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literary recognition in the first half of the apparent disregard for form. Their some- Hindi Nationalism by Alok Rai , eighteenth century. It came to be known what bewildered response shows clearly Tracts for the Times 13, as Zuban-i--i-mu‘alla and was culti- that the term ‘Hindi’ had little or no currency Orient Longman, , 2000; vated, not so much as the language of at least in this part of North India. pp 138, Rs 150. Muslims, but as the language of the elite We do not clearly understand what you of Delhi.1 Varieties of this language, written Europeans mean by the term Hindi, for in the script, and after the there are hundreds of dialects all in our VASUDHA DALMIA institution of in opinion equally entitled to the name and Calcutta in 1800 by the East India Com- there is here no standard as there is in n tracing the vicissitudes of modern pany, officially regarded as the language of . If the purity of Hindi is to consist Hindi as it was and as it has come to Hindus, were to be increasingly enriched in its exclusion of Musalman words, we Ibe, Alok Rai accomplishes the brilliant with words from Sanskrit and one day be shall require to study Persian and Arabic feat of traversing such densely grown ter- standardised enough to be considered in order to ascertain which of the words rain in the 130 pages of his tract that it worthy, and indeed in need of, separate we are in the habit of using every day, is could as well fill several volumes. Begin- literary production. However, it was the Arabic or Persian and which is Hindi. With ning in the early nineteenth century and common predecessor, the largely oral our present knowledge we can tell that a word is Sanskrit or not Sanskrit, but if not handling dexterously the social, historical, Hindi/Hindui/Hindavi, not excessively political, cultural and literary strands which Sanskrit it may be English or Portuguese Sanskritised or Perso-Arabicized (if I may instead of Hindi for anything we can tell go into making the intricate weave of coin the term), that remained the substrate language, Rai addresses issues as complex … what you call Hindi will eventually middle language. It is to this alone that Rai merge in some future modification of the and as vexed as: what was/is Hindi and refers as Hindi without inverted commas. Urdu: nor do we see any great cause of where/when was Hindi. In the following “Hindi” and ‘Urdu’ within inverted com- regret in this prospect [Nicholls 1907: 99, I shall briefly recount Rai’s theses, blend- mas refer to two identifiable styles or cited by Rai: 65-66]. ing in my own reflections and suggesting registers which, in the service of ulterior Ballantyne was obviously pressing the further areas of investigation. My focus agendas, have been “sought to be hived Sanskrit students to use ‘pure’ Hindi which will be on the role played by literary activity off and infected with, on the one hand excluded ‘Musalman’ words and it was in the evolution of modern Hindi. It is this Sanskritic, and on the other, Perso-Arabic this which caused bewilderment. which has endowed it with political pres- borrowings.” (15) But even in the late nineteenth century, ence and status and made possible its when the cause of Hindi had begun to distancing from Urdu and Brajbhasha, both In Flux acquire nationalist dimensions, Hindi with of which have come to be near relatives. or without inverted comas was considered In a last section, I shall turn to the location Modern print Hindi, as we know it now, to be in flux. It was an idiom in need of of Hindi vis-a-vis English, a positioning came into existence in the course of the both standardisation and wider propaga- Rai highlights throughout his tract. nineteenth century. But even in mid-nine- tion. Bharatendu Harischandra (1850- After a brief introduction into the present teenth century, it was still in flux and there 1885), reverently referred to as the‘father politics of the language, which seek to was little awareness of its existence as the of modern Hindi’, and surely a partisan retrospectively and in all finality distin- common spoken and written language of observer, was clear enough about this need. guish Hindi from Urdu on the basis of the Hindus alone. The awareness of its He made no attempt to disguise the fact script and religio-cultural allegiance, in Hinduness could be said to have been that there could be no question yet of a the second chapter of his tract Rai dis- almost imposed upon the populace by standard language, or of khari boli as the cusses the significance of the name ‘Hindi’. colonial intervention a good few decades one language spoken in the majority of the I share Alok Rai’s belief that there was before the Hindu elite themselves took up homes in the north-west provinces. As he (though Rai says ‘is’) one common lan- the cause of Hindu-Hindi. In 1846, James specified in a short treatise entitled Hindi guage of North India, a conglomerate of Ballantyne, the newly appointed principal bhasha written in 1883/4 at the tail end of dialects and sub-dialects, originally going of the Benares Sanskrit College, asked the an intensely busy career of writing in Hindi: by the denomination Hindi and its variants students of the college to use Hindi in their 2 Languages have three sections (vibhag), – Hindui, Hindugi, Hinduhi, Hinduki, written exercises. The students showed no that is, the language spoken at home, the Hindavi – to mean the language of the enthusiasm when asked to expend more language of , and written language. people of Hind as against that of Turkistan effort in using the language of their own It cannot be ascertained what the language and Faras. This language written in the daily intercourse more correctly. Ballantyne spoken in the homes of the north-west Perso-Arabic script and enriched with pressed the most intelligent of the students provinces is, since in the province of Delhi words from Persian and Arabic, was given into formulating the reasons for this as well as in other cities, no one speaks

Economic and Political Weekly April 5, 2003 1377 Hindi at home besides the Khatris and the the split was brought about by these means jected to a standardising process much Panchahi [western] Agravals, so much so is likely to remain a matter of debate: there earlier.4 that after every kos the language changes. is evidence that there was a distinct aware- A second high point was reached in (1890: 1) ness of ‘Muslim’ languages amongst the 1900, almost exactly a century after the The Khatris and Agarwals had also elite in Mughal India. According to institution of Fort William College, when brought Hindi to the east with them, that Muzaffar Alam, Jamal-ud-Din, author of Sir Anthony MacDonnell, Lt Governor of is, it was also spoken in Banaras, but here the Farhang-I-Jahangiri, the first compre- the north west provinces and Oudh, offi- it was an entirely alien idiom, for in most hensive Persian lexicon, compiled during cially promulgated that Hindi (written in homes of Banaras and on the streets, a the reign of , dwelt at length on the the Nagari script) be recognised alongside variety of dialects prevailed. As for the point that Persian and Arabic were the Urdu as official court language. He did not language of poetry, Harishchandra was languages of Islam (1998: 329). That there