The Spark Called Language.

As the unrest entered day 14 in one of India’s popular hill station-Darjeeling, time and again it has been proved that forced language imposition can lead to violence, political turmoil and the demand for separate statehood. No matter we celebrate 70^th year of independence or 150^th, there will always be a spark called language which can cause lot distress, agitations which can spread like wildfire across states.

Speaking about the current turmoil in the state of West Bengal, the unrest unfolded when the ruling government mandated that Bengali be taught as a compulsory subject from class 1 to 10, which did not go well in an area native to the Gorkha ethnic group. Darjeeling is administered by Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, a semi-autonomous body where Gorkha ethnic group have expressed desire for a separate state- Gorkhaland, a desire which has been on for a century.

When India got its independence, there were close to 568 princely states which were given freedom to either join India or Pakistan or remain independent. However, the Iron man of India Sardar vallabhai patel had made up his mind to get all the provinces join the Indian union. However after independence the states were reorganised on the basis of language.

The first linguistic state was Andhra Pradesh for Telugu speaking people after a 56days of agitation and the death of Potti Sriramulu-the man behind the movement. The recent linguistic reorganisation of state was Telangana when K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) tried to do a Potti Sriramulu fearing which the union government agree to his demands of separate statehood. Language has been used as a weapon which can bring even the most powerful union government to its knee.

The present Central Government of India, is trying by all means to make Hindi a link language or the only national language of the country. The recent incident was in Bengaluru when pro-kannada activists staged a protest against Hindi imposition in the METRO stations. Language has become a very sensitive issue, a part of life, an identity , a self-respect which none of us would like to lose. Even when there is native language of the state being used in sign boards along with Hindi and English, people always demand that native language of the state has to find its place at the top followed by other languages.

The makers of the constitution had a heated debate regarding the adoption of an official language for the Republic of India. They had agreed upon Hindi as the official language for a period of fifteen years (1950-1965) with English as the link language and after which Hindi would become the sole official language. As the day neared, 26^th Jan 1965, full-scale riot broke out in madras which continued for the next two months. It was only after the assurance of the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur shastri that English would continue to be used as the official language as long as non-Hindi speaking states wanted.

The ruling government when the riots happened in Tamil Nadu was the Congress party after which it never came to power. Another classic example of how the issue of language can keep a 132year old political party out of power.

If the demands of various ethnic groups, for Kukiland in Manipur to Kongu Nadu in Tamil Nadu and for kamatapur in North Bengal to Tulu Nadu in Karnataka are fulfilled, India may have 50 states in future.