Congress introduced 3-language policy. Why is it fighting it now?

medium119109155Considering that the contentious three-language formula is essentially a Congress legacy, it’s interesting to see the party trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds at the same time in the escalating row between southern states, especially Tamil Nadu, and the Narendra Modi government, which they accuse of imposing Hindi on them.To refresh public memory, it was first introduced by the Indira Gandhi regime in 1968 despite protests by non-Hindi-speaking states and was reaffirmed in the Rajiv Gandhi government’s New Education Policy (NEP) in 1986.Touted as a magic wand to promote “linguistic diversity and national unity”, it broadly prescribes the teaching of three languages — mother tongue or regional language, official language and a modern Indian or European language in schools.In the event, however, the three-language formula has ended up as a running sore in north-south relations and a source of division rather than unity.Tamil Nadu, which is leading the current agitation, never implemented it and continues to stick to a two-language policy (Tamil and English).Similarly, most Hindi-speaking states have ignored it as senior Congress leader P Chidambaram has pointed out while weighing in on the side of southern states.“It is a matter of record that government schools in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Haryana follow effectively a one-language policy of only Hindi,” he wrote, adding for good measure that from the moment it was mooted, “It was dead on arrival. No state has ever implemented TLF [three-language formula].”So, here we have it straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were, that one of his party’s flagship educational policies was a non-starter. “Dead on arrival,” in his own words.What he didn’t explain was this: If it was such a bad policy, why didn’t successive Congress governments scrap it instead of pretending it was working?Chidambaram’s accusation that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has instigated an “unprovoked” war with the south would have carried greater conviction had his party opposed the continuation of its failed policy. medium nocaptionhttp://youtu.be/OhIwAOS2GfU?si=WzTiPwfjPBUlqGEfThe only difference between the Congress and the BJP’s approach is that while the former chose to turn a blind eye to how its policy was being rubbished, the BJP government has gone to the other extreme in its zeal to implement it.It has threatened to withhold central funds under the Samagra Shiksha scheme for Tamil Nadu unless the state accepts the NEP in its entirety.Whether it’s right in a federal system for the Centre to hold a gun to the head of federating units to enforce an unpopular policy is debatable.But equally questionable is the lazy option of not doing anything — either enforce the policy or admit that it’s not working and scrap it.The Congress must clarify whether it still stands by its policy or has had a quiet change of heart. And if so, it should disown it.Sitting on the fence reeks of opportunism.It’s important to remember that the original trumpeters for Hindi were Congress leaders from Hindi-speaking states — mostly Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.People like Govind Ballabh Pant, Sampurnanand, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Seth Govind Das among others drove the project to establish Hindi’s supremacy, leading to it being declared as India’s official language in 1949.Not just any Hindi but highly Sanskritised Hindi — incomprehensible even to its regular speakers.The switch was justified on the ground that Hindi was spoken by the majority of the country’s population. Its organic link to Hinduism via Sanskrit was also cited by some. medium nocaptionhttp://youtu.be/VOIRy_aMyJQ?si=jpYGIg0qyPaX2FjTBut long before that — in 1925 to be exact — the Congress had abandoned English as the language of internal official business in favour of Hindi.Both Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru were votaries of Hindi and believed that it would facilitate regional communication and encourage national unity.The idea that a language considered alien south of the Vindhyas and not universally loved even in the north could encourage national unity has since been severely tested — and found wanting.So, what’s happening today is a Congress legacy rooted in the “golden” Gandhian and Nehruvian era.Relentless “Hindi-isation” of a country of incredible linguistic diversity is up there with the indiscriminate “Russification” of the erstwhile Soviet Union republics — Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan et al, all of which had their own vibrant local languages.Pakistan had to pay a heavy price for its linguistic chauvinism which saw Urdu and Punjabi imposed on the rest of the country with their own distinct linguistic traditions.It was one of the factors that led the Bengali-speaking East Pakistan to secede from the Urdu/Punjabi-speaking West.There is a long history of how attempts to assert linguistic supremacy have ended up damaging the social fabric, often leading to separatist movements in many countries.Let’s remember that Tamil Nadu’s linguistic identity has been shaped largely by its resistance to the imposition of Hindi since the 1930s.It reached its peak during the anti-Hindi agitations of the 1960s, which culminated in the state adopting a two-language policy that prioritised Tamil and English in state-run schools. medium nocaptionhttp://youtu.be/ElYGIR4b0tc?si=Jp8n29kZy3gKlz7AMeanwhile, in the north, the biggest casualty of Hindi jingoism has been Urdu — my mother tongue.It was systematically suppressed by the Congress party’s Hindi zealots.Overnight, Urdu magically disappeared from schools, Urdu-medium schools shut down, Urdu teachers lost jobs and those with Urdu qualifications struggled to find employment.There’s enough anecdotal evidence that Urdu-speaking people in small towns and villages were tricked into registering their mother tongue as Hindi on school admission forms. Which was then used to claim that there was not enough demand for Urdu to justify its teaching.Perhaps the worst thing they did to Urdu was to give it a communal twist by identifying it with the Muslim community and portraying it as some sort of a fifth column because it happened to be Pakistan’s national language.And today even a casual mention of Urdu is fraught with risk.Only last week, officials of the Rajasthan Education Department launched an investigation into how an event at a school in Baran district was given an Urdu name.A programme at the Mahatma Gandhi Government School sent out invites to a function for an event named “Jashn-e-Alvida” (celebration of a farewell).As photos of the invite went viral, the District Education Office ordered an inquiry claiming that the Urdu title was “contrary to the departmental guidelines”.And then there was the famous case back in 2021 where Hindutva/Hindi vigilantes forced the clothing brand Fabindia to pull an advertisement for a collection named “Jashn-e-Riwaaz” (celebration of tradition) and rename it Jhilmil si Diwali (a sparkling Diwali).Back to the current row with southern states, frankly the BJP can’t afford to be too confrontational as it seeks to expand its base in the south.It may have succeeded in cowing down Urdu-speaking Muslims with a show of danda but here unfortunately it’s up against the big boys who can bully back. Ask the Congress party which knows a thing or two about such things.Read more from the author here.