Published on July 29
Mohan was furious with Chhanda: “The other day you said Brahmins were the first Taliban. It’s always been the stupid Leftist fashion to be anti-Brahmin. But that’s going just too far, you know.”
Even though Anjum habitually baits Chhanda, he now rushed to her defence: “Let’s see it in context. Hinduism’s the most catholic of all religious systems---yes. But Hinduism’s gone through several phases of fundamentalism . . . phases of bigotry. And what is Talibanism but die-hard fundamentalism and bigotry? You think of it as something Muslim only because Muslims fundamentalists adopted that name. But fundamentalism is the same mindset--- Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, or Christian.”
Mohan wasn’t satisfied. “But why do you say Brahmins didn’t allow non-Brahmins to learn Sanskrit? Valmiki wrote the Ramayana in Sanskrit. By today’s political parlance, he was a dalit.”
“Why go into legend, for which you have no evidence?” said Anjum. “Why don’t you go into records of the pathashalas Brahmins ran? They were open only to Brahmins, surely? Why don’t you look at the Sanskrit centres in Udipi and Mysore?”
“Talking of anti-Brahmin stance being the fashion,” said Deb, “isn’t the very story of Hindu reforms a series of attempts to wrest Hinduism from the grip of Brahmins? Legend has it Viswamitra led the first revolt against Brahmin supremacy. And if you want to ignore legend, early history says Vyasa led a revolt against the Brahmins---before he wrote the Mahabharata.”
“How do you see Jainism and Buddhism but as Kshatriya-led revolts against Brahminical Hinduism?” asked Chhanda. “And what was Vaishnavism but yet another revolt against Brahminical Hinduism?”
“Exactly,” said Deb. “You label anti-Brahmin stance a ‘fashion’. It’s been the trend since time immemorial, you know.”
Mr Haran changed tack: “What I don’t understand is this hatred for Sanskrit and the other Indian languages derived from it.”
“That your own linguistic theory?” asked Deb. “Whoever said Indian languages were derived from Sanskrit? All Indian languages absorbed Sanskrit---yes. Even the Dravidian group of languages did. But Sanskrit was an import. The Indo-Aryans brought it with them.”
“It became India’s elitist language,” said Anjum. “Swamped regional languages and dialects. Tamil was perhaps the least affected. Because it had a glorious literature of its own. Perhaps even more ancient than Sanskrit.”
Deb took us back to the topic: “Trouble is, the moment an Indian wants to discuss anything he considers important, he begins to grope for the tatsama word---the word that hasn’t deviated a bit from Sanskrit.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” Mr Haran growled.
“But don’t you see,” Anjum said, “that at once shrinks the reach of our language? It raises a wall between those who know some Sanskrit, and those who know none. It creates a baffle-wall between India’s villagers and educated townsfolk. Much the same thing happens when you use sarkari English. If we believe in democracy, we need an inclusive language that everyone understands.”
“Towards the end of the British Raj here,” Deb said, “Churchill told British bureaucrats to cultivate a people-friendly language in their letters.”
“But,” said Anjum, “no one’s even thought about such reforms in India. When will there be a reform of the hideous sarkari language that’s loaded with Sanskritised mumbo-jumbo?”
“Nothing sarkari ever changes,” said Deb. “People force a change. Things will change only when people understand the need for plain language in a democracy. That understanding hasn’t dawned yet.”
“Truth is,” said Anjum, “we’ve never thought about the need to change the way we use our languages. Churchill spurred plain language in Britain. In the USA, reformers like Rudolph Flesch ridiculed Latinate language and spoke for colloquial language all round.”
“That reminds me,” said Deb. “Chhanda, why don’t you read those lines you were quoting yesterday?”
Chhanda picked up Flesch’s book. “It’s The Art of Readable Writing. Says here: ‘Like everyone else, you spend your life in a world filled with all kinds of bureaucratic, technical, or legal gobbledygook. The only way to fight it is active, daily, unceasing resistance. You must learn to replace every prior to by before; every subsequently by later, every we are endeavouring to ascertain by we are trying to find out. It takes years until this becomes an invariable habit and you automatically translate jargon into English’.”
“That’s it,” said Deb. “His call to reject the Latinate word and his pleading for the colloquial. We need to reject the Sanskrit word and embrace the colloquial.”
“But even our mass media keeps to Sanskritised words,” said Chhanda. “The TV keeps announcing the prayojak for every programme. How much better it sounds when they say ‘brought to you by . . .’ Why can’t they change prayojak into everyday language?”
“Every official designation,” said Anjum, “is still Sanskrit mumbo-jumbo. We have the adhikarta and the upa-adhikarta, the adhyakshya and upa-adhyakshya, and what have you.”
“That happened,” said Deb, “because when we decided to go Hindi, we deviated into communalism. Some fanatics were hell-bent on rejecting plain Hindustani because that contained Urdu words: ‘India’s State language must not sound similar to Pakistan’s’. And so, we ended up translating everything official into Sanskrit.”
“Only, when it comes to Hindi,” said Anjum, “what most people understand is Hindustani that blends dialects, everyday language, and Urdu---not Sanskritised Hindi.” “The plain truth,” Deb added, “is that those who have the power in India are a feudal lot. They never bother about the people. Had we been a democracy, we’d have worked towards a language for the people. It only proves we haven’t even begun to think about democracy.”
No comments:
Post a Comment