The ascendency of India as an economic world power

There is some merit in Hindi - the 'Rastrabhasha' ie national language of India being considered as one of the official UN languages. At least 300 million people use it as a first language and another 180 million as their second language within India. There was indeed stiff resistance from southern states more than three decades back to the introduction of Hindi resulting from an undue haste on the part of Hindi zealots. Today, Hindi is freely used in the those states and Hindi films as well as songs are the favourites of their people.

Satish:
Today, Hindi is freely used in the those states and Hindi films as well as songs are the favourites of their people.

What alternate universe does this "south India" you speak of exist in? Does it involve hallucinogenic substances in any way?

Accepting hindi as the "sole representative" of India in UN is a tacit approval of hindi as the national language.

If this goes thru, then ppl like mulayam singh yadav will say - even UN has approved hindi - why not make it the national lang of India ? - this will result in further imposition from the central govt.

Seeing hindi movies does not mean approval of hindi over their mother tongue !

We watch more English movies than Hindi movies. Does that mean we have accepted English as national language? Govt of India is already wasting our tax money on Hindi Prachar Sabhas. When all Indian languages are equal according to Indian constituition, why this extra stress on Hindi?

Every nation has a national language. What should be India's national language? If one goes by numbers, Hindi comes on the top. But that does not mean other Indian languages become linguistic minority. The popularity of Hindi movies only shows that the antagonism against Hindi which prevailed in some non-Hindi speaking states during 1960s, has been buried.

Man, Lot of people watching Hindi films shows Hindi can be made as National language ! Bulls***!!

First of all, Hindi is one of the official language of India.Rashtrabasha is a misleading term used to bring Hindi thru backdoor as national language. Try to understand, Hindi is mother tongue of just 5 states and that can't dictate Whole India! Believe in Unity by preserving diversity

J, I suggest you read the first two lines of my comments and try to understand the implications thereof. While we can go on arguing whether Hindi should become the national language or not, what India has to answer if UNO decides to include India's language in UNO's official languages? I believe in the approach 'Unity in diversity'. But that stand may not satisfy UNO. An Indian can only appreciate the complexity of this problem.

///The popularity of Hindi movies only shows that the antagonism against Hindi which prevailed in some non-Hindi speaking states during 1960s, has been buried. ///

Are you kidding ???

If you are a member of orkut - go check out the number of anti-hindi communities !

///The popularity of Hindi movies only shows that the antagonism against Hindi which prevailed in some non-Hindi speaking states during 1960s, has been buried. ///

Are you kidding ???

If you are a member of orkut - go check out the number of anti-hindi communities !

///Every nation has a national language. What should be India's national language? If one goes by numbers, Hindi comes on the top.///

Many nations have multiple languages.

India has NO national languages - only 23 official languages !

I did not find the word 'orkut' in Oxford Dictionary and so could not get your point. Which anti-hindi communities you are referring to? Do they live in India or outside? And my last question : are you suggesting that UNO should include all our 23 languages? They have only six so far.

All the 23 languages are given the status of OFFICIAL language - why push for one ?

Alright, no body is allowed to push and you are asked to suggest to UNO a maximum of 3 Indian languages to be considered for inclusion in their official language lists (of course it may not happen in your wildest dreams!). Then what will you do? Writing any nonsense is easy, giving a considered opinion is not everybody's cup of tea.

///Then what will you do? Writing any nonsense is easy, giving a considered opinion is not everybody's cup of tea.///

What will you do ?

I will give my considered opinion that India has no choice but to recommend Hindi to be included as UNO's official langauage and not ask them to include all the 23 official langauges we have.

You all honestly think that The United Nations will bring in 3 of your languages all because of one editorial/journalists point of view?

At most, India will only get it's majority language, Hindu, IF THAT! The United Nations has stressed that the 6 official languages make up for over 85% of all spoken languages.

When English and Asian language can be easily learned in India, inducting a language would be pointless. Once India gets a language in the UN, EVERY UN Country is going to feel it is their god-given right to have their language there.

The 6 Languages are there for standardization so everyone can understand one another. Adding more languages further waters down the whole point and structure of the UN's 6 Official languages.

You must be another disgruntled Hindu that thinks India is in so much dyre despair and need of attention. I have absolutely no pity for you.

You seem to be mixing up Hindu and Hindi in making a lot of blah blah! If and when UNO asks every country to name one official language, it will get response except from India bacause a few commentators from some part of tha globe understand that India should only suggest 23 languages or none.

