Context: There has been a lot of regionalism of late. With trends on social media like Kannada Jobs for Kannadigas, People from Tamil Nadu vociferously trying to protect Tamil and keeping out Hindi, other states moving towards reservation of jobs in private sector for people of their respective state. In this edition of Frank Talk, Bharata First's Editor-in-Chief catches up with Mr. Chiranjiv Singh, Former Ambassador of India to UNESCO to talk about India's culture, diversity and linguistic identity. 

• India is one of the unique countries in the world that has the legacy of diversity of languages. The Constitution of India has recognised 22 official languages under the 8th schedule.
• People in different parts of the country speak more than one language since their birth. Though officially there are 122 languages, People’s Linguistic Survey of India has identified 780 languages, of which 50 are extinct in the past five decades. Examples of such languages are Wadari, Kolhati, Golla, Gisari.

Need and importance of preserving linguistic diversity in India

• Cultural Identity: For individuals, language is constitutive of cultural identity. We are what we speak. Any destruction to language impact identity of individuals leading to identity crisis. This impact their ability to grow and develop as an individual.
• Cultural Diversity: Diversity in languages reflects and enhances cultural diversity. This in turn enriches the world. Unwritten languages rich in oral traditions, stories, songs, poetry, and ritual passed down through the generations constitute cultural diversity of a nation.
• Human rights: Since language is central to identity, one’s freedom to use one’s language is seen as inherent in the dignity of the human person. Many people don’t know English and thus fail to enjoy rights provided due to lack of understanding.
• A glimpse of our past:Languages provides a glimpse of our history. Once a language is lost it is a loss of history and culture associated with that language. Many languages have not been preserved and thus many traditions have lost due to this.
• Environment: Languages are closely connected to the environment they are spoken in, so in such areas they contain rich, detailed and technical knowledge about the flora, fauna, and habitat of that area. These languages are ecological encyclopaedias. The biological diversity and linguistic diversity go hand in hand. If one is threatened, then so is the other.
• Cognitive abilities: Research has shown a strong correlation between improved cognitive abilities in children when they are taught in their mother tongue in primary school. If a child is not taught in the language that he or she uses at home, then he suffer poor learning and critical abilities.

UNESCO has recognized India as one of the most linguistically diverse countries, having 22 scheduled languages, hundreds of local languages and dialects. Languages are not just a means of communication, rather they are a symbol of India’s rich culture, heritage and traditions.

Hindi as a lingua franca of India
Arguments in favour

• Unity and integrity of India: Hindi can serve as a link language to enhance people-to-people contact in such a geographically diverse country.
• Maximum outreach: Hindi is spoken by maximum number of people in India and thus it is sensible to choose it as a lingua franca of India.
• Boosting India’s soft power: Hindi can serve as a symbol of national identity and would help showcase India’s rich civilizational values of multiculturalism, tolerance and pluralism at global platforms.
• Availability of historic and traditional texts: Majority of ancient mythological texts like Ramayana, Mahabharata, Upanishads, etc are available in Hindi or Sanskrit which are necessary for preserving India’s rich history and culture.

Arguments against

• Threat of cultural oppression: There is a north-south divide mainly due to attempts of imposition of Hindi as the link-language of India. This has roots in anti-Brahmanism Dravidian movements in South India which sees Hindi as a language that perpetuates a ‘backward’ culture of caste and gender oppression.
• Discrimination against regional languages: Masses speaking regional languages often face discrimination in terms of sharing of political power, employment, economic status, etc.
• Ethnic clashes and violence emerge out of complexities of linguistic and ethnic politics, thereby promoting regionalism. For ex: riots in Assam in the early 1980s, Anti-Hindi riots in southern India by ethnic Dravidians in 1965, etc.
• Against constitutional principles: Imposition of Hindi is against the basic idea of federalism in India. Since India does not have any national language, States are free to decide their own official languages. Also, the idea of ‘one nation, one language’ is against the philosophy of ‘unity in diversity’.

Societal inequalities

• Linguistic diversity along with regional developmental deficit creates social inequalities which tend to produce social conflicts among different caste groups. For example demands of reservation by Jaats, Maratha, Patels.
• While English is considered a language which is devoid of caste conscious vocabulary, it is also known as the language of educated elites and has created a new class divide. Majority of the jobs being created in India, particularly in the service sector are dominated by English language speakers.

Measures to preserve linguistic diversity

• Engage indigenous people: To realise the rights and aspirations of indigenous people, it would be necessary that the government should engage and support indigenous people in determining their own development through policies that are inclusive, equitable and accessible.
• Education: About 8% of Indian population belongs to tribal communities. Their identity and culture is linked with their languages. The only way to ensure that these languages do not become extinct from this multilingual country is to give them their place in school education for at least 5 to 8 years as a language. This could be achieved making special provisions for regions/districts where the tribal and minor language population is concentrated.
• Promoting universal acceptance for international domain names: According to UNESCO, Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) can help to foster the growth of local languages online by allowing Internet users to use non-Latin scripts to access domain names. IDNs which consist of characters from non-Latin scripts form a vital part of the ecosystem necessary to foster the growth of local languages online.
• Awareness: The internet can be used to raise awareness about the issues of language extinction and language preservation. It can be used to translate, catalog, store, and provide information and access to languages. New technologies such as podcasts can be used to preserve the spoken versions of languages, and written documents can preserve information about the native literature and linguistics of languages.

Sugggestion

• Government should be sensitive towards the people’s aspirations. Any attempt of forceful imposition of any one language on masses should be refrained.
• Rather efforts should be made to preserve and protect the languages under threat of extinction. For ex: Advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence can be used to translate and digitize ancient regional texts.
• Programmes like ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’ are a step in the right direction to promote unity in diversity.
• The three-language formula envisaged by Kothari Commission should be implemented in such a way that the choice of language(s) must be left with the citizens and not the Government.

Road Ahead

• The need today is to respect, protect and nurture the diversity of our nation so that unity is ensured. The problem needs to be addressed at societal level, in which the communities voluntarily engage in conservation of language diversity that is part of cultural wealth. 
• Multilingual education should be acknowledged in education, administrative systems, cultural expression and even cyber space. Apart from this, it is also important to be aware of the hierarchical structures associated with the languages. 
• The collective awareness can then create more sensitivity, bring more empathy towards linguistic differences and play an important role in unifying the country against the cultural oppression, casteism and social inequalities.
• In recent years the language diversity is under threat as speakers of diverse languages are becoming rare and major languages are adopted after abandoning the mother tongues. The problem needs to be addressed at societal level, in which the communities have to take part in conservation of language diversity that is part of cultural wealth.