speak of different scripts thereby, rather quite definitive in his verdict, it was clearly had existed an awareness of difference of two different languages. The Kanpur Brajbhasha. Though even this monopoly cannot be denied. But it was not a distinc- plague epidemic measures lately under- was not recognised by all, as he ruefully tion which was carried into the language taken by government had inspired a resis- admitted, had used Avadhi. When of everyday use. And it certainly does not tance which had brought the two com- it came to the language of , that is, follow that this was a distinction which munities together. MacDonnell’s order written or ‘print’ language, he confessed need have had any bearing in modern deliberately emphasised their difference. that there was much disagreement. Some secular spoken and literary language. But Rai suggests that MacDonell was making wanted a generous mixture of Urdu words, once the notion of Hindi and Urdu as two an explicitly political move; I would go others insisted on Sanskrit words, but autonomous linguistic entities was set into farther and see it as express collusion with finally all ended up by writing according motion, there was practically no looking the high caste Hindu elite of the north west to their own taste and this was the reason back. Elsewhere I have written at length provinces, which once again officially why no language could be fixed upon as about the standardisation of the language cemented the difference. And there was standard. In short, he seemed to be saying we know as Hindi today, by means of no question that there were differences that Hindi did not yet exist as a standardised dictionaries and grammars. Produced in in the meantime: ‘Hindi’ was rapidly language, in either spoken or written form, great profusion through the nineteenth Sanskritising. or rather, that it existed in a variety of century, they sought to encode the lan- Rai contributes important new insights forms. He himself advocated the use of a guage so that it could clearly distinguish in ‘Making a Difference’, his fourth chap- simple, easily comprehensible language, itself from Urdu, which had been sub- ter, to the matter of this Sanskritisation of which had not too much importation from Sanskrit, but which clearly distinguished itself from Urdu.3 Hindi at the end of the nineteenth cen- tury had many battles to fight before it could claim full-fledged literary, social CENTRE F OR T HE S TUDY O F C ULTURE A ND S OCIETY and official status and finally distinguish itself from Urdu. It is these battles that Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Alok Rai sets out to identify and delineate. Bangalore His brief tract is divided into seven chap- ters of unequal length. The third and the invites applications for its Ph.D. in Cultural Studies fifth, ‘The MacDonnell Moment’ and ‘The Eligibility: A Master’s degree from a recognized university with 55% marks Heroic Agenda’, are the most extensive; or its grade equivalent. A five per cent relaxation will be allowed in the together they form almost one half of the case of SC/ST students. tract. They analyse that interplay of colo- nial and nationalist politics which was to Applications should include a covering letter and the following documents: lead to the divisive policies which finally a) the applicant’s curriculum vitae, b) copies of mark-sheets of separated Hindi and Urdu. ‘The undergraduate and graduate degrees, c) a writing sample (no more MacDonnell Moment’ concentrates more than 15 pages or approx. 4000 words), and d) a two-page research heavily on the colonial – the official, proposal. missionary and local. ‘The Heroic Agenda’ The application and supporting documents should be sent in an envelope focuses on the indigenous elite enterprise marked "Ph.D. Programme" to reach The Administrative Officer, Centre of creating the national language via the for the Study of Culture and Society, 466, 9th Cross, First Block, standardisation of the print/literary lan- Jayanagar, Bangalore - 560011, not later than May 7, 2003. guage and the formulation of the political Shortlisted candidates will be called for an oral interview in the last week agenda which went hand in hand with it. of June. Though the split was early cemented when two separate departments for Hindu- Financial Support: Selected candidates will be given fellowships/financial stani (which was to come to mean Urdu) assistance for a period of one year. and Hindui (later Hindi) were established CSCS also offers a one-year Diploma in Cultural Studies. at the College of Fort William in the early For further details, write to us or visit the CSCS website at www.cscsban.org nineteenth century, the question whether

1378 Economic and Political Weekly April 5, 2003 Hindi in the late nineteenth century whereby it is the language of our children.”5 Dwivedi large-scale poetic venture in this newly the cursive Kaithi script (used by Kayasths) contributed to bringing about this state of Sanskritised Hindi: his long narrative poem, was ousted by the Bhabhni (or Brahmin) affairs, however, by his efforts to entitled Priya Pravas (The Departure of script. He notes the contribution of the standardise literary usage by regulating the Beloved, 1914), for which Upadhyaya Bengali intelligentsia to the process of syntax and orthography, by dropping col- claims mahakavya or epic status. He uses Sanskritisation as they increasingly occu- loquialisms and enriching language with the metrical conventions of Sanskrit rather pied important bureaucratic posts in the conceptual terms drawn from the Sanskrit. than of Urdu or Brajbhasha and he gives north west provinces. The high rate of detailed technical reasons in his preface illiteracy in the Province (97%) was a clear Khari Boli for doing so. indication that the language question was While it is not difficult to agree with Rai one of power struggle between the elite While the matter of standardised Hindi that Hindi sought to maintain a respectable rather than a matter of wide public concern. prose was being thrashed out by distance from Brajbhasha verse in the first It is in this regard – the mutual hardening Mahavirprasad Dwivedi and others in the half of the twentieth century, the process of attitude between Hindi- and Urduwallahs pages of Saraswati, a parallel effort was does seem to have been more complex. – that in his fifth chapter Rai offers one under way to produce a corpus of poetry For, the very self-consciously dis- of the many insights that dot his tract. He which in creating itself, created a language tancing themselves from the older Braj points to the fact, almost entirely over- with clear Hindu national aspirations. This tradition yet forged internal link with it by looked in contemporary discussions of the effort both linked and distanced itself from recasting its themes and concerns in a issue, that in trying to come to terms with the Braj devotional and erotic tradition. contemporary frame and idiom. Thus, Priya the loss of cultural confidence vis-‘a-vis This particular process seems to have been Pravas, for all its Sanskritic pedantry in the British, the respective high caste Hindu set in motion by Ayodhya Prasad Khatri the matter of verse, treats a theme beloved and Muslim elites reconstructed their in 1887 with the publication of a polemical in the Braj