly tolerate, respect and try to empathise with somebody who is dissimilar to me in religion, skin colour or mother-tongue all the time? The answer to that (if you are true to yourself) is NO for most Indians. It may be a ‘qualified yes’ to most of the remaining Indians – provided they think like me, vote like me, speak like me, are from my caste or my state, so on and so forth. True separation of personal beliefs from state affairs is not possible in current India.
The only real solution to keep the idea of India going is to keep India from devolving into this religion vs that or this language vs that and we have a principle for that which all Indians recognize irrespective of language and that is LIVE AND LET LIVE. Do not unnecessarily impose your thoughts and your beliefs on others – coercive behavior may seem attractive but will always birth resentments. Better option is to make something more attractive so that people will flock to it nevertheless – like make regional language schools attractive in fees, curriculum, ease of learning etc. so that parents will willingly admit their children to such schools. Indian state will never be truly secular because Indian people are not secular – but Indian people are tolerant and that should be encouraged so that we focus on improving ourselves rather than fighting with one another perpetually.
Yes, it’s true the language has become an invisible divider of intellect in India. As intellectualism spread from high class with English education to masses with vernacular background the inevitable divide happened. This also given raise to separatist tendencies. Take Tamil Nadu for example, there are many eloquent political commentators and authors in TN, who have only mastery of Tamil, hence have no reach to knowledge beyond Tamil. The raising anti-brahminism also played a part in shrinking quality translations. The parallel growth of Tamil intellectualism automatically gyrate towards separatist tendencies.
Biased article! Author is still living in the Colonial era. Today more and more Indians are realising importance of preservation of their languages/culture which were systematically ridiculed and destroyed. Go and try to teach the importance of English to Germans/Japanese/Chinese/Russians/Italians/French. You don’t understand your own culture equate secularism with language and not respecting diversity. The flawed thinking that English= Intellect is doing much harm to our country. These bigot’s don’t realise that even a beggar talks in English in their UK/US country.
Moreover, you give much importance to a language which has its many words derived from Sanskrit and Hindi.
Comparing soulless language such as English where, aunt and uncle aren’t differentiated shows that mind if the author and the language itself is too narrow.
Learn to respect your culture, we respect cows and you ought to respect the sentiments of the people in country. You people regard the superstition of the Vatican/ demon/devil/church as respectful but disrespect yours own, shameful. You can’t have antichrist or anti prophet views in developed and Muslim countries. Just because India is a tolerant/secular country which gives you freedom of speech at a much grander level you people dare to spew poisonous views, hurt sentiments. Most people of these type of views in their constant pursuit of westernisation adapt their bad things mostly instead of good things, blindly follow something which has always been better in own home in order to please God knows who. Try to understand your culture and it’s emotional depth unless you have a propaganda like Greta toolkit.
Writer is a dishonest fake,wanna be Marxist,Gandhian,nehruvian . Any school goers here who were asked to write an essay on the cow. And if at all as a 5-15 year old, will you say gaay hamara maata hai. His fake intellectual pretensive core is repulsive to say the least.
Dear friends, let us not split hair. Every language is to be cherished and spoken as per your choice. Many people cannot read and write in their mother tongue. Parents want their children to study English, speak English and feel proud when their children do so. Let’s face it, English makes things easy in today’s world. So what if its foreign language. If we can wear jeans, tshirts etc why not English. Technology, medicine and IT need English.
Angrejida…acknowledge the existence of a Virgin mother but ridicule if someone says Gay hamari Maata hai.
Bigots acknowledge the existence of a Virgin mother but ridicule if someone says Gay hamari Maata hai.
Fundamental premise that English gives you intellect is flawed.
This article is an example with lot of jibber jabber and nothing concrete.
Two words which stood out in this was secularism and gaay and I couldn’t resist giving my 2 cents.
Author needs to do a quick check on word secularism. It does not mean equality of religion. It means state is out of religious institutions literally. And this proves the point English does not give you intellect.
Gaay status cannot be understood with this ‘English intellect’
Since human learned farming and settled on plains, gaay has been a constant companion in our evolution till now. Gaay’s association with Kanha gives it divine status in our culture.
So no I am not ashamed of saying cow is our mother or gaay humari mata hain.
From your intellect it is quite clear that gaay indeed is your mother.
The article seems to be unapologetic about the Hindu cow sentiments no matter the author tries to make a distiction between its Gandhian origin as opposed to that of Sanghi hate machine. The claims of secularism notwithstanding , the connection sought to be made with the so called arrogance as one tries to objectively explore/ translate the gau/ ‘gau sentiment’ to Indian English is far fetched and looks to be in bad taste !
Hey man, you say you hate cow politics. That’s the problem. You hate people who consider cow as mother. Just learn to love cow without politics okay.
In our schools, we started the Gaay essay as ‘Gaay ek paalthu jaanvar hai’. This translates perfectly into english without inviting ridicule nor losing it’s meaning. Unfortunately ‘Gaay hamari maata hai’ was drilled into your head. It is not wrong . It is the belief of a large group of people in India. And with a slight ‘majority is right’ belief, you believed it was true. Then when you were introduced to a world outside India through english, through your travels or your friends, suddenly you realised that from the perspective of the whole world, the majority does not believe that ‘gaay maata hai’. That clash in beliefs need to be addressed in your self. Also, the bane of democracy where we believe that ‘majority is right’. Majority is not right. A whole group of people can together take the stupidest decisions. Usually it is the lone dissenting voice that could have more reason.
