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More than the media hype of English language
literature, it is the fanaticism of Hindi nationalists that has
undone Hindi the most. By shutting out research from a genuine
critical inquiry into the problematic and inconvenient issues of
Indianness of Hindi literature, the cultural politics of Hindi’s
claim to national language is cleverly swept under carpet. In
this process, the losses, however, outweigh the gains. Not only
the multicultural inter-textuality of Hindi writers goes
unnoticed, the inevitable cultural ambivalence of their
post-colonial responses also goes unregistered. It would be very
naive to believe that Hindi writings do not have a cultural
politics of their own or that Hindi’s nationalism does not
have its own set of contradictions.
If Indian English literature has its
anxieties of Indianness, Hindi literature too has its own
worries. If Indian English literature seeks to negotiate
internationalism with nationalism, Hindi seeks to combine
localism with nationalism. Such tampering with the organic
territoriality of the language is fraught with cultural risks,
which Hindi nationalists now can no longer afford to sweep under
the carpet. In its anxiety to occupy the nation-space, Hindi did
everything to approximate the aspirations of the rising middle
class.
The old bhakti idiom - a mix of Brij, Avadhi
and other dialects of Hindi - was suddenly discarded as rather
old-fashioned and too placid for the new harsh commercial
requirements of society. Brij was dismissed for being too
effete, feminine and passive. Khari Boli, the most unpoetic of
the dialects of the Hindi belt, was handpicked as the most
preferred medium of expression of new "masculine"
sensibility. It was hailed as one step forward in the evolution
of Hindi as a modern language. But in this process the rich
repertoire of literature in Brij and Avadhi dialects of Hindi
slowly and steadily were pushed into oblivion.
In other words, what constituted the very
heritage or even the fountain source of Hindi culture slowly
faded from public memory.Khari Boli in its effort to become the
national language, first underwent the phase of "hindustanisation".
It incorporated words from Urdu - the language of the Avadh
elite of yesteryears — to the extent that Hindi and Urdu
appeared almost the same written in two different scripts.
Gandhi favoured this Hindustani as an alternative national
language with Devnagri as the script. It was the language of
composite India. Due to intense communalisation of politics in
pre- and post-partition India, Hindustani lost its claim to the
national language. Urdu became the binary opposite of Hindi.
Suddenly Urdu was discovered by the Hindu nationalists as an
unmanly promiscuous language of the courtesan and harlot as
against the pure and pious Hindi.
This pattern of assimilation followed by
separation/opposition persists throughout the history of Hindi’s
endeavour to national status. Hindi in its march towards
nationalisation always opposed dialects and languages that it
had already assimilated. Hindi turns to tatsam diction - that it
becomes more sanskritised. The grass-root diction of the bhakti
period is abandoned in favour of a chaste margi idiom. It was
primarily a brahmanical backlash. Not only the
"corrupting" influence of Urdu had to be checkmated
due to pressures of colonialism, the indigenous elite had to
showcase the cultural richness and maturity of the nation.
Therefore in choosing metaphors and
correlatives, Hindi writers preferred upanishadic narratives/
episodes over and above medieval bhakti paradigms. The entire
effort was directed towards purging Hindi of its so-called
impurities - impurities that stem from local dialects and Urdu
in particular. The local is impure and inferior - this seems be
the mindset of Hindi flag-bearers. By invoking Sanskrit diction,
structures and metaphors, Hindi writers of the dwivedi and later
on cchayavadi period thought of themselves as revivalists of
ancient glorious Indian wisdom. Hindi, a product of medieval
period, instead of acquiring new idiom in its moments of
combativeness, ironically reverts back to ancient period. In a
nutshell Sanskrit usurps Hindi.
Soon under the spell of marxism and secular
politics of post-independence ruling elite, Hindi nationalists
insisted on devising a secular diction — a diction which is
not heavily Sanskritised. The transcendental bearings of
Sanskritised Hindi were toned down in favour of more a concrete
and tangible idiom. An empirical Hindi sans its mythopoetic
imagination was literally invented and imposed on the post-1947
generation. The effort was to standardise Hindi so that it
becomes a stable medium of national expression. Bereft of local
nuances, mannerisms and peculiarities, this Hindi flourished in
the metropolis and was taught in schools as standard Hindi.
Consequently Hindi lost its cultural
moorings. It was neither Khari, nor refined in character. It was
drained of local colour and fragrance, deprived of emotional
warmth and resonance. A textbook Hindi or what Alok Rai terms
"School Hindi" came to acquire a canonical status.
This Hindi, different as it is from various local spoken forms
of Hindi, becomes another subject in the school education. The
local users of Hindi are subjected to pass this test of Hindi
and, many ironically enough, fail in the test of their
"mother tongue". True it is that students who fail in
English outnumber those who fail in other subjects, but even if
a small percentage of students from the Hindi heartland fail in
Hindi, it is a matter of grave concern. Surely something is
seriously amiss in the very designing of canonical Hindi.
No wonder the young generation does not have
any cultural affiliation with Hindi, even if the Hindi they
speak is grammatically correct, it is utterly bereft of idioms,
local sayings, allusiveness, folk wisdom and native rhythms.
Hindi is as much a subject as English is. This Hindi is no less
alien than the so-called "second-language".
It is indeed inexplicable that we Indians who
otherwise claim distinct nationhood - a nationhood that cannot
be accounted for in terms of modern statehood — should have
hankered after a pan-Indian national language. The very anxiety
of forging a canonical Hindi as the acceptable rashtrabhasha is
colonial and hegemonic. It is against the polycentric nature of
India’s idea of nation. Hindi’s aspiration for national
status may not be unwarranted, but it should evolve gradually
and organically to this status.
The binary opposition with English has
unnerved Hindi nationalists so much that instead of challenging
the hegemony of English, they are going the English-way. Alok
Rai’s book does touch upon other serious issues such as the
dangers of appropriation of Hindi by the Hindus as a community
alone, the power status which modern Hindi has acquired over its
local status, the complicity of Hindi with imperial languages
such as Persian, Sanskrit and English, etc. Published under the
project of Tract for the Times, the tract on Hindi nationalism
is the first full-length critical inquiry into the past, present
and future of Hindi in India.
The book may appear rather hard-hitting for the diehard Hindi
nationalists, but they will have to negotiate with the cultural
politics of Hindi nationalism. The claims of Hindi to
nation-space cannot be stretched beyond a point; if they are
stretched far, the string may snap and may well boomerang on its
passionate champions.
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