Hello harsha, what do u mean by anti hindi agitation has been buried...come to tamilnadu ull know the truth...two years back in TN milestones were to be written in hindi...there was strong resistance from the people of TN...hindi was wiped out and written in tamizh...if u consider this a small issue think abt a big issue...i dont understand how north indians are so ignorant of national language...there is no national language for india...TN didnt allow hindi at any time for any reason...we had been protesting till now...and even further we'll go...let Hindi become the national language of india then it can become the official language of UN....and hindi songs r the favourite of south indians?...tell me a good song in hindi without AR Rahman music...get a life man...

IF HINDI IS MADE ONE OF THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGES OF THE UN, THIS WILL WORSEN THE SUBJUGATION OF LINGUISTIC MINORITIES IN INDIA. HINDI SHOULD NEVER BE MADE AN OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF THE UN.

And for those who give this "Hindi is our national language" statement, here's my response: The peacock is our national bird, so we should all keep a peacock at home.

NO i dont think so

no need of hindi language in UN

thnx

internet makes it easy for any and everybody to mud-sling. look at how many of you would like to reamain english slaves at the cost of not only hindi but any and every language you speak. Music A R rehman creats is Tamil/Tamiz, Good Lord! And some one here is so proud of A R Rehman being Tamil/Tamiz and look his icon A R himself is happily giving music in HINDI, Singing in HINDI and filling his cofers. Get over it Rehman prefers URDU to tamil/tamiz whatever you might like to say.
Learn to grow big people. More languages are spoken in North India than anyone in south India can count. Yet Hindi is only a link language.
Unlike south indian we do not fear other languages from any part. We are not scared of being a liguistic minority because our languages are strong because our character is strong. We do not use anti-language vehicle for gaining power. People in north india are mature lot and hope, wish and pray the same for rest of India also.
Linguistic chauvinism is not what society requires.
Get off your high horse that tamil/tamiz acquired its richness by being in isolation. Take away the contribution of other Indian languages from it and it will become worse than the sign language of Paleolithic period homonids. Get off your suriority drive. Language is an ongoing process, in isolation it stagnates and eventually dies.

@chowury
We prefer Tamil to whatever crap you want.

Take off the SI states n the north will be a barren piece with no international selling point! :)

1. Hindi is not spoken by majority of people in india or asia.

http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm

Chinese* (937,132,000)
Spanish (332,000,000)
English (322,000,000)
Bengali (189,000,000)
Hindi/Urdu (182,000,000)
Arabic* (174,950,000)
Portuguese (170,000,000)
Russian (170,000,000)
Japanese (125,000,000)
German (98,000,000)
French* (79,572,000)

Bengali can be made one of the official language on UN if majority is taken into account.

2. Hindi doesn't represent india..India is a diverse country and making a regional language like hindi as official language of UN will divide india..

After independence there has been a long and unended debate so far, that whether or not Hindi should be placed as actual Official Language of India.
since India is a multilingual and multicultural country, there have been obvious deterences from Non-Hindi people. It is understandable that if Hindi is supposed to be implemented,it is to be in a way of gradual adaptation but the elements who are offering cheap comments and provoking linguistic differences must be identified and punished as they do not favour the integrity of this country.

We all share the dream of India becoming a vibrant, prosperous nation, and a major economic superpower in the 21st century. We are all proud of our Ancient civilization which has been multiligual and multi-ethnic for the past 5000 years. However except in former Marxist countries. no multiligual and multiethnic country I know of today i.e switzerland, canada, mauritius. takes the language of the statistical majority and plonks it on everybody else. It has never happened even in India for the past 5000 years. Statistics keep changing every year. I am not sure if Urdu, Santhali, Mythili and Bhojpuri form a part of Hindi. So your figures are highly suspect. Some states have two or three or one or two languages in the sylabus. Unthinkable. One part of the country wants to destroy everybody else. India's langage policy is completely at odds with international best practices, common sense, monority rights and even its own constitution and is any way doomed to fail. Let us have national integration based on mutual respect and not based on one community destroying other communities !

There are tens of thousands of possible national integration stategies. We can consider a neutral language like Sanskrit. All private sector enterpises use a neutral language like English or enourage several
indian languages simultaneously. (Google / orkut)

This will even go against UN principles and reduce the dynamic stability of the country.

Hindi fanatics have no interest in India. They are only interested in the welfare of their own community

Sujay

Hindi zealots have a terrble track record of trying to eliminate linguistic minorities (among the worst in the world), this is yet another ploy . Instead, they should try to promote their languages within their own states or strive to make their states the most advanced in the Indian Union. This is a ploy to victimize linguisitc minorities in India.

