What Were Bhagat Singh’s Views on Language Imposition?
Have you ever wondered if there were topics on which you disagreed with your favorite freedom fighter? I do. I found one article by Bhagat Singh on which I disagreed with him and still respected him even more.
Currently, the issue of language imposition is pretty hot. It is not a new issue. It’s probably been there ever since large swathes of lands were occupied and people needed a common language to be on the same page. For India, the debate on which language needs to be the national language has happened before Independence too where Bhagat Singh also gave his take and won a prize of Rs.50. Take a guess, which language he recommended to be the national language?
And the winner is…
…Hindi. Here’s the link for the article ‘Punjab Ki Bhasha aur Lipi ki Samasya’ (Language of Punjab and The Problem of Script). I highly recommend reading the article first before proceeding in this blog. In fact, I strongly recommend going through the whole website. You will appreciate Bhagat Singh in a whole different way. You’ll realize the man was remarkable not just for his sacrifices but also in the way he arrived at conclusions.
Bhagat Singh had a good grasp of many languages. He was fluent enough in English to articulate his stand in court. His letter to his grandfather talks of him getting 110 out of 150 in Sanskrit. Punjabi was his native language. He was fluent in Urdu too as shown in his letter dedicating himself to the country, written at the age of 15. So, when he spoke he considered all these languages individually for their pros and cons.
First, he picks apart Punjabi. He states Punjabi language couldn’t properly develop as well as other languages did. He supports that mapping out the strong-but-limited emotions Punjabi focused on at different times. He recounts how Punjabi alphabets have been derived from Hindi and their drawbacks. He gives historical reasons for the current condition of Punjab and mentions for a language to develop it’s literature needs to be developed. In doing so, he refers to an astounding variety of people, from Mazzini of Italy to Voltaire of France to all the Gurus of Sikh religion.
Then he comes to Urdu where he talks how the metaphors in Urdu aren’t rooted in the country. He notes the religious angle behind the promotion of Urdu. He talks about the reluctance of Muslim literary community of Punjab to adapt to the regional language, whereas Muslims of other regions had a lot of literature in the regional language. Still, he notices the influence of Urdu on Punjabi. This he says makes Urdu unsuitable for the one common language.
Finally, he comes to Hindi. While he mentions that Hindi has no drawbacks he’s mentioned of other language, he also rebukes Hindi for not being as appealing to the common folk as Punjabi is. He mentions that’s because Hindi has a large Sanskrit influence, which has its own religious lobby, is not a language of the common folk. So, he suggests while Hindi be made the common language of the people, let other languages (Punjabi) be established in Universities so they can be developed further.
My Disagreement…
While considering people from France to Italy to Ancient India, Bhagat Singh interestingly only considers the languages he’s familiar with. He doesn’t consider the languages from Southern or Eastern parts of India. He doesn’t consider how it will impact the people who don’t know the same languages he does. The features he’s mentioning in Hindi could be present in any of the languages in South or East or North-East India.
His concerns about Urdu could be based on observations, still there are pretty strong arguments for alternate opinions. There are people fighting the notion that Urdu was influenced by communal religious body. Their basic argument is while other languages have had a route in religion, Urdu had roots in rebellion against religion. It had the potential to promote critical thinking about religion.
Still, for all disagreements I’ve mentioned, I must say I am impressed with the range of things Bhagat Singh covered. Most of the arguments I’ve read about this topic, in one or the other way, focused on pride. Bhagat Singh completely skips that part goes for the practicality. In doing so, he turnsthe expectations of how valuable a sixteen year old’s arguments can be in a national debate on its hard. That’s the real revolution. Inquilab Zindabad!