devotional-literary canon. It is histories very differently. For the Muslim tract entitled Khari boli ka padya (Verse set in Braj country, in the period following elite in the second half of the nineteenth in Khari Boli). Rai focuses upon and ’s departure for Mathura. Krishna century, the cut-off point for the decline discusses in some detail the ensuing con- has sent his friend Uddhav to console the of Indian civilisation was 1857. It was here troversy and debate. Khatri maintained in inhabitants of Braj, particularly the forlorn and very recently that they saw the begin- all seriousness, as if offering a insight, gopis. In the modern poem, it is no longer ning of their downward slide. For the Hindu that Khari boli was entirely capable of a question of highlighting the values of elite, there was less immediate “tension becoming the language of poetry which monotheism as it was in Nandadas’s and self-laceration”; they saw the present received the expected resistance from those famous Braj recreation of the Bhagavata as sobering but also as the end of centuries still busy composing Brajbhasha verse. episode in the sixteenth century. It is social of “Muslim tyranny,” a perspective, which This insistence on the creation of Khari reform on a national scale which was now transformed “the complex cultural process boli verse was in some senses a deliberate propagated in relating the deeds of Krishna of the preceding centuries into nearly a strategy to oust the already existing poetry and the heroic stance that is finally whole millenium of defeat.” (72) How- in the strand of Khari boli written in the persuaded to adopt.7 ever, this defeat, which was seen as being Perso-Arabic script which was now cast Poetry in this new Hindi then partially offset to some extent by the great devo- to the exclusive lot of Urdu and viewed overcomes the anxieties created by its tional movements of the fifteenth and as alien by virtue of its script and subject relative late arrival on the literary scene sixteenth century and the poetic corpus matter. Writing poetry in Hindi then meant by adapting and transforming the themes then produced, could be followed by a drawing upon Sanskrit yet more profusely. and concerns of Brajbhasha and Avadhi rapid regeneration, a period of This was part of an older legacy in verse. We meet with this anxiety until well modernisation whereby Hindus could come Brahminical culture which resorted to into the 1930’s, while the thematics of into their own. Thus the heroic agenda. Sanskrit when it was necessary to poetic works in Braj and Avadhi continue Standard Hindi was yet to become the emphasise and connect to this heritage.6 to be appropriated and subjected to re- language of widespread domestic use in Even after the MacDonnell moment, peated re-workings in larger or smaller the cities; it had little rural presence. But then, the prefaces of the canonical works format. Krishna becomes a Mahapurush in the first decades of the twentieth century of early modern exhibit a or great man, rather than an incarnation of there had come to be widespread agree- great deal of anxiety about correct Hindi Vishnu in Priya Pravas, Radha a social ment amongst the propagators of Hindi usage with a clear Sanskrit orientation. reformer. In Maithili Sharan Gupta’s (1886- that it was indeed being spoken (almost) Thus “Sanskrit is respected throughout 1964) epic poem, Saket (another name for everywhere in north India. Though barely Bharatvarsh. There is a plenitude of San- Ayodhya, 1932) the story does not three decades earlier, Bharatendu skrit words in Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, follow in Rama’s footsteps, as in the older Harischandra had admitted quite candidly even in Tamil and Panjabi. If our Hindi Ramayanas, but is related instead from the that this was absolutely not the case, language presents itself to the gentlemen perspective of those who remain behind Mahavirprasad Dwivedi (1864-1938), the of these provinces after it has absorbed a in Ayodhya when he goes into exile along editor of the influential Hindi journal great many Sanskrit words, then they will with Sita and Lakshman. The narrative Saraswati felt little or no qualms in blithely respect it much more than common Hindi focuses specially on Urmila, the wife proclaiming a truth which could at this because it will be easier for them to read Lakshman leaves behind and the intense stage be no more than a desideratum: “This and comprehend it.” The writer is Ayodhya sorrow of their separation. Later poets is our language, it is the language of our Singh Upadhyaya ‘Hariaundh’ (1865- continue to tussle with these themes and mothers, it is the language of our sisters, 1947) in the tract-like preface of the first reformulate them. The iconoclastic

Economic and Political Weekly April 5, 2003 1379 Chayavadi Suryakant Tripathi Nirala ecstatic love of nature, asks once more in Hindi and official Hindi become almost (1897-1962) writes a poem on the great the famous preface to Pallav (foliage, dead languages. Krishna Kumar has writ- Avadhi devotee-poet ‘Tulsidas’ (1938) to 1928), for the creation of a soft tender ten about the disassociation of this Hindi reflect his own philosophical and social language in poetry, for the use of Sanskrit from the lived world of the generations of concerns. Hindi poets are thus creating words directly imported rather than taken school children who have been condemned internal links with an earlier tradition, by over in their Hindi or Braj forms, though to learn it.9 And in this respect Rai is reoccupying the spaces they clear and now with great care and consideration for surely right when he says: “Hindi is a relocating traditional themes in a secular the sound quality of words and away from dwindled thing today”. (119) setting. the ponderous rhythms of early nationalist But are there not many Hindis? More On the one hand Brajbhasha and Avadhi poetry in Hindi. And once again, Pant sees than the one which is officially sanctioned literature which was bracketed with it, the need to discuss metre, style and lexis and propagated? Is this not where the hope have been firmly pushed back. They have at great length. After the 1930’s these for the future could lie? Do things not come to be seen as period manifestations, anxieties subside. Some battles, it seems, change, once even this official, sanitised poems of the ‘Bhakti kal’ or devotional have been won. Hindi, projected originally as the language period, products of a religious and cultural of (high caste) Hindus, comes to be im- reawakening in the face of Muslim oppres- Provisional Deference posed equally on educational institutions sion. Bhakti kal is followed by ‘Riti kal’ in the country and the city, on Hindus or the period of courtly, ‘mannered’ verse By this time Hindi has reclaimed terri- and non-Hindus alike, on high and low with its more problematic erotic verse in torial authority and seeks nation-wide- caste (as far as these last have access to Brajbhasha. But fast upon its heels comes expansion on the basis of its Sanskritic it) in the states where it is the official the dawn of a new age, the ‘Adhunik’ or vocabulary. K C Chattopadhyaya, presi- language of instruction? Does not this very modern period, with its nationalism and dent of the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan in fact modify its high caste Hindu character? its push for social reform, which over- 1949, proclaims: “Pure Sanskrit words are Once hitherto excluded groups and com- comes the morally dubious effects of used in the same form everywhere. There- munities, women, Muslims and Dalits courtly indulgence. Thus the periodisation fore only that language can be acceptable begin to write in it, do they not stretch and of Hindi literature, undertaken by all over India which is rich in pure Sanskrit expand it beyond its Dwivedi-Shukla Ramchandra Shukla (1884-1949), the best words.” [Rai 109] This also means a shrink- contours? known literary historian of the period, in age of its lexical reservoir, with increasing For, and Alok Rai says this clearly and his magisterial Hindi sahitya ka itihas restriction on the use of words seen as unmistakably a little earlier in his tract, (1929). Muslims (with some exceptions) colloquial or too explicitly ‘Urdu’. How- “Hindi offers valuable insights into the and what had come to represent Urdu ever, a Hindi thus conserved turns out to making of Hindutva, but it is not entirely literature have been firmly excluded from pose more of a threat than a promise of to be confused with it.”(93) Just as the canon Shukla sets up. Urdu and Hindi national glory to the other languages of Hindutva is not to be projected back- literature thus establish entirely different newly independent India. In the Constitu- wards, we do need to note that official trajectories. ent Assembly debates of 1949, the fanati- Hindi, for all the damage it caused and It is in this period of intense nationalist cism of the Hindiwallahs destroys the continues to cause, has not entirely deter- fervour that Maithili Sharan Gupta writes prospect of Hindi as the sole national mined what writers, poets, filmmakers and his ponderous but nevertheless sonorous language of India. Nehru speaks up for television script writers did and do with poetic work, Bharat Bharati (1912) in Hindustani but he cannot prevail. The result it. S H Vatsyayana ‘Ajneya’ (1911-1987), Khari boli, which explicitly lays out the is the compromise Munshi-Ayyangar for- a pioneer modernist poet, novelist and history of the Hindu people, from the golden mula of 1950: Hindi is to be the official publicist, thus articulates the clear literary break of dawn in the Vedic-Aryan period language of the republic along with En- resistance to official Hindi: through later glories, the brief unhappy glish. The matter would be reviewed in There is at least one language in the coun- episode of the Muslim occupation, the 1965. But the political situation in the try which claims that nothing within it has British interlude, which affords some peace country had changed radically by that time. changed since a thousand years. As if any and some security, but which nonetheless There had been widespread and violent such thing can ever happen. This claim is false, it is nonsensical, the concept of remains alien, to a future age where there protests leading to the linguistic language at the base of this claim is itself could be yet another dawn. This work is reorganisation of states in 1956. This a mistake; the assumptions regarding the both modelled on and written as an explicit reorganisation ended what Rai calls the evolution of language are false. This mistake rejoinder to the earlier Urdu work: Hali’s provisional deference to Hindi. With the (and if it is political fraud, then this po- Musaddas (1869) which performed a simi- introduction of the three-language formula, litical fraud) is doing great harm to the lar feat for the Indian Muslim elite.8 theoretically, formal equality was estab- language. Spread once with the intention In his next chapter ‘Hindi Nationalism’, lished between Hindi and the other Indian of becoming a hindrance in the way of Rai discusses the literature of Chhayavad, languages and school-going children in another, it is now obstructing the progress a nature mysticism current in the 1920’s the Hindi regions were required to learn of its own language. If what it says is true, then language would have been a dead and 1930’s, which draws upon the English another Indian language. Meanwhile, thing for a thousand years, would have Romantic poets and Tagore as much as English, the associate official language, died even before these thousand years; and upon Vedanta. (1900- continued to be dominant. if it is not true, then to insist upon it is 1977), who came to represent the most With the stiff and unbending policy to impoverish again a language already stereo-typical image of the Chayavadi poet, followed by the relevant institutions which wrought and still being wrought. with his flowing tresses, easy lyricism and continued to Sanskritise and sanitise, school There has been such a tendency in Hindi,

1380 Economic and Political Weekly April 5, 2003 but no respected literary person has given been a significant increase in ‘regional’ a language he found inaccessible, just so it support or encouragement, this has been expressions, admittedly embedded in a he will be unable to accept this language. Hindi’s great good luck and its strength. Khari boli which has by now been solidly One major reason for this is that the lan- …Whether my Hindi is the national lan- standardised. This was a process which set guage no longer remains natural. In the guage or not, whether it is made to serve in most widely in the early 1950’s and past several hundred years khari boli has as the opportunistic link in the life of the 1960’s. Allied to the Nayi kahani or new purified itself. It is praiseworthy if we nation or not, it is first and foremost a further cleanse it, but not so that we lose story movement of the period with its language which is expanding. And be- all faith in its expressivity. A while ago cause it is expanding, it changes continu- focus on a new kind of urban realism, was this kind of insistence on dialect appeared ously but has at the same time a form which a movement, if indeed such autonomy can in the Irish novel. The result is obvious. is stable, authoritative and standard. be claimed for it, which came to be called The readers did not accept it. (1975:36) (2000:27-28) Anchalik, or regional. The and short Even as Ajneya acknowledges that there stories which constituted it made exten- Muslim Writing in Hindi had been a necessary process of sive use of regional speech in the dialogues standardisation, he makes clear that this of the protagonists. Thus if in As the popularity of a great deal of was not intended to, and indeed has not writing of the peasants of the United ‘regional’ writing outside the immediate served to, throttle all further growth. The Provinces in the 1920’s and 1930’s, in a region of its production showed, local question would then be: if ‘high’ literature sense translated their speech into ‘high’ speech was seen as indeed adding to had once played such a vital role in en- Hindi, in this post-independence writing expressivity, and by and large, readers did dowing Hindi with cultural presence and from the provinces the original speech of accept such ‘regionality’, though this did political status, and if indeed most modern the region tended to be retained without not mean that these words and expressions and especially post-independence writers any effort at