The Status of Indian Languages among world languages and in Indian academia

06/07/2010 at 10:29 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

India is recognized as multi lingual, multi cultural, multi religious and plural society in the world. Does this reality reflects in its state policies also, particularly, when the country has got a democratic system of offering equal opportunities to all of its citizens, without any discrimination? I am afraid that the reality is different than the claims, which can be seen from Government of India’s own data, published on its various websites of the different ministries. Here I would like to present Indian languages data in contrast with world languages data and Government of India’s policy regarding Indian languages as reflected in various schemes of ministry of human resources and also in the academic programmes of Indian Universities.
World language data suggests the existence of about 7000 languages in the world with some variations. Ethnologue website, referred in MHRD website refers to 7400+ languages, whereas Vista and some other language data sites refer to 6900+ languages. MHRD website refers to existence of 1576 mother tongues as per 1991 census in India, which has been rationalized into 216 mother tongues, still further grouped into 114 languages. As per 2001 grouping of Indian languages, 122 languages have been grouped as Scheduled and non-scheduled languages. These languages belong to five language families of the world.21 languages come from Indo-European’s branch, Indo-Aryan family of world languages and nearly 77% of Indian population speak these 21 languages, which include Major North, East and West Indian languages such as Hindi, Bengali, and Marathi etc. Nearly 21% of Indian populace speaks 17 Dravidian languages, out of which four are major –Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Strangely 66 languages of Tibeto-Burmese language family are used in India, but which are spoken by only 01% of Indian population. There are 14 languages of Austro-Asiatic family spoken in India by 01.11% populace.2 languages from Iranian and one each of Germanic and Semito-Hamitic family are also spoken in India by less than 00.05% population of India. Literally 9o+% of Indian people speak fourteen original scheduled languages of Indian constitution, which later increased up to 22 languages and many more languages are in the line for inclusion in scheduled languages status of Indian constitution. Out of present 22 scheduled languages of Indian constitution 15 are from Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-European family, four are from Dravidian family, two are from Tibeto-Burmese family and one is from Austro-Asiatic family.
Fourteen Indian languages which became part of 8th schedule of Indian constitution in 1950 and also printed on Indian currency notes are—Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi, Oriya ,Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada ,Malayalam, Kashmiri and Urdu. Later Dogri, Konkani, Maithili, Nepali, Sindhi from Indo Aryan branch; Santali from Austro-Asiatic family and Bodo and Manipuri from Tibeto-Burmese family were included. Bhojpuri, Rajsthani and few other language speakers are also struggling to get their languages in 8th schedule. Ironically English from Germanic family of languages and most powerful language does not find place in this list of Indian languages, Two lakh plus or 00.02 percent populace of India claim, English as their mother tongue. In contrast Sanskrit has only a little more than fourteen thousand persons (14135), perhaps less than 00.00.01 % of Indian population claiming as their mother tongue. As per 2001 census report Hindi is the largest spoken language of Indian, forty two crore plus or 41% population use it as their first language, it is followed by Bengali with more than eight crore speakers, Telugu spoken by almost seven and half crore people, Marathi spoken by seven crore plus people. Tamil stands at fifth place with more than six crore speakers. Urdu and Gujarati falls under five crore range, later Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya and Punjabi are in the range of 3 crore speakers. Assamese and Maithili is spoken by one crore plus people. Kashmiri, Santali, Nepali, Sindhi, Konkani, Dogri, Manipuri and Bodo are also spoken between ten lakh to sixty lakh plus people. It is only Sanskrit with just fourteen thousand speakers listed at no. 22 of Indian national languages. As and when more languages gets included in 8th scheduled list, Sanskrit will further slide down and it will stay at the last numbered language of Indian languages, even if one hundred plus languages could be included in 8th scheduled of Indian languages. Though second language speaking data of 2001 census of India has also thrown light on some interesting facts, like English becoming first among second language speakers, having more than 25 crore speakers, Sanskrit also having few lakh speakers as second language speakers. Anthropological Survey of India has listed 325 languages and 25 scripts in use, among4600+ communities in India after its eight year survey under Peoples of India series, published in 1993.This independent survey of languages and scripts is considered biggest since Linguistic Survey of India conducted by George Grierson during 1904-1927.This survey is independent of census of India data.
