Formation of a democratic polity is a complex process of negotiations of various interested groups. They bargain amongst themselves over various factors that would form a part of the overall structure of the society. This could very well be a straightforward process in places where no questions are raised over issues of identity and its constituent factors such as religion, language, culture etc. The answers to such questions are taken for granted during the formative stages of a nation. In this sense, we can clearly see India as an anachronism. It belies all traditional notions of national identity and those that hitherto were considered as formative requirements of a nation. It does not possess either a single religion or a culture that anybody can call as a focal point that brings the unity. However, the yet to be resolved issues of language threaten this unique character. Though, for a long time after the anti-hindi agitations of 60’s this has been a simmering issue, it has come to the forefront recently sparking the debates over the language policy of the union government. Uniquely, voices of protests are being raised from new groups apart from the traditional bastion of Tamil Nadu, giving much more credence to the long-standing demands of the supporters of regional languages. The non-hindi speakers’ non-acceptance of the present language policy is well known. However, what still baffles one’s mind is what could have led to the present situation of discontent? Were the drafters of the constitution so oblivious to even the legitimate demands of a major section of people?
With the passage of time we have a propensity to disassociate ourselves from taking a critical view of things that we revere. The Constituent Assembly is one of such things where we tend to take a puritanical stance and prefer to look at it as an unblemished record taking it to a metaphysical status. The founding ‘fathers’ were seen as a bunch of angels who convened together with a solitary aim of forging the destiny of the millions. We tend to forget that they are not without their own set of nuanced problems and eccentricities. Each carried with them a distinct vision of the future that the country was to step into and the path that would lead towards that envisioned destiny. The discussions held by the assembly upon the language question of the union displayed best how the conflict of reasonings between members translated into a less than an ideal solution to the problem that was posed. Granted that it is not easy to arrive at an acceptable solution when the assembly itself represented an eclectic mix of people from different backgrounds and different set of ideologies, however, it certainly does not absolve them of the shortcomings or rather deliberate compromises that took us here.
The discussions upon this question begun with a fundamental and unassailable assumption amongst many of the members that there must be a single official language for the union and it must be Hindi. The people who formed this group consisted of the members from Hindi speaking constituencies. None from this group was in the mood to concede any ground to make English as a link language, as suggested by other members who hailed from other non-hindi speaking states. The prejudice was so great that when discussions on the language of the assembly itself was held one of the members Seth Govind Das said “I want to tell my brethren from Madras that if after twenty-five years of efforts on the part of Mahatma Gandhi they have not been able to understand Hindustani, the blame lies at their door. It is beyond our patience that because some of our brethren from Madras do not understand Hindustani, English should reign supreme in a Constituent Assembly... assembled to frame a Constitution for a free India”. In the course there was a flurry of suggested amendments to the draft, of which several were so extreme as to even refuse the transitory period for the usage of Hindi to come into force, nor did they feel any necessity to accord a constitutional status to the regional languages as suggested by the Munshi-Ayyangar formula. An assembly of men, who, until then, made everything based upon consensus, broke into an acrimonious dispute over the issue that threatened the very purpose for which they set forth with. It took the united efforts of other moderate members (as Granville Austin calls the members of the assembly who believed that English must perform the role of a link language and must be replaced by Hindi slowly and cautiously) to stall the efforts towards hoisting a linguistic hegemony by the extremist members of the assembly. More than what the record indicates the solution that was arrived was due to the intense background negotiations held amongst the party members, since it was the earnest belief of the members that all outcomes must be based upon mutual consensus. However, it would be funny to know that the bitterness that the language question caused would have derailed this unwritten rule of the assembly. When a voting was taken to decide upon the official numerals between Hindi and international numerals it was passed in favour of hindi numerals by a slender margin of one vote. Sensing that such an important question cannot be imposed upon others on wafer thin majority Nehru pleaded against it. It was at this stage the Munshi-Ayyangar formula was proposed as a form of compromise. This formula eschewed the very concept of a national language and in its place proposed to have official language as against the wishes of pro-hindi agitators within the assembly. Apart from this it also suggested for an interim measure to use English as a language of the union in addition to Hindi for a period of 15 years, which can be further extended in case of need amongst other measures. It was an overwhelming concessions from both sides of the camp that resulted in Part XVII of the Constitution that deals with the official language.
