Comments on: Fractured tongues

By: Thejesh GN

Thejesh GN — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 07:22:03 +0000

Yeah. Language is the core of any community. *Indian English* works well for India than any other language.

By: oshani perera

oshani perera — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:16:23 +0000

The Sinhala-Tamil conflict is Sri Lanka is certainly extremely worrying. But the core issues are not about language but about the politics and the business of war.
In the 1970s the government did replace English, but with both Sinhalese and Tamil as official languages and English as “the foreign language”. The April festivities are rightly termed the “Sinhala and Tamil new year”, Hindu religious events are public holidays, up until the 1980s, the Tamil minority were definitely very much a part and parcel of everyday life and the political and intellectual elite across the Island.
But where the fracturing on tongues did occur is when education streams were segregated and Sinhalese children were educated in Sinhalese and Tamil children in Tamil.Albeit the fact they attend the same school, played in the same playground and even lived in the same street – they became “different communities”. Another mistake that Sri Lanka government made was to not provide legal status to the hundreds of Tamil people working in the tea and rubber plantations who had been installed there by the British across 1850-1947. I believe that this issue is still pending .
The cause of the terrorists’ is power. It is not about equal rights which the Tamil minority have constitutionally always had. Successive Sri Lankan governments in their turn have been corrupt and ineffective. The public debate on the war has been largely biased in favour of special interests. The government’s latest offensive to “win the war” but destroy what is left of Sri Lankan dignity and integrity is hardly an effort to secure peace. On the contrary, it is paving the way for even more hatred in the months ahead. Politicians and their friends have been using the war to line their pockets for over 20 years and given that there has been no investment in education or infrastructure since the 1880s, the average Sri Lankan is unable to discern or aspire to anything better. This is a case of a fractured nation unable to heal.

By: Satya

Satya — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:29:17 +0000

And Nandan,

To be very honest, perhaps for the first time I see a very successful person of your stature writing to openly about India and very inclusive about every other culture in India.

I am so glad to see it. We need a million people like you.

By: Satya

Satya — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:12:17 +0000

A Japanese colleague of mine asked this:

“How come you speak the tongue of a country which enslaved you for over 200 years?”

I was speechless for a moment. However, I informed the normal corporate mumbo jumbo (Anyone can guess that!)

In a country like India, the issue is not actually complex. It is done mostly by political parties and hence we see more regional hatred and division. An “average Ram” from India does not have time to think for which language the other person speaks. Rather the vandalism comes from educated people, politicians and many senior people in various industries. As someone rightly pointed out, Language forms ones identity. However, degradation starts when people make it an emotional issue - paradoxically done mostly by educated people.

If language is so important to Indians as my Japanese colleague asked - how come Indians speak English who brutalized us for over 200 years??? For many non-Indians, it is a puzzle. But for many Indians, I am sure it is not.

In tamilnadu, Hindi is not liked by many people, but people from Cape Camorin or Tirunelveli or Madurai speak it without any scent of hatred. The same is not possible in Chennai. Reason is simple - first category depends on tourism as their main source of income! I think there lays one solution to the problem – economic issue. Also, the education system, the media, film/tv shows etc. should be more inclusive and include India as a whole.

Unfortunately, we are not heading in that direction. Political parties (mostly regional now) who come to power via illiterate people and the current educated generation (check any matrimonial site – first division is on language, then religion and then caste!) are proofs of these.

By: Digambar

Digambar — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:29:23 +0000

Sir,
It is not the people,it is the so called leaders who do all these only for their cause.
Then how come Tamilians have no issues with English.
In fact common people don’t have any issues else they would have not left Tamilnadu at all.

It is just cause of the selfish leaders who use sentiments of the people for their own welfare.

Wether it be Karunanidhi or it be Raj Thackray all are alike just for their own cause.

Digambar

By: KaZorba

KaZorba — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 21:52:17 +0000

language is a derivative as religion..so not clear as to why language should be part of core of anyone? recently i watched the movie “mozhi” - literally in tamil means language - where the herione is deaf and dumb - well made movie; if you get time, you should watch it - just thought it could provoke more thoughts on fractured tongues..

By: Harsha vardhan

Harsha vardhan — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 11:13:02 +0000

Language is one of the founding stones of our core identity and political parties have all the rights to work for creating political space for people speaking specific language. Otherwise economic development will happen in pockets and so many communities will be left out from processes of economic development. The political agenda of language can be progressive, it should be used to embrace development.

For example, Marathi people were made to believe by Gujratis in Mumbai that they can not be good entrepreneurs. Shiv Sena harnessed Marathi urban entrepreneurial abilities using Marathi language as identity. The result was- so many builders popped out of Marathi communities. We have many marathi land developers in Mumbai. Poor land owners became crorepati builders.

Even Vada Paav enterprise was revolutionary, it really caught fire and always reinvents itself with modern times.

Now Raj Thackeray’s (very infamous) Maharashtra Navnirman Sena is fighting for the cause of Marathi Manus embracing enterprising spirit of globalization era. MNS looks very much like modern corporate start-up in many ways. It is called ‘NGO’ by old parties. MNS is competitive, it will motivate more Marathi people to come out and work, innovate and move up the value chain.

The competitive agenda of these outfits always turns into divisive one and sometimes it appears to become fascist as well. If ‘they’ start crossing the lines, society optimizes them into borders of rationality. Still, energy and activism these leaders create is valuable.

Regional parties- might not completely represent the complexity of aspirations we have, but they seem to be here for long time now.

By: Sarang

Sarang — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 07:55:01 +0000

It is true that language used by majority should not be the only criteria to select the official language.It just helps to fuel regional divide and nothing else.Our politicians use this divide very smartly to strengthen the vote bank.If we see it carefully across the India,we can point out this common thread of language politics being used by greedy politicians. I think creating states using language boundaries was the single biggest mistake.We are still disputing to decide the border in some of the regions.Ex:Belgaon in Karnataka.There are few other examples as well.Mothertongue is the source of pride for everyone,which is but natural.Fueling or using this pride for the votebank creates nuisance value and promotes violence in the society.People who fell pray to such politicians is the real reason of concern and there should be some system to show correct direction to these people as well as leaders.

By: Pravin

Pravin — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 01:52:48 +0000

I agree with your views. My mother tongue is Hindi but I feel the official language should not be Hindi just because some parts speak Hindi.There are sometimes massive protests for something as trivial as this in our country and political parties use it to fracture the voter base and get votes. I have heard that people from the South are especially touchy about this issue.