Now let us have a look at world languages data. Out of 7 thousand plus or minus languages of the world there are only less than ten languages, which have 100 million plus speakers and these languages include two Indian languages- Hindi and Bengali among it and as we move on to 20 most spoken languages of the world, we find at least six Indian languages among these. Hindi is second largest spoken world language, first being Chinese or Mandarin, Bengali figures at 7th place and Punjabi at eleventh place. English and Spanish are close to Hindi in terms of its speakers in the world. Further among Top thirty spoken languages of the world, ten out of 22 scheduled constitutional languages of India find place there. Indian Government has never felt proud of the fact that one third of largest spoken languages of the world are in India. United Nations Organization (UNO), which has six official languages-English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, French and German on board. French and German do not find place even in ten first most spoken languages of the world, where Hindi, Bengali, Portuguese, Russian and Japanese find place. It is sheer colonial power of French and German to find place as official languages of the world body. This is also the power of colonial past that English continues to be the official language of the largest number of countries, mostly its ex colonies. English is not just co official language of India, it is official language of 62 other countries, out of Wikipedia mentioned 116 total official languages of the two hundred plus countries of the world. French is official language of 40 countries, again due to its colonial legacy. It is Arabic and Spanish without colonial reasons are the official languages of 30 and 20 countries respectively. With colonial legacy German and Portuguese are official languages of 8 and 9 countries. Dutch despite its colonial past has lost in this game and remains confined to official language of Netherlands.
Looking at the language data of India in contrast with world language data, question arises whether Indian languages finding such respectable place among world language data, get their due credit in their own country? There are two Indian languages treated as classical languages by Government of India earlier-Sanskrit and Tamil. Now after the inclusion of Telugu and Kannada in this status, there is craze among modern Indian languages speakers to demand classic status for their language on emotional grounds, without any rational justification. But rationality was given a go bye in case of Telugu and Kannada as well. In world language data-Chinese, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Tamil and Sanskrit are considered as classical languages, out of which Greek and Chinese are considered to be the oldest. Some linguists trace the existence of languages in oral form as early as one lakh years B.C. and written record of the Sumerian or Egyptian language is traced up to 3200 years B.C.
Now let us have a look at the pedagogy of languages in India. English continues to hold pre eminent position in School and higher education level. Though Indian languages like Tamil, Marathi, Bengali and Hindi are having as much standard literary corpus as English, German or French have, yet the status of Indian languages is considered much low in Indian academia as compared to these languages. While any language in the world has the capacity and competence of expression in any field of human knowledge, these need to be developed in terms of vocabulary for this purpose. Yet no serious effort has been made in last sixty years to develop Indian languages to impart education in medical, engineering, basic sciences or technology. If Chinese, Japanese, Russian can impart education in any field of knowledge without help or dependence upon English, German or French, why Indian languages cannot achieve this goal. Fault lies in the Government policies on languages development, which has been spending public money in non productive areas like awards for literatures or not treating all languages on equal grounds, giving preference to some at the cost of others. Jawaharlal Nehru has very clearly expressed the opinion all Indian languages hold equal status, despite Hindi being given the status of official language, but it remained just as one of the 14 or now 22 national languages. But the irony is education ministry earlier and ministry of human resources is spending its budget on the development of Indian languages in most arbitrary, irrational and lop sided manner. If you look at the budgetary allocation to languages development part of MHRD budget, you find that out of 577.62 crore rupees budget for language development in Xth plan,422.85 crore had been allocated to 21 languages, including largest spoken Hindi, whereas 154.77crore rupees were allocated to least spoken language Sanskrit alone. Even the budget head has been divided into two parts – one for language in general and another specifically for Sanskrit .Here certain doubts arise. If Sanskrit has been given this preference, then why other equally important classic language Tamil has been neglected? Scheme for Development of Tamil language in the form of an institute at Chennai has started as late as 2009 and a meager 3.30 crore rupees have been allotted to it, as compared to 154 crore to Sanskrit alone. Institutions relating to Hindi got 60 crore plus, Urdu language institutions got 58 crore rupees plus, whereas Central Institute of Indian languages Mysore, having all major languages on board got only38 crore plus. Sindhi and Tamil languages institutions got three crore each sanctioned Keeping into view the equal status of all 22 languages and many neglected tribal languages, many of these like Jarawa getting extinct, this budgetary allocation is most uneven, unjust and irrational, to say the least. There are Central Universities for Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit, English and Foreign languages only There are state Universities named after languages like Tamil University, Telugu University and Punjabi University. Out of these Punjabi University is just having name Punjabi, its academic programmes are like any other University, only some focus is there for development of Punjabi language, but other language Universities like Tamil, Telugu, Hindi,Urdu and English are primarily focused on languages development. Here question arises when all 22 languages are national languages, then why there is no central University for the all national languages? Two Sanskrit Universities and many other Sanskrit Institutions are funded by MHRD. Sanskrit is made compulsory in many parts of country in Central schools, without having any benefit to students, except scoring high marks, a big scandal of education administrators in school education system.
