#HindiImposition: A Missed Chance for Linguistic Rights

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Last year, a hashtag trended on Twitter India: #HindiImposition. It was the online manifestation of a protest in Bengaluru over Hindi being one of the languages on the display boards of the city’s metro rail service. The protesters were Kannada-speaking people of the city. They felt that Hindi signs were not required in Karnataka.

If Hindi must be used in Kannada-speaking land, then the converse must also come true, they argued. That is, Kannada signboards be used in Hindi heartland, especially Delhi, the capital of the country. And as that seemed highly improbable, Hindi felt like an imposition over Kannada speakers, the protesters argued.

To someone not aware of the many fiery linguistic -- and thereby identity -- clashes that Hindi has stirred up in the past, this whole debate may make no sense. Indians by and large may deem the protests parochial or justified, depending on which part of the country one hails from.

To me, it seems that we may have missed an opportunity to press for a recognition of linguistic rights all over the country, starting from Bengaluru. If Hindi felt like an imposition -- and it may well have -- why not send a message out for linguistic diversity by including the top languages of Bengaluru?

And, no, Kannada is not the only language spoken in Bengaluru. This page here from a city-based translation and localization company cites at least three other languages that have more than a double-digit population in the city. An older article from The Hindu mentions pretty much the same proportion of other language speakers.

So, why can’t we have the metro displays in the four languages of the city: Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu, plus English as a catch-all language? Why can’t we take decisions related to language on an inclusive rather than an exclusive basis? That is, why should the people of Maharasthra rule out all languages apart from Marathi? Can’t every city in the state adopt a simple enough benchmark like recognising all those languages that are, say, spoken by more than 10% of the population and then have all public communication disseminated through them? Governments that have a much larger budget and certainly the central government must publish all information in all the 22 official languages of the country online.

India is a melting pot of languages. There is no one region, state, or city that speaks just one language. There may be smaller villages that perhaps speak just one or two languages, but the linguistic diversity deepens and widens a whole lot when you move to bigger towns and cities.

Why then must we insist on creating these non-existent linguistic monoliths? In doing so, we reduce the fight for linguistic rights to a much narrower and parochial squabble bordering on xenophobia. Linguistic rights need to be secured not just for us in our state, but for everyone everywhere. Only then, this call for language equality will be taken seriously by publishers of mass communication, whether it be government or private companies.

Of course, acknowledging people who speak other languages and their right to access public services in those languages requires that we understand democracy. Demanding that everyone speak the language of the land is a simplistic solution and one that frequently divides people along the lines of us and them. Which one of us wouldn’t be grateful to download bus routes in our language in any Indian city that we go to?

We need to show more maturity and inclusivity in our demand for linguistic rights. It’s not enough that we ask for shopboards to be in the local language. The demand needs to be for comprehensive language access for each citizen of India, regardless of where they are from and where they live. For, if one can have linguistic rights only in one’s state, they aren’t really rights, are they?

Homeschooling -- Some notes

In August 2016, I pulled my daughter out of pre-nursery and started our “homeschooling journey”. There was a lot of dissatisfaction in me about our education system and what it does to children. I was keen on alternative schools, but those are so few and far between in India. And, most of them are in big cities, while I was not.

My daughter was very excited at the idea of getting out of school. She had already been resisting school every day. Initially, I remember being a little tense at how I would manage her, now that she would be home all day.

Now, looking back, I am amused at this fear of mine. Why would I be scared at the thought of having a four-year-old at home all day? I could already see how the school had begun dictating the way we’d lead our lives.

The initial days
My daughter and I did arrive at an understanding that we would have to have some sort of schedule. We agreed that she would have to leave me alone for certain times during the day, when I’d be getting my work done. I remember being quite surprised that she was able to understand these terms of the adult world and see why are important to me.

It was only the beginning of my understanding of my daughter, in a sense. Until then, she was to me a person whom I intensely loved and cared for but I had no inkling of her capacity to understand, to know, to learn.

The other thing that I started to do, now that the nuisance of school was out of the way, was to actually spend more time with her. From the moment she woke up, I would be with her through her every morning ritual. Breakfast was when the adult concept of time would be daily challenged. Who knew it would take 10-15 minutes to observe the intricate designs of a dosa and an equal amount of time to savour each bite?

She would wake up at her own time. There was no school to rush to, no breakfast to gobble down. Things were definitely more relaxed. And, she seemed to have a lot of energy through the day.

When we started homeschooling, I bought some text books and activity books of Oxford University Publishing. Though I now see that a child’s learning trajectory doesn’t exactly follow the structure of a textbook, we still go back to these books at times.

Over the last year or so, Bhargavi has become more attached to me. Separation is not something she prefers. But at the same time, and contradictory as it may seem, she spends a lot of time playing on her own, too. She enjoys the company of her friends, whom she meets once a week. Yet, she is equally at peace on her own. I don’t need to “entertain” her or look for activities to keep her busy.

Getting bored is something I frequently see in school-going kids. And, initially, I too feared it. But I didn't have to, as I learned. A child’s world needs no props. I routinely see my daughter and any child, for that matter, make toys and games out of nothing but their imagination.

As I paid attention to the learning process of a child, I would be amazed everyday. It continues to amaze me. I couldn’t stop her from learning, if I tried.

Two important reasons to homeschool my daughter:

• A distrust of the current education system. I strongly believe that our schools and colleges, by and large, are built to kill curiosity and the urge to learn. They are also unequipped to teach our children the skills and values needed to live their lives. For instance, it’s considered important for a five-year-old to write in cursive than be able to dress on her own or clean up after playtime. Of course, there are exceptions and there are also students who miraculously escape the system. Still, schools these days leave no space for childhood in a child’s life. I recently heard from a local school teacher about how her colleagues call up her wards at five in the morning to make sure they’re up and are with their books. Such horror stories abound.
• An earnest interest in her learning. What will my child learn about her society -- its problems and its triumphs? Will she be able to think independently and learn to exist in a collaborative, cooperative spirit rather than in a competitive one? Will she respond to problems creatively? Can she learn to understand and accept failure, anomalies, disappointments in life? Will she be willing to share her privileges? Will she grow up into a kind and brave person? These things matter a lot to us and I didn’t see how she could learn such things at a school, given its obsession with exams and certificates.

And these were not the reasons for which we decided to homeschool
But it’s important to mention here that I don’t homeschool my child because I think she is unique and a school is in some way below her. The other day I was mildly disappointed and surprised to see a post on the Facebook page of an unlearning community about how a child prodigy was the poster boy of homeschooling.

Child prodigies are simply born that way. They cannot be explained and often have done nothing to attain the level of expertise/skill in whatever they are masters of. I have nothing against child prodigies -- how could I? They didn’t choose to be that way, but I wouldn’t celebrate them either.

Celebrating them would be a disservice to them as well as other children who are learning at their own pace.

I am not homeschooling my child to hone a particular skill or interest of hers. Not at this stage, at least. It’s all discovery now and we are simply savouring each moment.

I don’t believe that homeschooling is only for the fast-paced or the slow learner. Homeschooling or unschooling is simply the most natural, unhindered and unhurried way for a child to blossom, learn, and discover herself and the world at large.

It doesn’t preclude formal or institutionalized learning at later stages. The learner should be able to decide if she needs such education and if so, what direction it should take. That, indeed, would be one of the goals of homeschooling.

Homeschooling is now the most natural state of being to us. We would have it no other way.