translation. Phanishwarnath were integrated into standard Hindi. have not followed the dictates of official Renu (1921-1977) one of the best known There was yet another important devel- Hindi, as Rai also points out but does not ‘Anchalik’ writers, retained the original opment in the 1960’s. With the decline of further expand upon, then, could there be Maithili speech of his characters, making Urdu publishing and the inaccessibility of a slim chance that they once again play no concession to the tastes of the urban education in Urdu, a number of Muslim some role in the politics of language, though Hindi reader in other provinces. So evoca- writers turned to publishing their works in this time around in fighting the ossifica- tively did he capture the rhythms of this Nagari script. This practice had prece- tion of Hindi? speech and so sharply etched was his dence. Premchand in the early teens of the depiction of the politics of the region in century had for this reason turned initially Contours Stretched the period immediately preceding and to Hindi. This was not a matter of simple following partition, that his novel Maila transcription however; it also involved the As a language which has acquired of- Anchal (Soiled Border, 1954) became one use of expressions no longer so current in ficial status, Hindi is no longer territorially of the most celebrated novels in modern literary Hindi. For even if Muslim writers bound. In fact, even before it was declared Hindi literature. He set a veritable trend adapted the standard Hindi idiom, they to be one of the ‘official languages’ of the in the use of ‘Anchalik’ speech which naturally also used more Urdu words.11 Indian Union, writers from non-Hindi urban writers resented and resisted. Thus, There were some amongst them who in- speaking provinces, most prominently from Mohan Rakesh (1925-1972), a prominent sisted on both their regionality and their , had elected to write in Hindi, for Nayi kahani writer was to protest: (however secular) Muslim identity, such various cultural, socio-religious and po- Some new story writers (naye kahanikar) as Rahi Masoom Raza (1927-1992). He litical reasons. After independence this are also very insistent about the use of makes a personal appearance in his Adha was increasingly the case. 10 Post-inde- regional/local words and idioms. This does Gaon (Half the Village, 1966) a novel, pendence literary Hindi, then, for all its not startle in a given story if certain effects which he first sought to publish in Urdu. are to be achieved. This is additionally Sanskritisation, has expanded to encom- Since no suitable publishing outlet could desirable if the language is to be enriched pass life worlds far removed from those be found for it, he transcribed it into in its expressivity. But we should not forget Devanagari. It subsequently attained great it had allowed itself to recognise in its that language is our medium and the success constricted beginnings. The influence of of the work is in the [total] effect it com- fame as a major Hindi novel and won a the Bombay film, which also absorbed municates. If language itself becomes a prize awarded by the . In filmmakers from different regions, spe- hindrance in communication, then it deals some ways this is also the theme of the cially after independence, the livelihood a blow to its own intentions. It is a different novel: the rescripting of identity, as Raza’s film and television have provided for Hindi matter, if an author is writing for a re- words when he personally intervenes in and Urdu writers and what this has meant gional/local audience. Then compositions the narrative make clear: for their literary and cultural horizons, are of this kind are appropriate. But there are The Jana Sangh says that Muslims don’t matters which remain to be explored in any so many regional dialects of Hindi that it belong here. How could I have the audacity depth. Meanwhile it is clear that (1) ‘vil- will be asking too much of the common to say that this is untrue? But I feel com- reader if he is expected to understand a pelled to say that I belong to Ghazipur. My lage’ Hindi and the language of the various language loaded with words and idioms of bond with Ghazipur is unbroken. It is not regions which now belong to the Hindi any given local dialect merely because it only a village, it is my home. Home. This belt, (2) ‘Muslim’ Hindi and finally (3) has also been dubbed ‘Hindi’. The kind word exists in every dialect and language ‘Dalit’ Hindi, have stretched the literary of suspicion some people had about the use in the world and it is the most beautiful contours of the language. of Sanskrit words has now been extended word in every dialect and language. And To begin with ‘village Hindi’: In post- to such regional words. Just as previously therefore I repeat my words. Because it is independence Hindi literature there has the common Hindi reader did not accept not only a village. It is my home. ‘Because’

Economic and Political Weekly April 5, 2003 1381 – how strong the word is. There are thou- childhood. My actions would often upset status of the second official language of sands and thousands of such ‘becauses’ father. He would speak of maintaining our the Indian Union, if not the sole national and there is no sword sharp enough to cut ancestor’s religion, a religion that I could language. But how can the policy change this ‘because’. And as long as this ‘be- not even swallow. I did not argue with him, be effected? cause’ is alive, I, Sayyid Masoom Raza, however, about these subjects; I would just Since this is not the case, it remains for will remain an inhabitant of Ghazipur, keep my mouth shut and sit down. He us to answer the question: why it is no even if my grandfather belonged elsewhere. would become irritated. He scolded me. longer possible for literary practice to And I give no one the right to say to me, In the end, he, too, would become annoyed “Rahi, you don’t belong in Gangauli, so and keep quiet. He would then ask me the influence policy-making? Literary produc- go, for instance, to Rae Bareli.” Why should same question over and over, “Munshiji, tion once provided the very grounds and I go, sahib? I will not go. (290) you haven’t become a Christian, have you?” substance of the language which claimed Muslim writing in Hindi, then, cannot be I used to reassure him, “No, I have not political recognition for itself. What has regarded as a case of assimilation alone.12 become a Christian.” changed? Can it now not provide impetus Hindi has to stretch lexically to include the Yet something akin to a rage would erupt to the massive reorientation in official very Urdu words it had sought to exclude in my mind, and it wanted to declare, “But policy which is so urgently needed? In and in doing so, its literary horizon cannot I am not a Hindu either.” If I were a Hindu, short, how can the gap itself be made why do Hindus hate me so much, why are narrower between the wealth and variety but widen. Clearly, it is usurping a good they so prejudiced against me? Why, with part of the space Urdu had once occupied of literary production in Hindi and the every word they utter, would they make political agenda which has frozen language and this is both problematic and troubling. me so conscious of the inferiority of my into the kind of stasis which can