Why Tamil, as much important classic language as Sanskrit and other Indian languages ignored and neglected. Hindi and Sanskrit departments may be found in more than 90% universities among 200+ all Universities, why other national languages do not find place in these Universities. In fact in all Central Universities there should be no single language departments. There should be either departments/centre’s or Schools of Indian languages, where Indian languages and literatures should be taught in integrated manner as was conceived in Centre of Indian languages in JNU, about which details are given here.
Centre of Indian languages with Hindi and Urdu on board, but with the hope that all major Indian languages will be part of it, was started in Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi in 1974. It was as unique in language teaching area as was JNU in general, where Indian languages and literatures was to be taught in integrated form, as was the spirit of JNU to have inter disciplinary academic programmes on board. But for three decades no other Indian language was added to the centre. In 2004, Bengali, Tamil, Marathi and Punjabi languages were added to the centre, provided concerned state governments. sanctioned financial grants for these. Tamilnadu was the first state to sanction amount for Tamil, which could start only in 2007.Bengali, Marathi and Assamese are in the pipeline to start. Centre is struggling since 2004 to get it upgraded to full fledged School of Indian Languages level. Pushpesh Pant committee recently recommended the creation of School of Indian Languages as well, though some of its recommendations like merging Sanskrit, English and Linguistics centres in the proposed school have met with opposition from these centre, as these were not consulted before this recommendation. Sanskrit faculty is opposed mainly, because they lose their privileged position as special centre, if Sanskrit is considered as part of Indian languages. In spite of having great literature and Panini’s grammar like great traditions, for which ample attention and respect is always paid to it, Sanskrit status somehow in India is like that of Brahmanical hegemony in the field of languages and literature of India. Other 21 constitutional languages, tribal languages and under threat of extinction Indian languages are treated like Dalits in the field of languages and culture. In fact at the level of Govt. policies and budgetary allocation, it is not English; rather it is Sanskrit, which is the cause of suppression of modern Indian languages and roadblock in their growth and development. School of Indian Languages was first set up at Tamil University Thanjavur, where it still continues with 2=3 languages. In Mauritius, School of Indian Languages with Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Marathi and Sanskrit on board is functional. But no one contest the fact that if school of Indian languages comes into existence in University like JNU, the interest in the study of Indian languages and literature will grow many fold, and it will be an impetus for other 37 Central Universities to follow JNU in this regard Whether in the phase of neo-colonial agenda with dominance of English and other foreign languages in the field of industry and trade, this patriotic Gandhian agenda will come to fruit or not, it is yet to be seen.
References:
Singh K S and S Manoharan, Language and Scripts, Anthropological Survey of India/oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1993 People of India National series vo. IX
Census report of India, 2001, websites- www.vistawide.com/languages/top_30_languages.htm-
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/language
www.krysstal.com/spoken.html
www.ethnologue.com/web.asp
www.censusindia.gov.in/Census_Data_2001/Census_l
www.education.nic.in
*Chaman Lal is Professor and Chairperson of Centre of Indian Languages, JNU, New Delhi.
Prof.chaman@gmail.com Mob. 09868774820