Here are some alternative national integration strategies

Major problems with Hindi are

(a) Some states have one some language and some have two languages in case English is removed in the long run (First discriminating factor)
(b) Those who have Hindi have it as their mother tongue (Second discriminating factor) (c) In Telegu medium schools, we can only have Hindi as second language (Third discrimonating factor)
(d) Those who take over the job market through unnatural means can automatically destroy other cultures.(Fourth discriminating factor).

This would keep on producing counter reactions, create long-term instability if imposed through artificial means, would be opposed to fedaralism and eventually minority rights, encourage English even more, encourage laziness at the expense of merit, encourage politically-induced uni-directional migrations, allow both English and Hindi to kill other Indian languages, encourage the learning of foreign languages at the expense of Indian languages, have other side effects (Hindi as an entry level link language in Non-Hindi speaking states) and end up destroying its own creators. This one / two language dichotomoy is based on people in New Delhi allocating scarce resources using scientific formulae.

While this may be a short term strategy, this would clearly be a unworkable long term policy

This kind of a language policy is clearly opposed to the dynamics of a free market and even common sense (why will anybody learn something if he thinks it can destroy him) and
is a relic of the Nehruvian era. Furthermore Hindi cannot even replace English according to the Indian constitution. Furthermore, Hindi (khadi bholi) is only the official language of the Central government. Rajasthani, Mythili (45 million speakers) are separate languages according to the eighth schedule, Bhojpuri (150 million speakers) has a rival entertainment industry, Urdu (75 million speakers) and Angika (30 million speakers) are clearly separate languages. Urdu, Santhali and
even Mythili have separate scripts.

Furthermore, apart from Marxist societies, there was never any concept of "selecting" "national" languages.
However kings and rulers often selected administrative languages based on discussions with various people.

Alternative strategies

We can implement a combination of all these)

(a) Language of the state, English and Sanksrit (those who don't want to take Sanskrit may opt for Urdu) (In vernacular schools)
In English medium schools, English, Sanskrit/ Urdu. However, people must learn a little bit of the local language.

(b) Some kind of Prakrit as third language (all states and communities must give an
in principle approval before hand. All states and communities must get together and form a committee )

(c) Present three language formula. However, instead of Hindi , we can opt for any one
living Indian language (excepting for the language of the state / urdu and sanskrit)
This must be implemented by Hindi speaking states also.
(d) Have schools only in the local language till 5th standard. (All states and boards must simultaneously
agree)
English will be taught as a second language.
People coming to another state must study in the language of the state.

However, one other Indian language must be taught based on demand
(e) We can have a composite third language (a mixture of two three other Indian languages
taught)
(f) The centre sets up a body to promote Indian languages, sets up libraries, research
institutes, in every town and district, translates international books into all
Indian languages, makes technical information available avaialable to the common man
(especially information which is most needed by him Agriculture etc, gives away prizes
to scholars, provides translation services in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha in all Indian
languages so that only people from a few states do not benefit.

Thousands of such other strategies can be thought of.

IF THE GOVERNMENT GOES AHEAD WITH THIS MOVE, WE WILL PROCLAIM IT ANTI_NATIONAL AND INSTEAD SHAMELESSLY PROMOTING THE WELFARE OF ONE COOMUNITY.

Please read books by respected scholars like Mohanram "Hindi against India" and similar articles
by Ramachandra Guha, a very well known scholar. He said this because India's language policies are highly discriminatory and are against the principles of a democracy. We must beleive in scholars more than we beleive in politicians. The Rajbhasha department must give up its obsolete policies and be prepared for a debate with scholars and internationl experts. Such policies are even opposed to the dynamics of a free market economy and are opposed to Human nature. That is why Hindi disappeared as a written language outside the Hindi belt. That is why Bhojpuri movies have recently outstripped Hindi movies. Such optionns are not even workable according to the Indian constitution and would keep on producing counter-reactions. A brilliant option would be to make both SANSKRIT and URDU UN languages in parallel, since Hindi is a blatant sign of discrimination based on language, SANSKRIT and URDU would symbolize that India does not discriminate based on both language and religion.