only Yet it is a development which needs to be caste? This question also occurred to me, noted. “Is it necessary to be a Hindu in order to reproduce itself? become a decent human being?” I have Dalit Writing grown up witnessing the cruelty of Hindus, Lost Status and I have endured it as well. Why have The caste barrier has been similarly attitudes of caste-supremacy become a A change of direction now would have broken by Dalit writing, though this was source of pride and why do they only strike far reaching consequences, far beyond the to happen only in the 1990s on any remark- at the weak? Why are Hindus so heartless linguistic, as Rai points out in the conclud- 13 able scale. Dalits had once played char- and cruel to dalits? ing pages of his tract. “For Hindi, on the acter roles; even in reform literature, they Once it has encompassed a plurality of other hand, to resume its necessary na- tended to be marginal. Dalit writing today regions, communities and interiorities, can tional destiny, it would have to distance is often expressly autobiographical. And Hindi remain caste Hindu and male? And itself from those regional elites – not to even if it is a middle class readership that I have not even begun to speak of women’s put too fine a point on it, savarna Dalit writers seem to address, they provide writing, in some ways the most dynamic – whose lust for ‘nationality’ produced novel perspectives which stretch the bounds and innovative of all recent writing, which ‘Hindi’ in the first place. Only thus could of middle class imaginations, as caste has opened up vast spaces which were it hope to break free from a crippling Hindus are instructed in the ways of those unlit before. The poetry of Mahadevi cultural politics and regain its regional who may be denominationally Hindu but Varma, the novels of , of character and loyalties. Clearly, however, whose religious and social practice fol- Geetanjali Shree and are the such a process would have consequences lows its own codes. Om Prakash Valmiki names which most readily spring to my far beyond the matter of language per se.” offers detailed descriptions of the rituals mind. To discuss their work in any detail (p 120) It would mean loss of control, of observed in his community in his autobio- would mean an essay of at least this length. the power to include and exclude. graphical Juthan (Polluted Leftovers, I revert, then, once again to the conclusions But in the meantime, Hindi has itself lost 1997). And he states clearly: of Rai’s tract, which in the light of the the social and cultural status and with that Everyone in our colony was Hindu in name, above surely seem conclusive: also the literary status which it once seemed but they did not worship any Hindu gods …this people’s Hindi is truly a middle fated to enjoy. This status has been in- or goddesses. On Janmashtami, Jaharpir or language, the easy-going vernacular of creasingly arrogated by English and the some paun was worshipped instead of north India, born out of the necessities of neo-colonial English speaking elite. If once intercourse between different peoples, com- Krishna. This, too, was not on the eighth there were bilingual authors who deliber- munities and cultures, which were forced to day of the lunar fortnight but on the ninth rub together in the daily business of living ately chose to write in Hindi or the other day, just before sunrise. over centuries. Like all real languages, it Indian languages, such as Ajneya himself, Similarly, people do not worship Lakshmi is a complex system of overlapping reg- and if once there were bilingual readers, on Dipavali; either piglets are sacrificed isters and dialects…polycommunal as well the situation has changed radically after to Mai Madaran or else a halva is pre- as multilingual in its sources…” (103) the 1950’s and 1960’s. As Meenakshi pared. A kadhai, that is a feast of halva- And if it were truly so, and if this flexible, Mukerjee has pointed out, it is only in the puri is made… polycommunal and multilingual Hindi, decades after independence that Indian Even though I lived in such an environment, which has expanded in a myriad ways to my faith in these gods and goddesses did writing in English has proliferated to the not remain after I had matured, that is, after become a language not only of high-caste extent that it has, creating and catering to I was able to think for myself. I thought Hindus – though admittedly still domi- its own readership. (2000: 176) Reading that these bhagat-s were charlatans. nated by them – were the Hindi taught in habits are set early and the separation of Whenever such puchhas took place in my schools and colleges and used for official those who read English and those who read home, I would either sit outside or wander intercourse, we would surely have some- in the vernacular now tends to begin early. about. This had been a habit of mine since thing more akin to a language claiming the “The two groups,” as Krishna Kumar has

1382 Economic and Political Weekly April 5, 2003 shown “live in two different cultural worlds, Partha Chatterjee has written eloquently most of what has been produced in the 16 with their own specific zones of knowl- about the bilingual scholar ‘official languages’, during the same time; edge and ignorance. Children attending operating as a full member in two different and indeed, this new, and still burgeoning, the elite English-medium schools of Ban- academic arenas, has a uniquely advanta- ‘Indo-Anglian’ literature represents per- haps the most valuable contribution India galore, for instance, express disdainful geous position of being interpretative and critical in both [western academy and an has yet made to the world of books. (Salman unfamiliarity if asked about the literature Rushdie, Introduction to The Vintage Book intellectual arena shaped by a modern non- written in Kannada. Living in the same of Indian Writing 1947-1997, Vintage, city, they stay aloof from the symbolic European language]…On the other hand, 1997:x.) if struggling with the act of translation, world of the culture in which the majority whether in this arena or that, is the very Compare to these words: of the children live. This kind of isolation stuff of what the bilingual intellectual does, I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or from the world of the vernacular is neither then even in the knowledge that there must Arabic. But I have done what I could to a coincidence nor simply an act of omis- always remain a residue, a loss of meaning, form a correct estimate of their value. I sion on the school’s part: it is an integral one would still be entitled to the belief that have read translations of the most cel- aspect of these children’s socialisation. translation is an act of transformation – ebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have The academic and other components of the changing not only that which is being conversed, both here and at home [En- culture of the English-medium schools translated but also that to which the transla- gland] with men distinguished by their tion is a contribution. And if, as would be proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am makes English a conduit which links the quite ready to take the oriental learning at child with the West, and especially with the case with many