{"id":6669,"date":"2019-09-24T11:12:53","date_gmt":"2019-09-24T05:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/34.22.110.190\/english\/?p=6669"},"modified":"2020-09-29T12:44:03","modified_gmt":"2020-09-29T07:14:03","slug":"hindi-was-devised-by-a-scottish-linguist-of-the-east-india-company-it-can-never-be-indias-national-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/hindi-was-devised-by-a-scottish-linguist-of-the-east-india-company-it-can-never-be-indias-national-language\/","title":{"rendered":"Hindi was devised by a Scottish linguist of The East India Company \u2013 it can never be India\u2019s National Language"},"content":{"rendered":"

If the Anglophone Indians are derided as \u2018<\/em>Macaulay’s children\u2019, then the Hindi speaking Indians can also be called \u2018Gilchrist\u2019s children\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>My late maternal grandmother \u2013 who had studied philosophy and biology in the 1940s Calcutta \u2013 had told me once during my boyhood, that Calcutta was the birthplace of the modern Hindi language: it was \u2018invented\u2019 by the British in Fort William, Calcutta.<\/p>\n

I remembered my grandmother\u2019s words when I read the news reports about the recently concluded \u2018Hindi Divas\u2019 <\/em>day when the Union Home Minister Amit Shah pitched for Hindi as the national language of India<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

This prompted me to consider and figure out why my maternal grandmother said what she did.\u00a0 I wanted to know about the \u2018suppressed truths\u2019 and understand the \u2018secret history\u2019 of Hindi.<\/p>\n

Now I wish to share with you what I found; and have to begin by recalling few essential facts about the languages of India.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Linguistic Diversity of India <\/strong><\/p>\n

Papua New Guinea \u2013 with a population of just over seven million \u2013 has world\u2019s highest number of languages: 852 (840 are spoken and 12 are extinct). It tops the Linguistic Diversity Index<\/em> (Source: UNESCO 2009) with 0.990. India comes at #9 with a score of 0.930.<\/p>\n

But if we measure linguistic diversity by total population, India with 1.3 billion people (#2 by population) is much ahead of the rest, including China (1), United States of America (3), Indonesia (4) and Brazil (5). And hence, one can say, India is the \u2018most populated linguistic diverse country in the world\u2019.<\/p>\n

Census of India<\/em> of 2001<\/a> said that India has 122 major languages and 1599 other languages. It recorded 30 languages which were spoken by more than a million native speakers and 122 which were spoken by more than 10,000 people.<\/p>\n

There are 22 scheduled languages of India \u2013 Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithali, Malayalam, Marathi, Meitei (Manipuri), Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telegu and Urdu \u2013 and two official languages of the Union Government: Hindi and English.<\/p>\n

In addition to the above, the Government of India has awarded the distinction of classical language<\/em> to 6 languages which have a \u2018rich heritage and independent nature\u2019: Kannada<\/a>, Malayalam<\/a>, Odia<\/a>, Sanskrit<\/a>, Tamil<\/a> and Telugu<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tamil is also one of the oldest living languages in the world and this Dravidian language predates even Sanskrit (a part of the Indo-Aryan family of Indic languages).<\/p>\n

Contrary to the perceptions formed by boisterous disinformation campaigns, Hindi is not the national language of India. India has no national language.<\/p>\n

As per the 2011 census, only 26.6% of the Indians identify Hindi as their mother tongue.<\/p>\n

Hindi Language<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Modern Hindi \u2013 one of the youngest Indian languages \u2013 is based on the Khariboli dialect (vernacular of Delhi and the surrounding region) and its literary tradition evolved towards the end of the 18th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

Khariboli itself had evolved to replace earlier dialects such as Awadhi \u2013 the sweet-sounding language of the commoners in which Tulsidas\u2019 Ramcharitamanas <\/em>was composed in the early 17th<\/sup> century. The Awadhi bhakti <\/em>poem popularized Lord Rama all over North India; that in turn is influencing the politics of modern India.<\/p>\n

I have recounted the fascinating story of How did Lord Rama become a Hindu god? <\/em>in an essay<\/span><\/a> published in 2018.<\/p>\n

Hindi evolved at a time, when Urdu \u2013 another form of Hindustani since the 1800s \u2013 underwent significant Persian influence and acquired linguistic prestige.<\/p>\n

