Language policy in today's age , and the increased regionalism present.how to reach consensus with various groups and anything else you may contribute

[LastMythin]

Jeez we bought language kanging here to....
Usually i would say just double down on english and push hindi to the sidelines but i don't think it's going to cut it anymore.

 

[LastMythin]

This is just a new form of oppression politics, cooked up by politicians to serve their own interests. People often use their limited personal experiences to generalise and claim victimhood, but the reality is far more nuanced. There's a common perception in parts of southern India that they are inherently more progressive and accommodating, while lumping all of the so-called "North"—which strangely includes western and eastern states too—as xenophobic and backward.

But let me tell you: they’re not any different from other Indians. I’ve seen, and spoken to, migrant workers in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu who’ve faced xenophobic slurs and discrimination—often from locals. So this narrative of "we're always the victims, they're always the oppressors" is shallow and one-sided.

Xenophobia, casteism, sexism—they exist in every part of India, from east to west, north to south. I from so called eastern India & I have extended family working in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka. They’ve encountered both warm, respectful people and loudmouthed bigots. Do they hate those states because of a few bad experiences? No. Do they consider Gujaratis or Kannadigas as Xenophobic because of some bad experience? Nope.

As for this whole language-chauvinism wave—it’s a slippery slope that leads to dangerous outcomes. Look at how it has played out before. In Kashmir during the 60s and 70s, even sections of the Kashmiri Pandit community supported independence and excluded non-Kashmiri settlers, only to be eventually branded as outsiders themselves and driven out.

When you start building identity on exclusive linguistic pride, it always risks turning into an “insider vs outsider” issue. Even Malayalis face discrimination from fringe language purists in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. And in Bengal, slogans like “Bangla Bangali jonyr, baharigoto der bap-er sampotti na” ("Bengal is for Bengalis; it’s not the father’s property of outsiders") are still used to alienate Odias, Assamese, Biharis, and Telugus. Some fringe idiots are so much into this language chauvinism in Bengal that they see a Bangladeshi as more closer than a fellow Indian.

In my view this language politics is eventually going to lead to seccesionist politics nothing else like how we see in Bengal & Assam. I'm disillusioned from this language kanging bs after looking at the mess that is Bengal..

@Magadha Naresh I think this thread is never going to bring anything productive should be deleted.

I have worked in karnataka and local managers do favor locals over outsiders even when the locals are much less competent. I have also noticed locals rant about discrimination the moment any actually fair assessment is done. This does not mean all kannadigas do this but it is always good to keep in mind that most kannadigas believe they are always under all circumstances better than outsiders.
I would probably be smart to not put to many future defense installations there until some satisfactory political solution is reached like the whole tamil/dravidian nationalism (yes i know they are 2 diff things now) issue in 50's/60's/70's.

 

[GaudaNaresh]

My view on link language for India is simple:
we should have a NATIVE indian language as official/formal language of India, used to communicate between ethnicities in India.
English can go fuck itself as a 3rd language and as experience of Japanese/Koreans etc show, not even studying english is not a major handicap to integrated economics with the west or progress. The only thing the east asians miss out on- is countering anglosphere propaganda against them, because very few speak english: something we can easily rectify as English as third language.

Now, for position of link language that is desi, there can only be two considerations: Practical and ideological.
Practical consideration means, we pick Hindi - it is by far the most commonly known language in India and there is no rationale to think learning hindi to talk to your fellow Indians outside your community will lead to language extinction in your community - virtually 95% of Punjabis are fluent in Hindi and Punjabi hasnt gone extinct. Neither is Bangla or Gujarati threatened and these people have 50% + of their people speaking hindi when needed.

Ideological consideration yeilds one clear-cut winner : Sanskrit. Its not only mother language to vast majority of Indian languages, its also significantly influential in core vocabulary of almost ALL indian languages. So it can be the univeral bridge. But those who will say Sanskrit is nearly extinct, save for 2-3 villages in Karnataka, so what ? In 1948, hebrew was nearly extinct and outside of Rabbis ( Jewish priests), only 2% of Jews worldwide could read/write or speak Hebrew. But Israel started a Hebrew program, adopted it as official language and 50 years later, Hebrew literacy shot up to 98%. Sure, Israel is tiny and they can pump their numbers to max level in one lifetime, but there is no reason why the method wont work in India, just over a longer timescale.

So my ideal solution is : Link Language (1st tongue) + mother language ( 2nd tongue) + English ( third tongue).
If people deem old school ICSE/CBSE level of 3rd language as inadequate, no problem, make it as robust as 3rd language and drop a useless subject like history or geography from the curricula or compress them into one. Problem solved.

 

[Nibbler]

My view on link language for India is simple:
we should have a NATIVE indian language as official/formal language of India, used to communicate between ethnicities in India.
English can go fuck itself as a 3rd language and as experience of Japanese/Koreans etc show, not even studying english is not a major handicap to integrated economics with the west or progress. The only thing the east asians miss out on- is countering anglosphere propaganda against them, because very few speak english: something we can easily rectify as English as third language.

