The ever burgeoning Hindi channels on Indian television, both in entertainment and news segment seem to consolidate Hindi's position as a preferred language but a close look and you know the reality! Just take a look at today's youth in metroes and cities and the truth will be far more than revealed. Even when they use Hindi for a change,its peppered with English words.
There was a time when a course in Hindi was a preferred subject at higher levels but its no longer so, where as English' growth towards north is manifest.
Its quite apropos to mention one incident...there is this friend of mine who, while discussing the school admission procedure ,recalled his school days and said with nonchalance or rather with a tone of pride that since he studied in convent he had difficulty in clearing the Hindi paper in the entrance test of the next school when his father was transferred. I have my doubts if that nonchalance would have existed at all had he failed in English!
And the trend is reflected not in educational Institutes only, its equally palpable in the other areas of activities. Now its being increasingly associated with distinguishing the class also. The higher the class,the more use of English.Even the literature is no longer an exception.Gone are the days when writers like Mahadevi Verma, Munshi Premchand, Maithili Sharan Gupt, JaiShankar prasad,Ramdhari Singh Dinkar influenced and introduced revolutionary thoughts in many generations. The house stocked with their books usually had a high status in society. Now its difficult to find a person from the upper crust of the society ,buying a Hindi Literary work . whether its a neighbourhood bookstore,a posh library or a railway platform bookstall, its the Salman Rushdis,Jhumpa Lahirihis, Vikram Chandras ,Anita Desais who are ruling the roost.Not that we did not have the writers in English earlier-who can forget the great R K Narayan and his creation Swami, Swami Vivekanand, Rabindranath Tagore or Mulkraj Anand-but Hindi was never sidelined like this.
Is it something to do with the evolving thought process of the educated urban young Indian population who after having been exposed to different cultures and sensibilities find it difficult to understand , appreciate or relate to the restricted thinking of the vernacular writers?
Although there are some who try to stablish the fact that Hindi is growing in popularity by giving the example of increasing readership of Hindi news paper but its simply the result of growing literacy rate in North India and that means the people in rural areas can read Hindi only and have no other option. By no means it can be taken as an indication of growing popularity of Hindi.
It does make one wonder what is there in store for Hindi? Will it ever be able to reclaim its lost glory?May be yes,if the language can broaden its views and its outlook.
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2 comments:
HI there !
Nice to read the post. My mother is from Delhi and has a background in Hindi lit.I agree with you totally, Hindi is loosing its respect. I hear my mom talking about allthe great Hindi authors you have spoken about,Mahadevi verma,Maithli shran Gupt, Neeraj and so on....
In fact, I remember that In school I knew this girl who was supposed to be very "MODERN" ... was not so interested in studies in any case.. once had to drop an exam, so the excuse that she made was that "I forgot to appear for the Hindi paper" (she meant that she thought the exam was on some other day). We suspected that she was lying !!
On another ocassion, we met a lady in our train Journey, who proudly said - "Those who do not know Hindi are supposed to be uneducated" .
hey....hi...saw your comment only now and was definitely delighted to read that and yeah..will like to share with you that I completed my education through Hindi medium only and I feel so enriched!!!!....I don't think any other language shares the beauty and soul of Hindi....except..perhaps Sanskrit.
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