More than the inability to translate ideas or emotions, it is more our emotional insecurity and fear of ridicule that prevents us from translating properly. After all, english is the native language of some part of the world and people there do use it to express their ideas and emotions.
The cow example of you taken depends on “Majority is Right” just because more people in world don’t consider cow as sacred animal you are suggesting we should change our belief isn’t it? Of course english is native in some places, but we are not native of these places. Basically by just adopting the language we cannot also adopt the culture.
The real tragedy is that we have become a country of people who have no mastery over any language. We may claim that we have the largest English speaking population but how many of us can actually claim command over it?
On the other hand entire cultures die when a language dies. In fact demeaning the local language has been the key weapon in the hands of colonial forces in India for the last thousand years. It is exceptionally effective – in the first half of the millennium (well into the second half actually), it was Farsi, Turkish or whatever the occupying forces thought was intellectual enough. Since then it has been English. Of course we should learn to speak in English but then the emphasis should be on learning it properly, however as a second language to your mother tongue – not a mish mash of words (just listen to any “Bollywood” interview) which bear no resemblance to what you will hear from a learned one or read in a book. And yes, it is okay jot to know English as long as you are articulate in one of the Indian languages – preferably your mother tongue.
Mother tongue or mother’s tongue? the two can be quite different. Like Bhojpuri and Hindi. No?
In the English language paradigm, Mother Tongue and Mother’s Tongue both mean the same. What you say is a dialectical difference. Such dialects are there in all languages all across the world. Even English within the English speaking areas has it’s own dialects. In days of yore, the English spoken in East End of London was distinctly different from that spoken in the South End of London. And in India, our dialects change almost every 100 kms or so. Just than the Hindi dialects have been highlighted as distinct languages, as though they are some unique feature of the Hindi language. Just like one who speaks Bhojpuri may not understand the Hindi spoken in Western UP, one who speaks the Kannada of the old Mysore region may not understand the Kannada spoken around Hubli/Dharwad. I can give you similar examples in Bengal and Maharashtra too. But they are not distinct languages, they are just dialects.
Just for info- Bhojpuri is linguistically closer to Bengali than Hindi…hence Bhojpuri can’t be considered to be a dialect of Hindi.
Cow is a motherly animal. This is it.
Text book understanding of subject will never help English writers.
Enlightenment in nation should come from everywhere and it is continuing process
But we indians abhor the word secularism.
Fyouck your secularism.
Gaay hamari mata hai’. The correct translation of this is that “ Cow is our mother”. This is because that is what is the real meaning of this sentence, no matter which language you choose to translate this in. We are not referring to The cow as a domestic animal, rather treating it with all the respect and love which we would give our mother. It is the arrogance and perhaps deliberate illiteracy of the author and his kind that he refuses to acknowledge our culture, our ethos, our heritage, our religion and perhaps also feels ashamed to do so. After all we don’t refer to other domestic animals as our brother, sister, father and mother. This special privilege is only for cow.
This deliberate and stupid mistake has also been made when “translating” our religious and texts in English and other languages because authors use the coloured lense of their own cultures to translate the books. But what is really unfortunate is when our brother Bharatiya do this like this’d author of this article
To sum up, दो शब्द अंग्रेसी के क्या बोल लिए, के तुम अपने आप को फंने खान समझ बैठें
फंने खान अंगरेज़ी भला क्यों बोलेगा?सभी भाषाओं का सम्मान करें
Arguments put forth by the writer are valid but do not address the issue adequately. Secularism has nothing to do with English or Indian languages – it is more to do with deep, basic attitudes of people to tolerate differences in inward thinking and outward appearances. Can I truly tolerate, respect and try to empathise with somebody who is dissimilar to me in religion, skin colour or mother-tongue all the time? The answer to that (if you are true to yourself) is NO for most Indians. It may be a ‘qualified yes’ to most of the remaining Indians – provided they think like me, vote like me, speak like me, are from my caste or my state, so on and so forth. True separation of personal beliefs from state affairs is not possible in current India.
The only real solution to keep the idea of India going is to keep India from devolving into this religion vs that or this language vs that and we have a principle for that which all Indians recognize irrespective of language and that is LIVE AND LET LIVE. Do not unnecessarily impose your thoughts and your beliefs on others – coercive behavior may seem attractive but will always birth resentments. Better option is to make something more attractive so that people will flock to it nevertheless – like make regional language schools attractive in fees, curriculum, ease of learning etc. so that parents will willingly admit their children to such schools. Indian state will never be truly secular because Indian people are not secular – but Indian people are tolerant and that should be encouraged so that we focus on improving ourselves rather than fighting with one another perpetually.
Yes, it’s true the language has become an invisible divider of intellect in India. As intellectualism spread from high class with English education to masses with vernacular background the inevitable divide happened. This also given raise to separatist tendencies. Take Tamil Nadu for example, there are many eloquent political commentators and authors in TN, who have only mastery of Tamil, hence have no reach to knowledge beyond Tamil. The raising anti-brahminism also played a part in shrinking quality translations. The parallel growth of Tamil intellectualism automatically gyrate towards separatist tendencies.
Fully agree with the writer…..It is time…. else the englishers loose their heft in the society at large and politics in particular….