Now, for position of link language that is desi, there can only be two considerations: Practical and ideological.
Practical consideration means, we pick Hindi - it is by far the most commonly known language in India and there is no rationale to think learning hindi to talk to your fellow Indians outside your community will lead to language extinction in your community - virtually 95% of Punjabis are fluent in Hindi and Punjabi hasnt gone extinct. Neither is Bangla or Gujarati threatened and these people have 50% + of their people speaking hindi when needed.

Ideological consideration yeilds one clear-cut winner : Sanskrit. Its not only mother language to vast majority of Indian languages, its also significantly influential in core vocabulary of almost ALL indian languages. So it can be the univeral bridge. But those who will say Sanskrit is nearly extinct, save for 2-3 villages in Karnataka, so what ? In 1948, hebrew was nearly extinct and outside of Rabbis ( Jewish priests), only 2% of Jews worldwide could read/write or speak Hebrew. But Israel started a Hebrew program, adopted it as official language and 50 years later, Hebrew literacy shot up to 98%. Sure, Israel is tiny and they can pump their numbers to max level in one lifetime, but there is no reason why the method wont work in India, just over a longer timescale.

So my ideal solution is : Link Language (1st tongue) + mother language ( 2nd tongue) + English ( third tongue).
If people deem old school ICSE/CBSE level of 3rd language as inadequate, no problem, make it as robust as 3rd language and drop a useless subject like history or geography from the curricula or compress them into one. Problem solved.

I dunno man. As a south Indian diasporaoid that left the country when his parents left (very young) my experience in India is that English is as close to a lingua franca as there is

My wife is a North Indian diasporoid that also left very young and would attest. When we visit each other's families, english is default, with other young people english is the default


It's not just spoken language. It's also the signage and product labeling etc.

 

[GaudaNaresh]

I dunno man. As a south Indian diasporaoid that left the country when his parents left (very young) my experience in India is that English is as close to a lingua franca as there is

My wife is a North Indian diasporoid that also left very young and would attest. When we visit each other's families, english is default, with other young people english is the default


It's not just spoken language. It's also the signage and product labeling etc.

No man. Hindi has faaar greater reach than English. You won't find English very frequently outside of major metro. My Hindi worked fine even in outskirts of bijapur. We can change this easily if we wish re: signage and spoken stuff.

 

[RocketMan]

Forget about the language issue , worry about your TFR in case you're an idli or from any other part of the south else in the next 40-50 years where you'd certainly be around & I'd have long croaked this little argument you're having an aneurysm over will be hopelessly one sided conducted by panipuri wallah & gutkha eaters in your favourite language - hinthi in public in Chennai , with you & your ilk helplessly staring on.

Always remember , demography is destiny & when in doubt , phuck . Always. At least that way you get to have more children & increase the state's TFR thus contributing your mite to society .

Alhamdulillah !

We need to ban gutka all over India! Why doesn't the government do this?

 

[indrajit]

I have worked in karnataka and local managers do favor locals over outsiders even when the locals are much less competent. I have also noticed locals rant about discrimination the moment any actually fair assessment is done. This does not mean all kannadigas do this but it is always good to keep in mind that most kannadigas believe they are always under all circumstances better than outsiders.
I would probably be smart to not put to many future defense installations there until some satisfactory political solution is reached like the whole tamil/dravidian nationalism (yes i know they are 2 diff things now) issue in 50's/60's/70's.

There isn't any problem with Hindi/Sanskrit in Karnataka. The 3 language formula has always been there and no one has asked to change it. The only problem you see is with some locals getting irritated with people speaking Hindi to them while living in Bangalore. Other cities in Karnataka don't seem to have the same problem, gets blown up in Bangalore, mostly because of video clips featuring auto & taxi drivers. As with everything these days, this is a social media inflated issue.

There is no Dravidian issue in Karnataka. Nobody buys into that stuff and the Kamal Hassan episode makes it amply clear. The same issue with some North Indians & Hindi was earlier directed at Tamilians & Tamil in the 1990's. ( though Kannada speaking Tamilians, especially Tam-Brams have been a part of Karnataka for upto a 1000 years with no issues) You won't get that problem with Telugu speakers, even Malayalees try & speak broken Kannada. Marwaris & Gujaratis have lived in Karnataka for ages (one of the CM's was a Rajput - Dharam Singh) and don't have the same problem.

If you look at the videos of Kannada-Hindi going on, you will find very few poor Biharis or UP/MP(or indeed Bengalis/Odisha )guys. Almost all such clips feature middle/ upper class people arguing with auto drivers & the like. Some confrontation is engineered, most are overblown. If you ask people on the street whether N.Indians who have lived in Bangalore for some time should learn Kannada, the answer would be yes. However no one is going to get into needless fights over the issue. Not that type of people.