'Language problems' in India

 Hi everyone, 

              In a multilingual country like India, it is of small wonder that there will be politics over different languages. A recent news of a hospital in Delhi banning the use of Malayalam among the nurses caught my attention. 

                        As many of us are aware, majority of nurses working in the Indian hospitals are from Kerala. There are many nurses working abroad because of better pay than in India. Nursing job is among the thankless jobs which involves long working hours and in shifts and the pay being less compared to doctors. One day, a Nursing superintendent of G B Pant Hospital woke up and felt that he/she was tired of hearing too much of Malayalam and issued a notice directing the nurses to communicate either in Hindi or English among themselves while in hospital, as it was believed that the usage of the unknown Malayalam language was causing helplessness and inconvenience among the patients and colleagues. As expected, it received a strong backlash from the nurses and criticism from various quarters. This controversial order was withdrawn in a couple of days and an apology was issued for this insensitivity.   It is appalling that when the whole of country is  fighting the 2nd wave of pandemic and lot of medical staff including nurses are risking their lives, the priority was given to who should be speaking in what language! Nurses usually are quick learners and they do communicate with patients either in English or Hindi.  Of course,  it is anyone's fundamental right to converse in their mother tongue anywhere in the world.  Talking in their mother tongue among themselves is a kind of stress buster and a way to deal with the never ending problems in the hospitals in a better way.

            After independence,  English became the unifying language and Hindi was declared as the national language as large population of North India spoke Hindi. This itself became more controversial as Hindi was imposed as one of the compulsory languages to be learnt in schools, especially in South India where the population is not comfortable with the imposed national language. But, the students of South India with dignity learnt it as another language and saw it as a vehicle to communicate in a better way with their North Indian fellow beings. Tamil Nadu still challenges this imposition of ' National language ' on them. As for rest of South Indians, even though they are not fluent in Hindi initially,  if they have to be in North India, they quickly pick up the nuances of Hindi and converse very well. Recently, Hindi was declared as an official language. 

                The reverse is not always true. Many North Indians who migrate down south and be there for job opportunities do not make great efforts to learn the local languages and expect the locals to learn and talk to them in Hindi. Iam in Bangalore, the software city of India, for many years. Many North Indians have settled in Bangalore. I have read in school groups where the Hindi parents are cribbing about their wards having to 'compulsarily learn ' Kannada in schools! Of course,  there will be backlash from others in support of their local language and arguing that ' when in Rome,  do as Romans do .' There will be heated discussions and arguments as to if Hindi can be learnt by South Indians, why can't the North Indians learn the local language. 

            As of now, many kids of today in metro cities like Bangalore are losing their fluency in their mother tongue as they have to talk in English in schools and to their friends. Language is not just a language,  but a combination of culture and emotions. All Indians should respect each and every spoken language and not try to suppress it like some politicians are doing now.  Our country need to set aside these kind of petty politics and grow up more.

Deepa.