In the late 18th<\/sup> and early 19th<\/sup> century, under The East India Company, Hindustani was developed into separate Hindustani standardization: Hindi and Urdu.<\/p>\n

This was also probably done under the cunning imperial \u2018Divide and Rule\u2019 policy to linguistically segregate religious communities \u2013 namely the Hindus and the Muslims \u2013 and build schisms, weaken the collective and incite demagoguery which will last through generations, and even centuries.<\/p>\n

But this \u2018linguistic division\u2019 wouldn\u2019t have been possible without one particular person who is virtually unknown in our \u2018common collective memory\u2019 of Indian history: the unsung father of modern Hindustani languages, John Gilchrist.<\/p>\n

John Gilchrist \u2013 the Father of Modern Hindustani Languages<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>John Borthwick Gilchrist (1759-1841) was a temperamental Scottish trained-surgeon and self-trained linguist \u2013 a failed banker in his native city Edinburgh \u2013 who spent his early career in India where he studied Hindustani languages.<\/p>\n

Chambers’ Biographical Dictionary<\/em> describes him in his advanced years as “his bushy head and whiskers were as white as the Himalayan snow, and in such contrast to the active expressive face which beamed from the centre of the mass, that he was likened to a royal Bengal tiger \u2013 a resemblance of which he was even proud.”<\/p>\n

In 1782, Gilchrist was apprenticed as a surgeon’s mate in the Royal Navy<\/a> and travelled to Bombay<\/a>, India<\/a>. There, he joined the East India Company<\/a>‘s Medical Service and was appointed assistant surgeon in 1784.<\/p>\n

During Gilchrist\u2019s travels in India, he developed an interest to study Hindustani languages. In 1785 he requested a year’s leave from duty to continue these studies. This leave was eventually granted in 1787 and Gilchrist never returned to the Medical Service.<\/p>\n

His first publication was A Dictionary: English and Hindoostanee<\/em>, Calcutta: Stuart and Cooper, 1787\u201390. He popularized Hindustani as the language of British administration and suggested to the Governor-General, the Marquess of Wellesley<\/a>, and the East India Company, to set up a training institution in Calcutta<\/a>. This started as the Oriental Seminary<\/em> or Gilchrist ka madrasa<\/em>, but was enlarged within a year to become Fort William College<\/a> in 1800 within the premises of Fort William in Calcutta. Gilchrist served as the first principal of the college until 1804, and continued to publish a number of books including The Hindee-Roman Orthoepigraphical Ultimatum, or a systematic descriptive view of the Oriental and Occidental visible sounds of fixed and practical principles for the Language of the East<\/em>, Calcutta, 1804.<\/p>\n

Gilchrist inducted Indian writers and scholars into the college, and offered them financial incentive to write in Hindi.\u00a0 The contributions by the Indian writers and scholars enabled rapid strides in Hindi<\/a> language and literature in a short period of time. Gilchrist\u2019s initiative produced the popular Premsagar<\/em> (Ocean of Love) by Lallulal (1763-1825). Subsequently, a Hindi translation of the Bible appeared in 1818 and Udant Martand<\/em><\/a>, the first Hindi newspaper, was published in 1826 in Calcutta.<\/p>\n

Gilchrist wrote \u2018bifurcation of Khariboli into two forms \u2013 the Hindustani language with Khariboli as the root resulted in two languages (Hindi and Urdu), each with its own character and script.\u2019<\/p>\n

In other words, what was Hindustani language was segregated into Hindi and Urdu (written in the Devanagari and Persian scripts), codified and formalised.<\/p>\n

Santosh Kumar Khare on the origin of Hindi in Truth about Language <\/em>in India wrote in his essay<\/span><\/a>: \u2018the notion of Hindi and Urdu as two distinct languages crystallized at Fort William College in the first half of the 19th century.\u2019 He added: \u201ctheir linguistic and literary repertoires were built up accordingly, Urdu borrowing from Persian\/Arabic and Hindi from Sanskrit.\u2019<\/p>\n

In the words of K.B. Jindal, author of A History of Hindi Literature<\/em>: \u2018Hindi as we know it today is the product of the nineteenth century.\u2019<\/p>\n

Contemporary Dutch historian Thomas De Bruijin says that Fort William College in Calcutta was \u2018more or less the birthplace of modern Hindi.\u2019<\/p>\n