All through one can sense an overwhelming sense of urgency with which the question was dealt with by the assembly. There was a lingering anxiety to ensure that the language issue does not topple the larger project of constitution that was standing in front of the assembly. It would not be an exaggeration to state that this anxiety has resulted in a less than optimal solution for the issue, for it curtailed the legitimate aspirations of large sections of the populace to be recognised as a part of the democratic polity. It is plainly visible that the assembly in order to deal with its inability to resolve the issue merely provided for a temporary compromise to carry forward its functions without hindrance. They merely postponed the righteous answer due to internal political compulsions and it was a sincere belief on the part of its members that the issue would be resolved in the future in a composite manner carrying forward the ethos of inclusion and equality.
However, the future is yet to resolve for itself the issue. To the contrary there are only attempts to impose Hindi upon other non-native speakers at the cost of their own language and the resultant discrimination is a reneged promise upon which this union still stands. The recent recommendations by the Committee of Parliament on Official Language is an example of dastardly incursions on the freedom of choice to speak and act by a non-hindi speaker. The very fact that such recommendations were assented to by the President without any further public discussion demonstrates this discrimination. In fact few of the recommendations goes against the express bar under Article 343 (3) of the Constitution which requires the commission to take into consideration the just claims and the interests of persons belonging to the non-Hindi speaking areas in regard to the public services. We may still be the only country where there exists no official translation of the Constitution itself in the regional languages. More than being inclusive the vision of a nation with a single language as its identity yet continues to be a festering wound for the majority of regional language speakers. In fact the monist vision of the nation, in terms of language, has been internalised by the Hindi speaking populace of the country that most are not able to think in any other terms.
A constitution cannot merely be relegated to a formal documentation of the governance structure for a nation. It reflects the collective conscience of the people who decided to provide for them a national identity. An identity that is unique and is a remnant of the forces of historical causation. For a country like India it entails the collective struggle for self-governance that transcended the parochial considerations of identity of all sorts, which however never failed to represent them equally. The civil struggle that resulted in the nationhood always possessed the morality and righteousness only imbibing within itself the principles of democratic pluralism. The Constitution of India thus a physical manifestation of the principles that the struggle represented. Call it the constitutional morality or whatever one may feel, but the apparent compromise that the assembly provided for the language question does not do justice to it. The recent move to print devanagari numerals in the latest 500 and 1000 rupees notes is one such move, whose legality otherwise is also questionable. It yet remains an unfulfilled promise for the regional languages to be accorded the equal treatment that they deserve. Fundamental to this is the recognition of the idea that a nation does not necessarily require a single language as its formative identity. From being the grandest of political experiment to a constitutional anachronism it is time for us evolve to become a inclusivist ideal that the world must strive for. Arriving at an equitable solution to the language question is an important step forward in this.
With the passage of time we have a propensity to disassociate ourselves from taking a critical view of things that we revere. The Constituent Assembly is one of such things where we tend to take a puritanical stance and prefer to look at it as an unblemished record taking it to a metaphysical status. The founding ‘fathers’ were seen as a bunch of angels who convened together with a solitary aim of forging the destiny of the millions. We tend to forget that they are not without their own set of nuanced problems and eccentricities. Each carried with them a distinct vision of the future that the country was to step into and the path that would lead towards that envisioned destiny. The discussions held by the assembly upon the language question of the union displayed best how the conflict of reasonings between members translated into a less than an ideal solution to the problem that was posed. Granted that it is not easy to arrive at an acceptable solution when the assembly itself represented an eclectic mix of people from different backgrounds and different set of ideologies, however, it certainly does not absolve them of the shortcomings or rather deliberate compromises that took us here.
