Will it be good to have a National Language in India?

Though my mother tongue is Bangla, English is my academic language, still I would prefer Hindi to be the national language of India. It's because From my childhood I had studied Hindi in school and certainly it served as the best communicative language with my friends because a very few students were Bengali and English was always considered to be a foreign language. Thus, now when I am fully conversant in all the three languages I have mentioned above then I am not ready to learn any new language. For me, Hindi suits the best because it's the language for the majority of Indians.

Majority may understand Hindi to some extent, but majority do not speak Hindi. Entire Southern India speak in their own languages but not Hindi.

In my humble opinion a common national language is not possible at this stage but the need of the hour is to go on as per need of the area. The best we can do is make some Indian languages optional in different parts of the states like we can give students an option to learn an extra language of their choice. I think people in North can learn Tamil, Telugu, Kannada or Malayalam. Likewise in South, East and West can opt for an extra language but making any language a national language will only make it controversial. So we should leave the choice on people to how do the like to adjust rather than making anything compulsory.  

Well every one has agreed to Hindi being most widely used in the country. That sort of sums it up. Even the states where Hindi is not commonly used people are able to understand and  and to some extent speak even if not fluently. I too am from a state(WB) where Hindi Is not predominantly used but is understood by most people. I agree that the choice, if at all required to make , Is a tough one because sentiments are attached to one's mother tongue. So, best Is to look at the language understood by majority. Owing to transferable jobs,  I have stayed In varous states since my childhood. I couldn't have chosen to use my mother tongue In every state I went to. Nor was it possible to learn the language native to a particular state every time we shifted.English of course was the medium of instruction as well as communication In the schools and colleges but there has to be one Indian language which the locals understand. Hindi Is understood In most places. Only some places In the South ,communication was difficult If one did not know the local language.No one has ever said Hindi Is superior to the regional languages. All of us are proud of our mother tongue and literature. But the language which Is most widely used can be accepted as a common language alongside our mother tongue and English.

Yes, of-course every country have their national language then why should not in our country. I am totally agree with ram in our country caste problem which is major issue. But we all and government need to focus on it and it will definitely help to our nation and nation people. Most os the country using their own national language not giving importance to English but we all are just want to learn this foreign at any cost by giving huge amount of fees. It is not right we all need to protect Hindi, and to make it national language.

vijay wrote:

Nothing against Tamil, but why declare it a national language?

 

Hindi- North India and Tamil- South India.  Giving status of national language to both will indicate national unity/ integration. 

Gulshan Kumar Ajmani wrote:

vijay wrote:

Nothing against Tamil, but why declare it a national language?

 

Hindi- North India and Tamil- South India.  Giving status of national language to both will indicate national unity/ integration. 

But the truth is Tamil no way connected with Malayalam spoken in Kerala, Kannada in Karnataka and Telugu in AP and Telangana.

 

Gulshan Kumar Ajmani wrote:

vijay wrote:

Nothing against Tamil, but why declare it a national language?

 

Hindi- North India and Tamil- South India.  Giving status of national language to both will indicate national unity/ integration. 

 

Why particularly Tamil, why not Kannada, Telugu or Malayalam? They are all spoken in different states ..

Yes many are not aware of this fact. They are under the impression, the entire south speaks " Madrasi language." There is no language called Madrasi language.

One reason that Hindi would be declared as National Language is that most of the words used in this language match with the many words used in different languages in different states or parts of India. Also the format of this language is similar to most languages of India. So it is better to declare Hindi as National language than any other language in India.

The reason for Hindi words matching with other languages is all of them are born from Sanskrit. But in South India the languages used are born from Dravidian languages.

I have my doubts that Indians would ever agree to any one language as National Language but it will become another reason for infighting. Let the state governments decide which language they chose for governmental work and how they manage with center government. 

@ Rambabau The reason for Hindi words matching with other languages is all of them are born from Sanskrit. But in South India the languages used are born from Dravidian languages.

 Personally, I have no issues with Hindi being chosen as the National language since it spoken by the majority of people across India and it makes sense to have a language that is spoken and understood by the majority to be  chosen as the National Language. However, I have my own doubts whether the south Indian states would agree to that ..

I still remember the anti Hindi agitation in Tamil Nadu. I don' think Southern sates accept Hindi as National language.

rambabu wrote:

I still remember the anti Hindi agitation in Tamil Nadu. I don' think Southern sates accept Hindi as National language.

 

Don't you remember the same scenes in Mumbai under Sena? So why ask for more trouble which is bound to abort in any case.

suni51 wrote:

rambabu wrote:

I still remember the anti Hindi agitation in Tamil Nadu. I don' think Southern sates accept Hindi as National language.

 

Don't you remember the same scenes in Mumbai under Sena? So why ask for more trouble which is bound to abort in any case.

Im not asking for trouble. I said in the context of language rivalries. Just now I heard the news that usage of Telugu has been abolished in TN.

 

now tell me how one can think of national language?

 

Some have rightly questioned why Tamil only should represent south. I feel that Tamil is most significant language of south. My idea is that Hindi is from North and Tamil from south.  There are many other languages in North also apart from various variants of Hindi itself.  There can be a consensus on Hindi of North and Tamil of south. If no consnsus, better to avoid making any language as national.  Let all Indianlanguages be consideredas national. any wayEnglish and Hindi are central govt oficial languages. 

Fair enough.  Just now i heard Telugu has been abolished completely for all practical purposes by the TamiNadu government. Telugus form 37% of the TN's population. In this scenario of language rivalries, it is better to follow what you said. Let all the languages be National level status.

Karnataka was very liberal with languages so much so that Kannadigas learnt tamil and telugu to speak with people from those states but it became such a practice that noone was willing to reciprocate by learnin Kannada while living in the state  and that's how Vatal Nagrag and others began to stand firm that anyone coming to live here shd have a working knowledge of Kannada and some other measures...Earlier Karnatak would have agreed to have Hindi as National language but of late I see them becoming as firm in their stand against that..At the same time having Hindi as the National language is probably more agreeable that Tamil ..

" Speak and write in Odiya . Else quit the state" was once the attitude in Odisha when I lived there. I don't know the present condition. I left Odisha long ago. Before the Bifurcation of AP, the present CM of Telangana used to shout in all his meetings at the top of his voice, " Andhra wallah Bhago."

This is the mood of almost all the states in the country. Now in this scenario think of having a National Language for this country?