Hindi imposition in India by the Central government since India's Independence and my thoughts about it as a Tamilian and as a linguist

         Anyone who knows me personally would be aware that I am someone who loves learning languages and am a polyglot of European languages, so I am not opposed to learning languages and for a linguist, he/she would still consider learning any language out of plain curiosity, if not out of passion because much of the groundwork for language learning at the level of his/her brain has already been laid. Still, if someone were to walk up to me and tell me that I MUST learn a language just because more people in his/her part of our country India speak it and also if I learn it, I would simply make his/her life easier during trips to South India or when staying here for work or study purposes, irrespective of whether I am interested in the said language or not, I would consider him/her to be a moron. Many foreigners coming to India unfortunately think that Hindi is our national language, if they have not done their research about India properly. Unfortunately, this has to do with the parroting of many North Indians who associate knowing Hindi and speaking it with being Indian because they seek to unite India under a single language and they tend to spread misinformation that Hindi is the national language of India. On the contrary, anyone who knows the Indian Constitution, would tell you that India has no national language but 2 official languages - Hindi and English. 

      Why did the British let us Indians have 2 official languages - Hindi and English?. They knew very well that India is not composed of 1 unique cultural, linguistic or religious identity and they kept in mind the pulse of all the people groups in India when they let the people of the country decide for themselves which language they wished to use among themselves for communication - something that shows their emotional intelligence. Hindi for North Indians is the obvious choice since all North Indian languages are derivatives of Sanskrit from the Eastern branch of Indo-European languages which also includes Farsi in Iran, this is because all modern North Indian languages including Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarathi, Sindhi, Marathi etc. are derivatives of Sanskrit and people speaking these languages (except for a few) did not have any issues in adopting Hindi as a common language that connected all of them. When moving further down South, Southern languages are distinct linguistically as they are all a part of the Dravidian language family, especially Tamil which is the oldest of the 4 major Dravidian languages, leaving aside the smaller members of the group like Tulu, Paduga or Brahui in Pakistan. The scripts of South Indian languages are also distinct from the common Devanagiri script of Sanskrit used by most North Indian languages, so are the words. Moreover, the British understood that India is a mosaic of different cultures, customs, religions and languages and also knew the pulse of the Tamil people of not wanting to be subjected to the idea of being forced to learn a language unlike our own. While some in the North, blinded by their unwillingness to accept our choice of wanting to use English to communicate with them and amongst ourselves in Tamil, try to make strawmen arguments in favour of the false idea that Tamilians are opposed to learning languages other than Tamil, they sometimes even ask why we never have a problem with a foreign language such as English as opposed to Hindi, the answer lies in the fact that we have 0 necessity to learn Hindi in our lives for job purposes or even for interactions with Hindi speakers down South, also there is not much demand for Hindi teachers in Tamil Nadu because most parents seek to let their children learn our mother tongue Tamil which parents know and hence can teach their children as opposed to Hindi whose speakers are fewer in number in TN than Tamilians with whom we can communicate in Tamil and English, since the onus of learning Tamil is on them when they come South, also knowing Hindi is not going to help us professionally anyway whereas English is very useful in the job market, where then is the need for a 3rd language - Hindi which would further burden our children at school level?, then of course, there is the other reason that we Tamilians have better educational standards than most other states in North India except Bengal and Maharashtra and our GDP shows it!, hence we have 0 problems when it comes to speaking in English which is easier to us than Hindi. We Tamilians are not against language learning, on the contrary, we are opposed to the imposition of a language on our people against our willingness to learn it.

     Sadly, the ideology of Hindu nationalism that is widespread in the North and has found fertile ground among most North Indians also seeks to impose learning of Hindi on Tamilians. Its supporters in the North are consumed by a controlling mindset of all people groups in India because they believe in the illusory Indigenous Aryan Theory which not everyone in the world would accept as a sound theory of the genetic and geographical origins of the Aryans as a people, as well as the linguistic classification of Sanskrit as an Indo-European language. Hindu Nationalism as a result, seeks to impose the idea of an India united under 1 religion (Hinduism) and 1 language (Hindi), also since languages are vehicles of their respective cultures, Hindi imposition is akin to imposing a unique North Indian culture on the rest of the country thereby effacing not just the linguistic but also the cultural diversity of India, this further extends to marriage customs, food habits and cultural views about societal issues, hence would constitute a desacration of the same. My focus here however, being the linguistic aspect pertaining to Hindi imposition on Dravidians, especially Tamilians, it would stand to reason that any attempt to further the idea of Hindi imposition on Tamilians by the central government would only further deepen the rift between Tamilians with our Tamil Dravidian identity that most of my people subscribe to which not just favours the idea of interreligious peace and harmony among all Tamilians but also a linguistic, cultural and literary pride that my people have for our language Tamil that is not just one of the oldest languages in the world but can stand on its own without Sanskrit influence as it is rich in its own unique vocabulary and the rest of India. The freedom fighters of our country India and the British who handed our country's governance to them, knew this well which is why the British opted to let Indians choose between 2 official languages - Hindi and English, instead of 1 national language because the finer tapestry of our nation is not made of 1 thread but is interwoven with many beautifully, colourful threads of various materials which represent the diversity, whence the saying "Unity in Diversity". In essence, the strength of our unity lies in our diversity, this requires us to accept each other, despite our differences, whether linguistic, cultural or religious to foster peace and harmony among the various people groups coexisting in our country, something in which our recognition of each others' individual linguistic freedom and identity plays a key role.

    So, in the end, am I opposed to learning any language as a Tamilian or linguist?, by no means!!!. Yet my uniqueness as an individual and my freedom of choice and decision-making regarding my own life implies that I will never let anyone dictate to me what I must or must not learn, whether a subject or a language, this is further backed up by the Indian Constitution which says that any citizen of India can follow any faith of his/her choice, travel to any part of the country and most of all, learn and speak whichever language he/she wishes to learn!!!, this by default, excludes the rights of any external force whether governmental or individual from dictating terms to me about which religion I must follow and most importantly for the topic of our discussion, which language I wish to learn and use.