Today is Hindi Day because on 14th September, 1949, Hindi was accepted as the national language (say official language) of India. Every year the Hindi Day is celebrated in the govt. institutions. Some institutions celebrate Hindi Week, or Hindi Fortnight or Hindi Month also. Competitions are arranged, prizes are distributed, speeches are given, the works. However since none of these activities contribute to the betterment of Hindi, myself being a big Hindi lover, is writing this DP. I hope, there are Hindi lovers on MS who will find this post as worthy of reading.
Being a Hindi lover, I see (and review) Hindi movies, read (and review) Hindi books and I myself write too. I have written articles, stories and plays in Hindi. Fortunately two of such Hindi plays have been adapted for stage by a theatre group in BARC (consisting of BARC employees at Tarapur, Distt. Thane, Maharashtra). Being a music lover, I listen to Hindi songs and ghazals too (Hindi and Urdu are just like twin sisters). I have served in two public sector organizations one of which is my present employer. Naturally I also participate and contribute in Hindi related activities (though I am a Finance and Accounts person). But the thing which stings me is that everything done in this regard is more or less a periodical ritual and our national language is by no means, benefitted by it.
Now why should Hindi be promoted at all and why should we call it our national language. Though India is a multi-lingual country (unlike Russia, Japan, France, Spain, Portugal, England and the like which are unilingual countries), we being a nation-state have to have a language which represent our nation. Since Hindi is spoken by more than 40% of the Indian population (exact percentage I don't know) and a sizeable part of the non-Hindi speaking people also understand Hindi, it can only be given the status of the language which can represent the country before the world. Having been resided in different parts of India, I can assert on the basis of my experience that Hindi is the only language which can be used as the language of communication among the people of this great country speaking different regional language. It is the only language which is understood right from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and Rann of Kutch to Mizorum. Any two people from different regions of India need not mandatorily use English for mutual communication, they can successfully use (and in fact, this is done) Hindi for the purpose. Thus Hindi becomes the tying thread uniting the multilingual regions into a common nation. That's why Hindi deserves the status of the national language in India.
However, as far as the official work is concerned, the propagators of Hindi in the govt. corridors have themselves proved to be its biggest perpetrators. I have seen the Hindi versions of the official documents (originally in English). The Hindi words chosen to translate their English counterparts are so recherche and uncommon that to understand the essence of those Hindi documents, one may need the help of an interpreter. This is what should be called a disservice to this great language under the camouflage of service.
While preparing for the Hindi exam for PSU employees, I came across the word - 'bus' in one chapter for which my view was that 'bus' should be written in Hindi as 'bus' only. The learned teacher proposed - Lok Vaahan as the Hindi translation of 'bus' alongwith the clarification that as a commonly used word -'bus' can be written as 'bus' also. However I felt (with complete respect for the knowledge as well as the sincerety and dedication of the learned teacher) that using the word Lok Vaahan for bus or Loh Path Gaamini for rail etc. are the things which make Hindi a laughter-object in the eyes of the non-Hindi speaking people and provide an opportunity to its detractors to pull it down. Officially, it is already considered a necessary evil (even in the Hindi speaking regions). I send bilingual letters and notes to various people but it is not a secret for me that they read only the English version and whenever there is a dispute, it has already been made very clear that the English version will only be considered authentic. It is an indirect humiliation of Hindi and the flag-bearers of Hindi does not realise that partially they are also responsible for it.
(contd. in comments)