The discussions upon this question begun with a fundamental and unassailable assumption amongst many of the members that there must be a single official language for the union and it must be Hindi. The people who formed this group consisted of the members from Hindi speaking constituencies. None from this group was in the mood to concede any ground to make English as a link language, as suggested by other members who hailed from other non-hindi speaking states. The prejudice was so great that when discussions on the language of the assembly itself was held one of the members Seth Govind Das said “I want to tell my brethren from Madras that if after twenty-five years of efforts on the part of Mahatma Gandhi they have not been able to understand Hindustani, the blame lies at their door. It is beyond our patience that because some of our brethren from Madras do not understand Hindustani, English should reign supreme in a Constituent Assembly... assembled to frame a Constitution for a free India”. In the course there was a flurry of suggested amendments to the draft, of which several were so extreme as to even refuse the transitory period for the usage of Hindi to come into force, nor did they feel any necessity to accord a constitutional status to the regional languages as suggested by the Munshi-Ayyangar formula. An assembly of men, who, until then, made everything based upon consensus, broke into an acrimonious dispute over the issue that threatened the very purpose for which they set forth with. It took the united efforts of other moderate members (as Granville Austin calls the members of the assembly who believed that English must perform the role of a link language and must be replaced by Hindi slowly and cautiously) to stall the efforts towards hoisting a linguistic hegemony by the extremist members of the assembly. More than what the record indicates the solution that was arrived was due to the intense background negotiations held amongst the party members, since it was the earnest belief of the members that all outcomes must be based upon mutual consensus. However, it would be funny to know that the bitterness that the language question caused would have derailed this unwritten rule of the assembly. When a voting was taken to decide upon the official numerals between Hindi and international numerals it was passed in favour of hindi numerals by a slender margin of one vote. Sensing that such an important question cannot be imposed upon others on wafer thin majority Nehru pleaded against it. It was at this stage the Munshi-Ayyangar formula was proposed as a form of compromise. This formula eschewed the very concept of a national language and in its place proposed to have official language as against the wishes of pro-hindi agitators within the assembly. Apart from this it also suggested for an interim measure to use English as a language of the union in addition to Hindi for a period of 15 years, which can be further extended in case of need amongst other measures. It was an overwhelming concessions from both sides of the camp that resulted in Part XVII of the Constitution that deals with the official language.
All through one can sense an overwhelming sense of urgency with which the question was dealt with by the assembly. There was a lingering anxiety to ensure that the language issue does not topple the larger project of constitution that was standing in front of the assembly. It would not be an exaggeration to state that this anxiety has resulted in a less than optimal solution for the issue, for it curtailed the legitimate aspirations of large sections of the populace to be recognised as a part of the democratic polity. It is plainly visible that the assembly in order to deal with its inability to resolve the issue merely provided for a temporary compromise to carry forward its functions without hindrance. They merely postponed the righteous answer due to internal political compulsions and it was a sincere belief on the part of its members that the issue would be resolved in the future in a composite manner carrying forward the ethos of inclusion and equality.
However, the future is yet to resolve for itself the issue. To the contrary there are only attempts to impose Hindi upon other non-native speakers at the cost of their own language and the resultant discrimination is a reneged promise upon which this union still stands. The recent recommendations by the Committee of Parliament on Official Language is an example of dastardly incursions on the freedom of choice to speak and act by a non-hindi speaker. The very fact that such recommendations were assented to by the President without any further public discussion demonstrates this discrimination. In fact few of the recommendations goes against the express bar under Article 343 (3) of the Constitution which requires the commission to take into consideration the just claims and the interests of persons belonging to the non-Hindi speaking areas in regard to the public services. We may still be the only country where there exists no official translation of the Constitution itself in the regional languages. More than being inclusive the vision of a nation with a single language as its identity yet continues to be a festering wound for the majority of regional language speakers. In fact the monist vision of the nation, in terms of language, has been internalised by the Hindi speaking populace of the country that most are not able to think in any other terms.
A constitution cannot merely be relegated to a formal documentation of the governance structure for a nation. It reflects the collective conscience of the people who decided to provide for them a national identity. An identity that is unique and is a remnant of the forces of historical causation. For a country like India it entails the collective struggle for self-governance that transcended the parochial considerations of identity of all sorts, which however never failed to represent them equally. The civil struggle that resulted in the nationhood always possessed the morality and righteousness only imbibing within itself the principles of democratic pluralism. The Constitution of India thus a physical manifestation of the principles that the struggle represented. Call it the constitutional morality or whatever one may feel, but the apparent compromise that the assembly provided for the language question does not do justice to it. The recent move to print devanagari numerals in the latest 500 and 1000 rupees notes is one such move, whose legality otherwise is also questionable. It yet remains an unfulfilled promise for the regional languages to be accorded the equal treatment that they deserve. Fundamental to this is the recognition of the idea that a nation does not necessarily require a single language as its formative identity. From being the grandest of political experiment to a constitutional anachronism it is time for us evolve to become a inclusivist ideal that the world must strive for. Arriving at an equitable solution to the language question is an important step forward in this.
