Unity In Diversity, Or…..?

@Hopikrishnan
#9. Very impressive and I fully endorse those views.
Thanks and Regards.

 

Dear Satchi,

Learning the language has to be a spontaneous response as opposed to a dictate from the government. Why is it important to have one nation one language? Is it because that slogan sounds good or because the people need it?
Countries like Malaysia and Singapore have adopted multiple languages based on the ethnicity of their people and send communications to the people in their mother tongue. In 1794, there was a move to make all Government communications be made both in German and English in the United States and such a resolution was deferred in the House of Representative 42 to 41 votes not adopt two language communication. Otherwise, all Government communications will be in two languages here in the US.

Chinese recognizing English as the international business language teaching their children English since the opening up of their economy in 1980s. Japan recognized English as an international business language and began teaching their children English language and now all the new generation is speaking fluent English.

United Nations adopted six languages as their official languages and they are a) Arabic, b) Chinese, c) English, d) Spanish, e) French and f) Russian.

If India adopted Hindi as the national language and made English optional for teaching in the 1960s as planned, India wouldn't have become the world's best offshore software exporter. If the Chinese decided to only promote their language, they wouldn't have become the world's best manufacturing hub.

I wouldn't consider colonial aggression, nativity, popularity, majority spoken language, etc. as the basis for adopting a national language. Let people learn whatever language they are interested in with one international language being the link for India with the rest of the world. If one has a plan to live in one state for a long time, they will take initiative to learn that language automatically. I have lived in Maharastra, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamilnadu before I migrated to the US and I didn't find communication an issue.

 

People communicate when they see mutual benefit in that transaction. Facilitating communication in international transactions has already been mentioned in a post above.

The only reason India-EU comparisons do not seem to get across is that we Raise a Flag, salute, and sing a song.... and shut off thinking. Nobody gets emotional at an EU blue-stars bandera.

India has many countries, a currency union (same monetary system in all its component nations), but not a customs-union or a single market. You see this at every road-border crossing between states, where freight transport lorries are inspected for the goods they bring in to a state. And a number of problems associated with that...including smuggling.

Many would like the Federal government deal with problems that exist, and not create new problems based on culture-wars.

Hahaha...... this is true of all useful things that people want, but are in short supply. For Hindi there is government subsidy to reduce the price, and increase supply.

Spellings! Emigre children in America are the best spellers. In India, or any other English speaking country, there are variants of English, both spoken and spelt. The language evolves and goes where there are profits in transactions (i.e., communications)

This is good. If a language is widely spoken, and it has benefit for someone, s/he will learn without any subsidy, government funding and promotion that seeks to replace another language that the user wants, but gets no support from their government. If some language, Bengali, Hindi or Tamil, is picked up, because it is widely spoken -- more power to the width of the language, and the picker-upper. No need for the government to impose and try social engineering, and in the process, attempt to kill other languages.

In transactions one has to follow the incentives. When the genuine existential problems for the citizens (voters) seem longish projects (beyond a single electoral cycle) politicians will always move to rile up their constituents to see the rationale that they sell through their propaganda and posters on walls. Hindi promoters sell theirs, Kannadiga's and Tamils sell theirs.

 

Nation-states vs State-nations !! Are we now down to labels ? This elicits both....

yes; India has a stronger political union, whereas EU's is weaker. Political unions are not heaven ordained things; we create them for the sake of benefiting the populations, and when such benefits are not present.... well.. people feel differently about such things.

Economically well to do conglomerates or federations, can spin off countries without a lot of shooting. 1965 Singapore was a recent example. Weirdly enough, a few years after that, Bangladesh was formed as a contrast for how NOT to spin off a country.

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In them old days Tito-Nehru-Sukarno all got together for a kumbaya about unity in diversity. They all needed a good propaganda theme/machine to put it through to the disparate cultural crowds, poor and therefore likely to turn nasty at various levels, steeped in nationalist fervor (because of the recent WW, followed by freedom from occupying-armies or colonial rules etc.) and ready to receive whatever the government would dish out.

Two of the three guys went the military way -- shoot or threaten people to keep them down. Shooting/threatening people is not really a nice thing to do. The third decided to go a different route. We know what happened in all three. We live the consequences.

Economic improvement, and not culture wars is what people want. If all components of a Federal System would stay voluntarily within the federation, because each sees the benefits of staying in, and not because of threats or violence from a Federal government, that would be a good thing.