I recently saw a beautiful advertisement on television. It was an ad by Idea, featuring Abhishek Bacchan and many other characters. The theme of this ad centered around the idea that linguistic divide is not a barrier instead it can be used to resolve differences. It is a fascinating thought. The India that they try to show in the ad is the India of my dreams.Sadly that is also the India that I might never get to see.
Language was created to bridge the gap between people. It was "supposed" to be the medium of communication. The way through which one man could express himself to others. It was created to spread love. But, hasn't it become another cause of conflict between various sections of society? Tamilians say Tamil is the greatest, Hindi speakers would say Hindi is the greatest of all. The Marathi people have become so obsessed with their language that they are willing to forget humanity for the sake of their native language. What kind of barbaric society have we become? Makes me feel like hating all the languages!
But then again, is "language" the real issue behind the conflict ? Hell No! Language in itself is so great that it does not need this high voltage drama to save it. It is the politicians who use such sensitive subjects to antagonize people and play politics over it. The day they made a decision to divide states linguistically our fate got sealed. Linguistic division created small societies and we got used to being a part of the small societies so much that we forgot everything about our common identity. In this country everyone became a Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi , Madrasi and finding an Indian in this crowd became "Mission Impossible".
There are so many examples one could name that are a bi-product of this linguistic divide. The Tamil Nadu language trouble(Read Dravidian Movement ), the Telangana row, the whole Marathi Manoos crap , U.P. government banning English; our country is full of such issues. A Karunanidhi or Jayalalitha wins an election based on this issue. Karunanidhi recently spent some Rs.480Crores on a Tamil language festival. This is a huge amount to spent on such a cause. Why didn't Karunanidhi think of other means of spending this money. Aren't we a "poor nation"?
All these efforts that every group is making to save their own language, according to me, are murdering the spirit of the language. Why can't we just let certain things be? Its important to save our languages from dying a bad death I know, but can't we do it together as one nation? Does saving one language means killing the other one? What about co-existence? Whatever happened to brotherhood? Where did our sense of oneness go? Why did we let politics enter within ourselves so much that we forgot the difference between right and wrong? Why???
But then again, is "language" the real issue behind the conflict ? Hell No! Language in itself is so great that it does not need this high voltage drama to save it. It is the politicians who use such sensitive subjects to antagonize people and play politics over it. The day they made a decision to divide states linguistically our fate got sealed. Linguistic division created small societies and we got used to being a part of the small societies so much that we forgot everything about our common identity. In this country everyone became a Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi , Madrasi and finding an Indian in this crowd became "Mission Impossible".
There are so many examples one could name that are a bi-product of this linguistic divide. The Tamil Nadu language trouble(Read Dravidian Movement ), the Telangana row, the whole Marathi Manoos crap , U.P. government banning English; our country is full of such issues. A Karunanidhi or Jayalalitha wins an election based on this issue. Karunanidhi recently spent some Rs.480Crores on a Tamil language festival. This is a huge amount to spent on such a cause. Why didn't Karunanidhi think of other means of spending this money. Aren't we a "poor nation"?
All these efforts that every group is making to save their own language, according to me, are murdering the spirit of the language. Why can't we just let certain things be? Its important to save our languages from dying a bad death I know, but can't we do it together as one nation? Does saving one language means killing the other one? What about co-existence? Whatever happened to brotherhood? Where did our sense of oneness go? Why did we let politics enter within ourselves so much that we forgot the difference between right and wrong? Why???
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