Revival of Hindi in foreign lands.

[ratananmol]

Dear Friends, Elders, Countrymen in India and abroad:
A few weeks ago we attended the annual picnic of AJA, New Jersey and an issue seemed to have the potential (though very small)to disrupt the extraordinary amity among our people in USA and i am sure elsewhere in foreign lands.
I would like to share my ideas on this matter and outline some objectives in this regard.
First, whatever dialects we speak have the same script "Devnagri" or hindi and if we are to make our kids appreciate our dialects we can only do so by reviving hindi in our homes and community here.Why is this important and would the strategy work? Psychologists have proved that a man seems to "thinks" in his brain in his native first language. So "true desis" can not flush out hindi from their minds and will only harm themselves if they try to do so by interefering with the establish patterns of processing information already suited to their mental faculties.
Second why should our kids raised outside the "great cow belt of india" be made to learn this language when it is not used here at all?
I think that the animal of culture best likes to travel in the limousine of language;besides this if you have made up your minds to not burden your children with your life, experience or culture and happy with less then perfect level of communication you would like to have with them you may still like to teach them some hindi because in the long run the advantages of one language over other language outside home will be a numbers game; this a reality because the economic landscape anywhere in the world which aspires to develop faster is likey to be dominated by indians. An advantage of common language is indespensible in that scenario which lies somewhere in future.
How can we encourage our kids to learn our language? Simple- By learning it yourself actively and showing resolve to protect and promote this language in our life here.(Nobody else will do it for us).
Internet is full of resources for hindi lovers. I have mentioned the name of the following link
http://mobilelibrary.cdacnoida.com/bookHindi.html
for some free downloadable copies of great pieces of literature before. This is one of the few rare cases of India's market socialism suceeding thru public sector entities.(Sometimes the site is down but wait this is the flavor which comes with the dish)
Personally I like to listen to www.bbc.co.uk/hindi for daily hindi news streamed flawlessly thru internet. (My digestion gets affected without a daily diet of "hindustani" news.)
Hindi is immensely popular medium among DESI graduate student community and could be a great tool to glue your kids to your language.
Further thoughts are welcome and better efforts are promised.
Anmol Ratan
(By the way please continue to learn more english if you need to do so especially Desi jats in india who seem to speak english only after they get drunk; by no means we should fall back on this matter which determines our economic and educational success in some ways).

[raj_rathee]

Anmol,

You are absolutely right about the importance of language. We
think and reason in words....These are tools at our disposal and the
better we are at them and the more of these we have, the better off
we are. Infact there are lot of grown ups I know who constantly are trying
to learn new langauges....

But, as far as I was aware, all that you have said is very well understood and implemented by most people that I am know of. There maybe some fresh of the boaters who might be enamoured with English for a while (and I guess
that maybe understandable as they try to mingle into the host culture),
but they all gradually come around. Most people I know make sure that
the kids do pick up there own languages (in our case, Haryanvi first,
and Hindi second). As far as Hindi is concerned, the Hindi movies
and other entertainment we are constantly exposed to ensure that
our Hindi skills are maintained. Personally I have only had about 2-3
years of Hindi education but that has served me well.

But looks like your experience has been different and you feel that
not enough attention is being paid to our desi languages. How come ?
Not sure why you felt that this issue of language has the "potential
of disrupting the extraordinary amity among our people"......

[ratananmol]

At the end of the picnic in NJ 3 weeks ago,apparently elder people had very divergent views on the medium of communication to be adopted at the closing statement. The dialects spoken among jats in India are slightly different and hence some people had preferences over one dialect over the other. Some people wanted completely scrapping of the desi mediums to communicate. I truly respect Mr. Dahiya who recited his own poem which showed pain of someone parting with India but to me it sounded more like a "marsiya" (recital after death in muslims) of our way of life and a misplaced concern because the future seems bright for my people, my nation and whatever way of life they will espouse; and the numbers are on my side too.
All i can say is the following: Hey buddy we are coming...watch for India.
Today the most powerful nation has started realizing that in future we have a big role to play..so what makes our own people here think and feel that we are already gone.
With due regards to everyone.

[raj_rathee]

At the end of the picnic in NJ 3 weeks ago,apparently elder people had very divergent views on the medium of communication to be adopted at the closing statement. The dialects spoken among jats in India are slightly different and hence some people had preferences over one dialect over the other.

Ah, I see your concern. I guess with Jats coming from Rajasthan, Haryana,
UP, these things can become an issue. But I think these
are relatively minor in the large scope of things. I think using Hindi
or English at such gatherings for formal announcements etc should be
fine. When it comes to informal gatherings I guess common courtesy would
be to try to make no one feel left out. For instance, amongst Haryanvis,
we speak outright Haryanvi. But when we have some one in the gang
who is not too comfortable we try to mix it up
with Hindi.....Chalta hai dost....

[nrao]

Good topic. I think importance of Hindi as a language is highly under-rated by Indians and its daily users. By one census of the UN, Hindi is the second most widely used language in the world in terms of absolute numbers, if you take into consideration Urdu word usuage also. Currenly, Chinese (mainland) as a language has most number of users in the world.

Secondly, if you take a look of the top 5 economies of the world only one of them seem to be English speaking: US. Others are Japan, China, Germany, India or France, and none of them has English as the primary languge. That again goes to show that English has reached its highest it could have, unless and until India goes crazy and starts everything in English. That will change the equation. India is on a cross roads and cannot seem to decide about its lingua franca, Hindi or English.
By everyday use, it seems that Hindi will eventually win out. Hindi has over 50% of Indians as its daily users, quite a high number. On the other hand 91 census put only 6% Indians as users of English in their daily lives. I do not have the data for 2001 census.

My personal view is that since Jats are quite upwardly mobile community, they should continue to learn English to draw maximum advantage.