SUJAY RAO MANDAVILLI

Here is another analogy: When Pakistan imposed its language on Bangladesh, it broke up. When Sri Lanka did the same, it too broke up. The USSR too broke up for the same reason. India too follows the same strategy. Taking the language of the "statistical majority" (That itself is a big fraud because many languages claimed to be a part of Hindi but may be distinct languages. However, the Indian constitution had so many checks and balances that it kept on producing counter-reactions. (For example Hindi is not formally used anywhere outside the Hindi belt (Pidgin Hindi/Hinglish is used as a lingo in many parts). Furthermore Hindi has been synonymous with words such as enforcement, imposition, demands for independance. There was a crisis in the 1940's and another major crisis in the 1960's. (Note that India is not a Marxist country) Let us abandon the plan to make Hindi a UN language,(there is no point, the Hindi belt must develop itself first) (This cannot be done anyway unless Tamilnadu and other states formally sign.), switch back to a two language formula, call for a debate and discussion with experts from all over the world. We are an emerging superpower and must have the best national integration strategy in the world. I have given some suggestions in my earlier post. JAI HIND

Sujay Rao Mandavilli

Apart from communist countries and failed or failing states no other country in the world takes the language of one region and spreads it on other regions using political power. As a matter of fact, In the European Union, Canada and switzerland,
state-sponsored discrimination between languages is banned

Hindi should official language of UN.
HINDI is popular in gulf countries also.

Hindi should be official language of UN.
Hindi represents India very well in other countries.
Learning Hindi will enhance other indian languages also.
Take simple example.
Dashavataram - This is Sanskrit word freely used not only in Tamil but also in Hindi and all Indian Languages.
There are lot of words like this, Hindi will touch to other indian languages and will enhance not only hindi but regional languages also.
so
Hindi should continue official language of India. should be national language and Hindi should be official language of UN.

Divide the country into hindi speaking land and other language based countries AND then you can beg to the UN to make hindi "official language" - it will be interesting to see UN's reaction since it will be put forth by the BIMARU states which have sub-saharan living, economic and social conditions.

THIS WOULD BE TANTAMOUNT TO ALTERING THE NATURAL DYNAMICS OF LANGUAGE SPREAD IN THE SUBCONTINET USING POLITICAL FORCE /ARTIFICIAL METHODS ... HIGHLY UNDESIRABLE AS IT CAN REDUCE THE DYNAMIC STABILITY OF THE SUBCONTINENT ... SOME POLITICANS SELECTED HINDI ..SOME POLITICIANS ASkED FOR HINDUSTANI ..SO WHAT DO YOU MEAN ? BHOJPURI HAS ALMOST BROKEN AWAY FROM HINDI DUE TO A PROCESS KNOWN AS ETHNOGENISIS

YOU ARE DRAGGING UN (THE UNITED NATIONS) INTO THIS CONTROVERSY !... RIDICULOUS

"SELECTING" (WHATEVER THAT MEANS) THE LANGUAGE OF A REGION IS BUT ANOTHER FORM OF REGIONALISM .. SOME STATES HAVE TWO ..SOME HAVE THREE LANGUAGES ..

Let us Switch to a Unity IN Diversity model like the EU/ Canada / Mauritius etc.. (a) Liberal Decentralization + (b) Strategy and incentives driven by Central Govt for promotion of Indian languages + (c) Incentive to learn each others languages + (d) Special package for North East and Kashmir

If you follow the model given below, I will assure you that most IndianS will learn some Hindi. After learning Tamil and English, the next logical step for a Tamilian would be to learn Hindi not Assamese for instance .. since no Indian will feel threatened people will automatically start learning each others languages .. the Rajbhasha model won't work in post 1991 India ..The Rajbhasha department is one of the two relics of Nehruvian India. The other is Marxist historiography. By spreading Hindi by force, Nehru actually encouraged English more to such an extent that it destroyed its own creators.

History clearly states that majority of Hindi words are foreign origin and Hindi language largely developed from foreigners.

Why make a foreign language as "national" when we have our own Indian-origin languages.

MAKE TAMIL THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF UN AS TAMIL IS THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF 3 COUNTRIES[INDIA,SRI LANKA AND SINGAPORE].

PUNJABI SHOULD BE THE NATIONAL LANGAUGE, PUNJABI HAS GONE THE MOST GLOBAL OUT OF ALL INDIAN LANGUAGES, PUNJABI HAS SPREAD TO CANADA, UK, USA, AUSTRALIA, ALLL OVER THE WORLD. MAKE PUNJABI THE NATIONAL LAMGUAGE OF INDIA AND OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF UN. PUNJABI PUNJABI PUNJABI PUNJABI PUNJABI PUNJABI!!!!!!!!!