Not Indian Enough

 Few years ago, when I was 17, I was considered Not Indian Enough by few of my classmate because I was not able to speak Hindi. That was the first time I ever felt UnIndian in my life. But I became a full fledged Indian within six months, six months was enough for me to learn the language.

One cannot blame me for not knowing Hindi back then. I was born and brought up in Pondicherry where the main language is Tamil. So I spoke Tamil with my family and friends, I spoke Tamil at market place, watched Tamil movies, read Tamil comics etc. So, there was no practical necessity of Hindi for me at Pondicherry. But even then, at the age of eight I went to Hindi tuition after school. My parents sent me to Hindi class because they thought it is good to learn one more Indian language apart from Tamil. I went to Hindi class for one hour a day, three days a week. I dropped Hindi class within few weeks because of the burden that was put on me at that time and I really had no practical usage of the language back then and I got a chance to speak Hindi only when I went to Hindi class.

The Hindi class I went to had an interesting set of students. The students were of different age groups. Kids like me to teens to adults. One of my class mate was the mother of one of my schoolmate. I guess she attended Hindi class at that age because she had to pass Hindi exam to get promotion in the central government job she was in. And no one can blame her for not knowing Hindi, because she was also born and brought up in Pondicherry and she hardly had any chance to know a language that was spoken 2000 kms away from her home. Practically there are many difficulties for an working Indian woman and she had to carry this extra burden too. I guess no one in the Hindi speaking belt would go through this extra burden.

I was very much excited when I got admission in Delhi. Few of my friends asked me how would I manage to be alone. The answer I gave was “Why should it be a problem, I am moving inside India” But I was not aware that I am not Indian enough as per their Indian eligibility criteria to be Indian. I was not alone, there were few other students like me from South and North East who were in this UnIndian category.

It was only for a few weeks, it was not hard to learn Hindi, soon I was accepted as Indian but I was frequently questioned why South Indians do not speak Hindi. My standard answer would be “Its because we have our own language to communicate.” Then the next obvious question will be shot at me, Why don’t you learn?.  How many of them in the Hindi speaking belt learn any other Indian language when they were kids?

The problem here is not that why one doesn’t learn or speak Hindi, but the problem is, why do one think that every Indian should speak Hindi? All I can say is the biased propaganda of our Indian government.

When my friends in Lucknow got goose bumps while listening to the Hindi version of A.R.Rahman’s Maa tuje salam (Salute to motherland) during our 50th Independence day, I got goose bumps to the same A.R.Rahman’s Tamil version Thai manne vanakkam (Salute to motherland) and celebrated 50th Independence day of India. Loving ones language and culture does NOT mean regionalism. Every language and culture in Indian Union is as much Indian as Hindi is, then why should it be considered as regionalism when I love my culture and language? Why isn’t a Kanpur walah’s love to Hindi is not considered as regionalism?

I love my family it does not mean that I hate my friends family. I respect my friends family, it is not compulsory for me to love my friends family to show my loyalty to my friendship. Then does an Indian should know each and every Indian language? It is not necessary, a person who feels the necessity to learn a particular language can learn the language he/she prefers but it is not right to impose and say that one has to learn a particular language. At the same time it is important for every Indian to respect others culture and language and welcome others and make them feel home. We should understand our diversity and try to adjust with each other. When a person relocates to a new location and plans to stay for long term, he/she should try to speak/learn the local language to communicate with the locals and I bet they will surely feel home even in the new environment. And let us not pave way to the political parties to make use of this issue and divide the nation.