Impulsive Imposition: Language and Politics of Majoritarianism in India
The
declaration of making Bengali and Malayalam languages compulsory in
state-run schools in West Bengal and Kerala has been seen as a step to
promote regional languages in India. This article argues that these are
reactionary steps to the centre's rigorous policy of promoting Hindi
along with the larger agenda of negating federal principles. Such
policies threaten the diversity and federalism of India. The states'
fear of the central government's ideology of monopolising faith,
education, and language will adversely affect the Indian political
system, which is based on pluralism and accommodation. The policies of
the centre as well as states should be viewed with precaution as they
further advance the politics of majoritarianism.
by Papia Sengupta
by Papia Sengupta
Papia Sengupta (papiasg[at]jnu.ac.in) is at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Every
country has one or more officially recognised languages for
administrative and educational purposes. The situation is complex in
multilingual countries where the selection of a single language
representing all peoples and communities becomes a source of contention.
India went through the turmoil of choosing one language as the medium
of administration and education during the drafting of the Constitution.
The language issue took the maximum time to reach
consensus, eventually becoming a “half-hearted compromise” between
different sections of the Constituent Assembly (Austin 2014: 330). After
vigorous debates, disagreements, and deliberations, Hindi and English
became the official languages of the Indian union for communication
between the union and the constituent states. Such a decision was
agreeable to most states on the condition that they were free to choose
the state’s official language(s).
Soon after independence, most states recognised the
language spoken by the majority as the official language, whereas some,
like Nagaland, chose English. Some others also chose two official
languages depending on the sentiments and demographic composition of
their respective territories.
The second issue that demanded attention was of deciding
the language in education and the medium of instruction in state-run
schools. The three-language formula (TLF), presently followed by most
state government schools, was the result of long-drawn discussions
between 1948 and 1961, with specially appointed committees and
commissions. The first of these was appointed in 1948 under the
chairmanship of Tara Chand, a well-known historian.
It recommended that: (i) admission to the degree course
should be preceded by a course of primary and secondary education for at
least 12 years; (ii) of the above 12 years, five years should be spent
at the Junior Basic stage, three years at the Senior Basic or
pre-secondary stage, and four years at the secondary stage; (iii) the
teaching of the federal language should be started at the end of the
Junior Basic stage and should be compulsory throughout the pre-secondary
stage, but may be optional thereafter; (iv) English may be an optional
subject at the Senior Basic stage and should be compulsory at the
pre-secondary and secondary stages so long as it remains the medium of
instruction in the universities; (v) the federal language should become a
compulsory subject at the secondary stage when English ceases to be the
medium of instruction in the universities (GoI 1948).
The state departments of education provided special
provisions for linguistic minorities, who were granted the fundamental
right by the Constitution to establish educational institutions
imparting education in the mother tongue. This was further consolidated
by the recommendations of the Provincial Education Ministers’ Conference
held in 1949, which concluded that the mother tongue must be the medium
of education in primary as well as secondary levels, with students
having the choice of answering examination papers in the mother tongue
for two years after the state language was started in schools. The
States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) appointed by then Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru to consider the matter of linguistic reorganisation of
Indian states also suggested that linguistic minorities should not be
discriminated against as language was a strong reflection of one's
cultural heritage. It recommended the following of Article 347[1]
by the states and proposed that a clear policy should be formulated by
the Government of India in consultation with the state governments, in
this regard.
The Government of India proposed the seventh constitutional
amendment, following the SRC’s recommendation in 1956 and India was
reorganised on a linguistic basis. This amendment also inserted two
articles—350a and 350b—providing for mother tongue education at primary
levels and establishing a special officer for the linguistic minorities,
respectively. Viewing the language matter as capable of becoming
conflictual, the Indian government called a conference of chief
ministers in 1961. The main agenda of this meeting was to decide the
medium of instruction and language-in-education.
The TLF which was already being discussed was
comprehensively debated and reviewed in this meeting. Among other
things, the ministers reiterated the desirability of developing Hindi as
the medium for interstate correspondence, but emphasised the usage of
English for international communication. Finally, the expert review of
the TLF was delegated to the Kothari Commission, which submitted its
report in 1964 and recommended certain modifications to the TLF. The
objective of the Kothari Commission was “to accommodate group identity,
national unity, and administrative efficiency" (NCERT 2006). It brought
in the mother tongue group identity marker, Hindi for national unity,
and both Hindi and English for administrative functioning, thereby
fusing three interests into one framework known as the TLF. Indian
states were left to adopt the TLF according to their contextual
uniqueness. The TLF that emanated from this conference became a central
feature of the National Education Policy (NEP) of 1968 and was not
modified by the NEP 1986. This is not to say that the TLF is the perfect
language formula, but it did fairly well in India and avoided any
further linguistic conflicts. [ . . . ]
