What I think of the Indian Government's decision to make Hindi compulsory in North-Eastern schools:
(Disclaimer: This is not against the policies of any particular political party, ethnicity, or linguistic group. This is just to highlight the naivety of the Government of India and the unfairness of Indian constitution. I believe all the parties in power till date have not done anything at all to prevent this linguistic catastrophe, well, mere compensations at times, maybe.)
North East India is a culturally sensitive region. It differs from the mainland culturally, racially and historically. Most of the population is tribal and speak a myriad of distinct languages and dialects. It is probably the most culturally diverse area of the country.
Hindi is already an optional subject in many state boards as well as CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education). Now what the Indian government wants, is to make it compulsory. Which means students will be forced to learn it whether or not they wish to.
Some of you might ask, what's the problem with that? Well, you see... As I mentioned earlier, North East is a sensitive region. Many communities here are already struggling to keep their native culture alive, forceful imposition of Hindi will only make matters worse. Having grown up in the NE, I've had many local acquaintances who either didn't know how to speak their tribal languages or were hardly fluent in them. "I'm not that good at it..." they'd say with a sad smile. And, you know why? Because they were never taught the language. Either they are to pick it up from their parents, or they'll never know it.
Most of these tribal languages are not taught in schools. Even when they are, consider the scenario of migration. Once they leave their native village or town and maybe even settle down in a different part of the same state where the natives hail from some other tribe, they risk losing ties with the language forever. Same goes for intercommunity families where the children end up learning only the link language and not the native ones.
So why isn't the Indian Government helping to preserve these languages instead of promoting and imposing Hindi? I leave it upon you to ponder...
Reminds me of the 18th century missionaries lmao. Just replace teachers with missionaries and scripts with religion and yeah...
Hindi imposition is no better than what the British did to these people back in the colonial days. It's risking their native cultures and threatening to replace them with something foreign in the name of reforms. Yes, I said 'foreign', because Hindi was never spoken in this region prior to a hundred years or so when Hindi propagation became a thing.
And it's not like there never was a link language in the region. Assamese was the lingua franca for most of North-East facilitating communication between the numerous tribal communities as well as non-tribals. Bengali worked as a link language in Tripura and Barak Valley region of Assam. Nagamese, a pidgin version of Assamese is still spoken as the common language between the different communities inhabiting the state of Nagaland.
What the Indian government is doing, is destroying the old linguistic fabric of society that kept the people connected and replacing it with Hindi. Many languages that historically used the Assamese or Bengali script are turning to Devanagari or the Roman script, thanks to government funding and propaganda (Boro, Khasi, Mising etc.) Old link languages like Nefamese (in Arunachal) have been replaced by Hindi and English.
There are hundreds of local dialects in the region that are currently endangered either due to small population sizes or because the young generation is shifting to more 'economically profitable' languages. There's really not much that the Indian government has done to protect them.
What they want to destroy. What we need to protect. The map is of course only depicting the unofficial languages, the recognised languages like Assamese, Bengali, Bodo and Manipuri have not been highlighted.
Let us not forget that when one culture threatens to replace another, there's always resistance and this kind of cultural imposition is, in my opinion, one of the factors contributing to the insurgencies and separatist movements in the region. If you make people believe they need to speak a certain language to connect with the nation instead of making them realise that their own culture and language is an integral part of the nation too, well, this is what happens.
There's been opposition and clear voicing of displeasure coming from many tribal and political groups regarding this new education policy but I don't suppose much will change given how deaf our governments have always been.
It's a lost battle, unless we all speak out against it.