George Abraham Grierson<\/a>, noted Irish linguist<\/a> of the late 19th<\/sup> and early 20th<\/sup> century, said that the standard or pure Hindi which contemporary Indians<\/a> use is \u2018an artificial dialect the mother tongue of no native-born Indian, a newly invented speech, that wonderful hybrid known to Europeans as Hindi and invented by them.\u2019<\/p>\n

Hence, my late maternal grandmother was right: the birthplace of modern Hindi is Calcutta. And it was in Fort William that this invention took place under the tireless efforts of John Gilchrist.<\/p>\n

If the Anglophone Indians are derided as \u2018Macaulay’s children\u2019, then the Hindi speaking Indians can also be called \u2018Gilchrist\u2019s children\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

In our \u2018civilisational state\u2019 of modern India \u2013 whose history goes back to 8000 years or more \u2013 a language that is just over 200 years old and a construct of our colonial imperial masters \u2013 that too by an employee of a rapacious private corporation, The East India Company \u2013 cannot possibly be considered as the national language of India.<\/p>\n

Union Home Minister Amit Shah\u2019s statements on the Hindi Divas <\/em>day are indicative of the broader Hindutva agenda and the political attempt to impose Sanskrit as the \u2018mother language\u2019 and Hindi as the \u2018national language\u2019.<\/p>\n

But Sanskrit isn\u2019t the mother language of India. No single language can be called as the \u2018mother language\u2019 of our ancient land that contains such linguistic diversity that has emerged from several language families: Indo-Aryan or Indic, Dravidian, Sino-Tibetan, Austroasiatic, Tai-Kadai and Great Andamanese.<\/p>\n

Neither Hindi \u2013 as pointed above \u2013 can be imposed as the national language of India.\u00a0 India needs no single national language; diversity is the fundamental national characteristic of India, and it should remain that way.<\/p>\n

We \u2013 the Indians who don\u2019t come from the Hindi-Hindustani cow belt \u2013 clearly understand that an organised \u2018socio-cultural engineering mission\u2019 is going on in India that wishes to \u2018colonise\u2019 \u2013 euphemistically\u00a0 \u2018unify\u2019 \u2013 all plural <\/em>Hindu communities under the flag of singular<\/em> \u2018Hindutva\u2019.<\/p>\n

The imposition of Hindi language upon all Hindus who don\u2019t speak Hindi is part of the larger political mission towards the establishment of \u2018Hindutva Rashtra\u2019 masquerading as \u2018Hindu Rashtra\u2019.<\/p>\n

Article 29<\/em> of the India Constitution ensures us equality for all citizens of India as far as conservation of their language is concerned, their culture is concerned and their script is concerned.<\/p>\n

Imposition of any single language upon the rest is constitutionally invalid, and the effort to do so \u2013 in midst of such linguistic, ethnic and cultural diversity of modern India \u2013 is likely to boomerang and cause more regional stresses, disharmony, disunity and disaffection.<\/p>\n

India doesn\u2019t require the \u2018unity\u2019 of \u2018one language, one nation\u2019. India needs to assert its own sovereign and unique \u2018civilisational spirit\u2019 of \u2018Unity in Diversity\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Mother of All Ironies <\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2017 I published an essay <\/span><\/a>to write about \u2018How Hindus Became Hindu and Why Hindutva is not Hinduism\u2019.<\/p>\n

Now I also wish to point out \u2013 what I call \u2013 the mother of all ironies.<\/p>\n

RSS-BJP-VHP or the Sangh Parivar\u2019s Hindutva ideology is based upon four key words: Hindi, Hindu, Hinduism and Hindustan.<\/p>\n

The Sangh <\/em>ideology considers Muslims and Christians as phirang<\/em> invaders into India. But it was the Persians who coined Hindu and Hindustan; and it was The East India Company and the British Empire which developed Hindi language and added \u2018ism\u2019 to Hindu.<\/p>\n

Hence, the entire \u2018identity, world view and nationalist\u2019 politics of the Sangh Parivar is based upon what the \u2018Muslims and the Christians\u2019 gifted to us!<\/p>\n

There can be no greater irony than this. This is the mother of all ironies; the height of all heights.<\/p>\n

————————————————-<\/p>\n

Update: Read the follow-up of the above essay by Devdan Chaudhuri<\/strong><\/span><\/a> published on The Wire on September 25, 2020.<\/p>\n

————————————————–<\/p>\n

[The views expressed belong solely to the author, and may not reflect the opinions of the editorial team]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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