bilinguals, the act of translation works in both directions, then the valuation of the orientalists themselves. America, and with the global economy in I have never found one among them who which America has a dominant position.” one might be entitled to the further sup- position that…one is contributing to the could deny that single shelf of a good (1996: 70) And that has meant not only critical transformation of both. (1997: 284) European library was worth the whole alienation from the world of the majority, native literature of India and Arabia. The it has also meant literary and cultural There may be a handful of bilingual schol- intrinsic superiority of the Western litera- impoverishment. Writing in English ars who could contribute to the critical ture is indeed fully admitted by those means constant translation into the cul- transformation of both worlds, but if we members of the committee who support the tural world of English, where language were to operate with this analogy and ask: oriental plan of education. (Selections from registers are lost and a host of connota- how many bilingual readers, who genu- Educational Records, 109) tions and associations remain irreprodu- inely participate in both worlds, exist today, Once people Indian in blood and colour cible. As Meenakshi Mukherjee puts the the answer may be more depressing than but if not quite English then neo-colonial matter: not. For Hindi to become Hindi without in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in inverted commas, for it to participate in intellect, have been cast in this mould, can …the normal ground conditions of literary they, without resorting to ‘Blut und Boden’ production –where a culture and its varia- the world of the English eilte and for them tions, a language and its dialects, centuries to participate in the creation and con- ideologies, be transformed yet again? Can of oral traditions and written literature, all sumption of Hindi literature, a little more they, at the very least, become bilingual? interact to create a new text – do not exist than ‘less Sanskritisation and more It is the great merit of Alok Rai’s erudite, in the case of English. Take for example colloquialisation’ would have to come passionate and polemical tract that it has the case of Malayalam, which is not only about. The educational hierarchies, the pinpointed these issues and reopened the spoken and written language of the cultural competences, which so divide the these debates. EPW geographic area called Kerala with oral worlds, which make for two different variations between different groups – the universes of literary production and dia- Notes Nairs, Nambudiris, the Christians, the 14 Mapillas, etc. – but also the language of logue, will have to be entirely overhauled. [I should like to specially thank Arindam films, both commercial and serious, its For this to come about the English and the Chakrabarty and Nandini Gooptu for their songs, folk tales, riddles, nonsense verse, Hindi elites would have to enter into a suggestions and insights when I presented some nursery rhymes, proceedings of the Vidhan dialogue, into collaboration with one of the ideas outlined below earlier this year. I also Sabha, slogans in processions, rhetoric of another. And take the many other spoken thank Rashmi Sadana and Sujata Mody who have public speech, conversation on the football helped to further disentangle some knots, though and written Hindis into account. What many still remain tied.] field, street corner humour as well as of forces could impel them to do that? Kathakali and a long literary culture. A 1 But even then it did not lose its Hindavi Perhaps it is in this light, of mutual character. Aijaz Ahmed’s ‘In the Mirror of fictional text that is produced in this lan- ignorance, disregard and even hostitlity, guage today draws upon and echoes, the Urdu’ makes some important points with regard reverberations of this layered plurality that that we have to see the Rushdie statement to both script and vocabulary, generally used to ascribe a peculiarly Muslim character to the surrounds and nurtures it. (2000: 173) which so incensed the English-speaking Indian intelligentsia, who hurled back all language: “Urdu is doubtless written in a But mourning the loss incurred cannot modfied form of the Persian script, but so were kinds of insults at Rushdie, though they reverse history. Alongside writing in several other languages of northern India themselves (we ourselves) participate in the Kannada there will be writing in English including Sindhi and Brahui. No one has yet dichotomies which call forth such state- suggested that Sindhi, with its much higher and in certain circles it will enjoy more ments. In Rushdie’s oft quoted words I find proportion of Arabic words, or Brahui, a prestige. It can also not be a question of uncanny echoes of earlier formulations: patently Dravidian language, is a special vehicle denying the brilliance of a great deal of of this so-called Islamic consciousness. Nor …The prose writing – both fiction and new writing in English. The question seems does any one doubt that the phonetics, the non-fiction – created [in the fifty years morphology, and the entire syntax of Urdu are much more to be: to what extent can the after Independence] by Indian writers derived from a Prakritic base.” On the issue worlds which seem to have separated be working in English, is proving to be stron- of vocabulary, Ahmed goes on to cite Syed made to meet again, to overlap again? ger and more important body of work than Ahmad Dehlavi as he set about to compile the

Economic and Political Weekly April 5, 2003 1383 Farhang-e-Asafiya, an Urdu dictionary in the culture”with “Brahminical culture”, since it University Press, Delhi, 263-285. late nineteenth century. Syed Ahmad “had no more precisely pinpoints the groups involved, Dalmia, Vasudha (1997): The Nationalisation of desire to sunder Urdu’s relationship with Farsi, rather than the other which may be understood Hindu Traditions, Oxford University Press, as is evident from the title of his dictionary. to represent all of Hindudom. Delhi. He estimates that roughly 75 per cent of the 7 For more on Priya Pravas, see McGregor Dodson, Michael S (2002): ‘Re-Presented for the total stock of 55.000 Urdu words that he (1998). Pandits: James Ballantyne, ‘Useful Know- compiled in his dictionary are derived from 8 For a detailed analysis of Bharat Bharati, see ledge’, and Sanskrit Scholarship in Benares Sanskrit and , and that the entire stock Orsini (2001: 192ff). College during the Mid-Nineteenth Century’ of the base words of the language, without 9 In his Political Agenda of Education (1991). in Modern Asian Studies 36/2:257-298. exception, are derived from these sources 10 There are some parallels here with the post Dwivedi, Mahavirprasad [1911] (1995): “Hindi (2000: 112-113).” As Ahmad points out, Syed independence Hindi film scenario. Ravi ki vartman avastha’ in Dwivedi Rachnavali. Ahmad, as a member of Delhi’s aristocratic Vasudevan has suggested that the Bombay Volume 1, ed, Bharat Yayavar, Kitab Ghar, elite, had a clear bias towards Persian and film of the 1950s in its relationship to Punjab Delhi, 110-124. Arabic. His estimate of the percentage of and Bengal be explored as “constructing itself ‘Hariaundh’, Ayodhya Singh Upadhyaya [1914] Prakritic words in Urdu should therefore be as a national space (1994:111). (1966): Priya Pravas, Banaras: Hindi Sahitya considered more conservative than not. The 11 Ulrike Stark in her Heidelberg dissertation Kutir. actual proportion of Prakritic words in every published subsequently as a book (1995) has Krishna Kumar (1991): Political Agenda of day language would clearly be much higher. analysed at some length the shifts in vocabulary Education: A Study of Colonialist and 2 Ballantyne had written a grammar of from more Urdu to less Urdu, less Sanskritic Nationalist Ideas, Sage Publications, Delhi. Hindustani (A Grammar of the Hindustani to more Sanskritic, that came about in ‘Muslim’ – (1996): Learning from Conflict, Tracts for the Language; followed by a series of grammatical writing in Hindi. Times/10, Orient Longman, Delhi. exercises, etc, Cox & Co London, Ballantyne 12 Though there is great danger that it be seen McGregor, Stuart (1998): ‘Ayodhyasimh and Co, Edinburgh: 1838) and obviously as such, as for instance in such seemingly Upadhyay (1865-1947) and his Priya Pravas’ participated in the belief that a language of liberal articles, such as the one by L M Singhvi in Classics of Modern South , the Hindus existed as an autonomous entity. in The Hindustan Times of January 11, 2001. ed, Rupert Snell and I M Raeside, Wiesbaden: For a detailed discussion of Ballantyne’s con- On the one hand, Singhvi’s propositions seem Harrassowitz, 103-117. tribution to the curriculum of the Benares broadminded and accommodating: “I would – (2001): ‘The Formation of Modern Hindi as Sanskrit College, see Dodson (2000). like to make a plea for Urdu in the Devnagari Demonstrated in Early ‘Hindi’ Dictionaries, 3 Bhikharidas of Pratapgarh, near script as a parallel provision, not as an exclusive 2000 Gonda lecture, Amsterdam, Royal has noted the variations in the use of Brajbhasha alternative. We should popularise Urdu in the Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. in his Kavya Niranaya (1746), a poetic manual Devnagari script not to supplant the script in – (2001): ‘On the Evolution of Hindi as a Language of some repute. He distinguishes two levels which it is conventionally written, but to widen of Literature’, South Asia Research, 21/2: of Persian loan words in Brajbhasha. The first the access of the people. Urdu literature ought 203-217. consists of mixed, colloquial terms, which he to be made available in Devnagari with Mukherjee, Meenakshi (2000): The Perishable calls ‘sahaj Parsi’, the other level he calls meanings and annotations in the footnotes. Empire: Essays on Indian Writing in English, ‘jaman bhakha’, an evidently distinctively Hindi readers will then enjoy Urdu immensely. Oxford University Press, Delhi, 166-186. Persianised style of language. He gives no The reach of Urdu will expand.” But this Nicholls, George (1907): Sketch of the Rise and indication of his own preference. The broadmindedness is coupled with the clear Progress of the Benares Patshalla or Sanskrit significance of the differences he notes, tendency to see the practice of language College, Now Forming the Sanskrit between the colloquial, that which was entirely communalism as one sided: “Friends of Urdu Department of the Sanskrit College, (written integrated and that which was difficult of should avoid the trap of religious 1848). Government Press, Allahabad, United understanding, lies for us in the fact that it communalism. The future of Urdu’s tryst with Provinces. had existed for at least a century before India lies in mutual affection with Hindi, instead Orsini, Francesca (2002): The Hindi Public Sphere, Harischandra’s time. For a detailed discussion of mindless opposition or alienated competition 1920-1940: Language and Literature in the of the evolution of Brajbhasha usage and its with Hindi. Vote bank and communal politics Age of Nationalism, Oxford University Press, importance for the development of modern will be counter productive. A positive and Delhi. print Hindi, see McGregor (2001b). modern secular agenda for Urdu will give it – (2002): ‘India in the Mirror of World Fiction’ 4 Dalmia (1997: 146-221). due place in language academies, schools and in New Left Review 13, Jan/Feb, 75-88. 5 In ‘Hindi ki vartman avastha’ (The present colleges, rather than being the preserve of Rakesh, Mohan (1975): ‘Hindi kathasahitya: state of Hindi, 1911) in Dwivedi: (1911] 1965). madrasas, which are themselves awaiting navin pravrittiyam’ in Sahityik aur 6 McGregor has made this point in two important modernisation. Urdu can be a language of Samskritic Drishti, Radhakrishna essays, both published in 2001, citing various India’s liberal ethos, only if it rejects Prakashan, Delhi, 30-36. Avadhi and Brajbhasha examples of this obscurantism and orthodoxy.” Raza, Rahi Masoom [1966] (1993): Adha Gaon, strategy of resorting to Sanskrit in order to 13 (1997: 52-56), translation from Hindi by Sujata Rajkamal, Delhi. enrich and raise the level of the poetic language. Mody. Rushdie, Salman (1997): Introduction of The A very early instance is Damodara, a brahman, 14 Charted by Francesca Orsini (2002). Vintage Book of Indian Writing 1947-1997, using an early form of Avadhi in his treatise Vintage, 1997. Uktivyakti prakarana (c 1150) to explain the References Selections from Educational Records, Part I, 1781- grammar and usage of spoken Sanskrit to 1839, ed, H Sharpe, Calcutta, Superintendent young brahman students. Damodara often Ahmad, Aijaz (2000): ‘In the Mirror of Urdu: Government Printing, India, 1920. substitutes even in the vernacular he is using Recompositions of Nation and Community, Singhvi, L M (2001): ‘Resurrect the Language’ in his explicatory narrative a Sanskrit term 1947-65’ in Lineages of the Present: Ideology The Hindustan Times, January 11. instead of the more current vernacular (thus and Politics in Contemporary South Asia. Stark, Ulrike (1995): Tage der Unzufiedenheit: ‘vrishti’ for ‘baras’). McGregor goes on to cite London: Verso, pp 103-125. Identitaet und Gessellschaftsbild in den a number of similar cases in the poetic idiom Ajneya (2000): Kavi-man, ed Ila Dalmia-Koirala, Romanen muslimischer Hindischriftsteller of Brajbhasha, especially as laid down in Bikaner: Vagdevi Prakashan. (1965-1990), Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. manuals. “The tendency that this illustrates, Alam, Muzaffar (1998): ‘The Pursuit of Persian: Valmiki, Omprakash (1997): Joothan, for Sanskritised usage to emerge in contexts Language in Mughal Politics’, Modern Asian Radhakrishna, Delhi. of involvement with Sanskritic culture, was Studies, 32/2:317-349. Vasudevan, Ravi (1994): ‘Dislocations: The to be fundamental to the formation of literary Bharatendu Harischandra (1883): Hindi Bhasha. Cinematic Imagining of a New Society in expression in Brajbhasha, Avadhi, and most Khadagvilas Press, pp 1-14. 1950’s India’ in Oxford Literary Review, Sp Indian languages, down to, and notably in the Chatterjee, Partha (1997): ‘Talking about Issue on India: Writing History, Culture, Post- case of modern Hindi (2001b: 205).” I would Modernity in Two Languages’ in A Possible Coloniality, ed, Ania Loomba and Suvir Kaul. suggest the substitution of the term “Sanskritic India: Essays in Politic Criticism, Oxford 16: 1/2, 93-124.

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